#except instead of a person or a religion it was all the races coming together to create a peaceful city

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

Wibta if I told my friend, upfront, I do not want his toxic partners in my campaign party without specifying why?

Everyone in this is 22+

So I (22NB) have been working on a campaign for at least 3 years now. I used dnd as a base and built off it to make my own world, races, mechanics, massive maps, religions, languages etc. This will be a massive campaign with highlights on religion and dealing with gods as a mortal etc and I've put so many hours into it it isn't even funny. I mean shit, I picked music for different areas depending on if it's day or night.

I made a discord server to house most of the basic info my players would need from table rules to the races and beyond. I mainly had the idea that the party would consist of my dmnpc guide (he doesn't fight or break the game, his only action during fighting is the help action and guide the party. Im not an asshole dm who makes my guide the protagonist. If its important, death doesn't really exist in my campaign due to demi-god race stuff, the party just gets sent back to its last save point with my grumpy man guide saying I told you so.), my partner's character (24f)(she dosent get preferential treatment. We've been together for 8 yrs) and my best bud's character (22tm. Been friends for 8 yrs). I never said I specifically only wanted my partner and friend to be party members but it was implied due to the fact I never invited my friends partners to the discord. I just don't really have many friends and this is the first time I've ever dm-ed period, let alone dming my own homebrew. We're all pretty novice newbie players and I think it'll be fun for us to stumble through the game together in a much less complicated form of DND without seasoned players "um actually-"ing us the whole time.

My partner is excited to try and my friend is ecstatic and about 2 years into development (last November) he asked if I could let his partners join the campaign. There're a few issues with this beyond me not really knowing them and not wanting to run a large party (it's hard for seasoned dms to run a 4+ party, let alone I, a fresh infant of a dm). My friend has 3 partners of his (he has 4 total) he wants to introduce to my campaign, this includes (fake names): Mel(24nb), Sandy (mid 20s f) and Rue (23 tw). I have issues with each individual present and it all stems from me sitting in on a different campaign for a single session. See, my friend has his own campaign (much smaller, follows one story in one town on an island instead of my entire continent) and he tried to run it by those three partners (and 2 friends. Names and genders unnecessary, they were our age) while I quietly sat in the session (it was over a discord call, were all in differnet states except for me and my partner) and watched it run just to see how my friend dmed and how the groups chemistry was. They had a 3 hour session.

It was the most socially awkward, intense and passive aggressive 3 hours of my life. Mel barely paid attention and as a result, had to have things explained to them when they weren't listening. They would then would talk over the person explaining things, pick apart their language and get irritated to the point of telling them (mostly rue) to shut up. Mel was quite litterally looking for a fight constantly. Sandy was relatively quiet but also not paying attention and talking over other players actions. She also would come up with random "icks " and one minute was telling everyone to keep all sexual jokes and comments to themselves because it made her uncomfortable then the next said her character was literally blowing a guy in the back of tavern.(btw this is not a fetish campaign or anything, it was out of left field for everyone and my friend shut it down because of that) Rue was the "uhm actually" type who pointed out inaccuracies, broken rules and lack of realism (it's a pirate fantasy magic campaign. There isn't much to focus on realism). Rue was clearly the most seasoned player but the nicest all things considered. She was mostly just condescending and treated my friend like he was stupid for not having every single detail mapped out. The party also had 2 of his friends but they were just as quiet as me and also either not paying attention or listening to the shit show. The session litterally ended with Sandy and Mel having the tiniest argument, mel pulling a crying running away anime protagonist "I'm sorry for being just a fucking terrible person! Ill leave so you all can have fun!!" Then hanging up all dramatically. Safe to say, their party was literally every red flag I was warned about by dm guide content.

My friend then came to me and said they broke up with Sandy that night but were still friends and I was still in shock from the sheer toxicity. Did I mention I had only met Sandy and the two other friends that night? And had only spoken over the phone to Mel once in a group call and met rue in person 2 times? Safe to say, I do not want litterally any of his partners in my party for various reasons and I feel as if just one of them at my table would make my patience end on sight. I consider myself to be very flexible and want to do my very best to be a fair but strong dm who doesn't get their story absolutely trampled by players intentionally trying to ruin my story and watch me scramble (mel and sandy openly did that). These players would disrespect my table rules for fun. Even my friend said they never respect him and his story as a DM and he won't run a game with them again and he thinks they'll respect my rule? As a baby dm? Nah fam.

He wants to bring rue and Mel into my campaign and I haven't answered him yet. I've mostly dodged the question with "I'm not sure how big of a party I feel comfortable dming for, I'll know later down the line." And he's asked again, still curious. I don't wanna judge my friends relationships because he and Mel have been together for 5 years and rue has been with him for 2 (they were together previously before rue came out and rue tried to control and physically abuse him. Thats another reason I don't want her in my campaign. Fuck abusers) but the toxicity they would bring would probably poison me. If I bring these things up, idk how my friend would react and he can be a bit... Extreme when he gets defensive. Cutting people off permanently at a moments notice then coming back crying or confused. He has BPD which explains it but I don't obviously wanna say " your partners are low-key toxic and abit abusive and I don't want them at my table or in my life for the most part and although I love you bro(/platonic) I do not want living blowfish at my table that you might not even speak to tomorrow.".

Obviously I wouldn't word it like that but mainly I just plan on saying "Ive never dmed before and I'm nervous about the functionality of my campaign so I want to keep my party nice, small and intimate and only between you, me and my partner for now. Maybe we can incorporate them later." Without mentioning all the... Other stuff and side stepping if he's like "but what if just mel/rue?". Me, my partner and him have been friends awhile so it's not like he'll feel like he's third wheeling or anything and I get he wants his partners to take in his interest, I just do not want them at my table and I wanna know if I'm a dick if I dont specify why and avoid the question. I dont wanna rock the boat and hurt my friends feelings but I'm not gonna ruin the first full run of my pet project so a passive aggressive asshole and a know it all almost abuser can participate. He deserves to know why his partners can't join and I'm not technically lieing, even if they were cool, I don't know if I'd want them there. But they definitely aren't cool and that just seals the coffin for me.

(obviously I'm wording this in a comedic way but everything here actually happened and I mostly just wanna focus on supporting my friend despite his choices. I do not have to like his partners to tolerate them but it's my table and my years of work, if i dont want them there, they dont get to be there. I'm just wondering if I'm a dick for kinda lieing kinda not if I don't give the actual reasons for why I don't want them at my table and never plan on allowing them there. I would happily accommodate 1 or 2 more people at my table in this case if they were close to me like my sister or older brother but I dont know his partners well at all and even though they are passive to me, I dont feel safe around people like that. Wibta?)

What are these acronyms?

[thenewdeadseascrolls]

Judges 20: 1-3. "The Mystery Sailor."

Here at the end of the Shoftim, we enter Mizpah, "the setting of expectations." Of all the Sons of Israel, God says he loves the Benjaminites "free, unhooked" , the most because they are the most intelligent.

While all the kinds and sorts of Jews can become enlightened, well educated, traveleed, worldly and experienced persons are the mostly like to reach and breach the Western Wall of the Temple, understand all of God's Mysteries and achieve Shabbat.

If the Benajaminites are allowed to set the standards instead of the Levites who are said to be conformists, the culture of Israel will stall out. So from Dan (the governors) to Beersheba (the lawyers) and from Gilead, (the monks and priests) come those who claim to have a sword, that they know who God is, they spent a lot of time on this but really they should have tried to go to university and gotten to know the world instead.

People from every religion and culture are afraid their kids are going to become gay or lesbian, hang out in a public sex toilet, have crazy meth sex and get piercings if they leave home for ten minutes. This is a myth and a stereotype. Differentiation from one's parents is important to avoid Moab, "Dad instead of Moses" and is the essence of why the Israelites left Egypt for a promised land of their own.

Persons who are university educated make the best leaders, employees, community members and partners because they learn how to do this by leaving home and coming of age on their own. The problem is this is cost prohibitive in most parts of the world. Fewer and fewer persons are able to leave home and benefit from a university education, graduate school is worse.

The Torah says the government should provide this free to every member of the human race, and it should be lifelone. Even senior citizens who sit in nursing homes all day should be allowed to return to the university for free, their presence is good for everyone.

So the Israelites, who are orthodox in their definition of just about everything, who punish everything, have a run in with the Benjaminites, but in the end they set the Mizpah, the expectations for the outcome of a Jewish way of life:

The Israelites Punish the Benjamites

20 Then all Israel from Dan to Beersheba and from the land of Gilead came together as one and assembled before the Lord in Mizpah. 

2 The leaders of all the people of the tribes of Israel took their places in the assembly of God’s people, four hundred thousand men armed with swords.

 3 (The Benjamites heard that the Israelites had gone up to Mizpah.) Then the Israelites said, “Tell us how this awful thing happened.”

The Values in Gematria are:

v. 1: Then all Israel from Dan to Beersheba and from the land of Gilead came together as one and assembled before the Lord in Mizpah. The Number is 3393, ג‎גטג‎‎, gatag,"a vat."

= there are indeed aspects of the religion we will all agree on, which is good.

v. 2: The Leaders took their places. Except the Torah says we are to maintain one heart. We think there are Twelve Tribes and Seventy Clans but each Jew is a unique single entity. The Number is 6838, "and celebrated a holiday."

v. 3: Tell us how this awful thing happened. The Number is 6810, ו‎חאאֶפֶס, ha'apes, "they gathered for nothing."

If the Benjaminites were at Mizpah "at the top, the capital of the pillar" while the other Israelites were elsewhere, probably Day 5 or Day Six, Shabbos was not achieved by all Israel.

The word Mizpah means miz, "from", sapan, "sailor of mystery". Educated persons leave home but they come back. The presence of other educated persons is essential to the creation of a Shoftim so we must encourage a worldly secular education, especially if Jewish people are to be able to relate to others and convince them of the merits of Mashiach.

[incandescent-creativity]

Satan’s Secretary takes place in the Lanithon year 1635

Years are counted from the year Vanithea was founded, so the city literally transformed time-keeping as we know it

[shititbe]

Anyway, HSM2 is about internalized homophobia, and no one can tell me otherwise.

High School Musical is one of the most beloved franchises in the world. Teenagers all over the world grew up watching Troy and Gabriella harmonize together. Three movies, and nearly a decade later it’s still beloved by all. The first film easily forgotten in the ashes of the early 2000’s, the third film stuck in a purgatorial limbo of the rather unfortunate late 2000’s. The second film on the other hand sticks out between the ruckus. 

The second High School Musical film takes place at Sharpay and Ryan’s family country club, during the summer between junior and senior year. The Wildcats are working summer jobs on the country club, often forced to the beck and call of Ryan and Sharpay themselves. Sharpay uses all her prestige to help Troy with college instead of starting at the bottom ( or rather, in the kitchen washing dishes) with his friends. In the time she’s helping Troy, she is also pushing her brother away; replacing him with Troy in their musical number for the talent show, and refusing to hang out with him in preference for Troy. Ryan becomes vengeful to his twin and starts hanging around the Wildcats in the kitchen. At first, he was met with some distasteful looks and words (most of which from Chad). With the help of Kelsey, and her neutral party, Ryan fits in smoothly with the other teenagers, eventually giving the WildCats all dance lessons.

 Throughout the movie, the main conflict continues to be the internal conflict of Troy Bolton. He debates over and over again if he should go through with Sharpay’s shenanigans, or if he wants to “listen to my own heart.”  This of course involves Gabriella, as she is Troy’s love interest. She’s not in the second film except for the beginning, then, where she leaves in the middle of the film - in order to create angst for Troy - then when she shows up again in the finally to sing/rejoin Troy. 

The conflict in the second film  is the combining of Troy’s two worlds. His first - his main world in the first movie, that hence became his secondary world - which is represented by Chad. Then his secondary world - which becomes his main world in this movie - which is represented by Ryan. Chad represents Troy’s masculinity, or his more idealized version of himself. Ryan represents Troy’s femininity or his current version of reality. These two worlds collide in the iconic song “I don’t dance”.  

Since this movie - and hence this scene - came out in the early 2000’s, a lot of the innuendoes went over people's heads. Luckily, as the children who watched this movie grew older and more experienced, and the world became more accepting, we’re able to see this song for what it is. 

Before getting into the lore and symbolism of the iconic “I Don’t Dance” sequence, context is needed. For most of human history, homosexuality was seen as a sin in all places except ancient times (see: Greece and Japan). The modern age is the most accepting on all fronts, such as sexual orientation, race, and religion. In the early 2000’s, High School Musical director Kenny Ortega was not publicialy out yet. He wouldn’t be till 2014. 

Originally, while writing this, my first thought was  that Kenny - the director - would be using Troy as a y/n type character to project his insecurities and struggles with masculinity, and what that means in defining his orientation and societal views that would be placed upon him. Then, it came to me later that this is in fact not the case, Troy (and Gabriella - who is in fact a y/n character for the female audience) is more of a character for a man of his time, confused with his own ideals of masculinity and the views of society because, “oh god, I can’t like theater/drama because only queer people and girls like it!” The second point is pushed further with the Troy and Sharpay sub-plot. Sharpay tries to further Troy’s career as a basketball player, though that’s not what he wants anymore, and Troy is no longer sure if that is what he ever wanted to begin with (enter the song “Bet on it” and the hilarious meme “no dad, I’m giving up on your dream”). 

Keeping these things in mind - Kenney’s queerness, and Troy’s struggle to realize you can in fact sing and be a heterosexual, wow, revolutionary - it became clear to me that Kenney’s y/n characters were Ryan and Chad. 

For those who aren’t into the arts, or find them too difficult after a singular attempt thinking they could write a world class novel on the first go, let me be the first to tell you every author has a y/n character. First, for those who don’t know what y/n stands for, it’s a popular fanfiction trope where a writer will write a story about a character dating, being friends, and so on, with the reader. The y/n stands for “your name” so anyone can be the main character in this story at any time. For a writer of mainstream fictional work, such as High School Musical, Game Of Thrones, Lord Of The Rings, Pride and Prejudice, Harry Potter, Hunger Games, even most comics. Now, most writers or directors aren’t going to be as obvious as having a character not named (or named y/n) or even named Jane (looking at you Jane Austin), the y/n character of many mainstream authors/directors/comic artists and so on is usually the character they feel or have given the most attributes similar to themselves. 

It’s the same reason people have favourite characters. You see a fictional character and you either 1. Want to Bob the Builder them, 2. Some sort of weird sex thing, or 3. See more/the most of yourself in this character. Number three - thankfully - is usually the main reason. Some people just create their own favourite characters. An even easier way to think about this, is just projection baby, that’s psych 101.   

Before I went off on a small tangent of fictional works and how human emotion plays into creating them (except anything Disney has made in the past decade, and no you can’t change my mind on that) I mentioned that Chad and Ryan are Kenney’s y/n characters. As a queer person myself, it’s clear for me to see the different struggles each of these characters face and how these reflect the queer experience. 

So, let’s finally get into it. 

Ryan, without it being explicitly said is clearly a character of what people in the early 2000s think a gay man is. He is effeminate, wearing bright coloured outfits with lots of accessories - namely his signature hats - he is also in the theater department doing musicals, and passive/subservient to any of his twin sisters' wills. Yes, now we know gay men aren’t just feminized men, but in the early 2000’s a gay man who can do "masculine" things like change their car oil, like sports, and so on, break the "effeminate" stereotype thus confused many cishet people. Sharpay is painted as more confident - or, for sake of comparability - masculine to her twin in the first movie, and most of the second movie. Making Ryan a bit of her dog who would do anything to get by - painting Ryan as lesser than human, once more, playing into the homophobia of the early 2000's.     

Despite the clear stereotypes playing into his character, Ryan is consistently one of the most confident characters in the movie. The other, being his sister of course. This confidence in himself is what gravitates the other characters towards him, either by being intimidated (Troy, thinking Ryan and Gabriella were a thing), or admiration (Chad, by the end of “I don’t dance”). 

Chad, on the other hand, is a whole different ball game. While he is confident in the first movie, and the first portion of the second movie, he begins to break more and more when Ryan becomes a more integral part of the Wildcat group. To keep in mind, Chad is also the most vocal about his distaste for Troy’s artistic past-time. When the other Wildcats join Ryan and begin learning how to dance for the talent show at the end of the movie, Chad is also the most vocal about his distaste. The baseball game where “I don’t dance” takes place, is the climax of Chad’s arc and his turn towards acceptance to Ryan/Troy’s hobbies. 

Of course, there is more to the “I don’t dance” sequence than just Chad’s realization - the exact one Troy comes to terms with in the second movie as well - of “oh my god I don’t have to be gay to enjoy stereotypical ‘feminine’ things.” That is the main part of the song though, that and all the sexual tension. 

Going back to what I’ve stated previously, Chad and Ryan are Kenney’s projection or y/n characters. Let me do a small recap before we get into the nitty gritty of the famous “I don’t dance” video. 

Thinking back to the first few paragraphs, I stated that Kenney wasn’t publicly out till 2014, about 7 years after the second movie came out. This could be due to the fact that a) it’s the early 2000’s and everyones still very homophobic, or b) self-doubt that comes with the queer experience. The most likely reason is a mixture of both of these. Because of this, Ryan is the more self-assured version, or idealized version of Kenney that he wants to be. Ryan is confident, never being swayed about his lifestyle (could be read as: sexuality) even though Chad - and most of the wildcats in the first movie - put him through relentless “teasing” and humiliation. He’s confident, almost to a fault, he’s sure of himself, and yet still reaches out a hand to Chad and the other wildcats to show them that they’re just being, kinda dick-ish. 

Every queer person wants to be Ryan. Despite his heavily stereotyped characterization, I personally believe he is one of the stronger written characters in the movies, mainly due to Kenney putting the time in to really make Ryan feel like a real person, to give himself some sort of relief of his own anxieties, a chance to see the world through a person who truly has no fear. Unlike Kenney himself. 

This is where Chad comes in. 

