#i have every status effect known to mankind

[orcelito]

Oh God I am exiting like 5 hours straight of hyperfixation

My head kinda hurts

[yourtoradorasextendedwarranty]

The interesting thing that a lot of people miss about this is that we operate off of the noble savage mentality in modern day. We personally believe in most of this country and other Western Nations, that white people are the root of all evil. What's more, we go a step further than that. Many people in the United States and other Western Nations actually have a huge level of self-hate. But the interesting and almost ironic part of it is the fact that the supposed anti-racists who think that the US should be held to a certain standard. Also believe that these other countries can be held to that standard because white people are the superior domineering and majority race on Earth therefore they know what they did wrong and are the only ones intelligent enough and cultured enough to reflect on that.

The sad fact is what they don't understand is that they are literally participating in white supremacist mentality. As is often the case. Because Muslims helped in the African slave trade they also helped capture slaves and help sell them and bought them. But we don't hold them accountable at all. And if you were to go and ask them how they feel about the fact that their ancestors owned slaves and that some of their countries still do they would tell you that they kind of don't care. Not that I am at all shocked by this because I'm not. But I think it's funny that there's just so much compounding going on. You have this idea that all whites are exactly identical. While ignoring that a multitude of different countries exist with a multitude of different types of "whites". But if you talk about any other Nation absolutely none of them reflect on the things that they've done wrong. So much so that at least from a western standpoint we have effectively wiped out every single atrocity ever committed by non-western Nations.

The only exception being the famine in China. Outside of that there are few people, especially liberals who can name one negative thing that has taken place in a non-western non-white nation. Because they believe that they have moral superiority cultural superiority and frankly speaking racial superiority to every other group outside of themselves. Now if you were to ask them that, they would definitely tell you that's not what they believe. But if you listen to everything that they say and everything that they demand. You would get a much different story. Because they talk like white supremacists and white nationalists. They always have. You just have to read the subtext of what they are actually saying.

Because all of these people who want to tear down statues don't understand those that don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it. What's more, statues are not glorifying things. They are historic artifacts more times than not. And Amala here is correct. Statues can be used as a reminder of the past. But we have to remember something very specific. History is almost always written by the victors. And only recently, have we seen trends that go out of their way to basically whitewash history and change it to something that it was not.

This is why we got the myth of the 1619 project. That is why we got the myth that was the story roots to which the person who created Roots said "I wanted to give my people a myth to live by". Maybe not an exact quote but he did say that it was a myth. Because it takes away a fundamental understanding of history as an entirety. Because what we are meant to believe about white colonialism, is that it is evil in all its forms and everything that comes with it is the most horrific atrocities known to mankind. And that's ignoring every other Nation on Earth.

There are still people to this day that deny that the Holocaust even existed despite the fact that we have historical proof that it was very much a thing and the camps still exist to this day. Just imagine how much harder it would be to prove what happened if not for the photographs and the camps still standing. Imagine in the future when Neo progressives and neoliberals say that letting the camps stand is basically like worshiping white supremacy and they decide to burn the camps down and destroy all of the land and turn it into a car park. Because it'll be an interesting day in hell when these people get rid of all of the evidence that the Holocaust happened. And 100% the taking down of statues, the burning of historical books, and the blatant disregard for our own history here in the United States. All of that is proof that we are deleting history and the past because a bunch of sensitive morons, can't differentiate between glorification and iconography. Because if you really want statues removed vote to have them put in museums where they can still be seen by people who need to see them.

Let us not do what some of the Arab Nations did when the Taliban took over several locations and then after discovering ruins that conflicted with their current political and religious beliefs bombed them into Oblivion.

https://youtube.com/shorts/AfiHxb7NER4?si=ywVmW2IC_BaI2KIl

What is this one all about.

What you do with the people that start in on their moral purity and judging yesterday by today's standards is find out their ethnic history and tell them they need to atone for their ancestors too.

Like Benin talking about wanting reparations for the damage the transatlantic slave trade did to them, completely unironically I might add.

Not stopping to think that a good chunk of those slaves were gathered up and sold to the slave traders by a kingdom that the country of Benin absorbed, and the slaves that they couldn't sell they either worked to death or if they didn't die from overwork they got used as human sacrifices.

I'm dreaming of the day that non western nations are held to the same standard as western nations for their historical sins.

Or maybe even better, we realize that things in the past were bad but the SOP of the past is not the SOP of today and maybe instead of holding a knife to peoples throats for things someone else did we start to try and focus on making today better everywhere.

Much easier to blame everything on the past to absolve yourself of any responsibility to try and make the future any better.

[lailoken]

“The Green Sojourn

In many traditions, the procuring of magical plant material from the wild is a rite unto itself, which sometimes reaches its apotheosis in a plant pilgrimage. Rites of ritual harvesting are an essential component to Green Sorcery and the Arte of the Philtre. These mindful praxes are a necessity for harvesting from the wild, and are rendered here as The Protocols of the Green Sojourn.

The first of the Laws of the Green Sojourner is the Protocol of Purity, which demands cleanliness of body, mind, tools, and intent prior to stepping foot in the wild. Every foray into wilderness is Exile, and thereby the domain of Cain. This hallow'd act entails a magical separation from the common, profane world and an entry into Earth Self-hallow'd; it also speicifcally mirrors the perpetual stance of the sorcerer as opposer. Thus awareness of this state of separateness should be cultivated and held at one's centre.

Before sojourning, clarity of intent should be first be formulated. Let the Verdant Magician be well-educated and cunning of craft regarding the species being sought: let all brothers and sisters of Arte discern keenly the status of the plant: know if it be endangered or overharvested; an aggressive introduced species or a precious native one. Knowing the Land is essential. If unfamiliar with the environs, let the land first be scouted, noting impressions received from the Genii Loci , plant communities, and apparent human impact. The Magician's Design should be humbly spoken to the local sprites, followed by an honest read of the place: any work of Green Sorcery can be thwarted by offended Land Spirits. As much as one may desire to harvest from a vigorous patch of Nettles, the Arte will be profaned if ill omens go unheeded and the Tabu of the Wildwood is violated.

As much as the aforementioned considerations of Purity of Intent, cleansing of the Sorcerer's very corpus should commence prior to the Green Sojourn: the Protocol of Purity demands Immaculation , both of the body and the Tools of Arte. For the physium, let a ritual bath be undertaken, as well as a fast. Physically cleanse all regalia by fumigating with smouldering tree-resin or an incense compounded from the plants growing in the locale to be wandered. The Mind may be purified and attenuated by observing that most noble of virtues, Silence. Traditional herb-gathering methods prescribe certain taboos prior to gathering plants, such as avoidance of sexual activity or alcohol. Both of these prohibitions are of incalculable value, chiefly for the homeostasis of the Aethyric Body as a precondition for the Arte Magical, as well as a gesture of devotion and respect. In addition , supplication of one's Grand Famulus prior to The Work is well advised. Finally, the Protocol of Purity demands that the land , and thereby the plants taken from it, be pure. As a general rule, the further removed from the influence of mankind the better, but of course there are exceptions to this, as some Herbs prefer haunts close to the habitation of humans, or graveyards, or amid the ruinous settlements of men long dead. Avoid picking plants by heavily traffick'd roadsides; many Herbs will absorb some of the corrupt principles of these besmirched byways, shun as well ditches fouled by agricultural venoms. Paradoxically, it is plants virtuous in accumulating healthful minerals from the earth, such as Nettle, which also store poisons.

The second protocol, The Protocol of Presence, is a magical obligation of pure and total focus when gathering Herbs, in the Garden as in the Wild. When sojourning into Wasteland and Thicket , the Man of Arte must become as the Wild: elsewise one is an intruder. This requires consideration of the magical goal, namely the Herbs being sought, but also the locus in which they dwell: in this moment, the Sojourner enters Hallowed Ground, stepping into a mansion of many beings. The Sojourn can be interrupted or tainted by the presence of obnoxious and loud persons; avoid them at all costs.

Third is the Protocol of Hailing. Prior to harvesting the Herb, let the Green Sorcerer announce his intent in a respectful way to the individual. A greeting and prayer of request to the plant is largely a matter of the sorcerer's own choosing. There are numerous examples of this from varying magical traditions. From the ancient Graeco-Aegyptians we learn of a curious rite of herb-gathering . It begins with the purifying his body. He then sprinkles natron for purification and circumambulates the plant three times, fumigating the herb with pine resin. The wortcunner then burns the best Kyphi incense, prays, pours a libation of milk, and pulls up the plant while invoking the name “of the daimon to whom the herb is being dedicated and calling upon him to be more effective for the use for which it is being acquired.” The plant is then addressed with the solemn incantation:

You were once known by Kronos, you were conceived by Hera, you were maintained by Ammon, you were given birth by Isis, you were nour ished by Zeus the god of rain, you were given growth by Helios and the dew....As you have exalted Osiris , so exalt yourself and rise just as Helios rises each day. Your size is equal to the zenith of Helios, your roots come from the depths, but your powers are the heart of Hermes, your fibers are the bones of Mnevis, and your flowers are the eye of Horus, your seed is Pan's seed. I am washing you in resin as I also wash the gods even (as I do this) for my own health....I am Hermes, I am acquiring you with Good Fortune and with Good Daimon both at a propitious hour and on a propitious day that is effective for all things.

Following the incantation, the herbalist fills the hole vacated by the plant with seven seeds each of wheat and barley, mixed with honey, then with earth. In the Domain of English Wortcunning, Nigel Pennick reveals a simple, potent, and artful tree-hailing from praxes of East Anglian plant-wisdom, spoken prior to cutting an Aspen branch, which, as noted , can be adapted for any tree:

Karrinder!

Hail to thee, O Aspen tree.

Old lady, give me some of this wood,

And I will give thee some of mine,

When I grow into a tree.

Send your virtue into this branch,

That your strength will flow through it

For the good of all.

Ka!

There is much to be gain'd by tailoring each Hailing individually to suit the plant . Considerations of the character of the Genius, the nature of the magics for which the Herb is intended, and some form of gratitude are paramount.

The Fourth Protocol of the Green Sojourn is The Protocol of Appropriate Harvesting. A clean cut, made with a sharp knife, is far more respectful of the plant than simply tearing off a leaf or a branch. Indiscriminate ripping of parts creates jagged wounds, rendering an Ally susceptible to infections. To assure both hygiene and quality of plant material, clean the blade after each use with strong alcohol.

For cutting, the Tool of Our Arte is the working knife, sometimes called the Knife of the White Hilt, its handle inscribed with the sigils and talismans of the Green Sorcerer's famuli, having, in some traditions, a crescent blade. Better than any knife or sickle, however, is a good hand pruner, duly consecrated to The Work. Such tools are crafted by horticulturists with the health of the plant in mind, and fashioned to cause minimal damage, rather than subjecting an Herb or Tree to the clumsy cuts of a knife. Some traditional wortcunners recommend avoidance of iron blades for this purpose, as iron is thought to offend the plant.

This Tabu of old has some credence, especially as relates to smaller, dainty plants with delicate stems or blossoms such as Violet or Forget-Me-Not. For such worts, iron and steel are perhaps excessive in terms of their metallic potencies. However, the vast majority of horticultural hand-pruners are made with steel, so the possession of bronze, silver, or gold knives must needs arise by the sorcerer's own ingenium and the Good Favour of Tubalo-Cain. It should be remembered that stainless steel, in order to render it incorruptible, contains appreciable amounts of Nickel, Chromium, Vanadium, or Titanium.

Appropriate harvesting for trees is especially important. If taking bark in any significant quantity, attempt to locate a newly-fallen tree, perhaps felled by a recent storm. If such cannot be found, remove bark in small quantities from younger lateral branches. Girdling, that is to say, circumscribing the trunk with a cut, can kill a tree. Leaves from trees should be gather'd in early to late spring, as their Virtues change with the advent of Summer, and they begin producing Bitter Principles to ward off insects. When harvesting branches for wands, avoid cutting branches arising from the dominant trunk; instead, take branches from lateral leaders.

When all plant materials have been gather'd, let them be wrapp'd in silk and put into a bag specially encharmed for carrying freshly-gather'd Herbs. By no means allow the material gather'd to touch the ground, as its sorcerous Virtue escapes downward into the earth and renders the material unsuitable for use in our Arte.

The Fifth Protocol, that of Numbers, governs the amount of material taken. Never harvest an Herb if it is a single individual standing alone. Look for large, well-established populations, and gather variously-aged individuals. Leave the largest and most healthy plant; petitioning this individual directly for specific needs before proceeding to gather, being alert for ill signs.

In general, the following numbers apply to gathering plants in the Wild:

If harvesting an entire plant, a maximum of one tenth of the total individuals in one location.

If stem or root, one sixth of total individuals. When taking roots from perennials, strive for lateral root-branches and leave sufficient vertical and other lateral roots to ensure the plant's survival; cutting too close to a plant's crown can kill it.

If bark, harvest sparing material taken from divers, smaller branches or from trees downed by recent storms. Avoid taking bark from the main trunk of a tree.

If flowers or fruit, harvest from one fifth of total individuals present.

If seed, harvest from one-fifth of total individuals, scattering some of the seed harvested.”

—

Ars Philtron

by Daniel A. Schulke

[alexandralyman]

Summary: A Hook/Emma angel/demon AU. They hide in plain sight, the servants of heaven and hell. The angels and the demons, who can save your soul or damn it. They stand on opposite sides, they are the bringers of light and the agents of darkness, they are enemies in an eternal war, but what happens when an angel and a demon are inexplicably drawn to each other?

