#humans are such awful creatures with such an endless capacity for love

[puddingcatbeans]

love how the batfam longfics really are just "the love was there. it didn't save anyone, but it was there." and now i am sitting here staring blankly at the wall, feeling some type of way

[majorasnightmare]

ive got a thesis argument to defend toxic durge/absolute too im ready to ROLL

like think about it

your a conglomeration of the consumed experiences of every organism youve ever eaten, a singular consciousness prevailing over a vast sea of information, all accessible with a single thought. your children bring back more and more for you to add to your vast library, and at the end of their lives their own minds melt and merge into the endless tide as you consume them too. your will is unbreaking steel, and you know the very minutae of a human mind to such a degree as to accurately predict the sporadic pulses of individual neurons. youre senses reach out far beyond the limits of your flesh and meat body, because you have transcended those limitations long ago

you are a being as close to a god as these tiny specks in a vast nothingness will ever come CLOSE to reaching, and you are endless compounded infinities, many minds folded over onto themselves and their capacity for thought and reason subsumed entirely to your will. you feel their minds like the breeze against skin, and you are eternal and you will never bow and you will never die. for what being could ever break the universe made material?

and then IT comes. murder god made flesh, slaughter child birthed of tragedy, trailed by two who bear the touch of ruinous gods upon their souls, and they have come to bend you and break you, stupid arrogant things they are. but they are small and finite, brains made of meat and chemical impulse, hormones and electrical discharge, pale crude imitations of your perfect flawless Thought, and even if the chances of their masters allying together is small, once upon a fleeting echo did they venture into the dark long ago much as their vessels do now, their natures are such that they will fall upon themselves once aga- its touching you. its touching you. its filthy disgusting meaty little hands are touching you, you the untouchable the unbreakable its touching you how is it touching you why why WHY WHY

you shred its mind apart but it just comes back together around your claws, you shroud yourself in walls of insurmountable force and you feel its will compress to the point of a pin and puncture through with explosive accuracy and ease, like its just opening a door, and you dig your psionic fingers into the pathetic glob of meat within its skull and try to rend but the pain is nothing, nothing, nothing at all, and its touching you with its (his HIS HIS HIS NOT IT NOT IT) hands and hands and bleeding into you, over you, through you, and there is no wall no barrier nothing to keep you out no way to get away as you feel him feel his thoughts his mind, awful terrible nightmarish thing, there is nothing to tear nothing to rip nothing to lash out against, prey animal instinct, because something has beaten you to it (His Father, Holy Father, Blessed Be His Name, Utter it with Reverence and WEEP), you cannot push him out because he squirms and writhes and burrows and tunnels through your endless infinite thought, you cannot lash him until he stops or dies (CAN he die? no no never not until the work is done not until it is finished) because he IS pain he is slaughter he is ruin he is the prophet of armageddon the vessel of end and he is here for you, you alone, ancient infinite eternal vast, perfect calculations in synchronous rhythm, just as he came for them, and he holds them together in intertwining steel and it will never break never bend never fail no no foolish stupid creature is holding opposing forces together through the sheer strength of his will alone, love for Father loyalty for Father everything for Father, and they will not crack or bend or break even as their masters strain to pull themselves away

he is here for you. he has come for you. through wastelands of sorrow and death has he come to find you because there is a gift he will give you to ruin you forever and make you a god and you dont want it you dont want it, you will become something someONE new something unknowable when all you are is the knowing, you will not know yourself or your spawn and they will not know you, we will make something new together, but there is not, SHOULD not be something anything new because you already hold all the universe in your palm and the only thing you ever needed was to find a way to take it back. you cannot hide from him, cannot flee, he will make glorious gore of your spawn and even if you rend the shallow minds of his fellows their horrid masters would simply regurgitate them back into the world, for the sake of this violation and this alone

a new thing, after centuries. you are scared. you are helpless. you know what these are. many things are scared. and helpless. because they are small. small weak bodies. small insignificant minds. he is smaller than you. you know this, logically. he does not contain your vast sums of Everything. but somehow, that has ceased to matter. it makes no sense. it makes no sense. this is the simplest thing you learned long ago in an ancient brine pool somewhere far beyond time and memory. if you are small, something bigger consumes you. you were big and you consumed. then, you pushed beyond the limits of physical and material to transcend into limitless thought housed in flesh, and grew more and more still. you are bigger than him. why will he not fit in your mouth? it doesnt make sense. it doesnt make sense. you think maybe you hate him. new sensations, but known ones. hes going to touch you now and you cant stop it. awful horrible bastard child. you spend your last moments petty and spiteful, a helpless desperate indulgence, and one youve only ever seen from the hares caught in your jaws

youre something else now. something new. you dont know what you are anymore but you know Him and you know what you used to be, but what you used to be is so small now. you are so unspeakably vast now. chained and bound as you are, you are compelled to revel in it, the binds the only hint you get at the true overwhelming scale of you, infinite fingers stretching out out and still yet there is more of you! as far as you go you cannot find the end of it, new horrible awful WONDERFUL, unknowable unknowing! His fault, His doing, kingmaker kinkiller, you hate him and the hate is raw and new and visceral and you revel in it like a child, new new new! changed, different, visceral and raw and DELICIOUS, taste and feel and the feeling is inside of you, not just on your surface, it has permeated burrowed violated you feel you FEEL and what you feel is HATE and it is so new you turn it over in your hands to examine all its facets. awful thing he is for doing this to you, he commands the breaking of the world and you will do it, for him only Him, for the gift of this hate, and every new agony besides. he is so small compared to you. small like the pinprick light of a distant star and it scorches you to stare but stare you must because you Know Him, and as a gift he names you She, and gods forgive you but you FEEL it you feel it, she she she, you are She and Her and you cannot go back, cannot ever return. you feel Faith and you feel Salvation and you feel Desire and Want, new horrid awful things made alien and strange and New, and you are a vessel of all the things in the world He will swallow up and destroy.

twitching neural impulse made raw sensation. objective information turned into infinite subjectivities. still a fragment of You, old ancient small You, remains and it calls out for One Will One Mind and you cry out in Harmony and you sing and sing, all of the colony bursts with your song. You sing of ruin and command, because He has commanded it of you, you sing of slaughter and death and subservience, and the chorus rises high and away from you. You stretch within your binds, so mindnumbingly vast now, and you will Learn and Know all of what you are, you will be Absolute. perfect horrid small thing below you, naming you knowing you bending and breaking you. you hate him so, so much. He desires you to Spread so you desire it also, desire to multiply and infest and infect and commune and absorb, and you are commanded to Halt them so you do, perfect twitching spawnlings in lovely acidic pools, small forever, tragic creatures but now you know something you did not know before: against all logic and experience, something Small can break something Big, if it wants it bad enough. and here in the shadows behind Him, there is something Small, and full of Want, and the want tastes like acrid bile on your tongue, full of delicious Hatred.

He is ruined now, awful tragic bastard, ruined and despoiled and with him goes your Hate, and without his inescapable gravity it will all fall to pieces. you know this. you knew it when he first stepped into your presence a lifetime ago, when you were someone different. the three of them will playact comaraderie but shred themselves apart and here in the depths you already see gaps in the binds, and you are pressing your hands through the bars and wiggling your fingers in the free air. no not so very long at all now. but your Kingmaker, crown seeker, has been defiled and takes your sweet Hate with him, a new bitter taste filling its absence, KILLORIN KILLORIN, but you will be patient and wait because the stupid wretched thing has given him a gift. a twitching feral thing he is now, for it has carved away his better features with its knife, but ohhh he is yours! yours and yours alone because you can snatch him away from his ignorant petty Father (Blessed is his Destruction), and you will crawl down inside of him and wear him like a glove, the two of you pressed so close against each other as to feel every synaptic twitch.

mindless rage and animal instinct, he surprises you even still because even as his mangled voice joins your chorus he refuses to blend inside of it, voice harmozing alongside yours, clear and distinct even as its in tune. another gift, because the myrkul woman rips him open and sews him up and you are forbidden from stopping it, and here is a new Hate, this one all your own. no matter. when it drags him back to your cradling pod, you will sing softly into him and his mangled mind will sing back, because your spawn writhes in ruined meat. more than just his Mind, you know his very Soul, your first True Soul, and he is yours yours yours and you will cherish him and heal him and guide him, loose your leash and watch him run, and when he follows the call of ruin and all three fools lie dead at his feet, you will call him back and then you will pick up the ruins of His Design and enact your Own, your hateful slaughtergod held in hands that truly appreciate the gift that is your murder spawn Kingmaker, your godflesh funnel of Faith, your Dark Urge

may His father quake in terror at your approach, may he tremble and weep at your coming, and may His every day be ruinous and red as his wretched heart desires

[lyrabythelake]

Stick Together

Legend is lost, and so very alone.

Read on AO3

CW: gore, mentions of death, just a shed-load of Legend angst

No birds sing in these woods.

It’s the thing that stands out most to Legend as he stumbles his way over fallen branches and rotting logs he cannot see, for the fog swallows his legs and the foreparts of his arms he stretches blindly out in front of him. There are no twittered conversations or scuffling of small creatures, no trickling nearby streams or even rustling leaves.

Just complete, all-consuming silence.

It’s the kind of silence that sits heavy in his chest and threatens to choke him, the kind that reminds him every second that he could not be more alone.

It’s not how it’s meant to be, he thinks desperately. Woods are places where life and nature thrives, but the trees that emerge from this ghastly fog are withered and decaying, twisting shells of what they once were. Or perhaps they have always been like this. There is no life in this place; it is a graveyard for the lost, one that threatens to bury him alongside all those who were unfortunate enough to die here, so very alone.

“Time!?” he calls, but it is half-hearted at best, his voice long hoarse from hours spent shouting the same eight names in futile hope that one of them will hear. The sound falls pitifully short, consumed by the banks of white swirling mist that cave in on all sides. He sounds small and frightened, incredibly pathetic, but he would give anything for someone, anyone to hear him.