Chad is seen as “confident” in the first movie, the second Troy “leaves” basketball though, all that confidence comes crashing down. His best friend has another hobby - one he thinks is “not right” (it’s okay, you can say gay), - they wont be spending all their time together (first, can you say dependent relationship much, yikes).Chad’s defining characteristic up until their fight that instigate act three of the second movie, is being Troy’s best friend. I’m going to take this as if this were truly the case, and not a decently written character arch. Some people base themselves around their friends and their whole identity on being a friend, that they lose sight of themselves, this mainly in high school of course, when your whole world is really nothing but school, and friends. Newly developed independence is there, but that’s scary, so instead of worrying about the future, cling to something that’s reliable. I’ve seen this happen, mainly at the end of high school, when the “real world” is coming a bit too close for comfort. This could generally be the case if a person is lonely, but for timeline sake I’m going to say Chad has got some anxiety about graduating (considering the second movie takes place the summer of junior year). 

His lashing out at Troy’s hobbies and at Troy’s neglectful friendship, make more sense with that background, and are seen more in the second movie where Troy begins spending all his spare time with Sharpay (trying to collect that BAG!). Chad - and others (read: father) - insists that music is not a feasible career option, and Troy should just stick with basketball (like...that is a feasible career option). The tension Chad creates in the studio only grows when the other wildcats decide to take up Ryan’s offer for dance lessons and move from the kitchen, to helping out with the talent show. (Next essay idea: how high school musical two was really about class all along, cause Jesus). 

 Chad is the less obvious option for a y/n character. Though again, the 2000’s were not as cool people like to pretend they are. Chad - for Kenney - represents what he actually feels, this fear of being rejected for how he is and how he chooses to live his life/lifestyle, so he sticks to something reliable. Ryan is new, and exciting, and confident in a way that Kenney/Chad wish they could be, but in order for that to happen they need to understand that maybe people are complex creatures, and can enjoy multiple hobbies (aka: the same lesson Troy is teaching the viewers, but far less boring). But, for Kenney/Chad facing that thought and that realization is scary, and thus, they lash out at anyone (read this paragraph as: Chad mad jealous of Ryan cause Ryan bomb as fuck). 

All this build up, finally comes ahead in the employee baseball match 

                                                       ******

The baseball game is probably the most memorable scene in the whole High School Musical franchise (minus Sharpay’s “Fabulous” solo, but that’s also from the same movie, and it’s kinda rude to give what’s already the best more points); the tension in the scene, and what it implies makes it the best written segment of all three movies, let alone the most entertaining. 

Some things to keep in mind from our background information: Chad is missing his bestie and struggling with what being “masculine” really means for him and others. Ryan of course makes this confusing, because the traditional method is being thrown out the window. In short, Chad has internalized homophobia, and Ryan being open - or as open as Disney would let him - is causing all sorts of problems. 

Despite the song, “I don’t dance” being logged into our collective skulls for all eternity (you’re probably humming it right now, sorry about that), the very brief interaction of Ryan and Chad before the game is lost on the public consciousness. The two are clearly comfortable with each other, though the distaste seems to be on Chad’s side more than Ryans. So, the two start playfully jabbing at each other before deciding to do a bat toss to see who will be in the outfield first. 

Before they begin the bat toss, Ryan says “You don’t think dancing takes some game?” Chad then very clearly checks him out, doing a simple but effective ‘drag-your-eyes-over-them-top-to-bottom-then-smile’ and says “you got game?” (Seen in gif below) 

I don’t know how much you know about sex metaphors and how many of those baseball has in it (seriously though, it’s a lot), but with the bat toss, Ryan’s hand ended up on top, and Chad’s under Ryan’s. Let’s ignore this for now, it’ll be implied again later. Ryan’s team starts out in the outfield because he won the bat toss, and hence, the song officially starts. 

The first lyrics (ignoring the chores of “hey batter batter, hey batter batter, swing”) is 

I'll show you that it's one and the same

Baseball, dancing, same game

It's easy

Step up to the place, start swingin  

This part is sung by Ryan, who is taunting Chad out in the outfield. Before the game, as stated, Chad was taunting Ryan about his lack of “game” (both sexual and not sexual metaphor are implied), and now, Ryan has turned those tables around. Baseball - is seen as more masculine than dancing, not as masculine as football or basketball, but it’s up there. Chad is someone who cares about his masculinity, enough to the point that Ryan playing baseball makes him loose his mind. Makes him question his own personal definition of masculinity, if you will. 

Ryan says, “baseball, dancing, same game,” impyling that, to him, baseball and dancing are one and the same. That is baffling to Chad, cause well, how can something meant for girls even be close to something meant for boys. 

Chad comes back with: 

 I wanna play ball now, and that's all

This is what I do

It ain't no dance that you can show me, yeah

This only proves my previous point. 

I had a conversation with myself about this, and I’ve decided not to include it in this essay, but a second essay may or may not be possible. Basically the premise - the dancing/”musical” moments of High School Musical are conjured up images by those meant to see them (ie: like a visual hallucination, but, not really) but this scene kinda poo-poos that idea. 

Now, the thing I am talking about is Ryan and Chad’s  peacocking at each other during the time they sing these lyrics. The movements they’re making could be mistaken for dancing - as we automatically assume it is because of the title and themes of the movie - or it could be them just getting ready for the baseball game. Ryan swings his leg over the pitcher's mound, tossing the ball up and down into his glove, making wavy hand gestures, etc. Chad brushes off his gloves, swings his legs, hits the bat on each foot, and so on. 

For the peacocking, Chad makes a mock of the ballerina foot stance before strutting over to the home plate. Ryan laughs at this, which earns quite the smirk from Chad himself (see gif below). 

This is when it becomes a conversation.   

You'll never know - R

Oh I know - Ch

If you never try - R

There's just one little thing - Ch

That stops me every time, yeah - Ch

Come on - Ch

When Chad says “Come on” it’s when Ryan throws the baseball at him, starting the game, and giving Chad’s team their first strike of the game (get it, it’s funny). Now, obviously we need to talk about the “there’s just one little thing that stops me every time.” As a queer person, I assure you, two of the things that kept me from living my Best Life were 1) my own ignorance of what asexuality was and 2) the fear that everyone I love would hate me for who I am, and what I have no control over. 

Sorry to get deep like that on main, but, can any other queer person say different? Obviously, your first point may differ, but my point still stands. In the video/scene there is a very short moment (to which I have condensed into a gif for you all, you’re welcome, and I’m sorry about the quality in advance), of the camera moving over to Chad’s team (or his friends in this case since it’s an employee baseball game) as he says this line (gif below). 

I will not be explaining the use of subtly in this essay, but I’m sure you get the metaphor Kenney is trying to use. If not, let me spell it out for you in very simple words. This song has a lot of sexual innuendos (as mentioned pervious with the baseball bat scene and still, more to come), with that in mind, and clearly queer themes at play (as mentioned before, again), this scene only shows Chad isn’t as straight as he leads on. His fear/phobia of Ryan/the arts come from a much deeper place. 

In shorter, and much simpler terms: Chad queer. 

But, let’s get back to the boy's conversation. 

I don't dance - Ch

I know you can - R 

Not a chance, no - Ch 

If I could do this, well, you could do that - R 

Translation: “If I can do this weird, sweaty, dirty, Male thing without blowing a fuse, you can and should be able to dance just fine.” 

But I don't dance - Ch 

Hit it out of the park - Both 

I don't dance - Ch

I say you can - R

There's not a chance, oh - Ch

Slide home, you score, swingin on the dance floor - Both

I don't dance, no - Ch  (This is just the chores, you’ll see it multiple times throughout the essay, I just figured if the song is going to be in your head, go all the way right). 

Two-steppin, now you're up to bat - R

Bases loaded, do your dance - R 

Here we are with the baseball metaphors you’ve all been waiting for ladies and gentlemen. Girls, gays, and non-binary pals. For those who have somehow managed a sheltered existence with access to the internet, lemme help you. Ryan is talking about “loaded bases” both in the context of the game (where it shows each base has one person from Chad’s team on them) and in the term of sex. While you go out there dating - while it’s mostly douche bags and people using it ironically - your nosey friends may ask you how far you got. 

“First, second, or third base?” They may ask. Or something like, “oh wow, did you get to home plate/base?” These are simply the rankings of the stages of a sexual relationship. First - kissing, sometimes just handholding, Second - making out, some light groping, Third - full on groping, no clothes come off, but it gets close. While each person has different boundaries, these are the general accepted definitions for the bases. 

Home base is obviously full blown sexual intercourse. Since Chad has his “bases loaded” it means he’s done all these things before, just never gone completely to sexual intercourse with someone - in the terms of the song and the history we’ve already established, it’s most likely a male character. This is only proven by Chad’s uncomfortable nature towards Ryan (internalized Homophobia, thank you, returning theme) but his easy, and cocky personality towards everyone else. “bUt thAt DoEsnT pRovE” hush, that’s the final cherry on top. Remember this conversation. 

It's easy - R  

Again. Previous points have been made.  

Take your best shot, just hit it - Ch 

I've got what it takes, playin my game - Ch

So you better spin that pitch - Ch 

You're gonna throw me, yeah - Ch 

I'll show you how I swing - Ch

Ah, the famous “I’ll show you how i swing” a very strong baseball metaphor for everyone. Keeps queer people from defining themselves to dangerous (straight) people, and, well, that’s it actually. This term is mostly used by bi/pan people, though if you want to stay in the closet or are in a dangerous place, it is also used to subtly tell other queer people you are in fact, not straight. My favourite is when this term came into play when President Buchanan got elected in 1856 (for those that don’t know, he’s the first and only gay president). 

You'll never know - R

Oh I know - Ch

If you never try - R 

There's just one little thing - Ch

That stops me every time, yeah - Ch 

This is again, the same lyric as before it doesn’t pan, and the tone is much different. The camera stays on Chad as he says this line, meaning he’s reflecting, he is now his own problem, the person that is keeping him back. His friends are not on his mind anymore, which is good, Ryan’s Gay Propaganda has been working. 

Come on - Ch

I don't dance - Ch

I know you can - R

Not a chance, no, no - Ch

If I could do this, well, you could do that - R

But I don't dance - Ch

Hit it out of the park - R

I don't dance - Ch

I say you can - R

There's not a chance, oh no - Ch

Slide home, you score, swingin on the dance floor - Both 

I don't dance, no - Ch

Lean back, tuck it in, take a chance - R

Swing it out, spin around, do the dance - R

I wanna play ball, not dance hall - Ch

I'm makin a triple, not a curtain cal - Chl

I can prove it to you til you know it's true - R

'Cause I can swing it, I can bring it to the diamond too - R

You're talkin a lot, show me what you got - Ch

Again, like the beginning of this song, this is a heavy base for flirting and sexual tension, which this song is drowning in. 

Stop swinging - both

Hey - both

This is the part where they all start a flash mob in the middle of the baseball diamond. Again, alluding to the conversation I had to myself earlier, this only proves my own theory as no one takes notice of this. But, that’s not this essay, this is where I mention how close Chad and Ryan are at the end of the group dance.  

Come on, swing it like this - both

Oh, swing - both

Jitterbug, just like that - both

That's what I mean, that's how you swing - both

You make a good pitch but I don't believe - both 

Here is yet another (and the final) sexual innuendo. This is actually a rather quick one. Pitching in queer culture is considered the person who tops (because queer people even had to straight-ify their sex lives to “top” and “bottom”), this is the person who is giving, if you know what I’m saying. 

I say you can - R

I know I can't - Ch

I don't dance - Ch

You can do it - R

I don't dance, no - Ch 

 Here is where that mosh pit ends, and how they get a little too close to comfort. 

Nothing to it, atta boy, atta boy, yeah - both

The rest of this song is simply a mash-up of the baseball game being finished, and this lovely gem. 

Now, clearly, Chad’s self conscious nature towards his sexuality is gone, he’s sitting close - if not squishing - Ryan, and talking to him like they’ve been friends forever. Take note of the change of close, most likely due to all the tension at the end of the song, and maybe a little of Chad’s own natural human curiosity built in. Now, I leave you with this note: 

If there is anything that confirms all this more, its Chad’s girlfriend wearing the pride colours. 

Also note: this could also be seen as a friend helping his bro discover his sexuality and fighting internalized homophobia, but, that’s ignoring the sexual tension, so go off I guess. 

Thank you for coming to my TED talk.  

Watch the full thing here

[themagnuswriters]

Writing a Muslim Character

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

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

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

First, two gigantic caveats:

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

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

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

(Warning: this is absurdly, absurdly long)

Basics:

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

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

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

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

Denominations:

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

Background:

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

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

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

Pillars of Islam:

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

Salah—prayer

Sawm—fasting during Ramadan

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

Hajj—pilgrimage to Mecca

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

Prayer:

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

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

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

Dhuhr, which means Noon (four rak’at)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fasting:

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

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

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

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

A child (up to puberty)

Ill or has a medical condition such as diabetes

Pregnant

Travelling

On their period

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

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

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

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

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

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

Halal and Haram:

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

Things that are considered haram include:

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

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

Extramarital sex

Tattoos

Gambling

Men wearing silk or gold

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

Being immodest

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

The Hijab:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Everyday Life:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

LGBTQ Muslims:

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

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

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

Miscellaneous:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[marisol993]

For some time now I've seen, over and over again, that the Qunari in the Dragon Age Universe are apparently some kind of racist caricature of black people, muslims and other types of poc's, bipoc's, minorities, ....

From a personal perspective I never saw them as such, but since a personal view of things isn't very objective and can be skewed by ones life-experiances I was completely willing to admit, that I might have been wrong about that and had an opportunity to learn something new here.

The more I thought about it and critically examined this statement though, the less I agreed with any of it. Especially since a lot of arguments in favor of this view seemed to boil down to "this person of [insert relevant minority here] said so". I.e. another "personal viewpoint".

So let's get into a critical analysis of the Qunari and why I think that they are so very far removed from any kind of "minorty" (from a western point of view) coding that you couldn't even see it with the power of the Hubble and James Webb space-telescopes combined:

First of all, who are the Qunari? The Qunari are tall, medium to heavily built, horned (or unhorned, if you only played Origins) humanoids, that come in varying shades of grey skin, with whiteish hair. They are more intensly sexually dimorphic than the Dwarves, Elves and Humans of Thedas, with the males being sometimes nearly twice as wide (especially in the shoulders) and much more muscled than the females. They call themselves the Qunari as they are followers of the Qun (their guide to life and society), though the word is more of an umbrella-term, since anybody of any race is called a Qunari if they "convert" to the teachings of the Qun.

Here's a picture:

At this point some people might already remark, that the Qunari are very obviously "black-coded" since apparently nowadays any deviation from natural, real-life human skintones automatically has to mean, that the fantasy-race in question is meant to reflect black or brown people (even if they are green or bright purple), unless you literally give them a complete and utterly snow-white skintone. If that is the argument you want to go with, I would like to redirect your eyes to the picture above, as it already disproves this. As it is shown there (and in the DA:I Character-Creator), the Qunari can come in a complete spectrum of skintones (from very light grey to nearly ebony), just like all the different races of Thedas (even the dwarves for some reason, which doesn't make much sense for a race that lived underground for most of their history, but what can you do..). This basically means, that yes there are dark-skinned (or "black") Qunari, but there are also those that could be better described as "light-skinned", so the coding-qualifier goes away.

Then there are the people, who might want to say, that because they are tall and "burly", together with the unnatural skintone makes them "black-coded" which is something I never really understood, since the tallest people in the world by ethnicity are the Dutch and if you look at heights in correlation with body-weight the Russians take first place. Both countries not really know for their large populations of darkskinned-humanoids. Another coding-qualifier that goes away.

And then there are the people (who I would seriously suggest should maybe review their own "racial" views, if "black and brown people" is the first thing they think about when it comes to this), who say, that they are a stereotype of the "savages and natives", which is something that is actively contradicted in canon. One of the most prominent traits of the Qunari is that they are efficiant to a T, use every resorce at the disposal to it's maximum (including their people) and that they are more technically and scientifically advanced than many other race in Thedas (except maybe the dwarves) . This is shown through their mastery of gunpowder (which they call gaatlok) and the fact that they can use chemicals and drugs to literally warp the mind of people without needing magic. They are in no way presented as "savage" and if they are named such, it's usually by people who they are actively at war with, who want to insult them. They are also not "natives" of Thedas. Even their so called "homeland" in Thedas, which is called Par Vollen, was colonised by them, when they landed at it's shores in 6:30 Steel-Age and started converting the original population of Tevinter humans and elves, with whom they have been at war with ever since. Let me say that again: The Qunari are active colonisers and at war with the Tevinter-Imperium, who's people are the original population of the land. Not exactly a typical "native or black" stereotype in western media.

So who do I think the Qunari are actually modeled after?

Well let's summarise:

The Qunari came from across the ocean in their ships filled with cannons and guns, to colonise the land and convert the native population towards their beliefs. They are currently fighting a war against the Tevinter-Imperium, an old and powerful empire, that engages in widespread slavery and practices blood-magic by sacrificing said slaves, sometimes also to one of their many gods.

(If you can't guess who I think they are supposed to be modeled after by now, I would recommend to maybe picking up a 7th-grade history textbook again)

Yes, you can make a very strong case for the Qunari actually being these guys:

The Conquistadors (heck, if you cross out a few letters you can even anagram the word "Qunari" out of the word Conquistador). Who also came from across the sea with ships, cannons and guns to colonise the land (south- and middle-america) and convert the native population (to christianity) and fought an ancient and powerful empire with slaves and blood-sacrifices (the Aztec-Kingdoms).

So after pissing of one half of tumblr with that, let's start with the other half by talking about the apparent "muslim-coding" and how I disagree with that too.

Let's start with a rough definition of what a muslim is and how I think that that alone shows how the Qunari are in no way coded to be them:

I would define a muslim as somebody who is an active member of the religion of Islam. Islam is defined by it's holybook (the Qur'An), which was revealed to the prophet Muhammad by an all-knowing and omnipresent abrahamic god.