Read on FF.net here or on AO3 here

                                            Part Twenty-Four

The Sistine Chapel - May 6, 1527

The long train of her gown made a faint whispering sound against the floor as she glided the length of the chapel, the heavy gold satin rippling and flowing in waves over the fine marble and intricately laid mosaics. They would have been a showpiece in any other cathedral, but here they paled in comparison to the splendour of a thousand years' worth of papal wealth that surrounded them. A few lanterns were still lit in the niches and alcoves set into the walls but the light was dying, flickering and growing even more dim with each step she took further and further into the shadowed heart of Christendom. It was in this place where a new pope rose upon the death of the old, crowned and gowned and bequeathed the Keys to the Kingdom as he ascended upon Saint Peter's seat.

The ancient throne lay empty and abandoned on this night.

Her hair was a loose spill down her back and she wore no hood or veil to conceal it, normally an unthinkable breach of protocol for a woman entering the sacred site and a grave offence to the Church. But there was no one left to bar her entry, not that any mortal man could actually stop her from passing through any door to any room in this place, where even the holiest of relics, the priceless texts of scripture and verse, the sacred hearts of saints, the swords carried into battle during the Crusades, all paled in comparison to her.

Not a single candle was left burning by the altar where a figure was just visible in the gloom, garbed as a monk in sober dark robes. But he was no more a lowly cleric labouring anonymously in the depths of the Vatican in his humble attire than she was a wealthy Roman noblewoman in her rich gown and while her head might be uncovered, it was far from bare. She wore her own diadem above her brow, it was made not of gold or gems, but of an unbroken circle of Heavenly light. Divine radiance illuminated her path while the astonishing frescos that the Florentine master, Michelangelo, had laboured over for the better part of a decade looked down from the ceiling above, now silent witnesses left behind when everyone else had fled.

Almost.

"His Holiness has left in the company of the Swiss Guard and the Emperor's army is about to breach the walls. Rome will fall to the wolves and it will fall tonight, it's too late to stop it now."

Emma delivered the news to the figure's back, as still as any of the painted prophets and saints that surrounded them. For several long moments he didn't move and if it was anyone else she would have thought he didn't hear her. But he heard everything, and when he finally turned the hood of his monkish robe fell back to reveal one who was both prophet and saint, known by many names and titles in different languages and traditions. In the chronicles of noble knights seeking the glory of the Holy Grail he was the mysterious and powerful Merlin, possessor of magic and esoteric knowledge beyond that of mortal men. In truth, he was a Prince of Heaven in his own right, an Archangelus, the patron of healers, lovers, and guardian angels and one of the highest ranked of the Blessed Ones along with his brothers Michael and Gabriel.

The Archangel Raphael.

Like all angels he was captivating to look at, with a face that Michelangelo would have given his own soul to capture in marble. Strong brows, full lips, and large, liquid eyes that were fixed firmly at some point in the distance before his attention turned to her. Pleas for salvation were echoing in the back of Emma's mind like a thousand hands all reaching out from the shadows to clutch at her train, while the Pope had been spirited away to safety many innocent souls had been left behind, unarmed and completely defenceless against the rampaging horde of soldiers about to descend upon them.

Raphael spoke in a low voice as his gaze drifted again, to the shadows that veiled the splendor around them and grew more with each passing moment. "Yes," he exhaled, and painted heads turned as his breath gave the little figures miraculous life. "They will come from the north...an army sent to expand an empire and lay waste to all who stand in the way...cities fall one by one and there will be death and destruction and war."

An exasperated huff escaped her lips. "Will be? War is already here!"

He shook his own head, his hair as close-cropped as any monk's in place of the flowing locks usually depicted in the many portrayals of him that adorned chapel walls and illuminated texts. The shapeless robes stirred about his legs, lifted by a cool breeze that swept through the nave and made the lanterns flicker and the frescos cower. The light dimmed even more with it and didn't recover, more faint, misty glow now than illumination.

"No, I don't mean this. What is to happen tonight will fade from history and be all but forgotten within a generation, though the effects will linger. This is not war, this is two mules eyeing each other balefully over the same pile of hay.

Only an angel would openly refer to the two most powerful men in Europe, the Supreme Pontiff Clement VII, who held dominion over all Catholic souls, and the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, who ruled most of the land those souls resided on, as nothing more than humble pack animals fighting over a mouthful of feed. But the description was an apt one, it was their mutual stubbornness and refusal to cede any ground that had led to an army the Emperor could no longer control poised to lay waste to everything in its path and the Pope abandoning Saint Peter's throne to flee like a thief in the night instead.

"Charles and Clement may be nothing more than mules, but even a mule's kick can be fatal," Emma argued back. "And when a Hapsburg aims for a Medici, he doesn't just strike his rival. Tell the people of Rome that this is not war when they're burned from their homes and slaughtered without mercy in the street."

Raphael sighed and statues wept. "His Majesty and His Holiness are not the only ones possessed of an excess of stubborness. Now is not the time for debate about the constitution of war, it's long past time for you to go home, beata Emma. The army is not the only wolf howling at the gates tonight."

Emma lifted her chin, not giving quarter even to an Archangel. "And the innocents will suffer all the more for it."

His voice was firm and the warning in his tone was clearer than any bell. "The darkness will always seek to snuff out the light, in every form. Always. We can't save them all, Emma, and we are not meant to. He gave them the freedom of their own will be they prince or peasant, and as such they are capable of so much beauty and so much ugliness in equal measure. That potential they all hold within is His gift to mankind and we must allow them to choose their own path. You can not interfere in this mortal quarrel and if you stay, it is inevitable that the darkness will seek to find you."

She knew what would follow the soldiers in once they descended like locusts from the plagues of old and began to pillage the city. Even in the very heart of the Vatican itself she could sense them faintly in the distance, just beyond the seven hills.

Waiting.

Damnate Infernum.

The Damned of Hell.

"I do not fear the darkness."

Her voice didn't rouse the frescos or move the carvings to tears as his did, but her voice was steady and her shoulders were squared back in her elegant gown. She carried no sword, no heaven-forged blade like the one that had made it into legend alongside Raphael's tenure as Merlin appeared in her hand with which to repel back a demonic horde, but she couldn't leave, not when so many voices were out there and calling to her with their pleas for salvation.

"You do," the Archangel intoned with a raise of his brow. "Oh, you are brave and your heart is pure, but no one, not even an angel, is immune to fear."

He smiled then, a breathtaking sight that eclipsed even the glory of the grandeur that surrounded them. Emma felt her own lips lift in response and the candles that had been left unattended at the altar all ignited, filling the air around them with the scent of beeswax and sweet oil. Raphael's smile turned melancholy, his pupils twin golden flames from the reflections but also flickering with something else, beyond what Emma herself could see. The Merlin of tale was a prophet and that wasn't the fanciful imaginings of a twelfth-century cleric, Raphael had the divine gift of prophecy as all the Archangels did and in truth, Emma was afraid to ask what he saw when he looked at her now.

Another breath of wind swept through the chapel, cold, and decidedly unnatural. It licked a shiver down her spine and the candles went out again from the force of it, wisps of dark smoke curling up to the ceiling in serpentine ribbons. All save for one long, pale taper that continued to burn alone in defiance of the attempt to snuff it out. Raphael looked at it for a long moment and then he nodded once, as if in acknowledgement.

"A single light remains. If you truly wish to stay through what is to come, I won't forbid it. But Emma, you must keep in mind that the most divine of gifts can also become the heaviest of burdens. To listen and stay silent is not easy, you can find yourself longing not to hear them at all when you can't answer. Perhaps even for eternity."

She couldn't imagine even considering such a notion, one that trod so dangerously close to a path that led away from Heaven and only a few had chosen to follow since He first separated the light from the darkness as painted above.

"Is your gift a burden, beatus Raphael?"

His handsome face shifted, becoming softer and more wistful at the question. "My gift is wonderful. And terrible. I see such marvels to come, each more astonishing than the last as they continue to embrace art and science and learning, even when they stumble along the way. Then there are the horrors that have yet to be as well, when they fall into ignorance and loathing. But that is the future and as pleasant as it might have been to be gifted with visions of only the former and not the latter, without both, I would be blind in one eye."

With that, he made a motion with his hand and the candle that still burned lifted from the altar on unseen wings, crossing the bit of distance to float between his cupped palms. The little flame grew even stronger and for a moment that was an eternity unto itself the whole chapel blazed with light. Frescos acted out their stories in miniature, Passion Plays in pigment and plaster. The First Man reached to his Creator, the waters rose as the Flood washed over the banks and the Serpent hissed in triumph as the Forbidden Fruit was consumed and Man fell from grace.

Raphael offered the taper to her and she accepted it, his hands closing over hers so they both formed the ancient gesture of prayer. When he pulled away the flame returned to nothing more than a tiny spark, the painted figures were still and his eyes no longer reflected that which fate had hidden to all but him.

"They will follow you by this light, beata Emma."

She dipped her chin. "Gratias tibi ago."

The Archangel Raphael stepped back and folded his hands solemnly in his sleeves. A papal audience would conclude with the kissing of the fisherman's ring, but angels wore no jewelry. Her own fingers were bare of any adornment despite the richness of her attire. Still, she recognized she was being dismissed and she turned, satin gown rustling with the movement.

The candle illuminated the path back out of the chapel and no more, saints had retreated into shadows and all that remained of the dazzling splendor was a solitary angel. A glance back revealed what she already knew, Raphael was gone and she was alone.

It had already begun, Emma could hear the hue and cry quickly spreading across the city in advance of the army. She picked up her skirts and started to run, flying not with her wings but on her faith instead, trusting that it would take her where they would find her, whoever *they* were.

When she reached the closest set of doors that led outside they opened into the darkness of the night, the sky above indistinguishable from the ground below even with the candle in her hand burning bright. The space between the ornately carved wood gaped like a maw, and she could smell the smoke in the distance as her own prophecy came true and the fires were lit.

Rome had fallen.

When she reached the threshold the finely laid mosaics abruptly stopped, giving way to the drop where the Pope would slowly descend to the cheers of the waiting masses come to pay him homage in His name. Adoration had turned to debasement, cheers to screams, and as the floor fell away from beneath her feet Emma didn't ascend.

She leapt straight into the storm instead.

Lower Saxony, Germany, 1943

Bright sunshine shone down on the tall stone walls of the medieval Schloss, an imposing structure that dominated both the surrounding countryside of forests and fields and the picture postcard village nestled in the valley below, all nearly unchanged from how it must have looked centuries ago when the Hapsburgs still ruled this part of the world with absolute power not as mere kings like in France and England, but as emperors anointed by Rome.

Killian stepped out of his car and tilted his head back to take it all in, squinting into the light. It really was like stepping back in time, his was the only vehicle he'd seen on the winding road that connected castle and village and, unlike in every other city and town across Germany, there was no hint of the current turmoil to be seen or heard. No armed checkpoints on the roads, no soldiers posted at the town hall, not even the distant roar of the Luftwaffe in the sky overhead that was ever present now in even the most remote provinces far from the hive of furious activity that was Berlin. It would be curious, if Killian didn't already know exactly who was currently residing behind the ancient walls, someone who was far older and had the power to keep everything that was going on at bay.

For now, at least.

Inside, heavy damask curtains were drawn tight across every window and he was plunged directly into the darkness upon entering what was almost certainly enemy territory. It would have been disconcerting to anyone else, but Killian could see perfectly in the dark and his eyes adjusted at once with a flash of crimson to take in the artwork that crammed every inch of the walls in ornate frames. Far from an unusual sight in a castle, but these weren't the expected solemn-faced portraits of family scions or middling landscapes by unimportant artists like the one Emma had been so enamoured with before the French decided to give their entire aristocracy the same treatment as Herod gave to John the Baptist. Killian recognized the unmistakable hand of Titian in a red-haired siren and Caravaggio's signature chiaroscuro in the depiction of a saint, there was a Rembrandt that, as far as he knew, belonged to the Dutch royal family, currently exiled in Canada, and a half-finished sketch that he would wager a literal king's ransom was a Da Vinci. It was a veritable Aladdin's cave of priceless treasures, and none of it was owned by the noble family who had given their name to both the Schloss and the village and were now conspicuous by their absence. War had redrawn the European borders once again and, like the sacking of Rome by another German army four centuries prior, spoils had been taken and even more innocent blood was spilled. As Damnate Infernum, a Demon of Hell and corruptor of human souls Killian had seen it all before, he'd been standing on the hill when the city gates were finally breached on that May eve long ago and the holy city itself started to burn, but this conflagration was the closest he'd ever felt to the End of Days and the war destined to eclipse all others.

The Final Battle.

The artistic splendor was marred by the presence of an imp, lounging on an antique chaise in an insolent sprawl with one leg slung over the back and a grin that revealed a mouth packed with too many teeth.

Killian detested imps.

"Corruptor," the lesser demon practically purred, drawing the title out like it was a juicy treat. "What business have you with the illustrious Dark One? Have you come to make a deal?"

He would sooner be tortured by the Inquisition again than make a deal with Rumpelstiltskin and he bared his own teeth at the imp, white and far sharper than they looked.

"Tell your master that I'm here to speak with him, and that he needs to keep his pets on a tighter leash. I've heard what you've been up to when he lets you run loose. Bad form, even for an imp."

The rebuke in his voice made the imp's head snap back hard against the padded velvet, but instead of being chastised, it let out a high-pitched giggle that quickly melted into an obscene moan.

"Do it again!"

Killian grit his teeth, trying to keep his hellish temper in check. As much as he would have liked to teach the imp a painful lesson in the proper amount of deference owed to a higher demon, he was here for something far more important and anything else was a distraction.