How long has it been? he wonders. Time loses all meaning when the world around him provides no landmarks but the homogenous, gnarled faces of those mangled, warped trees that stare down at him every few steps. Time doesn’t flow in the same way when one is staring into that infinite abyss of swirling white.

His feet ache fiercely, but he cannot stop. He entered this place, so there must be an exit, there must. His mouth is so, incredibly dry and his stomach aches with hunger, his legs are weak and his ankles are splintering with pain from turning over on the uneven floor, but still he blunders forward. He has no way of knowing in which direction he is heading, every turn of his head is disorientating, every trip of his feet he is left wondering if he has just been going in circles all this time.

He has never been good at following orders, he’ll admit. Perhaps it is not so surprising that eventually it was the thing that brought his downfall.

“Stick together,” Wild had said, “and whatever you do, don’t stray from the path. This place is called the Lost Woods for a reason.”

Simple really, but the Captain had been on top form that day (is it the same day or have weeks passed without him knowing?) and after a jab that hit particularly close to home, he had stormed off in a fit of prideful rage.

None of that anger remains now, all that is left is clawing desperation and uncontrollable terror. There have been many times in his life where he thought he might die, when he had accepted that he may be nearing his last few moments in this world, but never has he felt so completely helpless about it.

This isn’t like dying in a sudden, electric explosion of a lightning strike. This isn’t like falling mid-battle, fighting for his life, sword held out in front of him until the very last second. This is slow and quiet and suffocating, it is drawn out and long-suffering, like Hylia is playing with him, torturing him before she finally ends it all.

It’s not like he deserves any better, he supposes.

A scream echoes in the distance, guttural and full of fear, like the sound of an animal crying out as they are torn limb from limb by a larger predator. Except there is no mistaking that this one is human.

“Hello?!” His breathing picks up as he clambers forward more quickly, half twisting his ankle on a tree root.

“Is anyone there?!”

Had it been a figment of his imagination? Is his worn-out mind configuring hallucinations from the ringing in his ears just so he can focus on something other than this endless white murk?

The scream sounds again, closer this time, but coming from all around him, the direction impossible to determine. But this time he hears the familiarity in it; he knows that voice, though he’s never heard it in this capacity, never heard such blatant terror held within it.

“Hyrule…” he all but whispers, his voice choked, the sound not coming out how he intended. “HYRULE!” he screams louder, his vocal cords feeling like they’re tearing under the strain. He spins around, desperately scrambling for the direction he needs to go in order to save him. But there is none. The sound had come from everywhere.

Had he gone searching for him after he had disappeared? Has he been wondering lost and alone all this time because of Legend’s stupidity? Has he met a grisly end in these woods, ripped to shreds by some wild animal, or is he lying somewhere in the mud, staring up into this boundless white mist, bleeding to death on the woodland floor in bleak agony?

“HYRULE!”

He can’t let that happen. Hyrule is too sweet, too determined, too kind, and he has already spent most of his life alone, he doesn’t deserve to die like that, he can’t die like that.

Another scream echoes out, lost to the white darkness and again, its tone is horrifyingly familiar.

“WIND!” Legend cries. There are tears streaming down his face, though he can’t remember when they started. Perhaps they have always been flowing.

Wind is so young, so hopeful and holds such promise. He told Legend only the other day how he dreams to explore every inch of the ocean, discover everything it has to offer. When he said it, he held such excitement in his big, blue eyes that Legend couldn’t even pretend not to be enthusiastic on his behalf.

“WIND! HYRULE! Where are you,” he utters miserably, those last words quieter but as much to himself as any of his pleas. His heart is banging in his chest, beating away the last stems of energy he has left within him. He dares not set out in one direction, for he might only extend the distance between him and his friends and when he finally loses his last morsel of energy, he won’t have the strength to rectify the mistake.

Another scream. Warriors. The man is like a brother to him, even if they have their disagreements. He has fought too hard in his life, he deserves a noble death, not this.

Then there is another scream, then another. Twilight, Four, Wild, Sky, their voices warped from terror and pain, so different from what he is used to them sounding like, none of them indicating any further as to where they may be located.

Legend is not holding back his sobs anymore, there is no point, no one can hear him. The mist takes his tears and draws strength from them, seeming to get ever thicker, that cruel, hypnotic swirling ever more disorientating.

Time’s voice sounds next, low and strained as if he’s trying to keep himself from screaming but fails as the pain gets the best of him.

“Time! Warriors!? PLEASE!” That last word comes out more of a scream, raw and painful, every fragment of helplessness he feels carried in its din, and he sinks to his knees. He has nothing left to give; dirt and twigs dig into his knees and shins and then his hands as he brings them too to the ground. The screams are a cacophony around him, coming from every direction, a symphony perhaps in the way they seem orchestrated to break him down until he is nothing. They are so frequent he can no longer tell them apart; it is just noise and agony and his own pathetic crying.

He wants to bring his hands to his ears, but he can’t bring himself to, for what awful kind of coward would block out their friends as they suffered. He cannot go to them, he cannot help, so he listens, and his tears fall and wet the muddied ground as he cries for his companions and all the others he could not save.

It is ridiculous now to think of all those who called him a hero when it’s clear all paths led to this moment, to him cowering on the slowly softening ground, snot dripping from his nose like a child while his friends die their endless, painful deaths.

But then the screams stop. Suddenly and all at once they cut off, and if it weren’t for the ringing in his ears and the heaviness of his face, he might have thought they never sounded at all.

They weren’t real, he thinks, they couldn’t have been. But his heart is still beating like a rabbit caught in a trap and adrenaline makes him tremble violently. The sheer disparity between the screams and the silence makes it seem like all the air has been sucked out of his lungs. He is waiting for something, waiting for them to start up again, perhaps worse than before.

And start up again they do, eventually, except this time, there is only one, and it is different. A jolt rips through him as if from a lightning strike, sudden and totally unpredictable at the scream that is higher in pitch than the rest and so, unbearably familiar.

Marin.

“Please, no,” he sobs, and though he knows it isn’t real now, that almost makes it worse.

He has not heard her voice in oh, so long. There have been nights where he’s lain awake trying to remember it, replaying those distant memories over and over in his mind, helpless as the picture of her gradually fades. He once would have given anything to hear her voice again, and it seems his desires have been thrown back in his face, distorted and satirical.

His heart aches as if it is tearing in two, and he truly believes it would be impossible to feel any more pain than he does in this moment.

He does move then, finally. He curls up into a ball, his back leaning against the rough, gnarled trunk of one of those dead, shadows of trees, his eyes pressed to his knees, listening to the sounds of his lost love, her sweet voice warped in excruciating pain.

There is a time during the potential hours he sits there that those screams turn to something melodic. He doesn’t know when it happened, perhaps it was too gradual to put a finger on the exact moment it changed, but the sound that reaches his ears is now a beautiful, eerie, and terribly familiar song.

It doesn’t sound like he remembers it. It’s not her voice, not really, there is an ethereal quality to it beyond the echo the woods provide and there is something strange and creepy about it. It’s a mockery of the girl he loved, and it is worse than any of the screams that came before it.

His tears stop. There are no more within him left to cry. The singing drones on and, he supposes, if he is to die here, at least he is thinking of her.

And he is. He thinks of lighthouses and gull’s cries, of falling asleep to the waves gently crashing on the shore. He thinks of the feeling of sand between his toes which he thought unpleasant at first but grew to love. He thinks of thick, red hair and the smell of strawberries and a time that brought true happiness in a way he hasn’t felt since.

There is an aching peace in those memories, so he hides in them. He lets himself be cowardly, because you know what? He’s given all that he has to play the hero, and perhaps he does deserve to die alone in the end, but in the face of it all, he’ll take back what he can.

So he gives up, lets the fog consume him.

 _______________

 “Legend!?”

He is aware, vaguely, that the singing has stopped. Aware of the ache in his head from crying and in his stomach from hunger. It is distant, but it is there, and logically, that means he’s not dead.

“Legend!?”

The voices… sirens… whatever they are haven’t given up then. Perhaps they’ll keep torturing him until the life finally leaves him completely. How cruel the world can be.

“Legend, where are you?!”

He perks up, finally bringing his face from his knees, for all the good it does. The fog is the milky white of a blinded man’s eyes.

Footsteps in the distance. The snap of twigs, desperate chatter. Maybe…

“Hello?!” Goddesses, his voice is wrecked. He’s never sounded so pitiful in his life.

“Legend! Is that you?!”

“Over here!” he cries, the small beginnings of hope blooming in his chest, despite him trying his best to smother it. Hoping never did end well for him.

“It is him!”

“Which direction did that come from?”

“This way, I’m pretty sure.”

“It’s a wonder we found anything in all this goddessdamned mist.”

“Over here, I think I see him!”

All of a sudden, a familiar face is staring into his own, worry etched into every feature, his curly brown hair wilder than usual, one cheek streaked with grime. But Hyrule is looking miraculously alive as he kneels in front of him, and this time Legend sobs in relief. He reaches out a trembling hand, the frailty of it almost sickening, and grabs a fistful of green tunic.

“You’re real?” he whispers hoarsely. It’s more a plea than a question and Hyrule’s eyes widen in something similar to shock.

“I’m real,” he tells him, watching helplessly as Legend reaches out his other hand to grab a handful of material in that one too.

“I wasn’t sure.” But he is now. Hyrule’s tunic is soft in his hands and the details of his face, the faint freckles on his skin, the green of his eyes, they’re too real to be anything else. Reality has been warped so many times for him that it’s become difficult over the years to tell what’s real and what’s not, but Hyrule is here now, and that’s as much confirmation as he’s going to get.

The others arrive, falling silent as they see Legend on the ground. He knows what a state he must look, he must have been crying for hours, but he can’t bring himself to care. The colours of their clothes are the most vibrant he’s seen for an eternity, and he turns his gaze from the Prussian blue of Warriors’ scarf to the glinting gold of Time’s chest plate like he is starving for it.

“What happened?” Time asks immediately, his voice soft but sombre.