This in and of itself basically already disqualifies the Qunari from being "muslim-coded" since first and foremost the Qunari are not a religion. They do not have a god and they don't pray to any, the Qun is not a "holy-book" and Ashkaari Koslun (the guy who wrote it) was not a prophet, who wrote down the word of god, but a philosopher who basically crafted a "guide to life and society" with his works.

If you really wanted to find something that is slightly "muslim-coded" in the world of Thedas, you might actually have more luck with the chantry-stuff, since they do have a prophet (Andraste) who could talk to god (the Maker), they have a holy book based of her teachings (the Chant of Light) and they believe that the whole world should follow those teachings, so god will return to them (singing the Chant from all four corners of the world). They even have their own flavour of jihadist religious warfare with the Exhalted Marches (though all in all I do think that the Chantry can be better viewed as a take on christian religions since the split between the Imperial Chantry and the original one is similar to the split of the (western) christian church into catholics and protestants).

So what do I think is a better representation for the Qun in the real world?

Well lets look at it in the simplest way possible that the canon gives us:

The Qun is a guide for the life of the Qunari (the people of the Qun) that ecompasses everything from laws, legislative guides, too how society should be struktured and how everyone has to fit into and function in that society, from the most mundane and simplest tasks and jobs to it's highest administrative bodies. Everyone in this society is evaluated, so that they can be put into a position that is best suited to them and their skill-sets. There they will then each work according to their abilities and each be provided for according to their needs (see what I did there). Yes, the Qun can in my opinion be best described as a take on an authoritarian-socialist guide to life, written by somebody with a similar philosophie as Karl Marx.

So all in all, I don't think that the Qunari are in any way black-, brown-, bipoc- or muslim-coded, but a fantasy take on the Conquistadors, if instead of a bible they had all carried around "A Guide to Life, Luck and Community, written by Karl Marx (during one of his more productive weekends)", visually represented by giant Minotaur-People of many colours.

Also I find this obsession with finding every and any kind of reflexion of our real world in some random fantasy setting, by people who are most of the time actively looking to get offended by at least something and mostly every- and anything, quite contrived most of the time and that the day people on tumblr learned the word "codeing" a significant part of the internets critical-thinking skills and will just shrivelled up and died.

Thank you for coming to my TED-talk.

[writing-in-april]

The 5 Stages of Grief

Stage three: Bargaining (3/5)

Spencer Reid x Gender Neutral Reader (Spencer’s POV)

Summary: Spencer going through each of the stages of grief after the death of the reader. Stage three is bargaining.

A/N: Here’s chapter 3 everyone! I think this might be the chapter I’m most proud of in terms of writing. Idk I just really like how this chapter came together even though it’s obviously extremely sad. It also kinda got away from me in terms of length lmao 😂 this chapter puts the overall word count for the series at 5k which is the most I’ve ever written before 🥳 I wonder- does anyone have any guesses as to where the story is going next? If you’ve got any ideas drop them in the comments or my inbox- I’m curious! Also- I’ve got a special surprise coming!!Requests are open!

Warnings ⚠️ (warnings for the whole series are on the series Masterlist): Death, Funeral, Craving drugs, Using drugs, Suicide references, Suicidal thoughts, Religion references, Obsessive thoughts, Spencer’s all over the place, Spencer gets mad collectively at the team again, Spencer contradicts himself a few times, Unreliable narrator

Main Masterlist | 5 Stages of Grief Masterlist

Word count: 2.1k

Earth often symbolized stability; I had never felt more unstable then I did now, when I was without the person that grounded me. I wished the earth would just swallow me whole as the water and fire had done. I wish I was buried underneath all the dirt, right beside them and with a headstone to match.

A constant loop of the same thoughts kept running through my head that all had one goal in mind. A small logical part of my brain spoke to me telling me that obsessing over different variations of, “If only” weren’t healthy for me. But, I couldn’t stop thinking of every possible outcome of that night, how it might have gone different or how I could have done differently. The questions that had once filled my head were now filled with absolutes. Absolutes that caused me to sink further into my mind. I wish the absolutes would have buried me alive. At least then I’d be laid beside them and I would no longer have to cry.

I’d rather the earth crush me than accept that they’re gone.

If only I had run faster.

If only I had drawn my gun faster.

If only I had taken the hit.

If only they were here.

If only.

When the non-denominational preacher spoke as their casket was lowered back into the earth I blocked out his words of what some would perceive as wisdom. The wisdom was hollow, it was all a folly. I had never understood how people could just accept the grief that was dealt to them. Why should I have to accept the horrible fact of what had befallen the person closest to my heart?

Death was a fact of life, I knew. But, my heart still couldn’t bear to accept that fact. I couldn’t be objective anymore, my grief had crushed any accepted meaning to anyone or anything.

“Do you need anything Spence?” JJ’s words broke me out of my swirling thoughts for a moment as I walked into the foyer of the apartment I could barely bear to step foot in. I focused enough that her words just made me laugh bitterly internally. What do I need? What I needed she couldn’t give me. No one could give me what I wanted, unless I started to buy in and believe in what the priest had been preaching.

“What I need you can’t give me.” I gazed around the small living room, lingering on the green walls of my apartment that had once been a happy spot for me. I remembered the joy I had with them the day we had decided to freshen up the walls with a new color of paint. I should paint them black now, to match my clothes and the gaping hole that sat within my chest.

“Maybe I could try?” JJ was smart, but her naivety was astounding to me at times. The fact that she could not read the meaning behind my words made me question if she knew anything about me at all. She claimed to me my best friend, but the real person who held that spot was now buried in a cemetery.

“Can you bring them back JJ?” Silence was the only response I got to my words.

I wonder if JJ suspected what I wanted to do when she shut the door, the door to an apartment I used to share with someone. I didn't want to turn to it, but I couldn’t find a less extreme option for me. The only other option was to resort to the drug that had ruled my life before I had met them. Addiction used to ensnare me in its vice like grip, which was the time in my life when I had first met them. They had freed me from its wicked vines that had trapped me for so long, they were the only one to listen to my cries for help then. So, who would listen now?

Would JJ be the one to hear my silent cries?

Or would I be abandoned like I had been before?

If she knew what I was about to do would she have let me? Or would she not even bother to help? She was already planning on leaving me tonight to be all alone, just like everyone else always did. So, why would she care if I indulged in the vials that sat in my pocket?

When she did leave for the night, the emptiness of our apartment- my apartment was apparent. What had once been filled with happiness was now soiled with the overwhelming presence of grief. I wished the team would stop giving me food and platitudes about life after death. I wished they cared enough to truly help me instead of giving me their blasé condolences with casseroles. I wished they had done so many things differently that day. I wished they did something different now. Where were they now? Why couldn’t we deal with our grief together? They lost a co-worker, but I lost a partner. They were selfish when they left me time and time again, first the dilaudid, then many other grievances, and now this. Why did they always leave me so alone? Why couldn’t they stay to help ground me? Why did I have to be alone? Why did everyone always leave me?

Why did they have to leave me?

I need to again stop asking questions that I know I’ll never have the answer to, I know now that the world only deals in absolutes.

If only the team had connected the dots faster.

If only they had gotten there faster.

If only they had drawn their guns faster.

If only someone else had taken the hit.

If only they were here.

If only.

I sat at the small kitchen table that used to be occupied by a pair of chairs, but after I had broken the chair that they used to use, there was only one. It had reminded me too much of the sight of their empty chair at the round table, except the one at the BAU I knew would one day have another occupant. The chair that used to sit across from me during the rare meals we had at home and not on a case would never be occupied by another. There was no way I could ever move on from them, the grief was too much and I had no doubt that their death would forever leave a hole in my chest, never to be filled again. I was broken without them and even more so than their old chair, I was fractured without them, I wasn’t me without them. I knew I’d never be the same again. I would never be happy again.

The gaping hole in my chest that begged to be filled by a presence no longer there made me ache for any sort of relief. The glass vials in my pocket clinked together loudly as if they were mocking me and telling me that there was no escape from their addictive presence. I wished someone had been there to stop me from ever paying my old dealer who had greeted me like an old friend. The sight of him sickened me, I knew I was desecrating their memory by giving into the addiction that they had pulled me away from. But, my shaking fingers couldn’t resist paying the man that held the glass vials that held the clear liquid I desperately wanted injected in my veins. It felt like I had made a deal with death when I had handed the man the money. It allowed me reprieve from the ever reaching depths of death’s power over my life, but death was an inescapable fact. No one can win when a deal with death is struck because death would always be an old friend to us all. But, I didn’t mind, if death took me it would at least let me be with them again.

I couldn’t ground myself without them, they had helped tether me to the earth rather than letting myself float away into the abyss. They were the whole reason I stopped in the first place. The ground had been pulled out from under me when I just wished it would bury me alongside them. This feeling of falling with no reprieve, with no ground to stabilize me made me want to cling to my past coping mechanisms. I wish death would just take me.

I had lost my rock and that dilaudid I had picked up before the funeral felt like pebbles in my pocket that could possibly save me. They’d never compare to the feeling of having the ground underfoot, keeping me rooted in all life had to offer.

My rock was gone and the dilaudid was the biggest pebble I had to keep me clinging to what once was.

If only there was some less extreme option.

If only something had been different.

If only I had done something different.

If only they were here.

If only.

I was slipping away, I needed something to ground me, to hold me down. I only had the pebbles in my pocket now. I was trapped in my mind and trapped in my grief, the one thing I needed to save me was impossible to reach.

My mind was racing with possibilities in an attempt to distract myself from the clinking of the glass vials in my pocket. I was trying to ignore the memories of that blissfully weightless feeling I got when I used to stick the hypodermic needle in my arm to flood my veins with what could only be described as euphoria. I needed someone to save me. I needed them, I needed my rock. Who or what could bring that weight back? Who or what could bring the person back who gave my life its meaning? Who or what could I plead to? And who would bother to hear the pleas of a broken man on his knees?

“I won’t relapse if you bring them back.” I fell down on my knees as I pleaded out loud to whoever may care. The tears that spilled down my cheeks barely registered in my mind, they seemed like a constant in my life now, always there to drip down and stain every part of my life. I would never escape this grief. The grief left me feeling heavy and weightless at the same time, heavy with regret and weightless because I had no purpose now. Death was cruel to take away the only thing I had to weigh me down. My last possible reprieve before resorting to something I promised to never touch again was to plead.

I used one last plea, one last plea until I picked the pebbles out of my pocket. One last plea to something I didn’t even fully believe existed. One last plea in hopes of bringing my rock back to bring me back down to earth. One last plea that was perhaps was in vain, but I was still trying to cling to the ground that had been pulled out from under me. Maybe the entity some knew as God would answer my plea, even though we had only spoken a handful of times. I wasn’t even confident that God was real. There were so many other possibilities.

I’d just instead use my plea to beg any entity that may be out there. Whatever the origin and whatever the cost, I did not care. The only thing I cared about is if my rock was there.

If my plea was not answered by the someone or something I was praying to, the ground that had been pulled out from under me would never return. If my plea was not answered and my rock did not return to weigh my feet back down to keep me from floating in the air, I wouldn’t be sure what my options were anymore.

Without my rock, I’d float with only a meager few pebbles to try and bring me back down. If my rock did not return maybe after trying a few of the pebbles maybe I’d just let myself get swallowed by a different type of earth, soil. Soil that would cover me so I would at least be able to be laid down beside the person I had once thought would one day be my spouse.

But, the door never opened.

And, the earth did not swallow me to allow me to join them.

Though, I sincerely wished it had.

Maybe, I’d still resort to that.

Maybe, death would cash in it’s side of the deal.

If only my plea had worked.

I’d be with my rock again.

I guess I would settle with my pebbles.

—-

Tag list (message me if you want to be added):

All works:

@shotarosleftpinky @oreogutz

Spencer Reid/CM:

@calm-and-doctor @destiny-tsukino @safertokiss

5 stages of grief:

@joonie-centric @tatesimper @half-blood-dork @mcntsee @illuxions-x @rainsong01 @nomajdetective @loveheathens @day-n-night-dreamer @reidbuck

[mamamittens]

Long Awaited LoZ Thoughts

I’d like to start this off by explaining my background. I have a BA in English with a minor in Humanities. I have lived all my life in the Bible Belt of America, so my PoV of this series is inevitably going to be, at least in part, from the perspective of a Western-centric, Christianity-influenced woman. I have grown up with a deep interest in folk tales and mythology though, and took several classes on ancient cultures, so my base knowledge of religion all over the world is broader than what you’d probably expect. I am not religious myself, I’m actually agnostic. And this is just an in-universe look at the very strange religion of Hyrule. So, to make things easier, let’s just put aside the obvious meta issues with this world. The wonky timeline, complex lore changes between said timelines, and the fact that the whole series has clearly grown wildly over the course of its development without an overarching plot. The game mechanics being game mechanics. All of it. This whole thing will just be me trying to make sense of the world without the ‘it’s just a game, bro’ crutch. I will be drawing on what I know from the many games I’ve played myself, so if I don’t mention a big piece of lore from a specific game, it’s because I didn’t play it. Go ahead and rule out the early games before Ocarina of Time, as that’s the first game in the series I can remember playing. I was legitimately too young to have ever played anything prior to that, having been born in 1996. Now let’s get started, shall we?

 So, obviously everyone knows that the LoZ world is said to begin with the three goddesses. Din, Nayru, and Farore came together to create the world and before they yote themselves out of the narrative as direct players, they created the Triforce. A powerful artifact capable of granting a wish and giving their respective bearers undefined power. This is directly from Ocarina of Time and we see their symbol, the Triforce, all over the many games with very few exceptions. Now, to be clear, having a polytheistic religion with three main gods is hardly new. Hinduism has three main gods after all (Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva), and depending on your flavor of Christianity, you have the holy trinity (God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit). There’s even the Celtic goddesses that come specifically in threes (collectively called The Morrigan; Eriu, Fodla, and Banba). This isn’t an exhaustive list of three divine beings, by the way, just know that three is a weird trend in western-centric stories, including religion. But what’s different about the three Hyrule Goddesses? Well, they’re weirdly small for big shot gods. Let me explain.

        So, the three Hindu gods I mentioned earlier each handle a specific aspect. Creation, destruction, and preservation, not necessarily in that order though (which god does what isn’t the point, so just roll with me here). These are very broad and powerful subjects. Christianity is much the same, even though it’s a monotheistic religion. God is literally an all-powerful, omniscient, omnipotent deity. Jesus is his son who gave his life to basically forgive all sin. And I’m not totally clear on the Holy Spirit, but these three are clearly Big Deals with Big Ideas behind them. A good rule of thumb for old religion is that the older the deity, the wider the scope of their job or what they represent. Which makes sense. If you had to personify the forces of the universe, you’d probably start with the sun instead of like… whatever god is responsible for the creation of rice specifically. The bigger and scarier the natural force, the bigger deal that god usually is, putting aside politics and cultural trends. Egypt is a good example of this, as their roster of gods tended to change a lot depending on who was Pharaoh at the time and wherever the city center was. Horus is the god of the sun, or at least one of them, and is generally considered king of the gods. Which makes perfect sense for a land largely made up of a desert.

But what are the three goddesses’ rulers of? Power, Wisdom, and Courage. Each with clear elemental associations and people that are obviously affiliated with them. Nayru, Goddess of Wisdom, is clearly associated with water and likely has a close connection with the Zora. Din, Goddess of Power, is associated with fire and has clear connection with the Gerudo (unclear if the same goddess as the one present in the desert temple in Ocarina of Time). Farore, Goddess of Courage, is associated with all things green and of the earth, including the child-like race of Kokiri who perpetually inhabit the forest. Sure, these are broad topics, but not really… the first thing you’d think of for creators of the universe, are they? And it raises the question about the Hyrule people, who are said to be able to hear the gods due to their pointed ears… let’s put a pin in that and move on.

So, we know there are many gods in this universe, primarily because we meet them. For example, Zephos, God of Winds, in Wind Waker. But he’s clearly a fairly forgotten god, as he shares a shrine with Cylcos, God of Cyclones, which is about as bare as it can be. Just what appears to be a Tori gate with two stone monuments with the simple notes to summon them, almost completely out of the way. Which… I mean, I don’t know many gods with their extension number written on their monuments. That would kind of like going to church on Sunday and seeing “Hit me up if you need me, J-Boy 555-TAKE THE WHEEL” written on the podium. And remember, this is a world and game where the gods actively flooded the world and would therefore hold or have held enough power to directly interfere with Hyrule.

And Skyward Sword clearly has divine beings, one of which even flooded a whole area, though they’re subservient to Hylia. Who we will get back to later, I promise. The three dragons (again, that magic number), capable of divine power, though where that power comes from in unclear. The dragons are of a high status though, as evident by their servants and clear reference to high-class dress of their clothes. These dragons are revered, but clearly not worshipped, much like nobles in that regard. A curious note is the parallels to the three goddesses, and how the symbols are muddled and mixed for these dragons.

Lanayru clearly has the symbols associated with the Zora, and by extension Nayru, but is yellow. He also is saved by time travel used to grow a magic fruit, which Link often uses (time travel) in many games to advance the plot himself (and wouldn’t you know it, but mixing blue with yellow does produce green. Weird). Faron is the water dragon who flooded an area, and she is almost entirely blue (as well as unsettling to look at), surrounded by a species clearly related to the Zora though closer to octopi. But her name is Faron, which is weirdly close to Farore’s name, not Nayru. I mean, they are close to locations that resemble their names of course, but it’s still an interesting note. Finally, there’s Eldin, clearly bearing a symbol associated with the Gerudo without any strange mixes of symbols for the series. Oddly, he’s also the most open of the three dragons, especially considering the Gerudo’s traditional stance of being a ‘no-sausage’ club. Not terribly relevant, but I just thought it was interesting to point out. You can consider the Giants in Majora’s Mask on the same level as them, though their status is unclear (Since they’re summoned by a song and can stop the moon from falling, they probably straddle the line between mortal and divine).