Besides, the infernal creature would probably enjoy it.

"Fetch. Your. Master," he repeated, each word snapping in the air like the crack of a whip.

The imp stood and gave a mocking salute, clicking its heels together and bending its knees like a ballerina doing a plié. Killian didn't return the gesture, despite the uniform he was currently wearing.

"Aye, aye, Kapitän."

He felt his eyes narrow at that as the imp disappeared down the hall, dancing and whistling a jaunty tune through those piranha teeth as it went. The sound seemed to echo long after the imp was gone until Killian realized he was hearing someone else instead, his head turning in the direction it was coming from and following on silent feet until he found the source.

A pair of narrow doors stood ajar with a sliver of light peeking out and through the gap he saw that it was the castle's library, tall stacks rising right to the ceiling and filled cheek by jowl with leather-bound books. He gave the door the tiniest of nudges and it swung open fully, revealing that the curtains were tied back in heavy swags unlike in the other rooms he had passed, letting in the sun. The reason why quickly became obvious, there was a ladder attached to the bookcases to allow access to the higher shelves and perched on it was a soman, her back to him as she dusted along a row of books and hummed to herself in a sweet voice. Unlike the imp she was mortal, entirely human, her petite figure clad in a modest blue dress and her chestnut hair falling down her back in thick curls. Killian supposed she was Rumpelstiltskin's chambermaid, but strangely for someone in a demon's employ there wasn't a whiff of corruption about her. As one whose entire purpose was to corrupt and defile he could always detect it, to him it was like the scent of overripe fruit about to spoil. It clung indelibly to those falling away from the Light as their souls blackened and shrivelled like the half-eaten apple left behind in the Garden, so perfect and unblemished on the Tree until temptation proved too much for Mankind to resist. Whoever the woman was, she was still innocent, and curiosity had time taking a step closer because he was never one to resist temptation in any form.

The doors both slammed shut in his face before he could cross the threshold, with enough force to make his teeth rattle and the sweet humming was abruptly cut off, replaced by the harsh scrape of a lock being turned.

"Corruptor."

His demonic title was spoken from behind him in an oily voice and Killian turned smoothly on his booted heel, away from the library and the woman now locked within.

"Dealmaker," he acknowledged.

Rumpelstiltskin's thin lips went even thinner, but he couldn't fault Killian for addressing him in kind and not by his preferred moniker. He was attired in current fashion from the knife's-edge part in his hair down to his two-tone loafers, but he still carried the silver-tipped cane that Killian remembered from Paris, in the midst of another time and another war. The handle was shaped like a reptile's head, fitting for an ancient demon with such a cold-blooded disposition. The ebony tip rapped sharply against the floor when he turned and started to walk back down the hall without another word, not bothering to check if Killian followed. The dealmaker was more arrogant than any king in his newly acquired castle, and Killian rolled his eyes behind the self-styled Dark One's back before falling reluctantly into step to the metronome of the cane against the polished stone, each strike echoing loudly in the silence.

More incredible art adorned the walls on either side of them, one long corridor was completely lined in fourteenth-century tapestries that were somewhat faded with age but remarkably intact, depicting a typical medieval hunt. Killian had participated in his fair share of them under his many different noble aliases, he immediately recognized the scenes. The elusive quarry managed to evade the hunting party for several panels, leaping through glens and peeping defiantely at them through a copse of trees just beyond their reach. It almost slipped away, but the pursuers were determined and the freedom of the forest was fleeting, as the tiny woven arrows landed straight and true at the end.

Rumpelstiltskin came to a halt by another pair of doors where the imp was waiting, bowing like a well-trained footmen when he approached, fawning and obsequious now in the master's direct presence instead of mocking and impertinent. Rumpelstiltskin lifted the tip of the cane off the floor and used it to raise the imp's chin, forcing the creature's head back at what on anyone else would be an unnatural angle.

"Wait for me outside the library. It's currently locked, and it stays that way."

The order was clear and the imp ran off again, not bothering with any theatrics this time to scuttle away like a cockroach instead. Killian watched it scurry down the hall, his interest piqued even more while Rumpelstiltskin entered what looked like an ordinary sitting room. Tufted chairs, a wireless in a walnut case, and a china tea set left on a side table, nothing unexpected at first glance. A closer look told a slightly different story, there was a copy of the current evening edition of the London Telegraph folded next to the flowered cups, even though it wouldn't be out for another two hours across the Channel. There was no picture of Der Führer hung in place of pride or copy of his odious book on display as there were in every patriotic German household, and even ensconced as he was deep within the dark heart of the Glorious Reich, Killian suspected that Rumpelstiltskin had his long, grasping fingers stuck in all sorts of pies.

"Did the local count bargain away both his Schloss and das Mädchen?"

Killian sat down in the tallest chair without waiting for an invitation, pulling out a silver cigarette case engraved with his monogram and flicking it open. He lit one without a match, inhaling deep and blowing out not a mere smoke ring, but a smoke serpent that rose in the air and hissed right in the other demon's face until it dissipated from an equal flick of Rumpelstiltskin's finger, his expression clearly unimpressed by the showy display.

"She made her own deal with me and is therefore off limits to you, Corruptor," he said. "Don't think I've forgotten the last time you interfered in my affairs."

Killian hadn't forgotten it either, and he couldn't say he felt any remorse for assisting the courtesan Maleficent settle her affairs behind Rumpelstilskin's back. The letter she had written had been delivered safe to her daughter while the daughter's husband was away from the house and unable to confiscate it, Killian had made sure of that. It hadn't been a deal, not exactly, just an offer made to give the woman a bit of comfort with none of his usual strings attached because he felt like being magnanimous. Besides, he'd always enjoyed Maleficent's elegant salons. He took another drag on his cigarette and did his best to look contrite, even though they both knew it was completely insincere.

"Speaking of which," Rumpelstiltskin continued, as if the thought had just occurred to him, "what happened to that angel you were so damn adamant about? I heard rumours that an angel finally smited that irritating succubus Zelena in Paris and yet by some miracle you appear to have walked away from that encounter completely unscathed. How curious."

Killian hadn't forgotten the Dark One's interest in his angel either, an interest he had no intention of encouraging. Emma hadn't fallen, not yet, and until she did and he could claim her openly for his own, she was fair game to any demon that crossed her path. He was certain that he was the only one who could seduce her, but the others would be all too eager to attack a Blessed One and try to destroy her. Including the demon who sat across from him now.

He needed to tread very carefully.

"She flew beyond my grasp," he said, blowing out another lungful of smoke that turned into an image of Zelena's face, rendered as delicately as any of the paintings on display. Her mouth split open in a silent pantomime of her final, agonized scream when another breath of smoke spilled over it just as the holy water had in life. "Zelena thought she could take an angel on herself, if she had stayed on her back where she belonged and out of my way, then maybe she wouldn't have ended up as nothing more than effluent in the Paris sewers alongside the contents of every royal bowel loosened by the steel kiss of Madame Guillotine. But I can't say I mourned her untimely passing, not after she spoiled my plans and let the angel escape."

Zelena's image finally melted away just like the succubus herself when he stubbed the cigarette out into a crystal ashtray, leaving behind a smear of ash as dark and thick as her infernal blood had been when it spilled over the blade of his iron knife. Rumpelstiltskin's gaze followed the movement, unblinking even through the eye-watering haze of smoke that now filled the room.

"Indeed. Perhaps you'll have another bite at that particular apple, one day. Although it's already been what, a hundred and fifty years? Taking the definition of eternity rather literally, aren't we now?"

Killian knew it was a jab at his apparent failure and he let his expression twist into a scowl. Little did the Dark One know of all the nights since then when he'd succeeded in "capturing" Emma, her wrists pinned fast by his grasp that could so easily become shackles from which she'd never escape, caging her with his body while she was wound in his sheets, close, so close to surrendering to him fully and not just to his carnal temptation. He'd savour his other victories privately until then, how he'd coaxed out her name the night they met, worked to gain her trust over the centuries, her confession that she could hear him, each far more valuable and rarer than any painting or tapestry Rumpelstiltskin could acquire.

He'd get what he wanted, in the end. Patience might be a virtue, but he was willing to be virtuous for this, and he'd rub Rumpelstiltskin's nose right in his success whether it took ten years or a hundred. Losing a little face now was a small price to pay.

Turn the other cheek, as it were.

"I'm sure it didn't take you nearly as long to accumulate your little treasure trove, did it, Dark One? And all strictly for the glory of the new German empire, I'm sure."

There was a flash of amusement on Rumpelstiltskin's face at the sarcasm in Killian's tone.

"I've held up my end of all the bargains I've made on behalf of the empire. What you see here are merely a few trinkets kept for my private collection."

Killian thought that "looted" was probably a more apt description than "kept" for the fortune crammed onto the walls, but he didn't say it out loud. And he was the one who'd once been called a pirate. Still, the dealmaker's penchant for trinkets was the whole reason why he'd come and he made a photograph appear, held delicately between his fingers like the cigarette before he set it on the table and slid it over.

"Is this one of your new acquisitions like the artwork and the decorative young girl, perhaps?"

The image was grainy, a faded sepia and foxed at the edges from age. Rumpelstiltskin looked down at it and while his expression didn't change the blue haze in the air from the cigarette smoke rippled around him, like a stone dropped in a still pond.

"It's called the White Hilt," Killian began, watching the other demon carefully as he spoke, "among other names, and was said to have been made from a remnant of the sword wielded by the angel who drove the First Man and First Woman from the Garden, where it was cleaved in two by their sin."

While the photograph was badly faded, the object pictured was still recognizable and had even retained a bit of gloss, forever reflecting the flash that had gone off when the image was captured for posterity. It was a blade, long and narrow and oddly shaped. Both sides were curved several times along the edge, so that it resembled less of a knife and more like a lick of flame made metal. Despite the name the actual hilt wasn't white, it was so dark in the picture that it was probably black or nearly to it, and was studded with what looked like a large jewel at the top.

"There was legends about it, like those about the Holy Grail and the Spear of Destiny, but they fell out of fashion and out of history and only a few scholars have even heard of the White Hilt now, including those that Der Führer has combing every pilfered record he can get his hands on thanks to his new obsession, the occult sciences."

Rumpelstiltskin gave him a contemptuous look. "Spare me the lesson, I'm far more versed in these tales than you, Corruptor. More than one soul has tried to barter with me for holy relics, thinking it will bring them power and glory. A blade forged from Heavenly light is an attractive idea, especially to one who has styled himself a Saviour of the people."

"While he exterminates those who don't fit his definition of the term," Killian added.

It wasn't spoken of openly, but people knew where their absent neighbours had gone. Yellow stars were left behind on the lintels of empty houses, paint flaking away in the elements and the sin cut deeper than any knife.

The other demon lifted one shoulder in a dismissive shrug. "Sieg Heil."

As before, Killian didn't return the sentiment. He gestured to the photograph instead. "This was taken sometime before the Great War, in this very castle."

He flipped it over and revealed the writing on the back, done in an old, copperplate hand. There were only three lines, the name of the Schloss they were currently sitting in, an illegible signature, and below them both was a word written first in German, and then, perhaps more tellingly, in Latin.

Dagger

Rumpelstiltskin eyed his uniform, one that gave him near absolute authority in the name of the would-be king. "I suppose you've come here as the knight on a noble quest?" he asked, tone still laced with contempt. "Shall I address you as Sir Killian instead of Corruptor then, collecting shiny tribute for your new master?"

Killian ignored that jab as well and focused on what the dealmaker might have just accidently let slip instead.

"So it is here?"

He met Rumpelstiltskin's gaze head on across the table. It was like staring into a well, his eyes were fathomless black depths that seemed to ripple from deep within. A mortal soul would fear what lurked unseen at the bottom and glance away from it, as Damnate Infernum in his own right, with power far beyond what the rank on his collar granted him, Killian didn't blink.

When Rumpelstiltskin spoke again it was through teeth gone serrated as a crocodile's. "I don't answer to you. Or to Der Führer. You think I'm somehow unaware of his more esoteric interests and attempts to collect such objects? Napoleon went to Egypt in search of Biblical treasures to strengthen his laughable claim, Charles V sent his troops to Rome to seize Saint Peter's throne, and now Adolf Hitler seeks a broken sword with which to rule the world. An emperor in all but name, and like those who came before him, doomed to inevitable failure. Just as you've failed in your pathetic attempt to intimidate me."

He started to rise from his seat then, cane in one hand and clear dismissal in his voice. "You can see yourself out now, Corruptor."

Killian remained where he was, idly examining his rings. The large, square cut ruby that he'd owned for centuries sat on his finger and winked up at him, he refused to don the honours that went with the uniform and wore his favourite pieces in their place instead. He rubbed his thumb over it and admired the fire within before rolling his wrist and snapping his fingers without looking up.

"Even in this modern world, I find that some still cling rather stubbornly to the old ways, don't you, Dealmaker? Especially those who used to hold power. They still style themselves with the titles they lost in the last war in the hope they'll regain them one day, prince, duke, count, and they still arrange marriages for their children. Marriage is a sacrament, and there is nothing more sacred to these people than money."

Rumpelstiltskin snatched up the papers that had appeared on the desk at Killian's command, his face a mask of utter fury as he scanned them and obviously realized his error. The marriage contract was clear, the bride's wealthy family had provided a considerable dowry to the impoverished but noble groom, on the condition that she be granted sole ownership of his ancestral seat and all the contents within upon the wedding, a hedge against a future divorce. Furnishings, carpets, silverware, there was a complete inventory right down to the number of teaspoons.

Including; "an antique jewelled dagger of unknown provenance."