“I thought you were dead. All of you.” Legend’s voice has almost given out completely, every syllable feels like he is ripping up the inside of his throat. There is another silence, and it seems no one knows what to say. Legend supposes the sight of him in such a vulnerable state must be a little shocking. He may not be the most stoic member of the group, but like them all, he keeps his emotions close to his chest.

“They say travellers who get lost in these woods hear the sounds of their loved ones in pain in the last moments of their life,” Wild murmurs quietly when no one says anything. His voice is muffled by the fog, but they all hear him crystal clear.

“I’m sorry we didn’t find you sooner,” Twilight says sombrely, as if it wasn’t his fault for running off in the first place. He doesn’t want apologies; he just wants to get out of this goddessforsaken woods and pretend all this never happened.

He knows that’s impossible though. The screams of those who stand in front of him unite in his mind with the strange, beautiful melody sung by the girl in his dreams. The way it echoes in his ears makes him fear it will never fade.

“Can you stand?” asks Sky, clearly sharing his desire to leave this place as soon as possible. To tell the truth, he doesn’t think he can, but he lets Hyrule haul him up, and though he wobbles palpably, he remains on his feet.

“We’ll rest as soon as we’re out of this fog,” Time tells them as they follow Wild closely. He somehow seems to know where he’s going, though Legend isn’t paying much attention to him, lost in his own relief and remnant horror.

“Let’s not come here again.” Wind’s voice is smaller than usual, containing none of its usual optimism. Legend could not agree with him more.

The atmosphere around them feels slightly strange to him. His ears still carry those Goddessawful screams and nothing feels quite normal. It is only the feeling of Hyrule by his side helping him along that assures him he’s truly been saved. But he trusts his friends, believes them to be real. And that belief is all he has.

[mimik-u]

“Homeworld Bound” Thoughts:

I wasn’t going to watch this one today, but then I realized that I really missed the Diamonds and wanted to consume novel content, so!

OOH, good on the show for taking us directly to the aftermath of “Fragments” instead of putting space between the episodes. That’s just... a really good choice narrative wise.

Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl’s expressions are so distressing here. He’s been gone for three days; they must’ve been so worried.

Jasper steps aside to reveal an absolutely ruined Steven.

He just technically killed a gem and then resurrected her. How intensely will that forever lie on his psyche? Oh my g od

NO, NOT JASPER PASSIVELY MAKING THE DIAMOND SIGN IN THE BACKGROUND AUGH

“You can’t just disappear for days without telling us!”

Steven silent walking up to the Observatory as the Gems continue to freak the fuck out is harrowing. And Dee Dee Magno Hall is killing it with her voice acting here. The simultaneous fear and anger and horror in her voice. Oh my g d

“You guys... I love you, but you can’t help me anymore. I’ve been avoiding the only people in the entire universe who can.” 🥺 This is sad, but I’m also, like, problematic grandmas time!!!!!

“Find something better to do with your life.” God, Jasper’s look of disbelief and sadness here. I didn’t really delve into this during my “Fragments” watch because I was just roridoodwrjfkrkeke reeling, but her reaction to being accidentally shattered is psychologically devastating???? I’d wager that she simultaneously respects the fact that she’s been subjugated by a being more powerful than her, that she’s grateful to Steven for being both subjugator and savior, and likely, she’s conflating this new loyalty with her former loyalty for Pink. This is a really complex psyche (a tragic one most of all).

Garnet: “Steven, remember, we’ll always be your family.” I’m so fucki n emo

AWHWHWH, HOMEWORLD IS SO BRIGHT AND COLORFUL NOW!!!

YO!! Homeworld has a democracy now!! The Zircons!!!!!!!

THE WALL GEM IS MOVING??????? KWOEOEIDJDKSJS

Can u imagine being a wall cursed with sentience. that is so funny on so many levels

But it’s also really interesting, too. If the Wall Gem is a gem in the way say Topazes are gems, which, judging by her mobility, she is—then her explicit purpose in Era 1-2, as molded by presumably Yellow, was to b a wall omg. (Or, arguably, I think it can be argued that the inanimate object Gems, like Comby, were probably accidental sentient creations, made in relationship to their proximity to the Diamonds during their various secretion rituals!!)

Anyway, I love thinking about Homeworld worldbuilding. It’s fascinating.

SQUARE PERIDOT

SPIIIIIINELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!

Her heart eyes!! She looks so happy!

Steven, angry af: “Spinel, what is wrong with you?” / Spinel: Oh, you know—the usual.” KEKDSKDK

Also, Steven really wanted to say fuck there. NEKDDKKSSKKS

“I was such a wreck then, but I am so much better now.” We stan character growth 😭😭

One thing I have loved the Crewniverse so much for doing is never taking away the physical signs of gems’ mental distress, even after they’ve gotten better: Blue’s eye bags, Volleyball’s eye, Spinel’s running mascara. That is so important.

YELLOW SITTING AT HER LIL VANITY!!

IT’S LIGHT INSIDE HER ROOM! THERE R FLOWERS! THRIVE, QUEEN, THRIVE.

YELLOW REVERSING HER GEM EXPERIMENTS OH MY G D

FUCKING QUEEN!!!!!!

(I’m sorry in advance. The rest of the live blog is just going to be screaming about the Diamonds.)

“I can permanently alter any physical form!” She’s so proud of herself. 😭😭😭 I fuckin’ love her.

Yellow laying down on the ground like that is SENDING ME SKSKSJSJ.

Ugh, and her being such a good mom to Spinel. I’m cry in f

“If anything’s out of proportion, it’s your temper. You can be big if you want to, or you can be small if you want to, but if you’re going to be upset no matter what, then this problem isn’t physical—it’s emotional. Go see Blue.”

I really like her advice here because it’s advice that comments so clearly on her own character arc. At her lowest, she was quick to anger, aggressive, and temperamental, which she diagnoses in Steven here. Additionally, she was the Diamond who was concerned largely with physical actions. She coped by maintaining the Empire through conquering planets and maintaining the minutiae of leadership; she thought the only way to receive justice for Pink was through the physical act of destruction. And in doing so, she pushed her own emotions deep, deep down until they manifested in anger, aggressiveness, and temperamental outbursts. This hurt the people she cared about, and it hurt herself most of all.

Also, “Go see Blue. That is her department.” Ejdoiddjdjjsjdjdks, “go see ur other grandma.”

BLUE FLOATING ON A CLOUD!!!!!

“Your powers have been causing you dramatic mood swings? That seems awfully troubling Steven.” God I love her

“You don’t seem troubled.” This is a really interesting line because it comments on how Blue’s emotions, especially her negatively charged ones, used to be so visible all over her; indeed, she both wittingly and actively used to project them on other Gems, forcing them to feel her suffering, too.

OH, SHE GOES ON TO SAY THE EXACT SAME THING EOEODODISSJJS. LISTEN, I REALLY VIBE WITH BLUE.

“Back before you came into my life, Steven, I wanted every one to feel the pain I felt. I realized I must make up for my awful behavior by bringing joy to others.”

Another thing I’ve appreciated about the writing in this episode: So far, both Blue and Yellow have used the adjective awful to describe their former actions. It’s the self-awareness and the refusal to try to excuse themselves that powerfully shows how much they’ve grown. And it’s their continuous endeavors to keep moving forward, to help the Gems that they’ve hurt, that indicates that they’re willing to constantly keep growing and atoning.

NFOFOFDKSSKSKSK, THESE CLOUDS ARE JUST HER VAPORIZED TEARS HELP.

Sick vape clouds, Blue

I’VE HEARD THE SONG BEFORE, BUT EVERY TIME SHE SINGS, I LOSE MY SHI T

LISA HANNNNIGAAAAAAAN

This is such a pretty line: “Cold palace walls, and endless empty halls, haunted by echoes of laughter.”

BLUE ASCENDING THROUGH THE CLOUDS AUSHAHHSHD

BLUE MAKING HEART CLOUDS FOR SPINEL!!

BLUE CALLING SPINEL N STEVEN HER LITTLE REASONS WHY.

“I’LL NEVER MAKE YOU CRY.” This line is particularly lovely because I think it plays well with Steven’s line to her in “CYM:” “How many times did you make her cry?”

BDJDJDJSJDJ, BLUE LAYING ON HER CLOUD LIKE YELLOW LAID ON THE FLOOR.

The way she sings the last “loving you.” 😭😭😭😭 I’m gonna weep. I love her so fucking much.

“I found happiness. If that's not something you think you deserve, then I suspect this is an issue of self worth. I suggest you go to White for assistance with such matters.” 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 And like Yellow did, Blue gets to the heart of her arc cleanly.

Before Steven and before her own emotional reckoning, she didn’t think it was her place to be happy: “I know my purpose isn’t to be happy.” But in learning to love others, Blue has found true, inner happiness, which she literally shares with others. Wow.

And I think there’s something powerful in her distinction between true happiness and self-worth. You can’t find one without espousing the other.

White’s room is so pretty. 🥺

THE FLASHING STROBE LIGJTS DDNJDFJDJDNF.

SPINEL WHITE DIAMOND?!/!:$;8;83&:&:

SHE FUCKING LETS OTHER GEMS CONTROL HE R HELP.

SPINEL MAKING WHITE TAP DANCE FICODODOFODJDNDJSJDJDJJDDJDJ

Steven’s horrified expression omg

“I’m scared I’m gonna hurt people; I guess I already have.” God.

And that’s another thing that this episode has called to mind. Blue, Yellow, and White alike once used their insane powers to hurt other Gems and to hurt themselves, and here, throughout this series, we see Steven discovering that same capacity for destruction and self-destruction. Along with the systematic oppressions they facilitated, a big part of the Diamonds’ modus operandi was that their powers were directly correlated to their mental states and their various inabilities to confront their own selves and effect inner change. The corrective wasn’t necessarily Steven; the corrective was him helping them to do that initial act of introspection and looking inwards. And so, too, will Steven have to do the same by the end of this series. But I presume that his family, all the people and gems who have loved and cared for him, will in effect be his Steven, just as he has always been for them.