Now, spirits also exist in this world, both as the ghostly variety and the more pseudo-divine. Not to be confused with actual divinity. Divine being can be spirits, but not all spirits are divine. In this context, spirits can be defined more as being of power capable of granting aid in return for something. Zephos can change the winds if called upon, but you don’t need to feed him, for example. But the spirits in Twilight Princess need aid before they can help you. And they’re also not very independent and are able to be fooled easily, which isn’t usually a god-like quality. While more physically present than the three goddesses, they’re also not strictly tangible, and seem to be extremely limited to their location. At best, these spirits could be classified as minor deities below the gods we see in Wind Waker. They also share the same abilities in keeping the realm of Twilight from falling over the land of Hyrule, as well as their weakness to parasites of undetermined origin. An interesting note is that they all seem to live in bodies of water. Let’s put a pin in that one too.

Someone that also counts as a spirit would be Fi and her counterpart, Ghirahim. Literally two halves of the same coin, these two are both very limited in power and function. They don’t represent anything on their own and are very dependent on others to achieve results. How or why they were made is unclear, but it is obvious that both were forged at some point, and clearly gained sentience. Even their personalities and allegiances are a bit odd. Fi for her sci-fi appearance and calculating personality in a fantasy land, and Ghirahim for his… well, everything. I don’t know why the root of all evil would make his weapon a full-tilt diva, let alone on purpose. Ghirahim always struck me as odd since his bombastic personality seemed to clash with his ultimate fate of just being a weapon for Demise.

Okay, so the Great Fairies are weird, okay?! Like, really weird. They act as spirits (I can’t think of any that aren’t restricted to a body of water in some form), but are very independent. They also don’t necessarily need anything from Link to offer assistance. Sometimes, just opening the fairy fountain is enough to gain items needed to progress. And there’s also the fact that fairies heal you upon ‘death’, though with a limited heart capacity. Sometimes they need you to do something though, like the Breath of the Wild fairies need rupees to function or items to upgrade equipment. They also usually look human, like Majora’s Mask Great Fairies are clearly just… giant women with color coded accessories. But like, they float. Where Great Faires come from, or even just regular fairies, is unclear. Until Wind Waker, Great Faires were adults. But when you finally meet the real Great Fairy in Wind Waker it’s… a child. With a doll that looks just like the ‘Great Fairies’ you’ve seen along the way. This sort of implies that Great Fairies age and die, though clearly with a different lifetime than most races in Hyrule (the child Great Fairy also only looks somewhat human compared to other Great Fairies, so make of that what you will). And it also implies that all the adult Great Fairies are dead (you’re welcome for that depressing thought), with the last one trapped in a hollow tree only accessible by the power of a God.

In Breath of the Wild, the Great Fairies are both diminished but more powerful. They literally are stuck in a giant flower with water in it, with few fairies around them, and require riches to get stronger. The connection to their new restrictions to this need for material wealth is unclear. It’s also interesting to note that their fountains are no longer places that appear to be man-made holy temples and they seem to be out of the way… well, for a given value of ‘out of the way’ (looking at you ninja village). These fairies can accomplish more tasks, but certainly won’t be doing it for free or with minimal effort. A far cry from their first appearances (no, I don’t consider using explosives a difficult task).

But Fairies are also companions with nebulous tasks, such as in Ocarina of Time, where Tatl follows Link until the end of the game. And Kokiri have their own fairy as a sign of whatever accounts for adulthood in their race. The Skull Kid in Majora’s Mask has two fairy friends who seemed to have been either lost or abandoned. Who or what gives them purpose and life is unclear, though the Great Deku Tree from Ocarina of Time can give commands, it doesn’t seem to be something he does normally? As a side note, it’s really not clear what, if anything he can actually do. Though the relative safety of the surrounding area is clearly tied with his wellbeing in all iterations, he doesn’t seem to directly influence it, or be capable of self-defense.

Now, onto the elephant in the room! Hylia! Who the hell is this?! A more recent entry to the series, her divine roll is unclear (though she clearly guards the Triforce in some capacity). It can be assumed that she’s somehow a goddess tied directly to the Hylian people, but when she appeared is up for debate. Timeline wise, it’s almost like knowledge of her was suppressed for some reason, giving rise to the Triforce mythos we all know and love without hide or hair of her seen. We know that she favored the original Link greatly, enough to shed her divinity to be reborn as a mortal and assist him. How or why is also unclear, though it wouldn’t be unfair to assume she loved him, as divine ladies holding an affair with a mortal isn’t uncommon in mythology (or even male gods doing the same, before anyone brings up Zeus). But she makes a resurgence in Breath of the Wild, with statues and everything, with the three goddesses left to only vague references in the background. Which is super weird, though not uncommon for places like Ancient Egypt. The fact that the ruling family was literally descendant from a goddess is what makes it weird though, since any monarchy worth their salt would milk that until the peasant folk revolted and made a new religion to justify killing a god.

Zelda in every incarnation is literally descendant from the original and still held at least a fraction of that divine power. So much so that a cornerstone of a powerful religious artifact inevitably ends up in her hands (or on the back of her right hand, as it were). But what is Hylia a Goddess of? We don’t know. It’s never said. Anywhere. And that’s super weird, even for a ubiquitous deity. Sure she’s a Goddess of Hyrule but… what does that mean? That can’t be all she is? Her reincarnation is literally locked in a generational struggle against the forces of darkness! What can she do as a Goddess? Well, she makes Link stronger in return for items, but that seems to be it. In Ocarina of Time, Zelda was capable of sending Link back to the past, but that was with a magic item. And we know Hylia isn’t the Goddess of Time, because Zelda references her in Majora’s Mask (sequel to Ocarina of Time, therefore implying that there are more gods unmentioned at that time), when Hylia should be mortal or at least fragmented (because Zelda exists at the time with powers and a Triforce piece). The Guardian of Time in Hyrule Warriors also fell in love with Link before splitting into Cia and Lana (and was unable to fuse back together again), so it’s unlikely that she’s the Goddess of Time Zelda was referring to, though that detail is interesting to note. No, I will not discuss if Hyrule Warriors is canon (either game), as this is already long enough as it is.

So, that brings us to Ganon, or in his original form, Demise. Which… what’s up with that? Who is this guy? He directly opposes the gods and just… gets away with it! Repeatedly! Sure, he loses most of the time, but still. It’s unclear where Demise came from, or even what he is, though judging by Ghirahim’s ‘Demon Lord’ title, it can be assumed that he is some type of demon himself. And that the many monsters we see are also considered demons, which makes sense with how they always work for Demise (or his many iterations) in some form or another. Considering how much it takes to simply seal him away, he can’t be just a demon though.

        Demise obviously pulled the same trick Hylia did, which directly sets him up as a counterpart to her, but what does it mean? Why would he do that? What is Demise that he can’t be beat with the power of a Goddess alone and needs not only a brave knight but a blade literally made to counter him? Within the context of religion, the best guess I can make is that he’s some form of a God of Darkness, possibly also Temptation, Greed, and Pigs Corruption. It fits within the narrative since power is often the strongest form of temptation and we know that demons capable of opposing the gods exist. The Horned Statue literally takes Hylia’s blessings in exchange for wealth, and was turned into a statue for it. What it stands to gain from any of it is unclear, but interestingly enough, Hylia doesn’t mind that it closely resembles her own statues. So, this raises the question… why isn’t Demise a forgotten statue somewhere along a dusty road? How did he curse(?) both a reborn goddess and a human in an eternal struggle for the fate of Hyrule?

        Being a god is about the only explanation for why he can do the things that he does. It explains why, in every incarnation, he ends up a rule (like Zelda). How he controls so many different species with ease. He corrupts the conflicted as easily as breathing. An interesting note is how Demise in his many forms usually ends up corrupting once good forces in some way, typically with parasites or evil spirits. And with this context, Hylia must be a Goddess of Light, and possibly some form of Will and Purity to oppose Demise’s power. It would also make her a good candidate for looking after the Triforce in that case. And yet we don’t know any of this for sure either, which is, again, very strange considering their presence from the very beginning. Literally.

Now, I want to mention the temples as a last point before wrapping this up, because it has bothered me since I was a wee little whipper snapper. For a place of worship, they sure are hard to navigate, even when they’re empty of monsters. And it’s not like Hyrule doesn’t get this, because the Temple of Time in Ocarina of Time is straight up a church. Just… without pews, so clearly not perfect, but it is possible for people to come in and… worship time, I guess. And no, not the Goddess of Time, because there’s no statue for that. I mean, I know it’s secretly hiding the Master Sword, but it is definitely a church otherwise. What a normal service looks like I can’t say for sure, but it’s definitely not like literally any other temples we see.

        Now, I know it’s a little hard to remember, but temples are usually places where one goes to worship the gods (or even just a god). And we know gods exist in a very real way in Hyrule! They still manage to name Zelda the same thing despite having seemingly buried their divine origins, so some knowledge of gods walking the mortal realm exists. But the temples/dungeons we see usually don’t have much in the way of religious iconography, with a few exceptions (interestingly it’s typically the desert area that actually has statues and could feasibly have had a real capacity for worship). You want to be a devout follower of a god anywhere else? Well, fuck you. Hope you brought a sword and a good pair of boots. If you’re allowed inside at all, since it’s usually the local leaders that are only allowed inside for some reason. And most games don’t seem to have very religious people, despite all the references to divinity. Not like we’d expect them to, at least. And I personally can’t blame them. If I tried to join a religion but found only a wall as an entrance, I’d be pretty disheartened too. Then I’d be pretty pissed to find out I needed not only a royal instrument handed down the monarchy, but their freaking lullaby to even get in to the place of worship. But we know they pray to the gods at least semi-often, since that’s one of the inciting incidences in Wind Waker. And they have offering to statues of Hylia.

        The temples suggest the bar to impress the gods is pretty high, and not in a ‘sacrifice your eldest child’ kind of way. To even get the chance to reach the inner chambers you better hope it’s been kept well and that you didn’t skip leg day recently. Something I didn’t really mention before is that usually, the less involved the gods are, the more independent the people are from worship. If you worry that your local deity will flood your fields, you’re probably leaving regular offerings at their nearby shrine or temple. But if you know that the gods don’t care about literally anything you do, why worship them at all? Why make statues, art, or temples? Why bother with any of it? The answer is you don’t. So these highly selective temples are pretty weird unless you go with the idea the gods are just really done with people and never want to talk to them unless absolutely necessary.

So, I’ve rambled for over twelve pages now. What’s the point? What does any of this mean? I’m honestly not sure, but I have a sinking feeling that there’s some serious shit going on in the Hyrule pantheon. Mortals have been mostly abandoned to their doom. Gods cast out and forgotten entirely. And somehow advanced civilizations keep forming and getting destroyed with only remnants left behind with zero explanation. Assuming the original gods are even alive at this point, which I’m not entirely certain of. Their death certainly explains how Demise/Ganon keeps getting stronger, looking less and less Hylian as time goes on, if he looks humanoid to begin with.

I wouldn’t even assume it’s entirely voluntary at this point either, as Ganon clearly doesn’t have the same motivations in every incarnation (see my previous post about Wind Waker). I’m rather excited about Breath of the Wild 2, as the implications of dehydrated husk Ganon is compelling. Particularly in light of the character development Link and Zelda have received in the first Breath of the Wild. I wouldn’t be surprised if Ganon/Demise turns out to be a fallen god trying to get back home (a nice parallel to Wind Waker, actually), cast out as a scape goat. Blamed for every form of corruption and greed that naturally follows in his wake. I think I said this before, but it is interesting that he is always reborn among the Gerudo, a race famously all females. Sometimes thieves, but nearly always in a position that would naturally crave power to take control of their lives compared to Hylians. Regardless of the consequences.

Is it true? I don’t know. Probably not, but the fact that I can draw these conclusions in three hours of writing is pretty neat. I have a lot of feelings about this franchise, having grown up with it, but I eagerly await what comes next. And I should probably go to bed. Make of all this what you will.

[michaelbogild]

Quotes by Eleanor Roosevelt

A mature person is one who does not think only in absolutes, who is able to be objective even when deeply stirred emotionally, who has learned that there is both good and bad in all people and in all things, and who walks humbly and deals charitably with the circumstances of life, knowing that in this world no one is all knowing and therefore all of us need both love and charity.

A stumbling block to the pessimist is a stepping-stone to the optimist.

A woman is like a tea bag; you never know how strong it is until it's in hot water.

As for accomplishments, I just did what I had to do as things came along.

Be confident, not certain

Do one thing every day that scares you.

Do the things that interest you and do them with all your heart. Don't be concerned about whether people are watching you or criticizing you. The chances are that they aren't paying any attention to you. It's your attention to yourself that is so stultifying. But you have to disregard yourself as completely as possible. If you fail the first time then you'll just have to try harder the second time. After all, there's no real reason why you should fail. Just stop thinking about yourself.

Do whatever comes your way to do as well as you can. Think as little as possible about yourself. Think as much as possible about other people. Dwell on things that are interesting. Since you get more joy out of giving joy to others, you should put a good deal of thought into the happiness that you are able to give.

Every time you meet a situation you think at the time it is an impossibility and you go through the tortures of the damned, once you have met it and lived through it, you find that forever after you are freer than you were before.

Freedom makes a huge requirement of every human being. With freedom comes responsibility. For the person who is unwilling to grow up, the person who does not want to carry his own weight, this is a frightening prospect.

Great minds talk about ideas; small minds talk about people

He who learns but does not think is lost. He who thinks but does not learn is in great danger.

I am convinced that every effort must be made in childhood to teach the young to use their own minds. For one thing is sure: If they don't make up their minds, someone will do it for them.

I could never be content to take my place by the fireside and simply look on. Life was meant to be lived, and curiosity must be kept alive. One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life.

I know that we will be the sufferers if we let great wrongs occur without exerting ourselves to correct them.

If anyone were to ask me what I want out of life I would say- the opportunity for doing something useful, for in no other way, I am convinced, can true happiness be attained.

If someone betrays you once, it’s their fault; if they betray you twice, it’s your fault.

If you lose friends you lose more, If you lose faith you lose all

If you lose money you lose much,

It isn't enough to talk about peace. One must believe in it. And it isn't enough to believe in it. One must work at it.

It takes courage to love, but pain through love is the purifying fire which those who love generously know. We all know people who are so much afraid of pain that they shut themselves up like clams in a shell and, giving out nothing, receive nothing and therefore shrink until life is a mere living death.

It's your life-but only if you make it so.

Justice cannot be for one side alone, but must be for both.

Learn from the mistakes of others. You can't live long enough to make them all yourself.

Life was meant to be lived, and curiosity must be kept alive. One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life.

Light a candle instead of cursing the darkness.

Love can often be misguided and do as much harm as good, but respect can do only good. It assumes that the other person's stature is as large as one's own, his rights as reasonable, his needs as important.

Mozart, who was buried in a pauper’s grave, was one of the greatest successes we know of, a man who in his early thirties had poured out his inexhaustible gift of music, leaving the world richer because he had passed that way. To leave the world richer—that is the ultimate success.

Never be bored, and you will never be boring.

Never mistake knowledge for wisdom. One helps you make a living; the other helps you make a life.

No man is defeated without until he has first been defeated within.

No matter how plain a woman may be, if truth and honesty are written across her face, she will be beautiful.

No one can make you feel inferior without your permission.

One thing life has taught me: if you are interested, you never have to look for new interests. They come to you. When you are genuinely interested in one thing, it will always lead to something else.

One's philosophy is not best expressed in words; it is expressed in the choices one makes. In the long run, we shape our lives, and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility

Pit race against race, religion against religion, prejudice against prejudice. Divide and conquer! We must not let that happen here.

Remember always that you not only have the right to be an individual you have an obligation to be one.

The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.

The giving of love is an education in itself.

The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience.

The reason that fiction is more interesting than any other form of literature, to those who really like to study people, is that in fiction the author can really tell the truth without humiliating himself.

There is not human being from whom we cannot learn something if we are interested enough to dig deep.

There is nothing to fear except fear it's self.

To handle yourself, use your head; to handle others, use your heart.

To me who dreamed so much as a child, who made a dreamworld in which I was the heroine of an unending story, the lives of people around me continued to have a certain storybook quality. I learned something which has stood me in good stead many times — The most important thing in any relationship is not what you get but what you give.

Today is the oldest you've ever been, and the youngest you'll ever be again.

Understanding is a two-way street.

We do not have to become heroes overnight. Just a step at a time, meeting each thing that comes up, seeing it as not as dreadful as it appears, discovering that we have the strength to stare it down.

We have to face the fact that either all of us are going to die together or we are going to learn to live together, and if we are to live together we have to talk.

What counts, in the long run, is not what you read; it is what you sift through your own mind; it is the ideas and impressions that are aroused in you by your reading. It is the ideas stirred in your own mind, the ideas which are a reflection of your own thinking, which make you an interesting person

What you don't do can be a destructive force.

When will our consciences grow so tender that we will act to prevent human misery rather than avenge it?

When you adopt the standards and the values of someone else … you surrender your own integrity. You become, to the extent of your surrender, less of a human being.

Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home - so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual person; the neighborhood he lives in; the school or college he attends; the factory, farm, or office where he works. Such are the places where every man, woman, and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere. Without concerted citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world.

Work is always an antidote to depression.

You always admire what you really don't understand.

You can never really live anyone else's life, not even your child's. The influence you exert is through your own life, and what you've become yourself.

You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, 'I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.' You must do the thing you think you cannot do.

Your life is your own. You mold it. You make it.

[bugaboo-valerie]

In light of the recent GoT fandom drama going on with Targ/Dany stans and their criticism/hate on Sophie Turner... I want to pop in and give my genuine opinion[s].

Last year, when I was seventeen-almost-eighteen and in my senior year of high school, I was going through a really awful time mentally. My grades were dropping, I was having anxiety attacks, was extremely unwell mentally and gained a bit of weight. It started at the end of January, which wasn’t too long before I discovered Sophie through the Jonas Brothers’ documentary (as I’d been a fan of them since childhood, and was so excited when they got back together, so I watched it on Amazon Prime as soon as I could). When I searched her up online for the first time, one of the first things that came up was her interview on Dr. Phil where she spoke about her depression. I didn’t regularly watch him nor was I really a fan of his (more so indifference than anything), but I wanted to watch it to hear what she had to say as I was going through a hard time myself. As I began to watch more and more of her, I really began to love her as a person and think of her as my role model, and hearing her own story made me have hope that I would make it through my own hard times (and I did soon enough). Safe to say, she means a lot to me, and is one of my favorite celebrities and actors for her awareness, activism and in general, I really love and admire her as a person.