"I confess I may lack your level of expertise," Killian continued, acting as innocent as a virgin at Mass, "but I do know that you can't put up what doesn't belong to you as collateral. Your contract was only with the husband. Mine is with the wife."

Her signature was next to Killian's own on the document the Dark One now held, granting him possession of the castle and surrounding estate. Marriage was a sacrament, and adultery was his favourite sin. He lit another cigarette from his silver case, filled as much with smug satisfaction at having pulled the rug out from under Rumpelstiltskin as the smoke he drew into his lungs. Another demon couldn't interfere directly once a bargain was struck and they both knew it. But Killian hadn't, since the deal was never valid to begin with. "Good faith" was not a doctrine demons followed, and Rumpelstiltskin had no choice but to accept that his own carefully wrought deal was now completely null and void.

"You don't answer to me, that's true. But you do answer to the Fallen One, so if you care to argue this further we can always take this little disagreement to him for a final ruling, if you desire."

The papers fluttered back down and spread across the table in an untidy heap while Rumpelstiltskin's dark gaze went sharper than any dagger. Despite his easy posture with the cigarette dangling loosely between his fingers, Killian was inwardly as tense as a bowstring. They were both bound by the same rules that called for the other demon to acquiesce, however unwilling he was to do so, but he looked to be on the verge of breaking those rules completely and refusing to relinquish his claim. If he did it would come at a considerable cost, and Killian's entire plan hinged on the Dark One being unwilling to pay it.

"That's twice," he said at last. "Believe me, there won't be a third time."

With that, Rumpelstiltskin lifted his cane and slammed it back down on the floor. The sound was like the strike of a match flaring to life, only magnified a thousandfold and everything in the room rattled from the force of it. For a split second Killian could see what lay beneath the unassuming countenance that had slithered unnoticed and forgotten throughout history for so long, the Beast without his human form to conceal him. He braced himself for the attack that was sure to follow, fingers tightening on the arm of the chair and ready to leap up and fling the lit cigarette right into the demon's face.

It never came. The Dark One was gone instead.

His boots made no sound when he stood up from the chair and walked around the table, the tip of the cigarette flaring crimson as he took another deep inhale. A chasm had opened in the floor like a sinkhole, right where the cane had struck. Killian crouched down to examine it, taking a final drag before flicking the cigarette into the hole and watching it fall end over end until it was swallowed up by the darkness. The chasm was deep, impossibly so, and for a moment he wondered if Rumpelstiltskin had decided to appeal to Lucifer after all and returned to Infernum itself to do so, as the Fallen One rarely left his kingdom below. He waited a few moments, but there was no summons under his skin that compelled him to follow and a check of the castle revealed that most of the treasures had been removed as well. The walls where the tapestries had hung were bare, the exquisite paintings were gone, furniture was draped in dusty cloths and there was an air of disuse and neglect as if everything had been shut away and left untouched for months. A check of the hall outside the library revealed the imp was nowhere to be found, and now that he'd established himself as master the door opened as soon as Killian touched the knob.

It was empty.

Not just the maid, a lot of the books had vanished alongside her. There were holes on the shelves that hadn't been there before and a few of the ones left behind had toppled over completely without the others to hold them in place. Rumpelstiltskin had withdrawn in silent acknowledgement that he'd been outmaneuvered, but he'd obviously taken everything from his other deals along with him. Using that much power at once could nearly cripple a demon, even one as powerful as the dealmaker.

When he returned to the sitting room he saw the rent in the floor had sealed itself back up and all that remained where it had been was a small black mark, perfectly round, left by the tip of the cane. His shoulders dropped with relief under the tailored wool of his jacket that his gamble had paid off, in truth, Killian hadn't wanted to involve the Fallen One either and the invocation of his authority had been a bluff.

The edge of the photograph peeked out from underneath a page of dry German legalese, Killian picked it up and read the words on the back again. If the White Hilt truly existed, then it was a holy relic of the highest order and one he would not allow to fall into Nazi hands. That madman in Berlin could make do with the ramblings of false prophets and the bones of apocryphal saints to fuel his insane crusade, anything genuine was exceedingly rare and he had his own reasons for searching such objects out, reasons he didn't share with those who only thought the commanded him. Just as it had the last time he'd been part of a German army, it was to serve his own purposes and not the other way around.

"Find it."

He didn't have any imps at his disposal so he sent his shadow to begin the search instead. The dark shape moved along the wall of its own volition and sank into the stone like water sinking into the sand, if the dagger was secreted somewhere within the Schloss then he'd find it no matter how well it was hidden. If it turned out to be a medieval copy then he'd return with it to the capital and graciously accept the Reich's accolades, but if it was real, then his coded dispatch would report that the legend of a blade forged from a sword once wielded by a holy angel was just that, a legend, and nothing more.

Night had fallen by the time Killian went outside for some air, frustrated by what appeared to be a fruitless search. There was no jewelled dagger anywhere to be found and he couldn't sense the presence of anything holy. He'd known the odds were exceedingly slim to begin with, and yet for some reason a part of him had believed that not only did the White Hilt exist, he would find it here. Learning that Rumpelstiltskin had chosen this of all the estates he could have had for a wartime headquarters had only increased that belief, it was too much of a coincidence that the demon who coveted power above all else could be sitting unawares on such a prize.

A single line in an inventory that had been prepared years prior and a photograph even older still. It could be real, or it could be nothing more than a wild goose chase and there was no way to tell without the dagger itself. He'd know immediately, just as he'd known that Emma was an angel. The damned always recognized the divine.

A light appeared high in the sky above and drew his attention up. It wasn't the holy light that had drawn him closer on that night in Rome when war had raged unchecked and the city burned, it was the Luftwaffe, flying on steel wings to rain fire in the form of the bombs dropped nightly across the Channel. A falling star streaking across the heavens with a deafening roar, and as it passed overhead he felt the disturbance in the air even from the ground.

The feeling didn't go away after the plane was gone, if anything it increased, hairs on the back of his neck rising and a prickling under his skin that usually meant one thing. Something else caught his eye, a tiny bit of movement that was nothing but a pale smudge against the deep indigo at first. As it grew closer Killian saw that it was a bird, a dove, with something held in its beak.

Not an olive branch, it was a note, falling straight into his hands while the dove flew away. There was only one who correspond with him in such a fashion, and it wasn't another demon. When he unfolded the square of paper letters appeared as if by magic in gold script, addressed at the top in a familiar hand to, "Damnate."

Killian quickly scanned the lines, his brow creasing with a frown. Once he'd secured control of the castle his plan had been to keep following the trail of the White Hilt if it wasn't there, he had some other leads and records that pointed to where it might have gone and the war was the perfect cover for his pursuit. Now that the Dark One knew of his interest, it was even more important that he maintained his cover and moved as quickly as possible. He wasn't bound to answer the summons he held in his hands, the promise he'd made could easily be broken.

"...as you once agreed to give me safe passage I ask that assistance again of you now…"

"...I need you…"

"...please…"

It was signed at the bottom with a single initial in lieu of a name, E, and he brushed his thumb over it.

His answer was silent to all but her.

Belgian Countryside, 1943

"Someone's coming."

The whispered announcement made everyone freeze for a moment before they hurried to the dusty windows in a flurry of palpable dread, dousing the old gas lamp they'd been using for light and pulling the tattered curtains back to peer out into the gloom on the other side of the glass. Outside it was pitch-black for miles around and silent as a tomb across the barren fields and empty roads that made up the ancient Flemish countryside, with not a soul to be seen nor heard from in days. Or it had been, at least. Now there was a distinctly mechanical hum in the air, quiet and barely audible at first, but growing louder and louder and a collective gasp echoed around the room when the long drive to the abandoned farmhouse where they'd taken refuge suddenly lit up with twin oblong lights. As yellow as the predatory eyes of a serpent poised to strike and moving even more quickly, they were unmistakably headlamps, from a large vehicle that was making its way directly towards them at breakneck speed.

"Soldiers!"

"Germans!"

It was a single cry of alarm that was taken up at once by the rest of the ragged group, white-faced and trembling with both exhaustion and fear. In the shadows Philippe and Richard shared that kind of unguarded embrace that would send them straight to the camps as sexual deviants alongside Isaac and the other Jews who sought shelter under her wings, while the Mother Superior had her arms wrapped comfortingly around little Gretel, as thin and delicate as a baby bird fallen from the nest.

Emma forced herself to her feet despite her own utter fatigue and lurched towards the door, tossing a hurried, "Stay here," over her shoulder as she went.

"Emma, Emma come back!"

"Emma, wait, no, it's too dangerous, you don't know who's out there-"

She heard them, but there was another voice that was even louder and she didn't heed their warnings, already on the sagging porch with her shoes scarcely touching the ground as she practically flew down the steps and flung herself headlong into the path of the oncoming car. The light found her immediately and there was an ear-splitting squeal of metal as the unseen driver behind the wheel slammed on the brakes. Gravel flew from under the tires like shrapnel and the car skidded to a halt scant inches from where she stood, so close that Emma could feel the searing heat from the engine, a shocking contrast against the cooler night air. A door opened and a tall figure emerged, standing just beyond the pool of light with his face hidden under the brim of his hat. His appearance elicited another shriek of fright from behind her when they caught a glimpse of his uniform, the glint of silver on his collar and the armband red as blood. Her little flock hadn't listened and had followed her outside, staying close to their shepherd and bleating in fear like orphaned lambs in the dark. Their presence pulled at her to return while his pushed her back, his damnation attempting to repel away her divinity and she swayed back and forth where she stood, caught between warring instincts until he stepped into the light and there was nothing except him.

"Engel," Killian murmured when she threw herself at him, straight into his arms and burying her face in his shoulder. His voice rumbled through her, equal parts amused and concerned. "Oh blessed one. What have you done now?"

There was a shuffle of footsteps behind her and she felt him stiffen, his attention shifting to the small group she'd guided from the Dutch border and across half of occupied Belgium. Emma knew she should pull herself away and try to come up with an explanation as to why she was embracing what appeared to be a Nazi officer who'd just appeared out of nowhere in a car more suited to a film star than a soldier. It must look like their shepherd had delivered them straight to the wolves instead of the safety she promised and she should step back, reassure them, ease their worry...but her head was too heavy, weighed down with innumerable unanswered prayers that flickered behind her eyes in an endless loop. People were suffering, starving, dying, and it was too much for even her wings to carry. Her fingers curled into the dark wool of his jacket and when they called her name again it seemed to come from very far away. His voice was among them but she couldn't answer, her hold loosening and her knees giving out, buckling like an ancient tree gone hollow with age and unable to withstand the force of the wind any longer.

"Killian."

His name fell from her lips in a whisper and she was falling with it, the hard earth below rushing up to meet her and the heavens above, dark, and devoid of stars.

The demon caught her before she hit the ground.

[hypmic-translation]

Don’t Pass The Mic

ALL: Don’t-don’t-don’t pass the mic! (Gi-gi-gi-gimme the mic!)

Say what?

RAMUDA: Yo, say, say, say what? Diggity-do-do-don’t pass the mic Sorry to keep ya waiting out here long, ladies With complete control over candy and whip (1) I’ll sneak into your earphones with just a touch Fling Posse bespoke new coordinates Constantly cutting edge is Ramuda’s flow An all-you-can-eat naughty buffet My drops are Shibuya’s guidance

GENTARO: Mm, chrysanthemums blooming in one’s bedside dreams (2) As if within Dogra Magra, the world appears to be infinite (3) Like being dragged into an antlion pit (4) It’s so incredibly natural for the heart to invite abnormality Fragile, you’re so easily teasable The dreams I paint upon the town are all ghost stories, a sweet honey (5) It’s a secret (shh!), but that’s really just a lie

DICE: Three-seven, what the hell? From heaven Endlessly winnin’ pools of cash to jump into, wahoo! (6) I ain’t like the rest, I hate takin’ things slow (7) By the end of the night, all your cash’ll be mine Boom-shakalaka-boom-shakalaka-boom Full stack, raising bets on my luck Only half-serious, Dead or Alive Dice are what I’ll stake my life on, y’knyow? (8)

ALL: Don’t-don’t-don’t pass the mic!

CHORUS: Wack MCs, get rid of them all Thrust out these daggers (say what?) Understand intuition, an instant conclusion Connect dots with my words East side, west side, lock, stock, barrel Scatter crowds, rule the stage Division Battle life, etched into our minds I won’t just pass my mic to you!

Oath be made! There’s no escape! Unbeatable thugs who can’t be shaken Now our words become machine guns Or a compass guiding us into the future, uh Three become one It’s showtime Carve it into history, our style Roaming life and death, genetic power Just put your trust into your instincts, say what?

ALL: What, say what? (x3) (RAMUDA: Don’t pass the mic!)                                   (GENTARO: Don’t pass the mic.)                                   (DICE: Don’t pass the mic!) Welcome to the division!

JAKURAI: Impropriety writhes and coils about all of these howling fools Blood and tears flowing throughout this city, caused by rampant verbal abuse Even the hope we tell ourselves to believe in has curled up and died in our throats Why does mankind rush towards death like the falling of cherry blossoms? (9) Helpless… A pomegranate trampled on a silent night (10) In this wasteland we build Matenrou’s paradise The words I breathe out are clear and serene Prepare to expose one’s self to a shower of taunts

HIFUMI: Hi, hi, hi! Can you hear the call? Bow, bow, bow! The excitement’s not enough If the princess can drink there’s no reason why the prince shouldn’t too! Champagne! (Bang!) Hugging kittens from behind will surely make them scream Eternally calling out for this yellow rose Tacky, ugly men are to be kicked out Gigolos and graceful women only in this jet bath

DOPPO: Aah, I really don’t want to do this anymore Getting caught in the automatic turnstile again (11) “Crap!” Power harassment, moral harassment, a painfully repetitive loop Being beaten to produce results is hip All those walking the city seem like hard workers But I’m a corporate drone, always gritting my teeth through loneliness I can’t do this much longer, my SNS is erased Let me run away and disappear into a parallel world!