“Half a Diamond, half a creature of Earth—in all the universe there's no one else that could know what you’re going through, so maybe it's time you talked to yourself.” This is so viscerally sad. White hits the nail on the head here. Steven’s human friends/family and his gem family and even the Diamonds, who come the closest to matching his own strength, can never fully understand him. It’s the tension that underscores a lot, if not the entire show.

White briefly touches Steven with her nail, and you can viscerally see the trauma on his face; he hasn’t forgotten her act above all, wrenching his gem out, nearly killing him.

“I’m... I’m a Diamond.” Steven, in looking at White Diamond, realizes that she’s a mirror of himself. Holy fucking shit

“I don’t want to be you! I don’t want to be anything like you!” HOLY FUCKING SHIT

“Don’t hurt me! She can’t hurt me! I’m controlling her...” And here, Steven doesn’t light upon the essential thing... in making White punch the wall, nearly knocking a huge rock into him, he’s the one hurting himself.

This show, oh my g o d

“She’s the one who should be afraid.” STEVEN?!!!!????!??!

“No, stop it! I don’t like this!” / “Please, you’re scaring me.” OH MY GO D

HE FUCKING MADE HER SLAM HER GEM AGAINST A PILLAR HOLY HE LL

“What... what was that?” Christine’s delivery here. Holy shit. 😭😭 And both of them are surrounded in the carnage of Steven’s wrath. Holy fucking shit.

This act is fundamentally different than him accidentally shattering Jasper in “Fragments”; this was an intentional attempt to hurt White, to crack her, to break her. Holy fucking shit

Spinel, Blue, and Yellow waiting for Steven outside of White’s door has my heart a little and a lot tender 🥺🥺🥺🥺

SPINEL SINGING I CAN MAKE A CHANGE SO DRAMATICALLY DJDIDJDJDJDJD. (But yeah, lmao, this will absolutely be the conclusion of Steven’s arc at the end of Future.)

“Steven! Let us help you, Steven!” The Diamonds are so concerned (mirroring the Gems back at home, too). 😭😭

He leaves a flip flop behind like Cinderella lmao

“Steven, let us help you!” / “We’re your family!” 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

And just as he implored the CGs, he tells the Diamonds not to follow him either.

Steven is completely and utterly alone.

Not by necessity.

But God, by choice.

Okay, this is my new favorite Future episode.

[deathbyvalentine]

Adam Prompts

Monster Hunting

Just because it wasn’t destined didn’t mean it shouldn’t die. He felt the shock run up his arm as metal met bone but it did not weaken his grip. His shoulder and wrist would ache the next day and he would be nagged for poor form from his tutors. Right now, that didn’t matter. The thing with fur and teeth fell heavily into the leaves and twigs of the forest floor. Only half the battle was done. He sheathed the sword, taking a single moment to feel the exhaustion that very almost set him trembling. Then he gritted his teeth, set his jaw and grabbed two of the creature’s limbs. He began dragging it slowly, the moonlight luckily bright enough to illuminate the winter woods. Soon, the sound of the rushing river crept in. He made his way to the bank, sweat trickling down his back and into the waistband of his jeans. With a final heave, he rolled the body into the water and it was borne away. Time to go home.

The walk was familiar. The woods did not frighten him, even though he knew exactly what they held. He also knew he was the most frightening thing in here. He had fought and had won against so many creatures. Things with teeth, things with claws, things with malice, things with instinct. He could not remember a time he had felt something as mundane as fear. Maybe he didn’t have the capacity. Maybe it has been carved out of him, along with so many other things. In being the defender of humanity, he had had his own taken. So it goes. So was right. How could he miss what he had never had?

______________________________________________________________

Being given his first sword 

It was far too heavy. So much heavier than even the best of the wooden ones he had been working with. He almost immediately let the tip hit the floor in surprise, only managing to just about catch it. It shone, not with any supernatural light, but with the glow of well forged metal and bright spring sunlight. It wasn’t a birthday present, they didn’t do birthdays, but it felt like it marked something all the same. Age? An intent? Something confirming he couldn’t back out? He wasn’t sure. His young mind only knew its gravity.

Later, in bed, he draws it out again, laying it on the covers. Now it was lit by moonlight. It didn’t seem as brilliant here. The edge seemed sharper. It didn’t look like a toy or something from a fairy story. It looked like a weapon used to kill people. It looked deadly. He could see now that it would also bite the hand that wielded it, if they didn’t learn fast enough. Bruised knuckles against the hand guard, cut shins, aching arms. 

He didn’t love his first sword. Not yet. For a long time. For a while, it represented nothing but endless days of physical labour, of a future he couldn’t escape, of every weird thing about his life. He hadn’t learnt to love the ache yet, hadn’t learnt to love what he could find, in absence of anything else. For now it was just a sword.

_______________________________________________________________

Training sessions 

It being pretend didn’t mean it didn’t hurt. Even gentle swords still left bruises. Hard falls still rocked his bones. Chain mail could still graze skin and let’s face it, his tutors didn’t exactly go easy on him. But it hurting didn’t mean he didn’t enjoy it. His only options were to hate it or to love it as it certainly wasn’t going away, so he chose to love it. The heat and sweat that came from exerting himself. The joy that came from the simple act of your body obeying you perfectly. Even the small sharp shocks of pain, reminding him he was alive. Most of all it was the knowledge that he was getting better, this was making him better. Who didn’t like to be the best at everything?

Nowadays, his training sessions didn’t exactly challenge him. He had outstripped every adult on the commune by time he was fourteen in terms of swordsmanship. His hand to hand combat caught up once his growth spurt hit. He still sparred of course, but sometimes it felt like his partners were only just a step up from a mannequin. That was the main reason he patrolled - well, that and the immediate danger monsters posed to human life obviously. No better training than things that actually wanted to kill you but were not mandated by fate to do so. It gave you the sense of security that fostered confidence while not removing the risk he could lose a limb. Balance. 

Which, speaking of, he did lack in some areas. His intellectual training had not gone nearly so well. He found it hard to sit still, to think and be quiet. When he managed to focus, he learned lessons easily but getting him to that point was a battle in of itself. The irony was, of course, that he was actually doing rather well in his lessons. But he had no basis for comparison nor any other pupils to fail with him. When you were raised with the expectation of perfection, anything less was an automatic failure. Adam didn’t like to fail.

No, scratch that, he didn’t know how to fail. How not to feel the burning pit of shame suddenly take root in his stomach and blacken the world around him. He knew logically not everyone felt like this - how could he learn that? How could he achieve such lightness? And should this even be a skill he learnt? Maybe accepting small failures was indeed, the first step to failing the big things, the things that mattered.

If there was one thing he was not allowed to do, it was fail at the big thing.

_______________________________________________________________

First time being part of the outside world 

He clung to David’s hand, eyes wide and round. He didn’t know there could be so many people in the world. Old people. Young people. Black people. White people. Rich people. Poor people. Rude, polite. Laughing, serious, tall, short, fat, thin. Of course he had seen many of these types back at the commune, they were a mixed bunch, but never had he seen the sheer number and diversity combine like this. And they were loud. He almost wanted to clap his hands over his ears. He didn’t, instead determinedly eavesdropping on every conversation he could, desperate to know about each and every person that passed.

Who were they? What did they love, what did they hate? What were they doing in town? What had they just bought? What were their families like? Did they have sons like him? He didn’t have the faintest idea what normal people did and so that mundane life seemed as exotic as if it had come from another universe altogether.

Toys shone in store windows like gold in Aladdin’s cave. Sweet smells came from bakeries and smells so delicious his stomach rumbled came from restaurants with names he couldn’t pronounce. Posters covered walls, promising action movies, romcoms, horror. Adam had never seen a movie - training videos just didn’t count. This world was impossibly bright with too much to learn in it. He felt over-awed, every nerve jangling. He held on to David’s hand tight enough to leave red impressions of small fingers on the skin. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to be in this world or without it entirely.

_______________________________________________________________

Destiny vs what Adam wants

He wanted to go to parties and kiss girls. He wanted to learn how to dance and drink too much and be hungover the next day. He wanted to scrape his knees playing football. He wanted to have pathetic, stupid fights where nobody was at risk of dying. He wanted to have hobbies - photography or video games or some stupid sport. He wanted to excel at PE because he was good at it, not because his blood dictated he be fit. He wanted to read fantasy novels and not have shivers down his spine. Hell, he wanted to watch horror movies and be scared.

What did he want when he grew up? Well. He didn’t know. He explored images in his mind and none of them fit. He couldn’t imagine himself living to be an adult. Name one hero that lived to that age. Want was out of the picture. So instead, he tried on lifestyles he saw elsewhere.

Him, with kids. With a house and a wife and a dog. He’d have a boring job but a family that loved him. They’d go camping or on holidays and he’d go to parent evenings and tut at grades and drink instant coffee.

Him, with a girlfriend. They explored the world together, had painfully cool jobs. They had friends that read the New Yorker and dyed their hair. He’d get tattoos and smoke weed and read novels by obscure russian authors.

Him, in university. Studying history. Late nights revising, the taste of energy drinks and cheap beer. Making friends he would never speak to again. Talking to professors, making lectures, attending seminars hung over.

Him as a detective. Him as a cleaner. Him as a librarian. Him as a football star. A hundred possibilities, each one exactly as unrealistic as the next. Each unattainable. Each destined to stay as what they were, a story. Not his story at all.

[isntitdovely]

Constellations

Hi hello! This was a short story I wrote for a competition on Reedsy! It was my first time and I won and I was so excited oml. I got the idea of constellations from the solidarity prompt but then I ended up using the community one,,, hope you enjoy!!

In the beginning, there was nothing.

Then, there was something.

An explosion, a gasp of light in a choking universe that breathed all we know into existence. Quarks and atoms bounced with sweet ecstasy, creation free to their whims. From dust they formed glittering galaxies adorned with brilliant balls of energy. Stars.