Back on topic - as someone who’s part-black (black, white, Latina and Brazilian, but not 25% of each yet with the ethnicity of my grandparents and great-grandparents on both sides), I think it’s sick that so many Dany stans want to accuse Sophie of saying the n-word and trying to make her into a racist/the Antichrist just because they don’t care for her. Instead of trying to start rumors about an actress/actor you don’t like and trying to make them into a terrible person with questionable views/politics/opinions etc., why don’t you focus on actual non-black celebs who’ve said the n-word or other racist/offensive slurs? And not to mention, there are so few white celebrities who are being genuine right now when it comes to the current protests and movements, and as a WOC/POC, I can TELL when someone is being genuine. And imo, Sophie 100% is. Not everyone who likes her is white, and you may never know; she, Sansa or both could mean a whole lot to many people outside of a fictional character on-screen, and I’m one of them. She and her character can mean a lot to people who were depressed like Sophie herself, or who went through emotional, psychological, physical and sexual abuse like Sansa. Regardless of color, gender, class and sexuality, as a LOT of people like to say that all her stans are rich cishet white girls

But it doesn’t stop there with their Sophie hate - and even though they happened a while ago, the following few I’ll discuss beneath the cut are also quite... sick.

Let’s start off with what they’ve said just this year about Sophie’s pregnancy. Nothing, and I repeat, NOTHING that anyone else in the fandom has done, no matter who they are will ever beat that level of vileness. There’s no excuses for anyone who did that, regardless of who they are (sexuality/gender, race, religion and disabilities are no excuse to be a disgusting POS who wishes harm on a pregnant woman, Janet). No question, they deserved to be called out and criticized for those actions (the Dany stans who did, not the ones who were actively against it and called out their own kind). I’m not even going to get into this one, because anyone with common sense or any type of morals should know just WHY what they said about Sophie’s pregnancy was so fucking sick and wrong. And if you don’t/disagree with me, please, block and unfollow me ASAP.

And the second one is revolving around a rather controversial topic in the fandom: The reunion special.

Let’s start with the story of how the drama in the fandom all went down: Sophie made a joke about Kit showing up to set drunk, it was completely harmless to everyone except for Dany/Targ/Emilia stans who decided that Sophie was the Antichrist and were having fits of unholy screeching in their corners.

But before people can twist my words, no, I do NOT think that it’s funny to make jokes about addiction. It’s so fucking distasteful, and I can get exactly why some people are triggered/upset by it. But, keep in mind that the special was actually filmed in June 2018. A long time before anyone in the cast or the media and people knew about Kit’s addiction. Of course, I’m NOT saying that I would defend her if she already knew and still proceeded to make jokes about it - because I wouldn’t. I’m just saying that she didn’t know and was genuinely joking, so I’m going to give her the benefit of the doubt in that particular situation. Nobody knew about Kit’s struggles then, as it was filmed in 2018, and not 2019 like a lot of people. I love Kit as well, and did feel sorry for him when his drinking problem was revealed, but Sophie genuinely didn’t know, so I won’t bash or chastise her for her comments.

And while we’re on the topic of Kit’s drinking problem - didn’t some Targ stans on Twitter say he ‘deserved’ it because of Jon killing Dany? And their hatred towards the cast doesn’t just stop at him; Isaac, Maisie, Nikolaj, John Bradley and I believe Lena had to experience it too (after Cersei killed Missandei), however, I could be wrong. But TL/DR: It’s sick that Targ stans would start such awful rumors about Sophie just because they dislike her and stan for Dany/Emilia (who, while I like her, DEFINITELY has her flaws off-screen and I have disagreed with several comments she’d made and some things she’s done). Racism isn’t a funny joke you can get away with and start rumors about a celeb you don’t like doing racist things just for shits and giggles or because you hate them for absolutely zero reason.

Now, don’t get me wrong - there ARE bad/toxic Sansa and Sophie stans. Every fandom has shitty fans, and just about every character/celebrity does too. And it’s true that they CAN be gross - but they don’t even come CLOSE to the level that Her Satanic Majesty/EC’s stans do. And if you have to completely and utterly destroy and demonize one character (Sansa) to make another look good (Dany), like a lot of Dany stans have done in their own original content (along with the crosstagging, but I won’t get into that here), you’re only proving just how bad your fave is.

[lawrising-a]

( continued from here! // @pseudoneiric )

there's a sore sensation nestling against the sensitive skin of his wrist -- not rubbed raw, exactly, considering his tie is too silky to achieve such a feat ( and he, desperately, tried to move as little as possible ) but it still stings. a chiding reminder of what he allowed to happen not even minutes ago. yellow wrapped around him, completely bound and helpless ... it was something he can't say he's done before, not like that. he thinks the correct term would be bondage, but was it? gloved hands sinking beneath layers of flesh to expose the fluttering organs beneath, and expose her own in turn. call him crazy, but that's not what he thought bondage was about. but when was anything with lilian it's textbook definition? he can't blame anyone for his display of vulnerability except himself, completely ensnared with the girl the moment they crossed paths. there were times he watered down his attraction, for both their sakes, blaming her allure for his enchantment. yet lies come clean eventually and here he now perches. the edge of his mused bed, chest rising and falling more then it should as he burns with the black markings drifted upon his ivory skin. lipstick marks painting him in a light he's not used to. he's been stripped of all his warm tones and fake boy scout personas ; left in cool colors. green pants and black marks.

‘and what are you ... the sun?’ whispered a voice earlier, like every hushed word was a secret reserved between the two of them. mat rolls his shoulders, because he doesn't feel that way anymore. never has, honestly. he wants to be beaming lights with a killer gravitational pull, but he ... isn't. the colors on him now is a striking reminder of that : yet he replays lilian's maddening words and fools himself briefly. it's okay to believe lies when she's the one feeding them! as long as she believes it, why can't he humor it? everything she said had been a warped view, a funhouse mirror at those shifty carnivals -- but it was raw honesty from lilian, and he can't turn away the swell of attention. even if he should, even if mat should waltz into the bathroom where she's currently shrouding herself away and spill out the truth. let her know he isn't some angelic force but rather a mockery of one. how matthew naively hopes he can be hers regardless of his lack of good ... it's dizzying, causing his vision to blur, because it's been a while since he's confronted this about himself. the student doesn't like it. but oh, he loves her -- a burning sensation that lights his veins aflame and races his heart.

distractingly, he presses the pad of his rough thumb against the mark on the corner of his lips. a replica of a kiss she once bestowed upon him like salvation itself ( hm, what's with the spur of religious imagery today? hah ). trying to prod away the disappointment that rises every time he feels the wishful want of her actual lips there instead. she has to -- she has to feel something for him at this point, right? that can't be an assumption anymore, can it? questions whirl around as his fingers ghost down his ruined skin, tracing over the words left with his own hands like confirmation. like he's silently saying 'yes, property of lilian eyler.' like he's finally allowing himself a love he thought he wouldn't ever have when he traces, ‘mine. mine. mine-’ that ends with him working his way back up, away from the bulge of his stomach and trembling arms -- away from 'poetry, life, religion' and back to his lips. where he's reminded, with a fuzzy feeling balling up in his chest, 'mine.' almost pushing hard enough to slip a finger through his pink lips, plush and ready for ... mat isn't sure. he just wants her to kiss him there. though he knows she won't, least not today. and even if there's this sickening greed that controls him with a talent, he lets her have that. lets her take all her time in the bathroom and tries not to beg for more. how did she elegantly put in, in all her poetic prose that he's seen briefly in the club? a loyal dog? just for you now, only ever for you, lili--

a shiver rocks his form, startling his hands to the edge of the bed to tear into as he digs his heels into the carpet ( like he once had in the bed, to ground himself, to not buck ). was his pulse racing with the life she declared to adore so much? the man sinks canines into his cheek to hold back from beckoning her out to check. no, no ; he said he'd leave her be. it's a good thing for them both right now. if she had stayed and let the fabric obscuring his view fall from his eyes, he would've reached for her. try to pull them close and he'd ramble like a mad man ... wouldn't he have scared her? some part of him thinks he still has. which wobbles his posture in order to keep his head bowed, like awaiting punishment. almost waiting for pain building in his scalp, because surely she'd card her delicate laced fingers through his hair with a bit more force if she came back out. or was that his gentle throb of arousal wanting that? she got him worked up so easily ; ah, well, at least it's a good exercise for his thinning self control ...

a sigh, shaky and human, whistles out of parted lips. dry due to the fact he can't lick them thanks to the lipstick, though he can't help but wonder if he did -- would he be licking lilian's lips that way? the material touched them ... realizing how wild he is, a thoroughly teased animal, matthew laughs nervously. jesus christ, there's parts of him strewn all around his bedroom, because there's no way mat is fully put together. his brain feels like soupy liquid dripping from his ears and hissing into his scarlet skin. a puzzle of a man that lilian expertly took apart and left half completed. no matter how hard he tries to reel himself in, chase away all the sweetened morbidness delivered, he can't find all the pieces. surely, the clever girl took some with her to the bathroom. she was ... possessive. mat learned that just now. possessive over him, envious of basic things that matthew almost couldn't believe. she'll never know how comforting it was to see. a feeling now nestled happily within because nobody's been possessive of him before! she mustn't of gotten the memo from former friends, didn't hear how expendable he was to everyone who's known him. people don't get jealous for matthew, they don't care how much he sleeps, they don't care if he isolates away -- and they certainly don't care if his eyes linger on a girl with purple hair.

because who would find him special? he's an emotional wreck everyone stays weary of, a boy to eye with skepticism. his jealousy, his rawness, his obsessive love and need is wrong and ugly. you're shunned for those things by society. to the world, mat is anything but special, he's wrong ; so wrong and he's relentlessly tried to change that. but lilian ... she thinks otherwise. feels like he feels. sensitive and lovesick. and while he's always tried to hide before, if the girl with inky hair thinks it's beautiful and radiant ... everyone else must be wrong, because lilian eyler never is! as clever as the devil and twice as pretty, so the saying goes. with a rueful smile, too boyish and gentle for his own sharp face, he thinks it's an accurate fit for his favorite person ever. his throbbing molten core of earth, the darkened reflective surface of his beloved moon.

“im excited about lunch tomorrow, you know?” calls mat, voice as rough as ever ; like he uses it too much. but during this whole date, he fears he hasn't used it enough. “i haven't eaten with another person in a while. i usually just grab an apple and loiter around the library.” did you think i ate with yuri? though the fawn haired male doesn't ask, he quickly kills that assumption if it festered in lilian's mind. “if it goes well, we could ... ah, why don't we eat together from then on? maybe everyday? maybe forever! i think it'd be ... nice.”

the last part is so quiet he's not sure she hears it, but maybe she hears it die off. senses his shyness that bares him like it's her own. matthew doesn't want to dwell in it, so he tries to push forward. telling himself to keep tearing down the walls until there's nothing left ( the bathroom walls or his own? ). she deserves to hear more then his sputters from their little session, brought on by gutting arousal and his own jittery sparks : she deserves the world on an obsidian platter. to know he does want to be owned by her, to understand he'd be so comfortable displaying that label for all to see. and for lilian to be told, sternly, that he'd choose her out of a line up with certainty most would be scared of. love isn't half way for him, ever, and lilian needs to know that. even if his heart thunders and he wants to hear more of her disarming voice instead.

“and i want to be yours ; your idea with the whole 'blindly leading me around' wasn't half bad!” heartfelt chuckling makes him feel like he's vibrating out of his skin, her skin now, isn't it? “i'd let you blind me, i'd let you led me even if i was deaf and mute. you could be all my senses, because maybe then i'd trust them more. you don't know how much i wish these words on me were permanent, lilian --” mat twists his mouth, ruins his hair more. “darling, you just ... i've tried so hard to be normal this year, more then any other, yet you make me so helpless! it's ... how do you do that? do you know how special you are, how beautiful? perfect ... well, perhaps not that ; because you're stupid for worrying about not owning me. isn't it obvious you already do? were these reminders for me, or wishes for you?"

( eyes flutter to words he can barely read on his bared parts, words overlapping due to frenzy. all true. all true )

with a tightening throat, emotions rising like waves and god he could just drown, matthew lays back on the mattress. meekly pulling the tie out from under him, only to drag it over his used wrists. picturing only her. wondering if this sight would entice her to keep going when she comes out. and he wants to say lilian, you've won! congratulations on having a lover for life! or, something like : yuri couldn't pry me from your cold dead fingers! but what stumbles out is something foolish that he immediately grimaces over. hopefully she's too shaken to judge him too much.

“i think you're my soulmate, lilian. i .. really do.” so why would i ever let you go? or deem you unworthy? it's me, im unworthy. not you, never never -- his lashes tickle his skin when he shuts his eyes. breath hitching before evening out. reminding himself to calm down because matthew thinks he'll actually explode otherwise. a bundle of nerves, of her love, is all he really is.

[official-wayward-noctis]

Merthur Bingo - Prince Merlin

Whenever You Need Me (I Will Be Right There)

Merlin and Arthur go in search for the lost prince of Balinor's kingdom only to find he was right where he was suppose to be all along.

Ao3 Link here

After escaping Camelot, Balinor meets a woman and they had a child together, but he did know, and instead of going into exile, he went on his way and built a kingdom so that his child would live in a world where magic could be accepted. No matter what Uther Pendragon said. The other kingdoms tried to start a war but it never went in their favor. After one too many scrimmages, Uther and Balinor decided to finally after years and years of war make peace. Balinor only had one heir though but he figured the boy would be good enough for Arthur Pendragon. So he arranged the marriage giving the name Emrys for his son not wanting Uther to hunt Merlin down. Emrys was his son’s name in a way if you count the name the Druids call him. He had a while to find Hunith and his son. Uther wouldn’t be finding him anytime soon. Except Merlin wasn’t where he was supposed to be.

He couldn’t find his son. Hunith had sent him to Gauis and Gauis was where he was seen last with. Uther wanted Arthur to find Emrys before anyone else. Morgana thought it was a fool’s errand but Uther mentioned the boy is dangerous. Morgana though knew that whoever this Emrys was, could be an ally to their cause. Someone that could distract Arthur and take care of Uther. So Morgause would look into Emrys while Morgana tried to keep everyone from Uther. A race began between three sides trying to find the place of the prince as the Prince himself was now taking care of his future husband. Merlin was preparing for their trip to find the lost prince that was right there in the heart of Camelot. Merlin was confused about who this other Emrys was. He knew he was called Emrys by the druids but this was someone with the name.

“Do you think the prince was hidden because he was too dangerous or someone was planning on killing him?” Merlin asked Arthur.

“I don’t care about why he is hiding, I just suppose to bring him back,” Arthur said. “He is my future husband because of the arrangements that will bring peace between Balinor’s kingdom and my father’s kingdom.”

Merlin didn’t accept that though. Why hide a prince unless there was something endangering like Uther himself. Merlin didn’t know what they would find when they found the lost prince but he had a bad feeling about it.

~

Merlin and Arthur were riding for days with no lead on the prince. It was as if the boy didn’t exist at all.

“There is a prince, correct?” Merlin asked. Leon looked at him shocked that he was insinuating that the prince did not exist.

“Why would you think the prince was fake?” Leon asked.

“I heard a tale about an old man named Emrys who was the greatest sorcerer,” Merlin said. “The name is more of a druid name than anything else.”

“Look, Balinor still has old religion beliefs. Maybe he named his son after one of the old tales,” Arthur said defending the prince.

“We know nothing about Balinor’s son,” Merlin said.

“He is from Ealdor,” Leon said. Arthur and Merlin looked surprised by this news. “The king informed me that Balinor’s queen is from Ealdor and it would be her son that would be the prince.”

“Then why not go to Ealdor and find out who the mother is. I grew up with the other boys that are around the prince’s age. I would know who he was upon arriving at Ealdor,” Merlin suggested.

“Fine, you and Leon make the trip while the rest of the knights and I head to the other part of the kingdom,” Arthur said.

“What if we went together?” Merlin suggested feeling better if Arthur was with him and not in any danger. Arthur hesitated but eventually agreed with Merlin as they told Leon the plan. Leon was more vocal about the prince leaving but they finally convinced him as they went to Ealdor to find more on the missing prince. They didn’t know that they were the only ones who thought of doing that. Morgause had sent men to ask about the woman who stole King Balinor’s heart was. Arthur and Merlin saw them as they arrived and listened in to their conversation. The men were talking to villagers and scaring them.

“Why send men to bother us when we are a small town?” one of the men said.

“We are only looking for the lost prince,” Arthur and Merlin both knew that Cenred was onto the two kingdoms coming together. They had to find the lost prince.

“We know nothing about Prince Emyrs. We told King Balinor that as well when he came to take his wife home,” the man from earlier said to the men attacking his village.

“Who was that woman?” Arthur and Merlin knew they had to protect the village.

“Hunith,” the man said and like that it felt like Merlin’s world froze. His mother was not here. His mother had left with Balinor. Arthur seemed to realize what the man said and went to pull Merlin away so they could escape. “Her son lives in Camelot though as we told Balinor. No one would be able to find the boy. He was deep in the city and had some friends that were very powerful.” Merlin finally snapped out of it as Arthur dragged him back to their horses so they could get out of Cendred’s kingdom and back to where they needed to be. Merlin stayed quiet for most of the ride. Arthur was going to turn him in before he even had a chance to see his father who was alive.

“I won’t tell anyone what we heard,” Arthur voiced suddenly. “You didn’t know either from the way you reacted and I rather give you time to process what we learned. We can tell my father that we gathered nothing from this journey.”

“Thank you,” Merlin said. They rode in silence for a while before Arthur made them stop to make camp for the night. Merlin agreed to start getting stuff ready when he was stopped by Arthur.

“Let me help you,” Arthur told him.

“I’m your servant,” Merlin reminded Arthur.