ALL: Don’t-don’t-don’t pass the mic!

CHORUS: Wack MCs, get rid of them all Thrust out these daggers (say what?) Understand intuition, an instant conclusion Connect dots with my words East side, west side, lock, stock, barrel Scatter crowds, rule the stage Division Battle life, etched into our minds I won’t just pass my mic to you!

ALL: What, say what? (x3) (JAKURAI: Don’t pass the mic.)                                   (HIFUMI: Don’t pass the mic!)                                   (DOPPO: Don’t pass the mic!) Welcome to the division!

JINPACHI: It’s Edo Asakusa, you ready to begin? (12) Infernos and fights, I’m good at starting both Master, leader, I’m Demon’s Fire (13) Onigawara Bomber’s Jinpachi (14) The hell’d you say! Shutting down geisha and ladles (15) Oi, dumbass! Sharp words cutting through thick bastards Trendy, stylish demons and lanterns Wash your face with miso soup, then never come here again! (16)

MASAMUNE: The perfect kind of saké is saké that’s cool The original drunkard has arrived (17) Recklessly drinking, this red-faced Bacchus (18) The drunker I get, the smoother my flow It’s scale is simply too big for you foolish amateurs You have good reason to fear, drawing back like an oaf I’ll be the one to sew your mouth shut Then celebrate victory with some high-grade booze

DOSHIRO: Carp streamers are flown in May (19) Yet somehow you don’t even know the flavour of soba (20) Expect a war if you damage Sensō-ji, ‘kay (21) The unrivalled NiHachi stands guard in Shitamachi (22) I, an efficient yet obstinate person Brazen with the force of blooming fireworks With confidence in my skill and pride in my work It is my duty to knock people like you horizontal

ALL: Don’t-don’t-don’t pass the mic!

RAMUDA: Big trouble is the price of life JAKURAI: It is inevitable that those who prosper will fall JINPACHI: The rebellion arrives, eliminating false things ALL: A revolution of words, don’t pass the mic!

CHORUS: Wack MCs, get rid of them all Thrust out these daggers (say what?) Understand intuition, an instant conclusion Connect dots with my words East side, west side, lock, stock, barrel Scatter crowds, rule the stage Division Battle life, etched into our minds I won’t just pass my mic to you!

The end is near The greatest conflict Roaring into my Hypnosis Mic Straight hit to your soul, self-customised These words that’ll burn up your synapses Three become one It’s showtime Carve it into history, our style Roaming life and death, genetic power Just put your trust into your instincts, say what?

ALL: What, say what? (Don’t pass the mic!) (x3) Welcome to the division! It’s kill or be killed, oi!

NOTES

“Candy and whip”, AKA carrot and stick. Basically, offering rewards to someone as an incentive to do good and punishing them if they don’t.

“Bedside dreams”, or the space where your dreams reside. The chrysanthemum is the imperial flower of Japan, but in hanakotoba white chrysanthemums usually mean truth/grief, and are incredibly common at funerals. Tldr, you aren’t dreaming, you’re dead.

Dogra Magra is a surrealist, psychological thriller book written by famous Japanese author Yumeno Kyūsaku (actually a pen name), in which a man wakes up in a hospital with amnesia. He might be a murderer, but he also might not be, and everyone else in the book might not be who they say they are or even as dead as they’re supposed to be. It is, mostly, a book about psychoanalysis.

The antlion is a type of insect that, surprise surprise, eats ants. The larvae, which is the more popularly known form of the antlion, achieves this by digging pits that ants fall into. Another name for the larvae of antlions is doodlebug, but that seemed out of character for Gentaro to say… you can pretend he does if you want to, though.

The literal translation of “ghost stories” would be “demon play” (鬼物), which is the fifth and last stage of an Edo-era Noh play.

Dice uses onomatopoeia here to signify the act of jumping into a pool, like he’s doing a cannonball.

More onomatopoeia here, read as chimachima, which signifies someone doing a task in a less effective, much slower way when it could be done far more efficiently.

Dice finishes this line with a very obvious “nya” sound, but he also phrases it as a question? So I merged the two and made a pun instead.

It’s traditional in Japan for people to get together during spring for “flower viewing parties” in which they appreciate the transient beauty of cherry blossoms, because of how quickly the flowers bloom and then fall away. That phenomenon is what Jakurai is referencing here.

I’ll be honest I have no idea what this means. The pomegranate is a symbol of fertility and femininity in Japan, however, so maybe it represents Chuuoku?

Automatic turnstiles/ticket gates, like the kind you’d find in railway stations.

Asakusa was a popular entertainment district during the Edo period, but has since been surpassed by Shinjuku and other districts/wards thanks to the damage dealt by bomb raids during WW2.

Jinpachi’s MC name. Just so I don’t have to do this every time, all of Asakusa say their MC names in English.

An ‘onigawara’ is actually the name for a type of roof ornament in Japanese architecture, which is a statue/tile depicting the face of an oni (demon), intended to ward away evil (and bad weather). They’re commonly found on Buddhist temples. The “bomber” part of the division name probably has to do with the aforementioned WW2 thing.

This guy has the thickest Edo accent. His “the hell” is an shortened version of an old retort/catchphrase of Tokyo citizens (“what the hell are you saying/talking about?”). “Geisha” and “ladle” are both references to cultural aspects of Asakusa, as it is currently Tokyo’s oldest geisha district, and in the Buddhist Sensō-ji temple located there (the oldest in Japan) you purify yourself with ladles of water.

The expression “never come again” stems from the more literal phrase of “come the day before yesterday” - essentially, a day that won’t ever exist again.

A reference to an old song from the 1960s by the Folk Crusaders. It tells the story of a man who dies in a traffic accident while drunk driving and goes to heaven, but gets kicked out and comes back to life for spending too much time drinking with beautiful women.

Bacchus, the Greek/Roman god of fruit, vegetables, ecstasy and wine. Also known as Dionysus.

A reference to Tango no Sekku/Children’s Day on May 5th in Japan, in which carp streamers are flown to celebrate. This is the last day of Golden Week.

Ni-hachi (Doshiro’s MC name) is a kind of soba. He’s essentially saying “it’s so late in the song, but you haven’t had a taste of me yet”.

“Sensō-ji”, or Asakusa Temple. It is the oldest temple in Tokyo.

Shitamachi is the name for the geographically lower half and (once) lower-class of Tokyo, which is considered more traditional than its Yamanote counterpart.

[twistedtummies2]

Gotham’s 31 Most Wanted - Number 29

Welcome back to Gotham’s 31 Most Wanted! Each day of January, I’m counting down my Top 31 Favorite Batman Villains of all time! Today’s rogue of choice was actually Batman’s very first villain! Number 29 is…Dr. Death.

Dr. Karl Hellfern, a.k.a. Dr. Death, was the first recurring villain Batman ever faced. He appeared in the third Batman story ever written. In the previous two stories, Batman had faced fairly ordinary crooks, but Dr. Death was a whole new ballpark. Admittedly, in his early years, Dr. Death was nothing too special: a generic mad scientist in a goatee and monocle who sought wealth and power. However, it was still a much more colorful character than previous antagonists had been, and unlike those previous antagonists, who were finished off promptly, Hellfern returned to bedevil the Dark Knight again. Ever since his first appearance, Dr. Death has continually popped up throughout Batman’s history. What’s interesting about the villain is that every time he shows up, the writers reimagine him. In the Bronze Age, a remake of Death’s first story was made, which featured a new take on Hellfern who looked more or less the same as he had in the Golden Age, but was given more complexities to his character, as he was disabled and stuck in a wheelchair, his physical impairments partially responsible for his resentment towards mankind. Later, he was reimagined as a criminal scientist who would sell his inventions and poisons to the highest bidder, coming up with all kinds of crazy schemes, usually acting as support for a larger antagonist. Initially, this version of the character seemed to be set up as something of a nemesis for Batgirl, and was given a kooky personality and colorful visual design. However, this same version of the character – at least in terms of depiction – would quickly darken and shift again. This leads to my favorite incarnation of the villain (the one pictured here): in this take, Hellfern was still an evil scientist who sold his concoctions and creations on the black market, often working for more well-known rogues, like Hush and Black Mask. However, he had a much more serious and unsettling personality, matched by an equally unnerving visual design. I really loved the almost Kroenen-esque trenchcoat-and-gas-mask look this take on Dr. Death had; it was so simple yet so effective, and harkened back to the character’s “Age of the Pulps” origins while not being a redesign of his more stereotypical look from years past. Most recently, in the New 52, a drastically different take on Hellfern was presented as the secondary antagonist of the story arc “Zero Year” (the Riddler was the main villain there). In this version, we got a much more sympathetic take on Dr. Death: a chemist and surgeon who, due to personal tragedy, tries to find a way to strengthen the human body. The formula he tests on himself is meant to improve bone growth and structure…but the experiment goes horribly awry, causing him to transform into hideous monster as his bone matter grows at an exponential rate. I’ve always had a soft spot for Dr. Death, especially in his late 2000s “Gas Mask Look.” My main problem with him, however, is that there’s very little consistency to him. He’s always a mad scientist who uses chemicals, but that’s kind of a vague set up. And while it’s easy for me to say what my personal favorite interpretation is, I really dislike it when characters are so frequently reinterpreted. It’s the same problem I have with characters like King Shark: they just keep changing over and over, and it’s hard for me to really figure out who and what they are supposed to be. However, while with King Shark I don’t think there’s any one take I really enjoy 100%...I can safely say I know how I like Dr. Death, and the other interpretations all have their own merits, too. He has yet to appear in other media, and his appearances in comics are somewhat sporadic, so despite his status as Batman’s canonical first nemesis, he’s often overlooked or unheard of by mainstream audiences and readers. I hope someday that changes. The countdown continues tomorrow, where I’ll be covering my 28th Favorite Batman Villain…or, rather Villains. HINT: Three is a Magic Number.

[trigonometry-is-my-bitch]

In the light of the racial Injustice we have seen in America, where a Black man named George Floyd was murdered at the hands of the US police, and where Breonna Taylor, a Black EMT, was murdered while sleeping in her home by police without uniform, and many other brutalities take place every day in America unto black people that goes unheard, it lifts my spirits to see people all around the world in support of the Black lives matter movement for racial justice.

I am heartbroken to watch their governments show little to no support for their people protesting against racism, when they have plenty to talk about from their unsettled past actions during the colonial era, as well as institutionalised racism which breathes today in their countries. 

In the years of 1884 - 1914, the Berlin conference saw many of the major nations of europe partake in the colonisation of African countries known as the Scramble for Africa, which set a low bar for the history of mankind. You can and should read all about the atrocities onto African people, such as the Human Zoos, or the genocides which took place under the foot of colonial powers

I ask you to remember the starving to death of 65,000 Herero people, 80% of their number. And the 10,000 Nama people, 50% of their number in German concentration camps like Shark Island. They were the first genocides of the 20th century, we are only in the beginning of the 21st. The effects are still suffered today.

I ask you to remember the Belgium Rubber mines which saw the people of Congo enslaved and tortured. Even today countries like France interfere with African politics, and are forcing 14 african ex-colonies to pay colonial tax since their independence. 85% of these countries’ national reserve is controlled by France. The effects are still suffered today.

The colonial powers did not care to make amends with the ex-colony states after the end of colonialism, which saw many african nations and cultures in total ruin. They carved up borders that were not there, grouping and racially categorising indigenous people, which saw tribes amongst the desolation of a sacked continent at war with each other, and lead to incidents such as those seen in Rwanda.

Now today you hear white supremacist leaders that accomplish nothing for their citizens, calling African nations “shithole countries”. The painting of the african continent is that they cannot develop their cultural identity like Europe can because they are inferior, and not because while they were subjugated, their culture was abolished for being unlike theirs, and surely therefore barbaric. Or they cannot create strong economies like Europe can because they are inferior, while the wealth of those european countries is built on the spoils of a war against Africans, those same Africans did not choose to be engaged in.

And in america, white supremacy will convince you today that black people are lazy, after fighting a civil war to keep them enslaved, to do the hard labour for them because black people were just so good at building roads and the White house.

It is not okay to be silent about racism. It is equally dangerous to humanity to leave mankind’s sins unhealed and conveniently forgotten, because the pain is felt every day by black people and african nations by racism which lives today just as fresh as then in the beginning of Colonialism. The effects of racism don’t go away because a government stops carving up your homeland, or enslaving your people, the problem gets passed down on both sides of the conflict and becomes a generational issue like we are seeing in Britain, Africa, America, and other parts of the world.

I live in the United Kingdom, so I call for the government to come forward and address properly the injustice done to ethnic minorities today in britain, as well as in the past. I call for other European countries to address racism in a similar manner officially, if you are a European citizen, you should call upon your government too. Italy, Spain, Portugal, France,Belgium, Britain are failing to engage the public in conversation about racism.

European Governments are failing the people taking a stand against racism and protesting. Because they are hiding in shame like the biblical adam  who knew he had sinned. If only they put the same level of energy and enthusiasm in healing the wounds of centuries of racism as they did sowing its seeds.