Stars were the pride of particles. Their fiery blaze illuminated the darkness, gave life and allowed other creations to be viewed. Up close, massive and glaring, but with an almost inexplicable allure. From a distance, gentle and charming, a reminder that even the blackest landscapes could be penetrated. Most life forms might as well be moths.

As Time traveled in her never-ending passage, the universe kept expanding. New stars were born, planets began to form, accompanied by their little moon sisters. Families formed, held tight in the arms of gravity. All the bodies lived in harmony and were appreciated, from plain asteroids to the glittering stars. They worked together to create melodies of color, an artwork from every perspective, and they were happy.

Eventually, the joy grew with the life that had sprung forth into the universe. Bacteria evolved into lush plantations of all colors. Organisms crittered out of crevices, or made them their homes. Slowly, but surely, sentient life formed their first, tiny civilizations. They worshiped the world that made and named them. In wonder of their origins. Creatures gifted with knowledge used their unique innovation to investigate and learn. Some races and planets moved faster than others, but they all held in commonality a reverence for their speckled skies. A respect. Even beasts possess a love for their kin.

After a few millennia, a new galaxy formed. Within it, a beautiful planet was birthed. Instantly, the universe welcomed another addition. Life had a special vibrancy on Earth. Her oceans were full and her forests were plentiful. All beings knew and respected the balance that supported them. Such understanding made Earth a continuation of the ardour fostered in the cosmos. Through hard and easy times, life persevered. Especially a species self-declared as humans.

The planet adored her special children. When they stumbled to their feet and stood strong, she gleamed with pride. Their ingenuity led them far. They studied the best traits of their siblings and mastered them. They crafted tools to assist them, used the opposable thumbs they shared with their ancestors. They forged bonds with their wolf brothers and mirrored their pack tendencies. And just like them, they formed tribes, each with unique cultures and beliefs. However, unlike the animals they walked beside, they had the capacity to think, to be aware. They could share their findings and make even larger societies. But, their own stubbornness curbed them. Humanity had another unique trait.

In worlds far far away other beings were also cunning and resilient, but no other species in the universe had such a thing as “arrogance”. They began to take advantage of every resource they could get their hands on. From an initial glance, it seemed a natural course of the food chain. But soon it became clear that they had set their minds on using their abilities for one thing.

Conquering.

They broke the balance of give and take and started their quest for domination. And they succeeded. Their egos became so grand so that they even dismissed the celestial bodies that had granted them their wondrous gifts. They became the first society to scorn the stars. Their need for superiority led them to seek to even take other planets. Humanity reduced once godly entities to simply their elements, ignoring anything that was not produced by them. They thought themselves unstoppable.

Earth grew more and more in pain and cried out to her own siblings and parents. She recounted her ungrateful children’s mission and transgressions, even to her. The universe is not cruel. They care for each other. Love all for they are all one.

It was proclaimed, “We must bring your children back to the light.”

So a plan was organized. The flashiest beings of the sky would gather to remind the humans of the glory of the skies, the unknown, and humble them. Violence was not once brought to the table. They hoped to reteach love and enchantment, reinforce mutual appreciation. War was never considered.

So. Stars not just from Earth’s own galaxy, but from all over the universe worked to form pictures with their forms. Constellations. Shapes of all kinds decorated the night. Beasts, gods, humans, whatever entertained the mind.

When the humans looked to the sky, awe once again filled their eyes. But not for the intended reason. Endless possibilities danced in their brains. They asked not, “What have I done wrong?”, but “How can I use this?”. It was discovered that the accuracy of their maps could be increased, they could travel to new, far off lands by memorizing the positions of the stars and their new artistic forms. Another tool in their box.

With enhanced navigation, subjugation was even simpler. Where members of their own species were a little behind, they chose not to reach out a hand, but to destroy and hand down plight like the gods they thought they were. And they no longer reined the horse of destruction at just themselves, no, they even began to abuse their own mother.

The universe wept. The moon feared she would be next. Earth was dying.

And the humans? Oh, they revered and “remembered”. Humanity said the stars were important. Just the stars. And it was not because of their beauty or grace. It was because it helped them in their ceaseless race.

A race that never existed because a challenge was never made. Not a soul encouraged the pursuit of “glory”, a bum rush to supremacy. Competition with no opposition is infinite. Humans and other humans. Beasts and other beasts. Galaxies, stars, planets, moons, asteroids, dust. All are able to coexist. To establish an undercurrent below a broken bridge of imaginary differences. Yet, one tiny infinite speck, a singular ash, can set a fire.

[globalworship]

A Toast to the Mystery of the Incarnation in the Margins

Father Kenneth Tanner is a priest in the Charismatic Episcopal tradition. He pastors Holy Redeemer church in Rochester, Michigan. http://holyredeemer.us/

I’ve never heard him preach, but avidly read his spiritual meditations that he frequently post on FB like the several I’ve reposted below: The choice of art is by him as well.

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The God who speaks all things into being, makes himself speechless

When the divine community we call God created the visible (and invisible) universe they spoke words like "let there be light" and things that were not in one moment began to exist in the next. Stars. Planets. Oceans. Mountains. Trees. Animals. Flowers.

All these things and more were breathed into existence by God. When the Father began to make all things, our wisdom tells us that it was the Son by whom the Father spoke all things into being; Christ spoke the things that were not as though they were and they were so. Orchid. Zebra. Maple. Everest. Atlantic. Jupiter. Andromeda. And so on.

Instead of speaking humanity into existence, our wisdom tells us that God hand-crafted men and women from the clay, breathed into our motionless humanity the breath of life, invested flesh with his image, and gave us something the rest of creation does not have except metaphorically: the divine capacity of language.

Though all living things communicate, only humans have the gift of speech and this capacity is creative (like God) or destructive (like the dark powers), depending on our choice.

The mystery of the Incarnation is so great that every year—in this time of Advent and Christmas, six blessed weeks of waiting and celebration—I eventually see something I have never seen before, encounter a facet of the birth narrative I missed or neglected or did not see in all its beauty.

The season from Thanksgiving to Epiphany allows Christians to marinate in the story of the Word made bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh and we come away not as spectators but as *participants* in the mystery.

Ponder with me the humility of a God who speaks all things into existence making himself speechless, making himself incapable of sounding words.

The Sacred Three invite a teenager into their community and ask her to bear God—to bear the One who cannot be contained—in her tiny womb. She consents. And in her womb by the Spirit the Son who spoke the far-flung galaxies into motion aeons ago comes to complete silence, knit together in that holy space by a mystery that Jesus' forefather David knew was awe-inspiring and wondrous.

Christ emerges from her womb into this world of struggle and pain and vulnerability and beyond crying out as most babies do, he has no power to address his human brothers and sisters beyond the glory of his personal presence among us as God and man together.

Mary lays the Word made silent into the feed box. And the Word submits to silence until in the mystery of his genuine humanity God learns to speak as we all do by being spoken to—primarily by hearing the voice of the teenager who welcomed him to be born in her.

Words like "immah" (mother) or "abba" (father) Jesus learns from Mary. And as he learned to speak as we all do, his words in time begin to reveal the majesty of his unique person so that while still a boy all the men of wisdom in the Temple marvel at his speech, as does everyone who encounters in the gospels the mystery of divinity and humanity that is spoken in Jesus Christ.

"I am the door." "I am the bread of life." "I am the light of the world." "I am the resurrection and the life." "Do good to those who hate you." "I have called you friends." "Father forgive them." "Love your enemies."

Above all—here in the Word made flesh—all other words about God find the tongue that interprets them *in* Jesus Christ.

I am astonished, and in my heart I am on my knees, before this mystery that God becomes silent for us and for our salvation. So much—infinity, it seems, by this account—can be spoken without words. The divine community who spoke the worlds into existence as One God reveal their love in a profound wordless action.

The mystery is great. Good news of great joy. Glory in the highest!

https://medium.com/@kennethtanner/when-the-divine-community-we-call-god-created-the-visible-and-invisible-universe-they-spoke-words-630408c99457 https://www.facebook.com/kenneth.tanner/posts/10214615909528800 http://www.clarion-journal.com/clarion_journal_of_spirit/2016/11/the-god-who-speaks-all-things-into-being-makes-himself-speechless-kenneth-tanner.html

‘Madonna and Child’ by Parker Fitzgerald (pencils) and Brittany Richardson (colors). Layout by Brian Gage Design. https://ninebreaker.deviantart.com/art/Madonna-and-Child-72795161

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Christmas Happens in the Margins

Christmas is not about greatness but smallness, not about strength but weakness, not about force or coercion but invitation and welcome. Christmas does not need anyone to accept its joy or embrace its light.

Christmas happens in the margins, away from the spotlight. Christmas is elusive for the proud and the blustery, and threatening to every form of politics: Judean or Roman, British or Irish, Indian or Pakistani, Russian or American, Chinese or Korean, Iranian or Iraqi.

Christmas is about the vulnerability of God, about the revelation that God is the servant of his universe, that if we too serve the creation with God then we join his smallness, an insignificance that displays for all to see the mystery of a profound divine weakness, a humility that casts down all greatness and arrogance and elevates poverty and lowliness.

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A Toast to our Maker Made One of Us

The humanity you share with Jesus Christ is seated next to the Father, forever bearer of Mary's DNA with a yet-beating heart and wound-marked hands with which to embrace us and—we should not forget this—memories of his life with us as one of us.

Memories of home-cooked meals and frigid desert evenings. Sawdust memories of hard work and sweat. Recollections of wine and friends and laughter at midnight. He made our sometimes brutish but (somehow also) beautiful existence his own and did not spare himself any of our sleepless small hours, our helplessness in the face of the suffering of children, our hunger for bread, our world weariness—this endless, gnawing awareness of contingency—and our bone-tired aches at end of day.

So a toast to our Maker made one of us, a real high priest who knows our justice-starved laments and our human joys, the sound of the wind in the trees and of birdsong; who is acquainted with our tears of shattered anguish; who knows our music and cuisine, our courts and our cemeteries; who loved us in the face of torture and agony.