“We both know that isn’t true,” Arthur’s words remind Merlin all over again that he was actually a prince. A prince who was tied to Arthur because of marriage not as a guardian.

“You know I was once told we were two sides of the same coin,” Merlin told Arthur. “I just figured it meant we were supposed to do something greater than getting married to unite the kingdoms.”

“Maybe we will do something greater,” Arthur said. “Besides you are Balinor’s only son. You might just decide to take over his kingdom instead.”

“What would that accomplish? It’s not Camelot. I know Camelot. I might disagree with some of the laws but I love living in Camelot. Plus I wouldn’t know how to rule a kingdom. I would just pass it on to the first person who seemed more qualified than me.” Arthur touched Merlin’s shoulder stopping the other from ranting.

“I could teach you how to run a kingdom,” Arthur told him.

“I would have to leave your side and you wouldn’t last one week without me,” Merlin told Arthur.

“Contrary to popular belief, I can take care of myself,” Arthur told Merlin.

“Who would dress you if I was gone, take care of your horses, polish your armor, and make sure you eat?” Merlin reminds him. “And that is not all my chores I do for you, my highness.”

“Well we can begin to lessen those so you can focus on other things,” Arthur told him.

“I don’t want to be King,” Merlin admitted.

“Then you don’t have to take over your father’s kingdom. Merlin, as of right now, you could continue to live in Camelot and no one would ever know you are Balinor’s son,” Arthur told him. Merlin knew he was right. “Now let’s set up camp so we get some sleep before tomorrow.” Merlin agreed. Merlin tells Arthur he would take the first watch that night knowing he needed to think about everything. That had happened to him recently. Especially knowing Arthur was not going to force any decision on him or tell Uther about who Merlin really was. He was grateful for that but part of him wondered what Uther would do if he found out. Especially that Merlin was born with magic.

~

The ride back continued as Arthur was allowing the silent ride instead of asking why Merlin was so quiet because he already knew the answer. He knew why Merlin was being so quiet. So now Merlin and Arthur were meeting up with the knights and they were being their normal selves and Leon noticed that Merlin was being too quiet.

“Sir, did something happen in Ealdor?” Leon asked, worried about Merlin. Merlin who was loyal to Arthur no matter what. Leon trusted whatever Merlin said about Arthur and knew Merlin would do anything even when he was accused of being unloyal.

“We didn’t find the prince or anything. Merlin feels bad about it so don’t bring it up around him,” Arthur told Leon. Leon believed the prince so he stayed quiet but he did notice how Arthur was treating Merlin differently. Something else had to happen when they were in Ealdor. Merlin probably wouldn’t say anything for a few days but Leon planned to talk with him on the subject. Merlin was his friend even if they couldn’t be friends. He knew how important the servant was to Arthur. Whatever was bothering Merlin was important enough that Arthur had made a comment about Merlin being upset. It must have been something to do with Merlin’s mother, Hunith.

~

Merlin knew Leon was on to them about not telling him everything. Merlin just didn’t know who he could trust. Besides Gauis but Gauis knew already. Merlin had run to Arthur after Gauis told him and had fallen asleep in Arthur's chambers complaining about how Gauis should have told him. Should have said something.

“Gauis cares for you. He probably thought he was protecting you by not telling you,” Arthur informed Merlin. Merlin knew he was right but he still had fallen asleep in Arthur’s chambers and had to deal with the embarrassment that caused him. Arthur told him it was fine but he knew that Arthur was just saying that so he wouldn’t feel bad about it. Arthur did keep his word about teaching him how to rule a kingdom. Even had Leon give him some training when the knights were.

“Why the sudden urge to train Merlin how to fight?” Leon asked.

“He almost got hurt on our journey from Ealdor and I rather have him trained so he can help fight since he is always getting himself into trouble,” Arthur told Leon. Leon agreed to train Merlin which meant Leon spent some time trying to figure out what was going on with the other man. Merlin had been going through something and he wasn’t giving it away. He just pretended that everything was normal but Leon knew Arthur and Merlin were still hiding something. He tried asking Merlin but Merlin told him nothing happened before they went back to focusing on training. Leon figured he would have better luck with getting something out of Arthur then he would with Merlin. Yet, Arthur was as closed lips about the subject. He knew he would find out whatever happened with time but for now he would have to wait until Merlin or Arthur told him.

~

Morgana smiled as Uther and Arthur joined her for dinner. Merlin was with Arthur though Arthur seemed annoyed that he was following him like a puppy.

“I can wait to look over those until later,” Merlin said.

“I insist that you look over those now,” Arthur said. Uther and Morgana watched the two bickering.

“I’m supposed to serve you,” Merlin reminded Arthur. Arthur gave in as he sat down frustrated. Merlin grabbed a pitcher of wine from the kitchen to make sure Arthur’s wine was topped off.

“What if Merlin sits down with us?” Morgana offered. Uther looked at her strangely as Arthur and Merlin watched her waiting for a response.

“The boy is just a servant,” Uther reminded Morgana.

“Is he?” Morgana asked. “He has been training with Leon lately.”

“There was an incident where it was just me and Merlin and Merlin can’t defend himself. I wanted to make sure that he was able to for his own safety,” Arthur responded.

“He also has been studying books.” Merlin wondered if Morgause had passed on something to Morgana.

“Books on polishing. He needs some tips. I’m seeing if reading helps him since he can read.” Arthur seemed to look at Merlin who knew he would have to tell him about Morgana. He might need to tell the prince more if it came to it.

“Leon seems to be asking about a trip to Ealdor.”

“We went to see my ill mother,” Merlin finally said. The group went to look at him. “She died when we got there just holding on to see me. We didn’t feel like it was right to tell the other knights. While there I questioned people on any missing women to find out who the prince was but that led to a dead end.”

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Morgana said. Uther didn’t see anything but Morgana and Merlin were staring at each other. Arthur noticed now though. He watched the two wondering what Merlin was hiding about Morgana. Dinner became them talking about the hunt for the missing prince. Morgana didn’t say much but she was watching Merlin with an interest that Arthur didn’t like. Merlin seemed to be quiet for the rest. Which was normal but Arthur knew something was bothering him. When he finally got away from dinner, he made sure Merlin followed him back to his chamber. Merlin worked to clean up the room but Arthur stopped him.

“What was going on with Morgana?” Arthur asked.

“It's a long story,” Merlin told him.

“Then start talking,” Arthur told him. Merlin looked at the prince and knew he couldn’t hide what he knew about Morgana but when he told the tale, he noticed he started letting Arthur hear everything which brought the prince listening to everything that happened since he got to Camelot.

“Arthur?” Merlin asked after he was done and it had been silent for a bit too long.

“Morgana is my sister who has magic, you are a sorcerer, and Gauis knows all of this,” Arthur repeated. Merlin nodded. Arthur stayed silent before he looked at Merlin. “Can you show me?”

“Show you proof about Morgana? Probably not but I think she might know. She and Morgause work together. They actually tried to kill me, remember,” Merlin was about to say more about the incident but Arthur seemed to stop him.

“I meant your magic,” Arthur said. Merlin hesitated before he made a flower appear for Arthur. Arthur looked at the flower as he held on to it. He didn’t know what to tell Merlin.

“I only use it for you Arthur,” Merlin told him. Arthur pulled Merlin close and hugged him.

“Thank you,” Arthur told him. Merlin was shocked to hear that from the prince. Arthur pulled away and looked at Merlin. “We will take down Morgana and when we become king then the land will be free and people will be allowed to use magic again without fear.” Merlin was surprised but he didn’t say anything else as Arthur told him his plans. He just knew that whatever happened he would be by his prince’s side, as a royal or not.

[twisted-leader-of-something]

Background Information - Types of Magicians

I suppose I should say this: If you want to use these concepts of magicians in your own OCs, I don’t mind. I don’t require credit to use this concept, since even if you claim you made it, I still know who put the blood sweat, and tears into this. Please just don’t be a dick about it though. You can mention me if you want to give credit. Questions are also okay! It helps develop the concepts and other may have the same question! My inbox is pretty empty most of the time, anyway. 

Natural Born Magicians -  These are the general population of magicians. They are people born with magical powers, which is believed to come from a trait most people in Twisted Wonderland are born with that is either one of three things when a child is born:

With the Activated Power or has the MM (Magician’s Mark) Trait - When a person is born with active magic, meaning they can use all forms of magic that a magician can do with minimum Blot usage - Most of the TWST cast have this trait as far as we know, excluding Ortho (Ortho is considered in a grey area of Awakened and Deal-Bound) and Ace Trappola

With the Passive Power or has the Mm (Lower Magician’s Mark) Trait - When a person is born with passive magic, meaning they can do certain types of magic like alchemy or potions that require low amounts of magic to preform, and while they can use all types of magic, it costs much more blot to do - Ace Trappola has this trait, as he says his father can’t use magic. 

Or with No Power or the mm (Lack of Magician’s Mark) Trait - When a person is born the lack of ability to use magic at all 

As to the reason a person can get the Magician’s Mark, according to a study done, the Magician’s Mark is in essence trait that is what marks someone when a person starts to use magic, wither they know it or not. All races can have the Mark, and the Mark is the same trait for all of the races. Not all Marks are the same, as since it is genetic, it is believed the power of an individual is dependent on two factors, their family’s magic usage in the past and capacity for magic of which is heavily dependent on race. 

As to why the Magicians’ Mark exists, that is still unknown. But it is speculated that Twisted Wonderland once had so few people who could magic but later that trait become essential for living in some way that eventually it developed into a trait of it itself, or that it was a natural trait that developed in the other races when the Fae started to interact with the other races. Different religions say different things about how magic came to be, and it would take a long time to list all of the reasons religion has given. 

Awakened Magicians - These are the other common type of magician that can be found in the modern day. These are people learning magic without a history of magic in their bloodline, which is significantly more difficult than those born with the power, as the amount of blot they can get from using a spell is unstable. While it is unclear how exactly this works, an Awakened Magician has the ability to pick and choose what they do with their magic, as in, they can choose to use very little of it, or use a lot of it at the cost of Mana. This group of Magicians are often compared to a free trail companies will use to get people interested in their product or service, but with the cost of using lots and lots of Mana. 

It is unclear why Awakened Magicians have such power, and there are many, many rumor surrounding these types of Magician’s powers, like for instance Magic is Gods-given in some way or Fae-given, but, there is one in particular that stands out due to the controversies around it. It is said that Magic used to be used a lot because of some sort of really bad thing in Twisted Wonderland at the time, and because of the force that Magic was used against all races have a chance to use magic to protect themselves, even if just once. 

These types of Magicians are favored among Magicians, as they are considered intelligent and diligent for there efforts to learn magic. But, there is some prejudice with these wizards for in essence being ‘unworthy to use magic in such a way’, this kind of thought is mostly found among the high-class and stuck-up noble wizarding families. 

Deal-Bound Magicians - Also called ‘One Bound of the Courts’ ‘Fosterling of the Un/Seelie Court’ ‘Impetuous Fool’ in Andalasian, or ‘Ward of Our Kind/[Person Who Gives The Magic]’ ‘Hasty Child of Man’ among the Fae kind - These magicians are not common nowadays in the modern society, but do exist if you know what to look for.  

Deal-Bound Magicians are in essence Magicians that share their magical power with another person, who may or may not be magical. But to most, Deal-Bound Magicians are either those who are completely depends on another being for magic supply (as the person either has Lack of Magician’s Mark or has magic power too weak to use in any capacity, as the Deal work by in essence sharing the combined magic power the two have) or those who have agreed to give their power to another in exchange for something (which depends on the contract the people have agreed to, but typically it’s something like servitude or Mana usage), as, these people are these are the only Deal-Bound Magicians currently allowed in current society, as Deal-Bound Magicians, while still allowed, face lots and lots of rules, some of which even vary by country. And, even these people are rare enough as the situation of these magicians it is. 

What binds the two people that share magic together, also known as the Deal [Yes, it is capitalized. It is considered that important by most] is in essence the contract the people who’ve agreed to a deal to share their power in exchange for something. It is the only known consistent contract that is an Absolute Contract, meaning anything and everything can apply to the contact if it is agreed upon, it cannot be changed by outside forces besides those who have made the contract, and all conditions and qualifiers will be met, no matter the cost. Those who’ve made a Deal have a special symbol that can be seen when they use magic found above their head or on their wrists which is indicates shared power and is believed to give the magical power as well, which most either cannot see (because of how quickly the symbol comes and goes) or are not sure about unless they know about what the symbol means, ((which, in the story’s content currently means you’re either from Andalasia’s Nobleman class, a member of Fae, or a scholar of Magic (which, for reference, out of the character we know, Quentin Nighty-Sallow, Malleus Draconia and Lilia Vanrouge know what the symbol is. While Riddle Rosehearts, Leona Kingscholar, and Jamil Viper may or may not.)))

While on paper all Races and People can use this concept since it is an Absolute Contract and anybody can become a Deal-Bound Magician since it such a broad category, there are lots of rules around Deal-Bound Magicians that make it nearly impossible to do in modern society, since there is so much stigma around Deal-Bound Magicians due to an terrifying pair of Deal-Bound Magicians that terrorized the Land of Pyroxene for four years, as well as some magical limitations one may have. The rules and exceptions to the rules of Deal-Bound Magicians are numerous that Riddle says he couldn’t read the actual rules and instead had to read a simplified version of it because there are so many. And, the rules have lots of controversy around them if they still apply today due to the rules being almost a decade old, and if it’s already okay to have rules limiting a easy way for anyone to become a magician. As for Magical limitations, there is something called the Deal Limitation which is believed to substitute Blot as Blot doesn’t seem to apply to well to Deal-Bound Magicians as it easily gets out of control and can lead to Overblot easily. But, for some reason, this Deal Limitation or sometimes known as Fleck or Force, acts as a sort of middle man and acts a limiter of Blot, at the cost of something which varies from a number of factors like Race and Family History of Magic similar to how Blot works. As to what it takes in exchange for limiting Blot, it is unknown what exactly it takes. But it is believed to take lifeforce or reproduction ability of a person, due to past Deal-Bound Magician’s experience that has been written down. Which, is why it is considered so dangerous to most people, and another part of controversy around Deal-Bound Magicians. In the modern day, a Deal-Bound Magician is Fae make a deal with someone of another race (there’s even a stereotype around this) due to Fae’s long lifespan and magical power and the other’s abilities. 

It is not known why Deal-Bound Magicians exists, but it is speculated that Deal-Bound Magicians are a product of something like an Awakened Magician. As in, it was a way for people to gain magic when it was desperately needed, though, this also has it’s fair share of theories and religious explanation surrounding it. 

[pcgamepure09]

Extraordinary and Bad in Gaming

Gaming is most likely the best diversion and even livelihoods in the world. People wreck around for amusement just or learning while others record accounts about the games. In this article, I will focus in extra on gaming itself and less the side of how to make gaming accounts. Gamers come in each exceptional age, genders, religions, regions and shapes. The establishments of people who are gamers make gaming extensively more fun.

Establishments of gamers can have an effect in the sort of games that people play. There are a wide scope of blends for different arrangements relating to the sort of games and kind of gamers. You really need to look at the game's site to get every one of the proper information prior to buying PC Game Pure .

There are various online stages where you can buy games from like Steam or Humble Bundle. Those districts will give you the portrayal, accounts by the association, pictures, customer and non-customer marks, reviews, site, association and their social account(s). Realize the game's site likely will not show you all that you require to know. As a base, a gaming association will show a short endeavor to make it happen depiction, restricted amount of pictures (5, most ideal situation, several accounts by them and their social records. The most they will give is an illuminating portrayal, their social records, customer studies and accounts by them.

We should make a dive straightforwardly into what is viewed as negative with respect to gaming. The greater part of the cynical things about games come from the certifiable people on those games, the kind of games and the sorts of games for some unsuitable person. A game can be bad quality yet it's not by and large the circumstance where the real game is horrendous. It might be where it was some unsuitable kind of game for some inadmissible person. This is where the classes come in. Perhaps a game has a bit of mercilessness. That doesn't make it horrendous; it basically makes it some inadmissible kind of game for a seven year old. Of course maybe you bought a conundrum game for a person who loves movement type games. So the movement loving individual won't see the value in it, yet that doesn't make the conundrum game terrible!

The sorts of games are ceaseless from bareness, meds and alcohol, detestability, wagering with money to say the very least. These different sorts aren't ideal for youth gamers similarly as misguided for people who could do without seeing such things.

Gaming has incredible and awful sides really like the wide range of various things. The key is the means by which extraordinary and dreadful are those sides. For example, a couple of games have an awful side with players that like to fight a ton. This is typical in games. Appreciate for a huge load of gamers this is surely not a big deal; in any case, for youth who are new to the game or regardless, gaming in general this can be disillusioning. There are times when you need to avoid the awful sides all together. There are times when the incredible balances the awful. Accepting this happens and there are no issues with the real game; the awful side is just that one insignificant fly in your room which is no big deal. Alert: If the horrendous balances the incomparable, I would unequivocally recommend avoiding that game.

Another viewpoint that people will disturb a game architect or creator about is depiction. Should I say, a shortfall of depiction which isn't confined to race, body type and message in the game. Accepting you can change your individual, clearly you will not dislike depiction. There is an issue in specific games where they don't address strong and sharp females, minority females and folks, immense, little, tall, and short females and folks. Notice how I didn't put "folks" after female for strong? That is because folks in games are ALWAYS tended to as strong and insightful.

In games that show a male strong and quick, he will generally likely be white, tall, unstable, superstar looking and buff. You will inconsistently see him be a minority, short, stout, not buff, quirky looking, while at this point being strong and sharp. You see this even LESS for females. A couple of females in games are also white, tall, feeble and strong while showing skin like no tomorrow. You simply see THESE females in MMORPG games (Massively Multiplayer online Role Playing Game) be that as it may. RPG games are planned for lala lands where you for the most part fight people and monsters. Clearly the females' subtleties will be strong anyway they won't look strong.