To start, I call for the Statue of British colonialist Cecil Rhodes, proudly displayed at Oriel College, Oxford University, to be taken down and put in a museum. In 2016, a petition to remove the statue which represents British white supremacy, was refused because “the statue was a reminder of the complexity of history and of the legacies of colonialism”. There is nothing complex at all about colonialism, that is only delusional exceptionalism born from white supremacy. It is animalistic barbarism, and failure of compassion that forever left a stain upon humanity, which at least we can learn from - in a museum. If it is indeed history it should be put in a museum.

Sign the petition to remove the Cecil Rhodes statue.

Please, share this, and do all that you can to support the movement for racial justice. Do what you can in your country.

Donate to Black lives matter: https://secure.actblue.com/donate/ms_blm_homepage_2019

[bssaz97]

Juane and ruby go missing for a year only to show back up to tell yang she’s an aunt and ren is The Godfather

Missing For A Year… (1)

*At the newly reopened Beacon Academy, a large groups is congregated in front of a new statue inside the school, currently covered in tarps. Of this group consists the remains of team (R)WBY, (J)NPR, SSSN, CVFY, C(R)D(L), FNKI, Ace-Ops, (S)TRQ, Penny and Pietro Polendina, Maria Calavera, Winter, Willow and Whitley Schnee along with their butler Klein, Ghira and Kali Belladonna, the redeemed Illia Amitola, Mercury Black, Emerald Sustrai, and Neo Torchwick, as well as the entirety of the Arc Family and Athena Nikos, and the old Beacon Faculty. They are all seated in the auditorium as the newly appointed Headmistress Goodwitch takes the podium.*

Glynda: Good Afternoon everyone, I know for many today may not be such a good day. Today we are here to commemorate the death of Ruby Rose and Jaune Arc, two of Remnant’s greatest heroes. They sacrificed their lives today precisely one year ago at the final battle against Salem. You here are the many who know what the war was like and what it has cost. ‘Sigh’ I knew both Miss Rose and Mr. Arc, I want to say that they were two of the most exceptional students during their time here, but that would obliviously have been a lie.

Everyone: *Laughs*

Glynda: While they may have not been the most prominent of their peers, they held the most promise. I know for a fact that Ruby Rose was born to be a huntress, but it was her heart that made her a great one and Mr. Arc....I knew when he first came here that he was wildly unprepared for the trials that were to come before him. He did not excel in any subject he was in, and at the time he wasn’t particularly strong, but he more than made up for that with his desire to learn and to support his team. They were.....

*The Audience saw that Glynda took a moment to compose herself. Those who knew Goodwitch always aware that she cherished her students very much. After the Fall of Beacon, she had to count the amount of students had been slain by Grimm, Atlesian Knights and White Fang Insurgents. It was difficult for her to keep her emotions hidden at times but kept a strong front for many years, but she wasn’t perfect. As she recomposes herself she continues.*

Glynda: They were wonderful students and showed us all that even the most simple souls can conquer great forces. As such, we are here to commerate them and those who have fallen throughout this conflict by adding this monument to our newly reestablished Beacon Academy, so that others may know of their heroic deeds and ultimate sacrifice for all mankind.

*With that the tarp is removes and showcases a statue of Jaune and Ruby together in similar poses to the statue at the front of the school. Behind it is a large marble wall to serve as a memorial to those who had fallen at the fall of Beacon and its reclamation.*

Yang: ‘Sniff, sniff’ See sis...I told you you’d be the bee’s knees. Just wish you’d be here to see it.

*The group gathered are so preoccupied with the commemoration to notice that the main doors opened and someone walking through. At the stage, Oscar Pine prepares to say his own words.*

Oscar: I hadn’t known Ruby and Jaune as long as many here, but they have had a profound impact on my life. They encouraged me when I was pretty much thrusted into a conflict I was gradually unprepared for. But they were there for me and I will always be grateful to them. Ruby...Jaune if you can hear us, we miss you and we hope you two are in peace.

*The person walk towards the group, while everyone is too busy to focus on the new guest. At this point Weiss Schnee has taken the platform.*

Weiss: Ruby was my partner and team leader but more importantly than that she was my friend and sister in arms. I can’t say we started out that way, I constantly butted heads with her and wasn’t the best teammate at first. As time continued, I saw her for the qualities that made her a great leader and a powerful huntress. But she is more than that...she’s my best friend. Who I miss every day.

*The person stops to take a seat behind everyone else and waits until the event is almost completely done.*

Yang: That was great Weiss, thank you for saying that.

Weiss: I meant every word, I....I just wish Ruby and Jaune were still with us. ‘Sniff, sniff’

Neptune: You did great, I’m sure she would have appreciated to hear that.

Weiss: ‘Sniff’ Thank you. I just miss them so much.

Yang: Me too, Weiss. Me too. *Wipes a tear with her bionic finger, when someone next to her hands her a tissue. Which she takes and blows her nose.* Thank you.

Ruby: Any time sis!

* * * * * ‘Ding!’

*Everyone in attendance does a double take and looks to her right to see her ‘deceased’ half sister right next to her with a box of tissues. One of which she uses herself.*

Ruby: Everyone has said so many nice things it’s *Blows Nose* So beautiful!

Everyone: RUBY?!?!?!?!

Ruby: Huh? Why is everyone so surprised? I mean I was a bit surprised nobody invited me to the reopening of Beacon and a little ticked no one tried to contact me.

Yang: Ruby? You’re here? You’re...YOU’RE ALIVE! *Grabs her sister in a tight embrace that almost turns Ruby blue*

Ruby: Guh...Yang...can’t Breathe!

Yang: Wait a minute! *Lets her go* You’ve been alive this entire time? Where have you been?! We looked for you for almost a year!

Ruby: Oh, well I was preoccupied with my-.

Voice: Look I’ve already told you I’m a former student here, now if you just let me through!

*The front door opens once again to reveal another guest, this time in the form of the ‘deceased’ Jaune Arc, with baby carriers strapped onto him. He looks over the crowd and stops the person he’s looking for.*

Jaune: Ruby, there you are I was looking all over for you! Man you won’t believe how rude these new guards are. Barely let me in here without a fight.

Ruby: Hehehe. Sorry Jaune! I just got so excited to see everyone again that I guess I forgot to wait for you.

Everyone: JAUNE?!?!?!?!

Jaune: Huh? Oh hey guys, long time no see!

Nora: F-Fearless Leader? You....YOURE ALIVE!!! *Prepares to glomp him. Making his eyes enlarge.*

Jaune: NORA STOP!!! *Outstreched his arms.*

*Nora almost collided with him when she stops mid air, she falls down when she takes note of the little people on his chest. One girl and one boy.*

Nora: Are...are those...?

Jaune: Yeah they’re babies. Well more particularly me and Ruby’s babies.

Everyone: BABIES?!?!?!?!

Ruby: Well of course they’re our babies, I mean Jaune and I have been married for almost a year now.

Everyone: MARRIED?!?!?!?!

Yang: OH FOR GODS SAKE WILL EVERYONE JUST CALM DIWN FOR TWO SECONDS!!!

* * *

Babies: *Start crying*

Yang: Oh shi-! *Rushes to the two infants sides* No, no! I didn’t mean you two! Oh I’m so sorry I didn’t mean to scare you. Please don’t be mad at Auntie Yang.....oh gods, I’m a Auntie!

Ruby: Yep. Also Ren and Nora are the godparents.

Ren: G-Godparents! *Blushes*

Nora: ‘GASPs!’ I. Have. God Babies! *She grabs the boy and holds him above her.* Oh my gods you and I are gonna have so many adventures together! Oh my wittle, shmittle, melittle...what’s this baby’s name?

Jaune: That would be Rowan.

Nora: Rowan! My little man, I’ll take you on all my conquests and together we will rule the lands!

Rowan: *Cute baby laughter*

Jaune: Not even a day and she’s already claimed him. Sorry little guy.

Yang: *Moves towards his side* Annnnd this one would be? *Gestures to the baby girl*

Ruby: This is little Summer.

Yang: *With permission from Jaune she grabs the baby gently and hold Summer in front of her* Summer huh?

Summer: .....*Cute baby giggle*

Yang: *Blushes* ....I’ve only known this baby for five seconds but I would protect her with my life.

Ruby: Yep babies will have that effect. But I’m really surprised that you didn’t know about them until now. Haven’t you been getting our letters?

Yang: Letters?

Ruby: Yeah, the letters we’ve been sending you every month for the past year.

*Everyone looks perplexed about what the young mother was talking about.*

Jaune: Wait you guys are serious you haven’t been receiving any of our mail to you all?

Neptune: Dude for a year we thought you guys were dead!

Ruby/Jaune: HUH?!?!?!

*Both finally noticed that everyone was wearing all black and that the decoration around them was fit for what seemed to be a wake. Including the giant memorial statue in the back of the auditorium.*

Ruby: What the-? JAUNE! Did you not send any of those letters through the mail!

Jaune: Of course I did! You had them all stamped right?

Ruby: .......oh gods I forgot about the stamps.

Jaune: What?! How could you forget about the stamps! That’s the only way to make sure the mail gets to where they’re supposed to go!

Ruby: It’s hard ok! They get so sticky and at the time it was hard to do so without ripping them. I thought they’d make a exception.

Jaune: Ruby, the postal services always check for stamps, otherwise they don’t send the mail!

Ruby: Oh~ I’m sorry.

Jaune: ‘Sigh’ Look it’s fine Ruby, I didn’t check and assumed the stamps were there in the first place so we’re both to blame.

Ruby: ‘Sniff’ Thank you dear! *Hugs Jaune* I love you!~

Jaune: I love you too Rubes!~

Weiss: .....Ruby....Jaune.....

*The lovey dovey couple suddenly stop their affection when they feel an icy chill up their spines. Slowly they turn around to see their longtime friend Weiss Schnee behind them with a shadow overcasting her eyes and Myrtenaster in hand.*

Ruby: N-Now Weiss! Let’s talk about this!

Jaune: Y-Yeah it was a honest mistake!

Weiss: I know...that’s why you get a five second head start. Right now.

*Without a word, both husband and wife race outside the doors and run for their lives.*

Jaune: The kids will be ok right?!! We can trust the others to handle them right!!!

Ruby: Yeah they’ll have a blast!!! Just don’t look back!!!

**Explosion!**

Weiss: YOU DUNCES!!! COME BACK HERE AND TAKE HOUR PUNISHMENT!!! YOU’RE GONNA PAY FOR ALL THE TEARS I’VE SHED!!!

-Fin-

Author Notes:

Yes i made a JoJo reference.

I decided to add my two OC Lancaster babies. This is not canon to that particular AU but I loved the idea and consider it a AU to the AU.

I may continue this for a little if you guys want. Probably nothing too serious but fluff.

[fromtheringapron]

Scary Wrestling Stuff from My Childhood

Every Halloween season, it’s not uncommon for wrestling fans to reminisce about the moments in our great sport that genuinely scared them, and I’m certainly no exception. At the end of the day, wrestling is still a fantasy world that’s seen plenty of dark, suspenseful, and even at times supernatural bullshit. In fact, one of its biggest stars is The Undertaker, who has been in turns a mortician, a zombie, a Satanic cult leader, a desert biker, and some strange hybrid of all those characters at once.

Truthfully, nothing in wrestling scares me anymore. Well, at least not in kayfabe. Real life still provides a lot of fright in and out of the ring. When I see a wrestler get legitimately injured in the ring, you bet I’m concerned. The depressingly common trend of premature wrestling deaths is a terrifying subject on its own. But when you’re a kid, where even the most ridiculous thing in wrestling can seem real, there’s a lot in kayfabe to be scared about, and you don’t even known what the hell the term “kayfabe” even means.

So, to get in the spirit of the spooky season, I’ll give you a quick rundown of some things that personally scared me shitless watching wrestling as a youngster:

Evil Doink the Clown: Doink is usually associated with everything wrong in WWF’s New Generation era⏤one-dimensional gimmickry, cheesy beyond belief, and worst of all, out of touch. But it’s a reputation that isn’t quite deserved. The original Doink character was that of an evil clown, brilliantly brought to life by Matt Borne. As someone who churned out many rewatches of WrestleMania IX as a child, which features the character at its peak, you better believe I was terrified of this wrestling clown with lime green hair. If evil Doink’s sudden mood swings and aggression weren’t unsettling enough, the entrance music is fucking horrifying to this day. Far scarier than Pennywise and the Joker could ever wish, complete with maniacal clown cackles. Yikes, yikes, yikes. It sounds like the soundtrack to a haunted carnival episode of Are You Afraid of the Dark? on Nickelodeon. Given the rise of creepy clowns in recent pop culture, evil Doink would still get over now, and scare a whole new generation of kids to boot.

Kane, Circa ’97/‘98: Hear me out: the video package to Kane and The Undertaker’s clash at WrestleMania XIV is one of the best ever. The music, the footage, and even the random Michael Cole narration all flow together perfectly to create something goosebumpingly epic. But, damn, as kid? This was some terrifying shit. Considering I was too young to stay up and watch every episode of Raw in full, that package was like a highlight reel of pure horror. Kane has become known for taking part in some of the most infamous and illogical storylines in WWE history, but it’s often forgotten how effective a job was done to build him up as a monster upon his debut. Remember when he lit that random dude on fire on Raw? Holy fuck. Not even the Wicked Witch of the West setting fire to The Scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz shook me up quite like that. The eyes peeping out of his mask was, to me, the most frightening part of his appearance. Total nightmare fuel. Generations more familiar with bald, mask-less Kane could never quite know the trauma.