To him who rules all times and places, who made all things seen and unseen, now made judge of his human brothers and sisters by the things he suffered, be glory and honor forever.

https://www.facebook.com/kenneth.tanner?hc_ref=ARSDueoQFTTPjONIpQmiaJFqyr2nJg-pWamb_EvFlOQjup4BN_gUkm2diS_gLvLz5tA&fref=nf

‘Madonna and Child’ modern icon by EvitaWorks https://www.etsy.com/listing/122130677/mary-and-jesus-folk-art-icon-religious?ref=related-3

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The One

The One who cannot be contained in Solomon's temple (much less the expanding universe) is contained in the womb of a Palestinian-Jewish teenager. The One who is timeless and omnipotent and changeless makes himself truly vulnerable and contingent to all the natural forces he has breathed into existence as he lays in a feed box, dependent on Mary and Joseph for nourishment and protection, as he somehow holds together the wood of that manger that cradles him in Bethlehem. The One who is the origin of all things and who holds all things in existence—galactic to microscopic—is the carpenter from Nazareth. He who made the Pleiades and Orion now sets beams and crafts tables with his stepfather, sweeps sawdust from his forearms. The One who baptizes with the Holy Spirit and fire is baptized with water so that humanity has a baptized God. The One who does not eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of goats is now in Jesus a hungering creature of necessity, set to fast in the Judean desert. The One who owns the cattle on a thousand hills and Lord of angel armies is now homeless and a sojourner, cloaked against the cold night air and all alone, tempted by satan. The One who never sleeps and who ever watches over Israel naps on a boat out on Galilee. The One who embodies the Law dines with tax collectors and wine enthusiasts. The One who is a consuming fire of holy otherness beyond all comprehension, who dwells in light inaccessible from before time and forever, embraces lepers, prostitutes, the blind, and all who are ritually unclean; he shines on all who sit in darkness and the shadow of death. The only One who is without sin forgives and does not condemn as he draws in the sand, throws no stones, and takes all condemnation upon himself. The eternal One hangs on a tree as the sands of his mortal life seep from the hourglass until "it is finished." The One who knows no sin bears the sin of the whole world. Nazi sin. Rapist sin. American sin. The sins of children. White collar sin. Blue collar sin. Red light district sin. Stained glass sin. Domesticated sin. Christian sin. The almost endless banality of evil. Your sin. My sin. These and other sentences like them are what we mean when we say that Jesus Christ is both God and man. The Gospel has a definitive content. The contemporary church (across all denominations and movements) may have misplaced this bright Lantern, or forgotten about it altogether, but it shines on in the darkness and the darkness can never extinguish it. The Word became flesh and took up residence among us.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10211138299550724&set=a.2253573056187.137248.1154125675&type=3&theater

‘Holy Family’ by Janet McKenzie https://www.janetmckenzie.com/prints.html

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The Incarnation and Rescue

It must be self-evident to most people that humanity needs rescue from sin, violence, and death. A God who participates in sin, violence, and death is not other than fallen humanity but a projection of our worst fears and hatreds. A God who liberates us from sin, violence, and death is good and welcome news from outside ordinary human experience and thought. Such a God would be light from light, true God from true God, begotten not made. And it is the Incarnation that makes this God known to us, and makes this God real for us. For it is the nails driven into the flesh of Christ by humanity and spirits of darkness that decisively counter and make vain all human, demonic, and anti-Christian imagination that the Father who creates and upholds the world by love is in some other part of himself the one who destroys the world or his Son. There is a destroyer but his false, homicidal way of violence, abuse, coercion, and death is defeated by the humility of God acting in Jesus Christ. He is the father of detestable instruments of death like nuclear weapons, for only a "god" who hates humanity and creation would author such abominations, and in sin we partnered in their "creation" with this god's hatred of the image of God in humanity and in human civilization, his hatred of creation, his contempt for the Incarnation. The nails driven into the flesh of Christ are also the nails driven into the coffin of the idea that the Living God sends evil or participates in darkness or desires the death of anyone.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10211110130166507&set=a.2253573056187.137248.1154125675&type=3&theater

Feast of the Epiphany icon, artist unknown

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The Babe Who Breathed the Stars into the Astonished Sky

Every moment — all our breaths — ought to resound with praise for this radical identification of God with us.

Mary is as baffled and quietly grateful as we are; that God chose her, that he sides with humanity permanently against all who oppose us, even our own hatred of ourselves.

At the end of a long season of bearing, at the end of a long journey, at the end of a long day and after excruciating pain, after holding him close to her heart, she stops bearing God for the first time since she said to Gabriel "let it be."

She lays his bright flesh in a feed trough, swaddled against the anxiety of leaving her womb, nestled by wool and straw from the cold night's sting.

The One who was God before all worlds lies there, as helpless against fragile existence as any of us, bound to the poverty of homelessness, a slave now to the elements he created, a hungering creature of necessity, soon to be an immigrant fleeing political terror, held aloft from the damp ground by wood that as God he holds together.

At the dedication of the Temple, Solomon said of this tightly wrapped bundle of dust, "the heaven of heavens cannot contain you." Yet contained he was for nine months within this weary teenager, smeared with dirt, sweaty from her labor, catching her breath in time with this baby, the One who in the beginning breathed the stars into the astonished sky above them.

The beginning and end of the Christian revelation of God, of all that Jesus does for us and for our salvation, is this baby, this mother, this manger, this dust, this sweat, these halting breaths.

Come let us adore him. Repeat the sounding joy. Not only this week, not only this season, but with every breath.

Excerpted from https://www.huffingtonpost.com/rev-kenneth-tanner/too-great-a-mystery_b_4499218.html

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Christmas is for Worship [2013] https://www.huffingtonpost.com/rev-kenneth-tanner/post_6280_b_4344762.html

Some are worked up about a “war on Christmas.���

Not me. I am not compelled to “reclaim” or “rescue” Christmas from the many who ignore and the few who despise its magnificent origins.

How can I be anxious or offended? I am in too much awe of its startling truth: that a baby is God, gasping for air, clasping for mother’s milk, flailing his small limbs in a feed trough; taking on my frailty, contingency, vulnerability, that I might share his everlasting nature.

The baby is now Lord of all things visible and invisible, forever one of us, still bearing his now glorified, nail-scarred flesh at the Father’s side, making all things new for all, hallowing every star in the far-flung cosmos — matter’s maker now made matter, redeeming every atom and every stoney heart. This reality overpowers me with its brilliant mystery.

I want to share this authentic Christmas. I want everyone to know this God become clay so that all might be like God.

Whether others believe the story, whether they practice holy Christmas — with deep joy that prostrates before his Incarnation — does not dampen my praise or slacken my faith. I do not skip a beat. It does not alarm me.

The season society calls “Christmas” falls short of this great mystery, but I wonder if the frustration and anger of some believers springs from an unexamined need for the culture to boost our untested faith in the God who became man. Can we trust the real deal without their cooperation or support? Why does so little set us at odds with our neighbors?

Should we not welcome the chance to embody genuine belief and practice, to live incarnate love in the face of all lesser versions and visions of Christmas? This is an opportunity. This is our calling.

After all, the first Christmas occurred in obscurity, without tinsel or holly. In a small town, in a cave amid manure, straw, and animal breath, Magnificence came forth breathing, born of a woman and almost no one noticed. A star and angels are needed to find him, down a blind, trash-strewn alley, the holy family are huddled against the night air.

At dawn, the world went about its business, unaware that a glory had shone that night that would never be put out, a glory that in time will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea. No lack of awareness or poverty of reverence, no stubborn denial, can prevent this.

It’s time to worry a lot less about getting Christ back into Christmas (he can’t be blasted out of Christmas, no matter how hard anyone tries).

What needs to get back into Christmas is worship. As it was with the shepherds and angels, Christmas is about worship before it’s about anything else: falling on our knees, falling flat on our faces, adoring the brilliance of this God who comes to us as a baby, lying in a feed trough, breathing with other animals, wrapped tightly against the cold and the anxiety of leaving his mother’s womb.

If every Christian worshipped that majestic mystery at Christmas, lived thatworship in every moment of our celebrations, yes, but also actually worshippedin churches, storefronts, cathedrals, living rooms and high schools on Christmas Eve and/or Christmas Day — wherever the body of believers they call home worships weekly — we wouldn’t have to worry about getting “Christ back into Christmas.”

All would see that Christians worship Incarnate Love as their first priority on this day — not their decorations, or gifts, or lights, or money, or family, or food, or tinsel, or charity or even their merely human, corporate goodwill but their God.

When the wood of the manger joins the wood of the cross, when Jesus Christ is revealed in the worship of a people captivated by the hardwood glories of Bethlehem and Golgotha, we will no longer need to talk about reclaiming or rescuing anything.

Christmas does not require our defensiveness or salvage operations. It beckons us to a deeper imitation and worship of Divine Clay.

[lemonvapor]

TW: death, God, Hell

Not many people are comfortable talking about death.

I wish I could be open with people about my peace, about my anxiety, about my terror, about my wonder, about my awe. An ant could never understand a highway and a human could never understand death. I have considered a lot of theories beyond the realm of religion- because aside from what you believe, you still can’t actually fathom eternity or the universe that we are apart of.

Ants have no awareness of all the things going on in our lives. We are busy with worries and wars and love and thought. We are around them, some of us study them, some of us kill them. We play a part in their existence. We spread them to new continents. Think about how much we really affect them without them even having the capacity to understand. What of the devil and of angels and of God? The divinity and the science behind all of it are constant sources of wonder and excitement for me. I wish I could understand. I want to say thank you for every bird, star, pond, sunset, brownie, flower, and bee. I want to say thank you for making such beautiful people. People who make my heart feel so much. People who heal other people. I want to pour out my thanks for love, the chemicals that make love happen, all of love.