In many games, when they add an individual for you to play they for the most part add a white male first, then a white female, then a dim male, and a short time later a dim female. They don't even really add people who are mixes of races or in the center. With respect to the dull characters they simply add one shade of "dim" or "African American" and not many out of each odd person of shading on earth is that shade.

In games, the vast majority of the characters are for each situation unstable and tall. You don't really see characters that are short and feeble, tall and tubby, short and stout, etc There are a numerous people who aren't unstable and who aren't tall.

Then at long last, there is the mental message that goes with the sexual direction, race, and body type. What do I mean by the mental message? A couple of games send a roundabout message in regards to that character being strong and sharp or something else. While for various games it will in general be a mental message either purposefully or not. For example, in the game you play and you see a minority female who is short, full, nerdy looking and her ascribes are to be a dolt, guiltless, and moronic. It could send a mental message to you that people that seem like her are actually similar to her. They're not sharp, they aren't thin, and are not tall. They did incapably in school, et cetera So you start thinking those things subject to not simply seeing this in that game over and over, anyway when it happens in various games also.

The most really terrible part is NONE of these things are legitimate. Without a doubt, certain people aren't shaky, tall, and maybe not unreasonably splendid; but instead not EVERYONE is like this! You do have short stout minorities who are shrewd as anyone might imagine! You have a wide scope of mixes of people who ARE astute! Clearly, this heap of things about sexual direction, race, body type, and messages aren't just in gaming; they're in films, TV shows, advancements, etc Intriguing that a piece of the producers who make the games, movies, TV shows, advancements, etc, are minorities themselves and they make up the quantity of occupants in the earth. (Search "all out people by race 2016" and click the underlying three associations if you don't confide in me.)

Fast disclaimer: I AM NOT BASHING ANYONE! Without a doubt, I was hollering that. This section of the article is referencing to you what I know, read, hear and experience in gaming.

If you don't believe me go gander at the current TV shows, movies, commercials, and games. A show to look at for extraordinary depiction is Milo Murphy's Law. Two games to look at as a wellspring of viewpoint for extraordinary depiction are OverWatch and Atlas Reactor. By and by in these fields it has improved for depiction unequivocally sex, race and as of late starting body type (expressly in a particular request). A couple of games even add robots and creatures as playable characters to do whatever it takes not to have issues with depiction. This kills the issue of customers requiring an individual to address their genuine or supported sexual direction, race, or body type since now there is an individual most customers can yield to. In light of everything, it's impractical to fulfill everyone.

OK, since I ranted and moved the awful stuff; we ought to get into the incredible bits of gaming! You have gamers as energetic as three years old and as old as 90+! Despite your age, race, sex, religion, culture, or region gaming can be valuable for anyone. Gaming can not solely be fun, yet productive and enlightening.

A benefit with gaming is it can help youth with having more confidence in themselves and be all the more cordial. If they play an online multiplayer game and talk with various players all through the planet, this can help then with becoming familiar with bantering with others other than family and they procure trust in what they're saying. They can go from a smart individual to a social fan! It can happen fast or progressively. Whether or not it's everything except a game anyway a spot for gamers, trained professionals, style originators, vehicle darling, etc to talk; it will regardless help them with being all the more well disposed. Recollect in any case, creating to someone and thereafter voice visiting to someone are two novel experiences. Youth can be incredibly amicable when creating yet especially meek when voice visiting.

[queertheology]

7 Habits of Highly Effective Allies

You started down the road of being an ally for LGBT people and now you find yourself realizing that this is hard work, that you don’t have it all figured out, and that sometimes people still get upset with you. Fear not! I put together seven habits of highly effective allies which will help get you started and keep you going in the right direction. Whether you are brand new in your support of LGBTQ people or years in the making, you’ll learn something from this.

1) CONTINUE YOUR EDUCATION

There’s more to being an ally than saying “It’s not a sin to be queer.” Once you get there, keep going. Learn about the many needs of LGBTQ people: housing, employment, health care, immigration, education, safety. Meet with queer people that aren’t on billboards and in TV ads. Learn about the needs of homeless queer youth, of genderqueer people, of kids who are transitioning, of immigrant queers, of serodiscordant couples. This is a lifetime journey and you will be so much more effective when you embrace growth and learning all along the way, always refusing to stagnate.

2) PASS THE MIC

It’s great that you are willing to speak up for us. World changing in fact. Step one is to recognize that you, as a straight cisgender person, receive unearned benefits at the expense of LGBTQ people. It is easier for you to get into school, to be ordained, to get married, to immigrate, to seek medical attention, to be published, to be invited to speak at a conference. You need to know and recognize this. And then you need to do something about it. Refuse to speak on straight-only panels. Invite LGBT people along on your speaking gigs. Interview or guest post LGBT writers, theologians, businesspeople, actors, artists, and activists on your blog or website. Recommend or distribute resources created by queer people rather than answering the question yourself.

3) REMEMBER THAT OPPRESSION IS AN ONION

Even straight white males are not immune from marginalization. Perhaps you are Muslim. Maybe you are in recovery from drug or alcohol addiction. Or have spent time in jail. Or have a mental health condition. Or a physical disability. Maybe your body size is not the one idealized by our culture.

There are a variety of ways that straight men and women suffer marginalization: gender, race, skin color, ethnicity, religion, body size, physical and mental capacities, disease/carrier status, incarceration record… the list goes on. You don’t need to be perfect. In fact, recognizing the ways in which we are both oppressor and oppressed is a key step in a path toward liberation for all. Allow us to work in solidarity with you too. You don’t need to be our savior (and we don’t need to be yours). We can be in this together, as partners!

4) GET IN THE WAY

We can speak for and defend ourselves and still there are times when we want your help. It can be tiring to explain over and over again why we think it’s OK to be gay or why we need to transition. Help us when we are exhausted by taking over those conversations. Stand in the way–literally–when people denigrate us with their words. My good friend Sam Crowell spoke up when a man entered our church and started spewing anti-gay rhetoric. As someone who works in solidarity with LGBTQ people, it’s important that when push comes to shove, you’ll have our back, you’ll get in the way, you’ll act up. It may be uncomfortable, it might get you in trouble, that’s part of the package: welcome to our lives.

5) GET MESSY

Let’s be honest right up front: straight people will give you flack for being difficult and pushy, for always talking about “the gay thing,” and for being hypersensitive. And queer people will give you flack for not doing enough, for being too patient, for not doing it right. At some point, you might lose friends, family, money, or jobs. Jay Bakker lost almost all funding for his church, Revolution NYC. This is messy stuff. Embrace the mess, get messy.

Be willing to be uncomfortable. Be gracious and thankful when corrected. Allow yourself to let go of the comfort and safety that comes privilege. It’s messy work and it is also gratifying, life-giving, sacred work. And with a heaping of grace, we can all get through this.

6) ENGAGE IN OTHER SOLIDARITY WORK

Make sure that as you pursue freedom for LGBT people, you don’t throw other people under the bus. Don’t demonize unmarried people, polyamorous people, pagans, or feminists to help us gain rights. Don’t forget about queer people living under US military occupation, or indigenous queer people whose stolen lands we live on. Don’t ever say “They’re just like you, not like those people.” There’s enough room for everyone. Foster alliances and collaborations, rather than divisions.

7) LISTEN TO US

I saved the most important one for last so it will be fresh in your mind. This is absolutely crucial. Listen to us. Always. Without exception. If we tell you that what you said is hurtful or harmful, it is: apologize and stop it. If we tell you that your strategy is counterproductive, stop it. If we tell you that you’re doing a great job, believe us! If we tell you that your association with a person or organization undermines our trust in you, it does.

You might disagree, we might be at odds with your friends, it might be uncomfortable. If you want to work in solidarity with us, you need to trust us. This is about us, our needs, our safety, our liberation.

BONUS: FOCUS MORE ON WORKING IN SOLIDARITY RATHER THAN SELF-IDENTIFYING AS AN ALLY

Instead of self-identifying as an “ally” focus more on working in solidarity with LGBTQ people. Calling yourself an ally places the focus on yourself rather than on LGBTQ liberation. It also presumes that you are doing productive, useful work. Many straight people are (Jay Bakker and Onlielove Alston are excellent examples). If you are, we’ll tell you! Instead, focus on the work that needs to be done and on partnering with and following LGBTQ. We need to claim our lives, humanity, autonomy, and freedom. We absolutely want you along for the journey and at the same time we do not want you to (even accidentally) revictimize us by taking away our voices, agenda, and self-direction.

LEARN MORE ABOUT TRANSGENDER THEOLOGY

This fall, we’ll be hosting a course completely dedicated to transgender theology. The course will be geared both toward transgender Christians and to cisgender folks who want to learn from and better serve transgender folks. In addition to the lesson materials, there will be both open and closed discussion spaces.

There’s nothing like this out there, so we’re creating it.

Hop on the waitlist to make sure you get a spot (and snag some exclusive extras)

[maiismsworld]

SUMMARIZATION OF IMPORTANT ETERNAL TRUTHS IN SUPPORT OF THE UNIVERSAL RELIGION OF UNIVERSAL GOD OF MAI-ISM FOR THE NEW AGE

1) No race, nation, community, society, family or individual can be ever truly happy, unless there is at least a superior morality, an unflinching faith in God, a clear crystal conscience and a penetrative righteous understanding about spirituality, and a conviction about the never-failingness of the Divine Law and a perfect censorship in the matter of passions and moderation of one's varied desires.

2) Any deep study of the religious integrity or disintegrity of any nation and it having been happy or unhappy during a certain period will bear out the said truth although of course the good or bad seeds-sowing and its rich or poor harvest-reaping may differ in their times by 30, 50, 100 or even more years. Sometimes another equally observable truth is seen, viz., that the finalmost Western point at one end turns out to be the extreme Eastern point and staunchest religiosity on gradual advancement always follows the most rabid irreligiosity. Nations that have gone to the extremity of godlessness do realize their own follies through unbearable sufferings, and turn a new page of morality, religiosity, spirituality, love and wisdom. Since past 300 to 500 years the said transformation age has brought upon the world every course of conflict, quarrelling warfare, in almost all the regions of human activity and living. The only exception is that of the special region of the higher realized godly persons of any religion and any nation.

3) The first happy change in realizing the need of living with virtue, character, sympathy, love and service having been achieved (which work has to be actually undertaken), there can be the dawn for the sun of true religiosity to rise. In another word, the next forward step from virtue, morality and character is the truest religiosity of the inner-most inherent nature of any religion.

4) The highest supreme Almighty having fully considered different conditions of the various portions of humanity viz., their climates, geographical environments, inherent natures, surrounding flora-fauna, external and internal forces, etc., has through the highest religious souls of each humanity portion, prescribed certain ways of guidance consolidated together, have formed different religions for various groups of mankind. The end and aim kept in view during the gradual development of any religion by God and God-directed highest religious personages, has all along been one alone, viz., that on strictly living life according to the requirements of any religion, each and every human being that has embraced that religion, may live in peace and happiness, generally and on the whole.

5) The simplest precaution so that there be no complication, confusion or conflict regarding religion is (according to Mai-ism) that there should be a clear, almost impermeable specific understanding regarding each of the three principal elements, viz., (a) God, (b) Religiosity, (c) Religion.

6) According to Mai-ism, religiosity is never confused with religion. Religiosity means the condition of having attained a certain status regarding moral, mental, religious and spiritual development, on having lived out the requirements of a particular religion. It is with this difference of religiosity and religion, that Maiism specially emphasizes the truth stated on page 11 of Mother's Message, viz., "Preachers are to be witnesses and not lawyers".

7) Religions differ from each other to quite a large extent. If, however, under the all=embracing crude word of religion a distinction is made as between religion and religiosity, a world of difference and bitterness will disappear. Compared to what a great gulf lies between one religion and another, if the religious world is trained to see the so-called religious differences through the test of "religiosity", it would be quite surprisingly seen that all religions are much nearer to each other than when religions are viewed through their above stated superficial meaning as “religion". In fact "religiosity" prescribed by all religions is practically almost identical. If religion were viewed in its said meaning interpretation, viz., that of "religiosity', the whole religious world will come much nearer than can be imagined. This can be seen on page 16 of the Mai Chart Explanation booklet. Just compare only the religiosity items of different religions and any truly religious man will be struck with the closest resemblance of different religiosities of different religions. It should be enough that "religion" should mean "religiosity" and the main requirement of any religion whatever, should be various things as are common in all religions. As the common highest factor we have the following commandments of true "religiosity" prescribed by all religions. They are:

1) Don't hurt and don't be violent. 2) Don't steal. 3) Don't kill. 4) Don't bear false witness. 5) Don't indulge in falsehoods. 6) Don't commit adultery. 7) Don't covet another's anything. 8) Keep yourself holy, 9) Always remember God. 10) Obey your parents and God.

11) Remember that the Divine Law will never fail and that God's will ever finally reigns supreme, etc. etc.

Thus, Mai-ism introduces the word "religiosity' instead of various religions and any ordinary common sensed thinking man must surely come to the conclusion that most of the differences between various religions, religious followers, nations and communities, etc. are bound to vanish. Thus, if we consider religions as "religions" we will find thousands of differences, whereas if by religion we mean "religiosity", there will be hardly 10 points of differences. This is then the specific work of Universal Religion of Universal God of Mai-ism. All religions reduced to the various requirements of "religiosity would be reduced in their bulk to almost an unimaginable smallness and that is the work Mai-ism is most ambitious to carry out as prevalent throughout the whole religious world. In one-word, what Mai-ism is strongly insisting upon, is to fully visualize the difference of religion and religiosity. As stated on page 8 of "Mother's Message", Religiosity is practice of religion and attainment of the fruits and benefits through the practice.

Mai-ism introduces an entirely new aspect viz., that human beings should be judged and dealt with on the basis of religiosity and not religion. On studying the natural trends of the new age, Mai-ism most clearly visualizes that the future humanity will be classifiable as consisting of (1) ignorant self-centered selfish human beings; (2) knowing about God and religion but fully indifferent; (3) knowing all matters fully naturally out of the demoniac nature; and (4) being of the divine godly nature.

Before I conclude this little thesis about the Universal Religion of Universal God for the new Age (U.R. M.), I feel the inner urge of taking necessary literature precaution, lest there be misunderstanding or misrepresentations about the universal nature of this religion, about which I submit as under.

The finalmost God of this religion is Mother Mai. Mai is also not some fanciful name of any individual religion, but is a simple word meaning nothing else except Mother. If any narrow-minded fanatic of an individual religion wants to give any other name, U. R. M. has absolutely no objection. Let that word be of any language. Only requirement is that that word should mean "Mother". To make it clear, any such name as say, Mary, or Ameena, or Devaki, Mother of Christ, Mohammed, Pegamber or Lord Krishna can't be acceptable. Most often repeated question to the Founder has been "What is the actual name of Mother?'' The Founder's answer is, "Mother's name is Maa, Mother, Amma, Mater." It can be any word which means mother in any language.

The underlying idea is that the God of U. R. M. is the conception of the merciful protective parent and with no limitations of any traditions, mythologies or religious histories or stories.

- None was born without Mother, even though we have certain scriptural references of some greatest prodigies being born without a father. The certainty about, and indebtedness to Mother, is much greater than to the father. Further, if the continued world custom of matrimony disappears due to rebelliousness of man and woman against each other's bondage, where will the world be, regarding the decision about true fatherhood? What about the progeny of unmarried women or of wives of divided heart pairs or professional women? Thus, the claim of the mother is much higher than that of the father. In fact, any impartial thinker would agree with Mai-ism that if God has to have a parental conception, Mother has a greater claim.

Even just ordinary judges deciding the question of guardianship have this consideration most prominent before their mind, which the fanatic religionists who give no peace to God as Mother, don't admit.

Says Mai-ism, if God can be Father, God can as well be Mother; or, as most clearly stated in Mai-ism, Mother is very same whom the world has mostly worshipped as Father. God under Mai-ism can be universal father as well: Universal Mother, Universal Father, Universal Mother-Father or Universal Father-Mother. as one's faith conceives. F is wisdom; M is love, protection; F is justice; M is mercy and forgivingness.

I think from what little has been stated here, no wise man, unless he be a fanatic, bigoted, or prejudiced religionist, can have any objection to U. R. M.

Taking the yet deeper strata of "Why the parental conception at all?", there is the deepmost psychology below. Let us take the driest crumbs of conceptions, "God is everything that exists. All indeed is Brahman (God) or God is one from whom we emanate, to whom we return and in whom we have our living and being. Or let us have the definition of the creator nourisher and destroyer of universes. Let us add the omnipresent, omniscient, the omnipotent. All these definitions judged by themselves, without any further additions or comments or interpretations, can be only the mental creations of any heartless philosopher or scientist.

Mai-ism most boldly asks, "What do we care for any highest God, just as we don't care for the highest world emperor or multi-millionaire, if he is of no utility whatever to us?"

Has anyone's richness any value to us, unless that sometimes helps us to hold our own against poverty? What does any man care if the number of stars, or

planets, or suns or different worlds are reduced or increased? After all eliminations, man wants God only for his own better being, reduction of miseries and increase of happiness. However grand and glorious God be, what does any man care for Him, unless He hears, relieves us, sympathizes with us, saves us from injustice, persecution, cruelty, accidents or earth quakes or epidemics, etc., unless God remunerates sufferings for the sake of virtue, merit, sinlessness, etc.?

If this utilitarian view which is the most predominant consideration as it is practically the only one, there is nothing of greater practicability than the conception of the parent and preferable to the most merciful parent, nourishing even before being born, ever forgiving, protecting, maximum sacrifice-ful and with maximum love and service.

Thus, no wise and thinking man can have any opposition (although one is free to choose one's God's ideal) against Mother's conception. The only idiotic argument that can be held forth is that none or few religions have accepted the ideal of God as Mother. Do we not advance in our outside world? We had no radios, trains and planes. Does anyone argue, we had none for centuries before us? We therefore can't accept them. Or is it meant that religious thinkers must be of a much greater brainless stuff than any ordinary worldly man? Well, judge everything mostly by the utility it serves for mankind. We have till now God as father, but that God did not rise to the ascent of a universal Father.