Papa Shango’s Sega Genesis Theme Music: Okay, this a fairly obscure one, but my brother and I would play WWF Royal Rumble on Sega Genesis back in the day. The game was complete with cute little 8-bit versions of each wrestler’s entrance themes. The Crush theme, in particular, is a minor masterpiece. The other piece of music that made an impact on me is the version of Papa Shango’s theme. I didn’t have too much footage of Papa Shango in my childhood wrestling VHS collection so he held some mythical status to me. The original theme is creepy enough, but the Genesis version really takes you to an dark, murky swamp where Shango is hexing his latest victim. It scared me so much that I’d speed ahead the character selection screen in the game so I wouldn’t have to hear it. You can scoff at me now all you want, but I must speak my truth.

Zeus and Randy Savage Attack Hulk Hogan and Brutus Beefcake: If you’ve watched Survivor Series 1989, you may remember a segment where Mean Gene interviews Hulk Hogan and Brutus Beefcake about their upcoming match at No Holds Barred. That’s not scary at all, but it’s what happens as the interview unfolds that, for whatever reason, really tore me up when I’d put my copy of this show in the VHS. Sensational Sherri crashes the interview, with the most wild-eyed glared you could imagine, shouting at Hogan and Beefcake in her dark, garish makeup. She then throws handfuls of powder in their eyes, allowing Zeus and Randy Savage to attack them. It’s so hard to describe what’s so scary about this. No Holds Barred, both the movie and the pay-per-view, were pretty notorious failures so it’s not even like it’s remembered as a major angle or anything. If anything, I gotta think it has something to do with the sudden tonal shift from a goofy babyface interview to an all-out assault, which can be pretty striking for any young viewer.

Mick Foley, Hell in the Cell: I don’t really need to say any more, do I? The Hell in the Cell match at King of The Ring 1998 is something that warrants a post of its own, as its undoubtedly one of my favorite matches of all time. But I cannot stress this enough: watching a human being do what Mick Foley does in this match, no matter how pre-planned, is some seriously distressing shit. As an adult, you realize you’re watching this man single-handedly take years off his career. But even in kayfabe, there’s true terror in watching the full extent of Mankind’s threshold reveal itself. The dude literally fucking smiles to the camera as he’s concussed and his mouth bloodied into steak tartar. If that image alone doesn’t stay with you, I don’t know what will. Mick Foley turns this match into a mini horror movie. Years before people tuned in droves to watch Saw and Hostel, they watched Mick Foley torture himself. In the match’s most chilling moments, he turns Mankind into a character like Michael Myers or Jason Voorhees⏤just when you think he’s been completely broken in half, he’s up and ready for more.

Early Undertaker: I can’t possibly go on without mentioning The Undertaker. When you really think about it, some of things I’ve mentioned already wouldn’t have been possible without him. It seems a little cliche to even bring him up for a topic like this, but he’s the OG of cheesy wrestling horror. Plus, it needs to be said: The Undertaker, in first couple years of his WWF career, could easily scare kids. It definitely scared the kids who grew up watching that version of the character, at least. I watched Survivor Series 1990 countless times growing up so, as you could imagine, I was one of the fortunate/unfortunate children. One of the more brilliant touches of The Undertaker’s early character, outside of the creepy glare and slow approach, was the various shots of mortified children in the crowd. It seems like a minor detail, but it went a long way in establishing him as a genuine monster. Not to mention, there were things the Undertaker did during that era that, even by the family-friendly standards of early ‘90s WWF, were pretty messed-up. How about that time he locked The Ultimate Warrior in a coffin? Or when he worked with Jake Roberts to terrorize Randy Savage and Miss Elizabeth? Make no mistake, those first few years were critical in letting us know for whom the bell tolls.

And that about does it for my own personal horrors. Maybe you think mine are silly, but what about wrestling scared you growing up? Does it still scare you? Does it still give you nightmares? As you ponder, I’ll be looking over my shoulder, hoping I’m not attacked by Zeus.

[wisdomrays]

IS THE QURAN THE WORK OF THE PROPHET MUHAMMAD?: Part 1

Much has been said and written in response to the allegation that the Qur’an is the work of the Prophet Muhammad, upon him be peace, and not, as Muslims know and believe, the Word of God. Here, I shall confine myself to the most pertinent points.

This particular allegation is put forward by modern orientalists, just as it was by their predecessors, Christian and Jewish writers who deeply resented the spread of Islam. But the allegation is one familiar to Muslims, discussed within the Qur’an itself. The Qur’an records how the pagan Arabs of the jahiliyya (the period of ignorance before Islam) used to allege that the Prophet had forged the revelations: Whenever Our signs are recited to them in a clear way, those who deny say concerning the truth, when it (the truth) comes to them: This is plain magic’. Or do they say: He has forged it?’ (al-Ahqaf, 46.7-8). They were desperate to protect their interests against the rising tide of the new faith and hoped, just as their modern counterparts do, that by causing some Muslims to doubt the authorship of the Qur’an they might cause them to doubt its authority also.

Let us begin by affirming that the Qur’an is unique among scriptures in two very important respects which even the Qur’an’s enemies are obliged to acknowledge. Firstly, we have the Quran in its original language and this language is still in living use. Secondly, the text of the Qur’an is entirely reliable. It has been as it is, unaltered, unedited, not tampered with in any way, since the time of its revelation. By contrast, other scriptures-the Christians’ Gospels, for example-have not survived in their original language, nor is the language of the earliest surviving version of these scriptures a language still in living use. Furthermore, their texts have been conclusively shown to be the work of many human hands over many generations, edited and reedited, altered and interpolated, to promote the interpretations of particular sects. They are rightly said to have lost their authority as scriptures; they serve primarily as a national or cultural mythology for the groups whose remote ancestors created their particular versions of them. That is, more or less, the Western scholarly consensus on the status of these once Divine Books. For almost two centuries, Western scholars have subjected the Qur’an to the same rigorous scrutiny. However, they have failed to prove, as they expected, that the Qur’an too is the work of many hands over many generations. Certainly they found, as happened among Christians, that the Muslims split into disputing factions but, unlike the Christians, the warring Muslim factions sought to justify their position by reference to one and the same Qur’an. It is still possible that other versions of the Gospels remain to be discovered or uncovered from where they were lost or hidden. By contrast, all Muslims know but one Quran, perfectly preserved in its original words, just as at the time of the death of the Prophet, upon him be peace, when revelation ended, with no variations of the least significance.

As well as the Qur’an, Muslims also have a record of the Prophet’s teaching, in the form of practical example and precept (the Sunna) which is extensively (though, of course, not fully) preserved in the Hadith. It is in the Hadith that the Prophets own words are recorded. These two sources, Qur’an and Hadith, could not be more dissimilar in quality of expression or content. The Arabs who heard the Prophet speak, whether they were believers or not, found his words to be concise, forceful, persuasive, but nevertheless like their own normal usage. By contrast, when they heard the Qur’an, they were overwhelmed by feelings of rapture, ecstasy, awe. One senses in the Hadith the presence of an individual human being addressing his fellow human beings, a man pondering weighty questions who, when he speaks, speaks with an appropriate gravity and in profound awe of the Divine Will. The Qur’an, on the other hand, is immediately perceived as imperative, sublime, with a transcendent, all-compelling majesty of style and content. It defies sense and reason to suppose that Qur’an and Hadith are works of the same or a single origin.

The Qur’an differs absolutely from any human artefact (whether literary or otherwise) in the absolute transcendence of its perspective and viewpoint. Occasionally in other scriptures, in a few scattered phrases or passages, the reader or listener feels that he is indeed in the presence of the Divine Message addressed to mankind from their Creator. In the Qur’an, every syllable carries this impression of sublime intensity of communication from One who is the All-Knowing and the All-Merciful. Furthermore, the Qur’an cannot, as can merely human works, be contemplated at a distance, it cannot be discussed and debated in the abstract. The Qur’an requires us to understand and to act, to amend our lifestyles; by God, it also enables us to do so because it can touch the very depths of our being. It addresses us in our full reality as spiritually and physically competent beings. It addresses our whole being as the creatures of the All-Merciful. It is not addressed to just one or other of our faculties. The Qur’an is not a message that engages only our capacity for philosophical reasoning, or only our poetic, artistic sensibility, or only our power to alter and manage the natural environment, or to after and manage our political and legal affairs, or only our need for mutual compassion and forgiveness, or only our spiritual craving for knowledge and consolation. Nor is the Qur’an a message addressed to one man only or one tribe or one nation, nor is it addressed only to men and not to women, or only to the oppressed and weak and not to the wealthy and powerful, or only to the sinful and self- indulgent and not to the virtuous and self-disciplined. The Quran addresses the whole of mankind and, by God, its message is relevant (as it is so preserved) for all time.

This transcendence and fullness of the Qur’anic perspective can be felt in every individual matter which it particularly mentions. For example, the Qur’an sets side by side caring for one’s parents in their old age with belief in the Oneness of God; it sets the command to provide decently for a divorced wife side by side with the reminder to fear the All-Knowing and All-Seeing. God knows best the full implications of such juxtapositions. But His believing servants do know, and can report, their effect: they enable the inward self-reform which is necessary if the virtuous actions are to be performed steadily, cheerfully, and with the degree of humility which makes a virtuous action also a graceful one and prevents it from becoming a burden upon the mind of the person who is supposed to be benefited by it.

The Qur’an reiterates in several verses a challenge to any who doubt its authenticity to bring or produce a surah (chapter) that can equal it. No one has ever met, or can ever meet, this challenge. For the reasons we have explained, none but God could assume the Qur’an’s all-transcendent and all-compassionate perspective. The thoughts and aspirations of even the best of human beings are affected and conditioned by the circumstances within which, by God, their lives begin and end-that is an inevitable consequence of their being creatures. That is why, sooner or later, all merely human works fail or fade in influence and force: their style drifts out of fashion, or their subject-matter is no longer relevant; they are too general and lack a sufficient attachment to the reality of human experience, or they are too attached to some particular circumstance and so lacking in generality and applicability. For any number of reasons, and irrespective of good or bad intentions, the works of human minds and human hands are of only limited value. That is why to this day the challenge stands unanswered: not even if all mankind, using all known resources, collaborated together, or if the jinn joined in to help them, assuming they could, would they be able to produce even a part of the Qur’an. In the Book’s own words: Say: If all of mankind and the jinn were to gather together to produce the like of this Qur’an, they could not produce the like of it even if they backed each other with help and support’ (al-Isra’, 17.88).

[jayne-hecate-writer]

The Secret Commonwealth: A review of sorts-ish...

So on a cold fresh autumnal morn, I closed the cover of my book, sat back and almost wept. I have waited for this book for so long, I had had it on pre-order from the despicable Amazon (notorious for tax avoidance, low pay and bad working conditions) for so very long and yet, I cannot contain my disappointment.

This is a cold brutal book, filled with anger and sadness, as much a critique of our society as it is a fairy story. My friends, I present to you The Secret Commonwealth, the second in The Book of Dust trilogy and if you have not yet finished the book, be aware that I am about to discuss some events that could be classified as spoilers.

La Belle Savage was at times a dark book, revisiting the lives of Lyra's parents and explaining how she came to reside with in the walls of Jordan College, safely out of the hands of the Magisterium. It also contained a story of heroism as the young Malcolm Polstead struggles to maintain the safety of the infant Lyra during a catastrophic flood. Although it felt detached from the other stories given that it was in effect a prequel, it was complete and did not leave us with a bitter cliff hanger. Alas, I cannot say the same for the sequel, which is set several years after the events of both The Amber Spyglass and Lyra's Oxford.

The book opens with Lyra and Pantalaiman not speaking, during the episodes when they do speak, they communicate though angry argumentative exchanges and mutual misunderstanding. Pan resents Lyra's depression as she discovers the theories and philosophy of Nihilism, a system of thought that denies the existence of the Dǣmon and even of pleasure itself. Her adherence to the subject matter is fairly typical of every pretentious philosophy reading young adult and borders on the self denying extremes of Emo subculture, without stepping into the grotesque regions of cutting and self harm. There is throughout the book a feeling of abandonment and depression in the main character and it is linked directly to this bleak denial of light and goodness as she struggles to come to terms with her own feelings and knowledge, despite her having had first hand physical experience of the spiritual realm. This is an important part of her self denial that has led to the schism between Pan and herself, as she denies the existence of part of herself.

There is also a feeling of animosity towards the modern day society of Brytain which is clearly very similar in many ways to our own modern Britain, with self serving political posturing and power grabbing being clear goals for some of the characters. Gone is the clear evil and avarice of Mrs Coulter, replaced by the cold brutal spite and vengeance of her brother, Marcel Delamare. The main antagonists of this book are both motivated by revenge and power with the protagonists being somehow dirtied by modern life. The previously heroic Malcolm borders painfully close to the paedophilic with his obsession with a young woman who does not yet have adult status, being ten years his junior and whom he has nurtured since she was a child. In fact throughout the novel, there are many characters who it is implied may have flawed sexual relationships, starting with the loveless flirtations of Lyra herself and moving onto the strangely asexual Marcel, possibly even the Saint Simeon as he craves the touch of his boy, the shamed Princess who delved into lesbianism to satisfy the lusts of her own Dǣmon and finally the revolting actions of a group of rapist Turkish soldiers. Speaking of which, the sexual assault of Lyra is both heart breaking and brutal, it is described as a near rape, but it goes into enough detail to sicken the reader and if I am honest pulls too readily on the cliché of powerful men destroying the spirit of the young woman until she is rescued by another powerful man who berates her for daring to go out in public. This is in some ways  the commentary of a middle class academic man, who has tried to imagine what it is to be a marginalised woman and it does show. However, if you wanted to be less critical, you could see this as a brutal statement on the suffering of women not just in the middle east, but the world over as we struggle against sexism, religious persecution and the removal of our bodily self determination.