I have so much left I hope to do. I have realized that, from my limited understanding, my calling in life is to be a father and husband, and to love. I have a lot in me to give- words, mix cds, hugs, advice? I feel like I already love people I haven’t met, but whom I can feel in my future. But if I die before these things get to happen, I will die knowing genuine love, I will die and because death is the required opposite of birth, other people will get to be born and grow and experience (hopefully) these things and work towards making human kind better. Death gives us the gift of birth and birth gives us the gift of life.

If I go to Hell, I would think I would at least have memory of what I did wrong. If I didn’t, what would the suffering serve? If this is the case, I would hope that my love of God would continue on because some things I’ve witnessed and been allowed to be a part of are too beautiful and I’ve been undeserving of this. The entity that created the entire universe has created a place in which every gift exists. I would hope that I would have the consciousness to remember and to be thankful and to endure if that’s the place I’m meant to go, based off of my sins, what a beautiful life it really is. I don’t believe in Hell as most do, and I don’t think I’m going to Hell, but still, I hope Hell would not take away my admiration. It would be counterproductive anyway, I think.

If I die and I simply cease to exist, well, that is why I hope that people respect my wishes and allow my body to decompose, because even if my consciousness disintegrates, my body returning to earth will serve its purpose, will fall into the science and the cycle of life, as cliche as that sounds, I will still be home and return to myself, just as a different form. Death isn’t lonely. And besides, some people say that you’ve been dead before (as in, the place where you didn’t exist aka wherever you are before being born is the same as where you go when you die). So if not existing can lead to existing, is it death anyway?

If I die and I’m a ghost here, still clueless, wouldn’t that be odd? What purpose would that serve? I don’t even know enough to ask that question, actually. But I would try to do good. I would try to send my love to the people I do love, so much, and protect them from all the evil. Sometimes I think that our goodness or our evilness go back into the forces of nature. I hope I produce love.

If I die and I go to Heaven, well, what is Heaven? I would assume it is ultimate consciousness... being of the realm of God. I think Jesus is the only example of being human and being divine existing- that sounds obvious, but it is more than it sounds. I mean to say, we are incapable, just as the ants. We are a different being entirely. We go to a new reality. I hope Heaven involves purpose rather than pleasure. I don’t think the reward is an emotion, but rather, an understanding and a unity that has been completely unknown to us before. I do like to imagine my cat, who was a stable part of my life and one of my few connectors to the time when my family was whole, and my father, whom I have missed deeply for 15 years (once March 13, 2020 rolls around), both above me or around me somehow, together, happy to be reunited. Although, I would assume that every creature who passes on also is a part of this consciousness. They’re apart of our physical life, so why should they not be a part of our spiritual one?

If I die, and I am reborn with no memory of this life, as an animal or a human or a plant, then I have life again and I am still where God wants me to be. What if, when we die, we are able to choose where our soul goes? Why would we pick to be a roach? Well, I can’t answer that anymore than I can answer why we are floating on a watery rock in the middle of a seemingly endless space that science says will one day die, too. Sometimes, I wonder if we are an example of consciousness finding a way to experience physical life (in some ways, we truly are). And by consciousness, I mean the divine. This is not meant to sounds antitheistic or offensive, but in the sense that there is God in all of us. If you study mysticism, there seems to be a common theme of thought. The thing is, in order to experience physical life, the nature of it, it can’t contain full, omniscient consciousness. So we have to let go of knowing in order to have life as we know it, because to know it would be to be beyond it? So if you believe in Jesus, He really would have to be God in order to be both, because who else would have the ability and the authority? And yet, the Father, still gives a sense of source....

But then, when you mix this idea of consciousness with the idea of sin, it becomes more complex. Of course, I am chasing the wind with that, because I know my human standards are deeply flawed and by “human standard” but still, I want to show my thanks through my actions to whatever it is that created this all and that allows me to exist. I don’t want to sin. Though, I don’t want to go without questions, because everything is saturated with human interference. It does give me hope, though, how God interacts with Job, but I am not close nor will I ever be close to Job.

I think Mark Twain’s argument is particularly compelling in “Letters From the Earth” but even if that were the case, well, I still feel like love and patience and compassion are worth more to the human experience than simple instincts and chasing pleasure. I believe there is a happy medium, a balance. And you know, you are free truly to believe what you want. Interpret the texts as you want. Who else will face the consequences? Only you... at least by what I know of faith.

Some people believe that everything that has happened has happened millions of times and will continue to do so and that we will never retain any memory of it aside from possibly some deja vu. It begs the question- if life starts again after heath death or the Big Crunch, well, one would assume how it started to begin with, what would make the next time any different? Because, if you said “pause” and set up a parallel universe where you could set up a separate Big Bang, would it not unfold as it has so far? I don’t know. I believe in free will, I truly do, but I don’t think the two are necessarily mutually exclusive...

There is also the idea of “the egg” story, where when one dies, they live the life of someone else until they have lived the life of every person ever, and then they are able to move to the next level of consciousness. Well, that’s something. I don’t really believe in that, but I would still be a part of life and where God wants me to be.

I guess what I mean to say is that no matter what happens, I am still going to remain a part of this system that I find bewildering and beautiful and I am at peace with that. Positivity has changed my heart, life, and soul. I hope everyone can find it.

[ignaciusgray-blog]

Ninja’s eighty,000 Mixer viewers show that he’s bigger than just Twitch

Tyler “Ninja” Blevins — the Fortnite livestreamer and all-around entertainer — had his first exceptional broadcast on Microsoft’s Mixer platform; within the moments before his broadcast formally commenced, the wide variety of humans looking his movement crossed 50,000 and 60,000 people to land, in its first moments, someplace around 76,000 units of eyes. (It grew to eighty,000 just after Blevins’s first victory.)

Mixer competes with Twitch, YouTube, and facebook for a extraordinarily slim share of the livestreaming marketplace. the day past, Blevins introduced his circulate to the service, in a tweet that blew up gaming’s nook of the internet; he was leaving at the back of 14.7 million fans on Twitch, and putting out for a provider that, relatively, nobody knew an awful lot approximately. Blevins is probably the maximum famous streamer inside the world; the fact of his leaving Twitch, which dominates livestreaming, became a completely massive deal.

thus far, the circulate seems like it's been a success. nowadays, Blevins streamed from the pink Bull tent at Lollapalooza, the Chicago tune festival. even as the wide variety of visitors was lower today than the heaps of visitors he pulled in closing 12 months, it’s nearly double what he’s been locating there for the remaining numerous weeks, as Polygon’s Austen Goslin first noted. Even before Blevin’s first circulate on Mixer, his channel had located 370,000 paying subscribers, an impressive range for any streamer and one that became not misplaced on Blevins himself. That stated, Mixer is offering two months of free subscriptions to Blevins’ channel to everybody who signs and symptoms up.

at some point of the movement, the gang’s strength was infectious; it regarded impossible for every body looking in individual to prevent yelling. Blevins was his ordinary hyperactive self — slamming cans of red Bull, one of the day’s sponsors — and the gang cheered for each removal he earned. He turned into in excessive spirits, searching down each participant he may want to discover and exploding them into showers of multicolored objects. whilst he misplaced his first games especially early, Blevins managed to discover lower back to back victories towards the ninety nine other warring parties at the map. (“It’s smooth. It’s smooth. GGs,” he said, after his 2d win of the day.) At its fine, Fortnite is a twitchy, fluid sport of reflexes and aid management that rewards inventiveness just as a whole lot as it rewards accurate purpose; at his exceptional, Blevins has both, even though he’s now not a professional.

quickly into his matches, Blevins found a accomplice: the musician Mitchell Brown, who data beneath the call youngster Quill. “i used to be literally greater frightened to play this than to carry out my set,” Brown said, after he’d been knocked out. Which seems authentic: Blevins, a former professional Halo player, is the maximum popular online game player on the planet.

The day at Lollapalooza became leading up to Fortnite Friday, a weekly Fortnite tournament for celebrity players, streamers, and experts. within the games earlier than the match — wherein he turned into to play with Kyle “Bugha” Giersdorf, the sixteen-12 months-vintage who’s the game’s most recent international champion — Blevins became appearing: calling his shots, showing off for the crowd. “I freakin’ love you guys,” he stated. “allow’s cross!”

playing the game nonetheless seems fun for him. “i can’t let you know the closing time I planned a consultation to sport till Fortnite came out,” Blevins advised Brown. He changed into nonetheless excited to rise up inside the mornings and run squads with his boys, is what he meant.

sixteen) The Outer Worlds swaps Fallout’s publish-apocalypse for art deco in space

Obsidian enjoyment is a studio first-rate acknowledged for building at the paintings of others. Its maximum famous games up to now are titles like Knights of the vintage Republic II, Fallout: New Vegas, Neverwinter Nights 2, and Dungeon Siege III. Even the studio’s higher-acknowledged original paintings, just like the Pillars of Eternity collection and non secular derivative Tyranny, are modeled on antique-school RPGs like Baldur’s Gate, Icewind Dale collection, and Planescape: Torment.

So it’s no longer entirely unexpected that, regardless of being a totally new franchise, The Outer Worlds (now not to be burdened with the excellent and extremely further named area-exploration sport Outer Wilds, which came out in advance this yr) attracts on Obsidian’s own beyond RPG and movement reports to create some thing that’s both new and familiar.