Mai-ism says "Why not start an entirely new God government, when the world needs a much broader, almost universal outlook?" If everything is to be made anew, new conceptions, new age, new rules, why not new rulership, as well, especially when God as father has hopelessly failed to keep all his various sons, of religions, without mutual rivalries and hatred? And why be so cruel or at least unmindful of the mother's claim, especially when it is the universal experience that no family can live happily without the central pillar of the mother?

And such ones of the readers as are gifted by God with the sense of rising above one's ancient prejudices or insensible godlessness, may just condescend to admit the possibility of justly holding religious views other than one's own. They may have a look at the Mai-ism literature, to see how very unimaginably broad-minded Mai-ism has been.

Just open only the 5th page of "Mother's Message". "One who does not believe in God, but does believe in the common tie of humanity and practices service and extends love to all, is a Mai-ist. Because he is the follower of Mai, in one of Her aspects as one universal soul, one universal consciousness or one universal cosmos."

Just open the very 2nd page of "Mai Sahasranama". It says, "Mai has no name and no form which means that Her names and forms are infinite."

Amongst so many forms and names, enumerated as "some' out of infinite, the following deserve repetition here.

Mother is the inner voice of saintly souls, consciousness, instinct, conscience or inspiration.

One most highly educated young man in Madras in 1949 challenged Maiji, stating that he does not believe in God at all. Maiji told him, "It depends on the definition you make. During life you must be following certain views." He said, "No, no, no God, I will do only what my conscience commands me to do. Said Maiji, True, but suppose some one preaches conscience is God, are you not 'godless'?" "Yes, but I know none has ever defined so". "Rather say none of the religions you have known has defined so". "If I show you Mai is conscience, would you agree you are following Mai?" "Surely'. This reference was shown to him. He saw the broad-mindedness and universality of Mai-ism. (Everyone has a conscience).

Mai that works through three powers of desire, knowledge and action and handles all beings through three principal moods of equilibrium, action and inertia.

Mai has the visible forms of fire, sun, moon and dawn; Mai that is the soul of whatever enraptures us as beauty, sublimity, mercy and compassion; Mai who is in the form of the guru or an assemblage of gurus. Mai that is known in common parlance as nature, divine law providence, time, primary desire, force, power, energy. evolution or chance; Mai that resides in individuals as the serpent power (Kundalini); Mai that is one, few, many and all as conceived by any soul. Mai that is beyond the conditioned state of being He, She or It. Mai that is all and not all, beyond being personal or impersonal and beyond being with or without forms and qualities.

Thus Mai is what any rationalistic religious Man's conception can possibly be.

The next naughty question is the most common notion, as to how any religionist can follow the U. R. M. Here Mai-ism cuts the Gordian knot. Refer "Mothers Message"' page 1.

"With full respect to and following of one's own religion, one can be a Hindu-Mai-ist, a Jain-Mai-ist, a Christian-Mai-ist, a Zoroastrian-Mai-ist, a Mohammedan-Maiist and so on. Mai-ism is one's own personal religion."

As explained in "World's Need and Mai-ism", Mai-ism cuts off this Gordian knot by bringing into existence a new idea. "There is no conflict or contradiction in any one having his individual religion for individual purposes of religious progress and yet having a Universal Religion of Universal God for universal purposes and considerations." This is as so often stated like any doctor being a president or member of an epidemic prevention institute, for the whole city and yet conducting one's own private hospital or dispensary without any conflict between the universal duties and individual duties, much more has been stated on the point. In fact, there can be no conflict of duties so long as those both are thoroughly understood in their true spirit.

Whenever there is obviously a conflict between the part and the whole, it implies a disruption of integrity or a crooked behavior or any offence-giving on the part of either of the part or the whole, or both. In natural unvitiated condition, any whole is never against the better being of any one of its different parts, nor is any part against the better being of the whole, All parts are most anxious and deeply interested in maintaining the highest efficiency of the whole and vice versa, unless there is split, corruption, corrosion and tearing of the heart. To put it in plain words, the principal tenets and authoritative injunctions of the part and the whole can never run cross-wise, if rightly interpreted in their esoteric meanings about the finalmost forms of duties, orders or commands.

Next, the vexing opposition arises from a suspicious mentality, which can be removed only on personal contacts and experiences. How far the U.R.M. is in every atom of its teachings universal can however be seen from various scattered expressions of beliefs given out in the Mai-ism literature all throughout

With a view to leaving no room for any misconceptions the following references are quoted here to permanently imprint the conviction that the Universal Religion of Universal God of Mai-ism is really universal up to its last and lowest end and atom. U. R. M. is for compacting and consolidating and condensing and not for compulsion nor conversion. In fact U. R. M. has no belief in any permanent efficacies of any efforts which have not originated from the heart and willful resolution of any person.

Says Mai-ism, "Everyone has one's own right fo selecting one's own line of evolution. (Mother's Message" Page 7.) Efforts of all others, unless they are by way of guidance to the determined, go futile, without one's own faith, conviction, desire and determination. (Page 11 of "Mai Sahasranama", "Mother's Thousand Names"'). "If all religions are the creations of some one or another of all Mai's sons, where is the sense and need of transferring your own coins from one of your own pockets to another of your own pockets of your own coat?" (Mai-ism page xi of the preface).

In the regions of religions there are, along with strong prejudices, soft, slippery juggleries, as well. One type is of this nature. Every religion has its exoteric and esoteric forms, external and internal points and best as well as worst sides. Our Christianity our Islam, our Hinduism has so many most attractive features. Therefore, be a Christian, a Mohammedan, or an Arya Samajist Hindu. It is like selling fruits in units of baskets on tempting the customers with best fruits placed on top and front for infatuation. Another type of jugglery is to study all religions. Work out one idealistic religion, exhibit the same, and then shout at the top of one's voice, “this is our Hindu Sanatana Dharma" Maiji uses the coined expression lurking thief" for both kinds of juggleries. A lurking thief conceals himself while all are inattentive and busy during daytime and by night when everyone is asleep, he opens the chest and quietly passes off unnoticed. This tendency arises from passionate overenthusiasm regarding one's own religion being believed to be the only best religion. The same scene was repeated when the world took the fad of universality. Pick out points of universality from one's own religion. Place them before the public in the most infatuating language and speak within one's own heart

it is my Christianity or Islam or Hinduism that should be accepted by the whole world as the Universal Religion of Univ. God." The substantial analysis of all such mentalities is that unless the very fundamental basic mentality has become universal, all efforts for a Universal religion become fruitless. It is that lurking thief mentality that has been responsible for no tangible results, although most expensive and vast conferences have continued since 1893 when the Parliament of All World Religions was convened in Chicago.

U. R. M. has started from God to the world just from the other end, while we solve an algebraical exercise of complicated, both sided identities. We presume it is correct and proceed to simplify both sides till we come to some most evident truth as 2n is-equal-to n plus n; or n2 is equal to n x n. We than revert all the steps till we come to the most complicated identity, required to be proved this is the true and internal state of things in the case of U. R. M.

The Universal Mother Mai floods certain best conceptions and they are placed before the world as if a Universal Religion of Universal God is worked out, through human brains on studying the world's requirements. This too is the sportivity of Mai just as any mother makes her ignorant stupid obstinate child to believe the child has done what was believed and desired to be done, although really done by Mai Herself.

There are two principal ways for increasing the world's peace and happiness through religion. Leaders and custodians of individual religions should go on developing the element of universality amongst its followers. This remedy had its proper age and time, but materialism baffled the religious custodians and pseudo saints and religionists, through their pitiable lack of true religious powers and abuse turned the follower's mass to be rebellious against church, scriptures and priestcraft.

The second or the other way being that of U.R.M. is that of consolidating all persons that are already of the proved universal mentality and leave the question of the details of formulating the Universal Religion of Univ. God to be worked out by universalists under the grace and inspiration of God as the Universal God (Mai, in the case of U. R. M.), through love, and service to the whole humanity and devotion with self-surrender to one's own universal God.

Best play or drama in the hands of hopeless players and actors is a trash. Best players will give best moral effects and results even if the theme is quite mediocre.

Mai-ism is for selection and consolidation of the highest players, and leave the question of the play selection and its details to them that would know best what scenes to be enacted or rejected. This mentality of U. R. M. will be quite evident on reading the preface portion of the 2nd Volume of "Mother's Thousand Names'', which is as under:

If the world wants to be happy, it must start a searching campaign in every nook and corner of all continents for saintly souls, who are fully universal minded, to whom all religions are theirs, to whom all people of any nation are theirs, to whom the greatest joy is to serve God's children to whom being in communion with, and in the service of God is the on living."

Such self-controlled, universal-minded God favored humanity-welfare-worried selfless high souls of the said new universal saints order, can alone create finally the best legislators, advisers, society-formers and society-reformers, peacemakers and peace establishers.

|U. R. M. or the Universal Religion of Univ. God of Mai-ism wants such saints to be in the higher regions beyond India and Hinduism, beyond America, Europe and Christianity, beyond China and Japan and Buddhism beyond Arabia and Africa and Islam, so on and so forth.

And as stated on page 445 of "Mai-ism" in italics there must be intercommunications and sympathetic exchanges and some eleventh thing must come forth out of the ten ablest things.

The regional height was from U. R. M. expects such saints to work for the world's welfare can be inferred from the following practical measures advocated under U. R. M. (Page 12 of "Mother's Thousand Names"').

(2) Abolition of racial, national, provincial, social and religious prejudices.

(3) Opening, or encouraging to open, independent Mother's lodges and colonies under any denominations, religious, national or communal, of any people, in any place,

(4) Exchange of opinions on religious questions and of charities by leaders of different religions to one another.

U. R. M. aspires some day to wipe out the mutual bitterness of individual religions to such and extent that Christian, Hindu or Muslim saints under their superior idea of the U. R M. may exert for procuring charities to help the needy humanity portions from the prosperous portions without any considerations of religions or countries and nations. In the final matter of charities, the only consideration should be that of the suffering humanity portion.

The extent of the universality element in the head and heart of the Founder of U. R. M. can be well seen from the following extracts of his thesis In support of I. R. F. (International Religious Federation)" as its subconcillor-in-Chief (in Japan). The thesis has been printed in the Ananai issue of January 1958, page 40, by the Ananai Kyo Institute.

(1) "My object has been to collect all views about the need of unification of all different nations and religions, world peace and re-organisation measures for increasing general religiosity, love and service."

(2) "As I am the follower and devotee of the Universal Mother Mai, of all religions and religionists, I am the pilferer of nectar fruits of any gardens that fall into my hands.

"All gardens are finally owned by God Almighty. whose servant and slave, but most beloved and ever pardoned pet creature I am."

(3) I have thrown off all the outer skins of different sugar-canes of different countries. I am pressing out their juice and collecting the same in a common receptacle. I have unified all juices to form one juice, which I invite and welcome all my brothers to share with me, in the sacred memory of one common parentage of ours, of one and all of us, Universal One God of one and all.

(4) Personally, I think it will be more useful work, to take up all books of eternities of every religion and to revise and abridge them and to make them appreciative and attractive and handy enough for the modern leisure-less world, without thrusting one's own personal views and comments.

I would like someone to prepare new text-books of each religion, made acceptable to the modern man on the basis of psychology, rationalism, universality and science, without losing a single golden dust grain.

(5) Finally, I would like the enactment of a worldbible for them that have remained discontented with any one of so many religions.

As stated on page 118 of Mai Adherents Oath, by Mai's grace, it is very possible that in immediate future. groups of universal religionists, Hindu, Christian, Muslims, Jain, Zoroastrian, Mai-ists may be formed.

Such groups have their full independence and autonomy in all matters and details, except being out of rhyme with the above-mentioned Mai-istic principles. All such institutes can be federations to the parental conception and institute of Universal Mai-ism.

Any such universalised group may have its own temple, God, gospel, worshipping modes, rules and regulations, places (temples and monasteries) and properties, in respect of which none others can have any right of dabbling.

Let there be further elucidation as to what views U. R. M. entertains regarding the churches, rites and ceremonies, spiritual yogic practices, devotional methods, etc. There too, U. R. M. has quite an out and out universalistic mentality. None should commit the Himalayan blunder, viz., that U. R. M. is in any way pro-Hinduistic. The casting of prayers and practices of U. R. M. have been to some little extent Hinduistic, not because U. R. M. has any preferential estimation for Hinduism but because the only available human material, to propagate the U. R. principles, has been automatically of the Hinduism casting. If U. R. M. had been born in any other country, it would have taken the shape and colour of that country and the religion of that country.

This is the possible great fear in future and with a view to saving U. R. M. from that danger there have been scattered words of warning against falling into the said cess-pit.

To start with, in the matter of explanation of the Mai-istic view point, regarding various devotional and worshipping or ceremonial practices, etc., we have on page 6 of "The Synthesis of Mai-ism" the following:

(1) "Believe me, the man who loves and serves others, is devout and self-surrendered, is many times much more powerful, even in altering his own circumstances than the man who has learned all scriptures, who has mortified himself in midst of five fires, who has mastered pranayam, who has shut himself in caves, who has awakened his Kundalini, who has repeated mantras and who has performed elaborate ceremonies."

(2) As stated in "Mai Pathanam", Mai worship text, Mai worship can be external or internal, physical or mental, unintrospective or introspective, unmeditative or meditative. The installation of Mai for worship can be supposed to be in one's body, heart or soul or in altars, skies, fires, waters, dawn, full Moon, rising or setting Sun, etc.

One has to decide oneself, as Mother is everywhere, according to which method and associated with which conceptions and environments, one's devotional intensity can be raised to the highest pitch. That is the worshipping method for that particular person.

On page 61 of "Mai-ism" (Note 76-77) the same idea will be found corroborated. A devotee of the old school came to Maiji for understanding Mai-ism. Maiji inquired, "Shall we pray and worship?" With the old orthodoxical mentality the visitor said, "I don't mind. What is to be done?'' Maiji answered, "Do whatever you like: sing., dance, meditate, kneel, pray, prostrate. Do whatever you love best. There is no particular method with Mai you know best what will make you most absorbed in Mai.

Mai Sahasranama Pathanam, which is the authorized text book of worship, repeats the warning against falling into the said blunder at so many places. It says thus, on the very 2nd page,

(1) Subsidiaries may vary. The main most thing is for everyone to find out in what circumstances one's latent devotional mood can be raised to its highest pitch.

Each thing is best for one, who has found it best for oneself. There should be absolutely no dabbling with some one's own selection for himself or herself.

The worshipped may be an image, an idol or a picture or only a mental imagination of a personal deity or the conception of the all-embracing infinity.

(2) Mai worship does not necessarily mean the worship by a certain congregation, or the installation of a certain image, in a particular place with a particular process.

On arising of that sort of degenerated belief of monopolization, Mai-ism can no longer retain its claim to universality.

(3) On page 33 under "Dhoons", comprising of couplets for repetition sung musically in a chorus, the following has been stated:

There should be no misunderstanding, that dhoons under Mai-ism are only in respect of any particular deity, God or religion. Mai being universal, represents all deities, and religions.

If the followers of any religion join together in sufficient number and with the universal spirit, and if they undertake the chanting of any dhoon in chorus on unanimous agreement and acceptance, they are equally welcome and such dhoons should be repeated in chorus by all Mai-ists, in as much as Mai is the Mother of all deities, nations and religions.

Many similar other references can be found in "Mai-ism" literature because that is the most natural form of the Mai-istic belief.

Regarding the universal outlook, conception and belief in respect of worshipping Mai and practicing devotion to Mai, the following quotation will fully convince that Mai-ism is universal in all its aspects regarding worshipping method, meditation and any rights or ceremonies in connection with any religious undertaking. It is quoted from the Phala-Shruti of Mai Sahasranama, page 146. It runs as under:

Once a very staunch devotee wrote to the Founder, to enquire what were the distinctive technicalities of Mai worship. The founder was just then out from divine ecstasy. In a seemingly blunt but outspoken manner, he wrote to the stranger:

The distinctive technicality of Mai worship is that it has none. This arises from the Founders: conviction that you and I are mere mimics. Mother alone can worship Mother and that alone is the true worship in which the worshipper has been first made Mother by Mother, be it for however a small time period and to however a small degree. The rest is mere mimicry and can therefore be of any type. I am too poor to know how Mother worships or should worship Mother, and too different to be approving or disapproving any particular mode of worshipping Mother. In the finality of things, on elimination, the only truth that stands is that Mother alone can and does worship Mother. The rest is only a self-deception or at the most a mind purifying or mind-concentrating practice. On visualization of the final-most stage on elimination, you and I are mere moon reflections, say, you in the nectarlike crystal-lake and I in the dirty cesspool. The span of life, however, for both of us finishes as soon as the moon retracts the moonlight or at the most as soon as the dawn breaks.

The subject of religion is actually more endless than the practically endless largest ocean. The final end therefore can only be that the limitations bound human creature has to control its thirst, hunger and gluttony.

We, therefore, rest here, quoting the last para of the Preface to "Mai-ism", which points out the same sublime truth as is contained in the above illustration.

"How little is claimable by man, in the coming forth of any new religious movement or a sub-religion or a religion? It is all the making of Mother alone. The miraculous-ness of "nothing during a saint's life" and "an amazing huge blaze" thereafter, is not simply a freak or fancy of Almighty. That too has a deep meaning. It is a proclamation of Mai's nothingness, even the highest saint's nothingness, and a working out of an inviolable divine law. The seed shall have to perfectly perish". There is nothing more complicated and incomprehensible, as the healing of the world and worldliness, with a saint and his saintliness.

The life and longevity of any religion's movement depends on its sacred fire being kept alive, by the further sacrifices of more and more high souls as disciples and faithful followers, and as the fire, light and spirit of the predecessors gets dazzling or dimmed with the advent of times.

 UNIVERSAL MOTHER MAI BLESS US ALL

JAYA MAAI JAYA MARKAND MAAI

 Mai Niwas, Saraswati Road,

Santa Cruz (West), Bombay 54.

27-7-1965 Mai Day Friday.

 Mai Swarupa Mai Markand

Founder of Universal Mai-ism and

President – Mai Adherents Institutes.