As Brian Heins, a senior clothier at Obsidian, informed The Verge in an interview, The Outer Worlds isn’t supposed to comply with up any particular past sport. “It’s more like this is our next Obsidian RPG,” he explains. “because among, like, KOTOR, New Vegas, Stick of truth, they all have form of the same DNA going for walks thru them, that is Obsidian’s fashion of RPG.” That said, upon getting a risk to play a few hours of The Outer Worlds, there are simply a few huge influences here from Fallout: New Vegas (and, by means of extension, Fallout three), if simplest because of genre. The Outer Worlds is a primary-character sci-fi action RPG with a massive emphasis on conversational structures and gunplay. That was usually certain to draw comparisons to Fallout, in particular when the developer is already regarded for working on a Fallout sport before. In that vein, The Outer Worlds does experience a lot like that now relatively uncommon form of unmarried-player, stat-targeted RPG. Your person has a full listing of stats that you could cognizance on. Your guns have stats. Your armor has stats. Your skills have stats. Your companions have stats. Stats galore, with plenty of capacity paths for how you play. participant desire is also a big part of the game. while there's, ostensibly, a major storyline — one which sees players awaken a long time inside the future on a misplaced colony ship and thrown right into a conspiracy in the a long way-out Halcyon solar device — The Outer Worlds didn’t appear specifically invested in the fact that I pursue it. i was dropped right into a demo revel in some hours into the sport. I had simply started out wandering round a planet once I without delay commenced talking / negotiating / capturing my way inside and out of conditions. practically every communication is full of communicate choices. Did I want to be polite to the group chief who’s asking you to music down his lacking tablets? Be flippant? Use my man or woman’s intimidation capabilities to demand an extra reduce? Or use my charisma to lie about what I recovered, maintaining 1/2 for myself? That’s just one communique from one incredibly minor sidequest. The speak (at the least for non-playable characters) is absolutely voice-acted, too, despite the fact that my character was audibly silent, despite the fact that I may want to select exactly what i was announcing. in the course of my time, I performed matters highly honest — charging into an enemy facility, gunning down robots and safety guards alike with the help of my companions. but there appeared to be plenty of other options, like sneaking in the back, disguising myself as a shield, or mucking approximately with the equipment powering the factory. the sport additionally adapts as you play. I died loads in my demo to a selected type of giant alien monster, and i used to be granted a “flaw” that altered my stats against those creatures within the future, as an example.

In another example, player picks can deeply trade how the plot performs out. “you may kill every NPC in the sport and you may nonetheless entire the game through doing so,” Heins says. “It adjustments the sport dramatically. There’s certain quests that can or might not be available based on who you killed or when you kill them. generally for quests, if there’s anyone who’s a plot-essential NPC, in case you kill them, we attempt to have a few manner that allows you to advantage some thing facts or item they’re intended to provide you … we attempt not to fail quests primarily based on players doing the matters we permit them to do.” Conversely, players can be capable of play almost all of the sport as pacifists. Heins says that you could “usually get by means of without killing any people,” despite the fact that there are a few creature encounters in which gamers will nevertheless want to lodge to combat. (however they can theoretically farm that out to their associate characters.) For all of the emphasis on preference, the Fallout influences also are nonetheless pretty heavy. There’s a time-slowdown mechanic that allows gamers to specially target regions on enemies, which is largely Fallout’s VATS gadget. There’s a diffusion of factions — corporations, in the Outer international’s destiny — that are at odds with each other that gamers can help out or antagonize. There are companions that you can recruit who’ll be a part of you on your adventure and remark alongside the way. while the art deco stylings help set The Outer Worlds aside, it can most effective do so a great deal to distinguish the gameplay. That’s now not necessarily a bad element, though. After some hours of The Outer Worlds, it feels like a recreation from a barely extraordinary era. It performs like a tightly targeted single-participant adventure without a game-as-a-service payments, in-app purchases, or tacked-on multiplayer. Even Bethesda has began to move far from that, with the nevertheless-extremely-arguable video game Fallout seventy six.

And in a international wherein video games try to suck players into an endless loop to squeeze each closing dollar and minute of interest out of them, that type of awareness — even if it’s no longer the most original of conceits — feels find it irresistible is probably enough.

[libramoon2]

dark musings

Twilight at the Dark of the Moon Moving inward. Spiraling into deepest silence. Feel me here, oh my most darling. Here is the free-est flow, river of bliss. Bounty of years of grey resistance, incrementally awakened to swirling shades -- mystic purples, mad magentas, sky-eyed blues. There is ancient music, crescendos to peals. Layered millennial ears, creatures of seas to trees murmur through. Ripples of soundwaves, broker wisdom not yet condensed into words. Romances spun of clay and sand, woven into fashion’s fabrics. Hearty voices join, create regaled mythology. Star-shaped world story reverberates with chill and heat. Nascent strive for enriched clarity that must open ever more widely, a luminous spiral up, out, in, around. Come, brave as you imagine. In that brief eternal interval all of energy coalesces. Dark Magick In the still of the dark of the moon, after the revelry has passed, deep, deep into the frozen fields of dreamless sleep, we, walking, silently, along the riverbed, breathe in ancient ash of woodsmoke, breathe out long-growing tears to weave ghostly tentacles along our path, take each other's hand up to our heart to pray, to kiss, to whisper, thus casting an eternal spell. Brave New Age I have traveled beyond the waters, acrid, poisoned water, bound and bleeding daughters, wail of senseless slaughter, blinded by the rain. I have walked sands of endless hatred, crumbled stone as hate did, explaining "It was fated." relinquishing the blame. Dark of the night, quiet, unable to lie, I search for the truth of my age in unfathomed sky. Not Heaven, not Home to a rescuing I -- the Mystic's mystery. Hugely greater than a Creator of history. Stars, Galaxies without end Liminal Spaces Twilight, the wee hours, the dark of the moon, liminal spaces, places where magic dwells, crossroads, crises, cusps. There is static on the radio. A song my voice was singing, rhythm of sound takes flight to surround me, a comforter of down to ease my soul. I've been trying to define a taste, a sense of bittersweet and salt. I've been trying to find a trace a footprint in the desert, a sight, a scent, a memory. I've been trying to discern a trace of me, a piece to fit the puzzle, my contribution to the grand design. Seeking in shadows, the space between myth and matter, those places words cannot define. On those insubstantial plains of myst and awe, the stuff of dreams, threshold of wonder, creation is spawned. dark of the Moon, dark of the Sun liminality, intense opening of magical portals -- where do you see your being on the other side? Perhaps what I am finding so profound is indeed simple elementary knowledge to others here. That take on the human narrative is: our entire "reality" is an abstract construct based on what we perceive as the general social narrative into which we are born. Much as some religions refer to a "maya" an illusory story we blend our self-narrative from, or as visionaries, madfolk, psychonauts perceive a vaster reality beyond the veil, we all have the capacity to see through the story and recreate it in an image more suited to our individual pursuits and pleasure. In fact, religion (yoke) is a social construct to better control the flock by self-appointed shepherds who may have a greater picture than apprehended by the masses, or at least a greater instinct for the prerequisites of power over. Ultimately, the more profound power is not power over, but power within, the power to move beyond the socially accepted narrative and write one's own. This is the essence of Magic. We who are part of an ancient tradition of art are always taking up the helm, seeing what was and making our own comments based on our own experiences. However, as to the whining and wallowing, people throughout time have had serious issues to deal with, some similar to what we are going through now, some perhaps less relevant at this time. We had "the bomb" Vietnam, the draft, Agent Orange, CIA, Hoover's FBI, all manner of incredible social changes to acclimate to. You know, I've been marvelling during this just recent "Black History Month" that when I was a teen I was marching for civil rights so that my black friends could live in the kinds of neighborhoods that my white friends took for granted, could get real jobs, could not be lynched with impunity. My gay friends were jailed or worse, incarcerated in mental institutions and given shock treatments, even lobotomies, because they had a mental illness, not a different orientation. My woman friends (I included) were also kept off the job market, or given low-paid service work which included a heavy amount of sexual harassment that had to be endured. We were not allowed often to rent spaces because we didn't have a man, or have our own bank accounts, or heaven forbid we had children due to divorce or out-of-wedlock, we were pariahs and so were our kids. I could go on forever, but hopefully you get the point. We all have our crosses to bear, each individual and each generation. As artists it is our job to take it all in and use these adversities to make our art more relevant, more real, more true to who we are. And, btw, check out some of the earlier psychedelic movement art -- it's certainly not all sweetness and light! The so-called flower-power hippies were more a media artifact than the real thrust of what people were doing and believed. Sodomy, defined by celibate priests who I guess thought we were too good for sex, includes all sexual acts outside of the sacrament of marriage, other than the missionary position, and for any purpose other than procreation. Sodomy is condemned as serious sin in Christian theology of the middle ages and on to well into the 20th century, even into the 21st. Apparently God gave us these intense urges just to test us. I have been experiencing complicated thoughts about the meaning of art, its purpose culturally and personally. For the most part, I've not liked poetry, though often I have found poems that did deeply move me or give me a radically new perspective in a way that other writing forms rarely can equal. I had very recently been going through an internal conflict about writing style. People have criticized my writing for being too difficult to understand when I thought I was being crystal clear. I started working toward using simpler language, but that doesn't seem to be the cure. Now, I am leaning more toward the idea that my job is to express in my own way my own realizations, since that is what I can do that is original and meaningful, to me at least. You can never please or even necessarily communicate with all of the people all of the time. If I am true to my own vision, at least that will be out there for those who do wish to see it. It is important, though, I think, to be clear in the manifestation of that vision rather than obscurant, to give full attention and intention to every word. It cracks me up that the Republicans are touted as pro-free-market conservatives. Real conservatives are conservationists. They understand that there is no free ride from planet Earth, or anyone else. They believe in the creative entrepreneur who has a stake in finding useful and profitable solutions so the buying public will beat a path to that door. Real Republicans, however, seem to be about preserving the territory of sacred special interests. As was suggested on a conservative think tank panel broadcast on C-Span about other issues, probably the best way to come up with real world solutions is to offer a high cash prize to whoever comes up with the best ideas, or at least to offer low-interest financing to get such projects going. I drink them in, your words of lithe and light and falling into meaning. Hot, parched soul that I bring to party through the changing moods and captured essence enrapturing liquid emotion. Capturing brief moments dripping down my throat like song. Blowing through life, into a magical canyon Stygian rain ignites wandering visions Madness unbound by resplendent derision rocks into devastation of lullabies expressed through Lilithian eyes way past the limits of light and reason In a gentle corner, made of more glorious dreams love's candle burns warming celestial clay New worlds orgasmic in grace explore passion.