With the first trilogy, His Dark Materials, there was an innocence to the story telling, even during the vicious battles and violent murders committed by some of the most beloved characters. With this book, there is a bleak world weariness in the subtext, it is every miserable moment distilled and condensed from the twenty four hour news networks, from global war to Brexit and with the reading it does towards the end of the book grow tiring, if not actually despairing. After closing the dust cover, I am left wondering how Pullman can raise the tone of the next book and I wonder if it is even possible for him to give Lyra the sort of ending she deserves, given that she has silently saved mankind across the myriad of realities. Seeing her fall in love with Malcolm would feel somehow lazy, when given her status as the biblical Eve to Will's Adam and their eternal love.

I think that it has also been forgotten that Lyra and Will killed the self aggrandising deity known as the Authority during the last battle in The Amber Spyglass, she knows for a fact that the fortress of heaven is ruled by tyrants, having battled them both directly and indirectly. She is also aware of the presence of the soul having witnessed it first hand escaping from the land of the dead to the plains of land of the Mulefa. Making her a nihilist in everything but name seems somehow incongruous, but maybe this is a comment on the nature of where the world stands at the moment. After all, did not Star Wars do something very similar with the failure and then redemption of Luke Skywalker in the Last Jedi?

As I grew closer to the end of this novel, I knew that it would not and could not end happily. Pullman does not even give us the moment of reconciliation between Lyra and Pan, instead we are left with a cliff hanger and an obtuse poem and worst of all, the knowledge that it is going to be many more months if not years before we get the answers to our questions. Given that his book is nearly seven hundred pages long, there is a great deal in here that is drudgery, misery and depression; which frankly I found heart breaking. Lyra has been soiled by the things that she has done and which have been done to her. I only hope that for the next book she retains her autonomy, does not fall into the predatory arms of Malcolm and finds the reconciliation with Pan, because otherwise this trilogy is going to be bleak and will see the destruction of one of the most beloved characters created in the twentieth century. I also think that Pullman has sank a great deal of his own personal despair with modern society into this instalment, carefully skirting the more usual tired tropes and cliché.

Is the Secret Commonwealth a good book? I cannot answer this question because it has left me feeling unsettled and hurt. What I can say is that as the original readers of the first trilogy have aged, the tone of the second trilogy has aged with us. Where I would have no qualms about letting my ten year old niece read The Northern Lights, The Subtle Knife or The Amber Spyglass,  I would have some reservations about allowing this book to fall into her hands until she was significantly older. The tone of this book is just too dark at times and in some cases just too brutal. Do not forget that it is actually two of our beloved characters, both young women, who have been raped in this second trilogy and on each occasion they have been over powered and violated, while their struggle has been shown to be useless, there was nothing that they could do to prevent it. Yes, misogyny like this does exist, but do I want to encourage my niece to read such things or do I want to protect her from just how awful society can be?

I suppose that I shall just have to wait for two long damnable years to find out what is going to happen next to our dear Lyra, but while we wait we do have the new BBC show to look forwards to. There were moments while reading this book that I looked up from the page to discover my partner was watching the television and there before me was the young woman who had portrayed Lyra in the film of the Golden Compass. Her depiction of Lyra and all of her depth was remarkable for a child who had never acted before and it is uplifting to know that she was able to put the film behind her and continue with her career. I am bitter about that film because it feels like it was scuttled by the studio and the blame was placed at the feet of the religious bigots who had probably never ready the books. The shame of it was that much of the anti-catholic rhetoric had been removed and still the religiously indoctrinated were not satisfied until they had ruined it and stripped it of meaning and value. If anything, that just makes the making of this series even more important. I very much doubt though that should this series be a success, The Secret Commonwealth will also be filmed for this age group.

[showdepremiosclub]

An Appeal to American Workers

Concerning the social and economic status of the United States of America... "...man seems to be in a worse state even than the brutes..." -- Samuel von Pufendorf, "On the Duty of Man and Citizen," Book 1, Chapter 3 Introduction For so long, writers of all ages have made their appeals to kings, to queens, to archbishops, saints and popes.  When trying to advance their own interests, men of letters would correspond with dukes and rulers of provinces.  By contacting those in power, they were confident that their ideals would be expressed to the people in the most succinct and powerful way.  Yet, it has been the trend of Anarchists, regardless of era, to make their appeal not to the rulers, but to the ruled -- not to the presidents or the prime ministers to beg for their mercy, but to the workers of the world's nations, and command them to action.  Since we are advocates of a certain sense of justice, since we are the prophets of social doom and resurrection, we believe that the cause of the condition of the world is the ruling class and its minions, their state-sanctioned slavery of Capitalism.  And, furthermore, we believe that to plead for mercy from those who casually mock the things that stir us, to plead for mercy would be to offer a begging hand to our executioner.  For these reasons and more, Anarchists and Freethinkers make their appeals not to kings or queens, not to "sovereign entities" and their mechanized armies, but to the people themselves, that they might liberate themselves and others.  It is in such an attitude that I present this piece...  An Appeal to the American Workers. Why Revolt? First, when I am speaking to my fellow brethren, my comrade citizens in the United States of America, I want to say this.  At first sight of the Communist and Socialist manifestos, their ideologies, the speeches made by their affiliated parties, when I heard these things for the first time, I was in complete disagreement.  The language used by these demagogues of Communism was burdened by economic vocabulary.  In some works that would be classified as liberal, I've seen the word "aggregate" used five times in a single sentence.  Through these bizarre concepts, these overly technical definitions of a so-called sociological science, these "decline in the wage conditions of proletariat" and "bourgeoise distribution of wealth," through all of these is where we hear the call for Communism.  I first want to tell my readership that I am familiar with these speeches, these pamphlets, these books, and I am familiar with the awkward and almost inhuman way that they have dealt with the economic question.  I have seen men of Socialism do nothing but reprint manifestos and sloganeer, as though their drone-like actions were about to bring about the greatest state of peace, justice, and equity for mankind ever known. While these socio-economic appeals of Communist and Socialist parties are made to the public, they are often ignored; in a way, they are regarded solely as "preaching to the choir."  They use words and phrases that the people are generally unfamiliar with.  Their politics are relatively dreary; whenever a new party pops up, its statement of faith seems to be followed a pattern completely uniform with the last party.  This is not an attack on those who are unfamiliar with the phrases and vocabulary of Communist theory.  Rather, it is an attack on those who are ridiculously stuck with such phrases.  To other Communist and Socialist comrades, those who feel that society would be greatly benefited through collective property, I ask this: that these awkward and almost erroneous phrases are abandoned now.  Not because they are no longer understood by the common people, but because they were never understood by the common people.  People must not be intellectuals that they might be revolutionaries. With that said, I want to say that I wholly and truly believe in the philosophy of Communism.  I am an advocate of the words of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, in matters of economics and sociology.  In many ways, I divert from the philosophy that they preached.  I am also a follower of the words of Mikhail Bakunin, Emma Goldman, and Alexander Berkman -- the late, forgotten Anarchists of yesteryear, whom openly opposed the arguments of Marxian economics.   Again, I diverge from their arguments in many ways.  I am a follower of the words of Thomas Paine, when speaks of doing justice as man's only duty; I am a follower of the words of Carl Sagan, when his words oppose the claims of religious fanatics; I am a follower of the words of Jean Jacques Rousseau when his words are of the corruptability and weakness of a Republican government -- I am the humble follower of Mark Twain, Margaret Sanger, Voltaire, Charles Darwin, and Ralph Waldo Emerson.   But, in so many cases, I find myself in disagreement.  Perhaps it would help my Communist brethren to practice a higher degree of skepticism when reading the works of Marxian economists and other political philosophers. A Revolution -- But Against What? If we are to take an objective and honest look at the situation in the United States today, we will find ourselves looking face to face with some very grim and ugly facts.  Many people are losing their jobs to outsourcing.   Corporate scandals are becoming a daily occurence.  People have lost complete faith in this system that seems to perpetuate unemployment, poverty, and misery.  This is not solely my view, but it is the view of the people.  More than half of the country does not vote.  There can be only one reason for this: people feel that both political parties and their candidates are incapable of redressing the ailments of this dying nation.  Underneath the sloganeering of "rugged individualist" philosophers, underneath phrases like "quarterly corporate gains" and "official company accounting procedures," underneath other phrases that serve to aleniate us from the subject, underneath it all, we become more and more dissatisfied with this country.  We are a modern country living in a modern world!  Yet, when we open our eyes, we still find so much poverty, so much misery, so much homelessness.  We find ourselves face to face with an economic system that nobody has tried to improve upon -- an economic system that is essentially the root of these social ills.  In so many years, with such great strides in all studies, we feel that men have inherently left one field untouched, that is, the field that deals with how to create a social and economic infrastructure, so as to remove these undesirable elements.  We are not moved by self-interest or snobby intellectualism; we are moved by the interest of all of mankind -- it is our interest to eliminate the suffering of the innocent. In a 1997 study by the U.S. Bureau of Statistics, for every dollar an employee earned, he made almost six dollars for his employer. [U.S. Census Bureau, 1997 Economic Census, Comparative Statistics, Core Business Stastitics Series, EC97X-C52, issued June 2000.]  One dollar of that six earned income goes towards the other expenses, such as replenishing the shelves and electricity. [Business Expenses, 1997 Economic Census, Company Statistic Series, 1997, Issued December 2000, EC97CS-8, US CENSUS BUREAU, U.S. Department of Commerce, Economics and Statistics Administration, U.S. CENSUS BUREAU.]  That means, for every two dollars a Capitalist spends, he is given seven dollars back.  The investor makes money because he has money, and for no other reason.  He is maintained at a situation in life where more money will do him not much better.  And while he is surrounded in elegance, lavishness, and wealth, there are millions of children starving to death in our nation. In 1980, the top 1% of the United States owned more than 25% of the nation's wealth, while the bottom 20% do not even own 1% of all the wealth. [U.S. Treasury, Internal Revenue Service. Quoted from Contemporary Macroeconomics, by Milton H. Spencer, Worth Publishers, Inc., Fourth Edition, page 45.]  If these facts alone are not enough to disturb anyone of good conscience, then I do not think anything is capable of disturbing them. I could continue to parade statistics around.  I could delve deeper and deeper in to the archives of economic thinktanks, pulling out numbers and equations used to determine the unemployment rate's fluctuation in response to the rate of interest of banks.  I could pull up a historical timeline, showing the general decrease of wages in contrast to the general increase of profits.  There are at least a million articles that discuss the economic question that I have yet to read; each of them from authors of their own particular background, whether Free-Market Capitalists or Marxian Communists.  All of these writers have contributed what discoveries they've made to the intellectual community.  They offer their words in defense of the trends or patterns they discover in economic behavior.  Some of them are motivated by political causes, whether it's the establishment of Statist Communism or the abolishment of Communist political parties in third world nations.  Many of them are motivated by their desire for prestige, to be recognized by the community as men and women of thought -- they figure, that if they can make their words more boring, dull, and formulaic than other authors, they will be recognized as men and women of genius by some university community.  Some authors have no interest, except to explore the sociological field, and find out what it is that really moves the economy, to discover what gears and what cogs in society effect what other gears.  Yes, I could pull out plenty of statistics and many arguments that these economists have utilized in demonstrating their opinions.  But, in this appeal to American workers, I must say what I think: I believe that the average man and woman have enough sense and enough experience to make the decision that the status quo is unsatisfactory. Consider a radical reorganization of the social structure.  For this reorganization to have any merit to it, we must start with the problems we observe.  So, then, let's consider the most obvious problems.  There are men and women whose job it is to hold signs on street corners, many times dressed in costumes, trying to entice people to purchase goods and services.  They make very little money, but there are men and women in corporate firms whose task is essentially the same.  Marketing and Sales executives are making six-digit salaries by devising new and different methods for convincing the public to want their goods.  Their job basically is to convince people that they want and need things that their own wit and intellect wouldn't ever tell them to purchase.  On top of these executives, there are the people of the media, the makers of commercials, billboards, radio advertisements, newspaper advertisements, graphic design for corporate logos; some people spend years doing market analysis, so that they can uncover trends in the consumer choices of citizens and workers.  At the top, there are executives and corporate officials, making millions of dollars a year, and at their disposal is an army of Walmart greeters, sales associates, clerks, manager assistants, and other professionals -- all of them solely exist to entice people to buy things that they otherwise wouldn't have wanted in the first place.  From this point, we find that the purpose of their existence is to subvert, control, and manipulate the general will of the people.  Their meaning to life is inimical to that of a free conscience. Those people who work in low-wage jobs, spending most of their lives taking orders from supervisors and being criticized for "not having company" spirit -- I cannot blame them.  I cannot blame them at all.  If being a Walmart greeter was the only job available, if it was the only thing that could help someone support their family or drug habit or pay rent, then I cannot blame them.  But to those corporate executives and company officers, these CEOs who control billions of dollars of the world economy, they are responsible for this situation.  They have built up a culture of want, consumption, and poverty.  Someone looking at it from an objective viewpoint will say that these people are simply useless, they simply do not contribute to society in any positive way, but that is light view of the situation.  Not only do sales and marketing associates fail to contribute to society in any meaningful way, but they are parasites; they are the thieves of intellectual liberty.  Their fat paychecks are only provided for by the society which they have leached themselves on to.  It is not by noble pursuits and honesty that they make their living; it is by avarice and dishonesty. This is among the first and most notable dilemmas of the Capitalist economy: the advertisement industry.  Whether we are looking at corporate executives, or people dressed in chicken suits holding signs on the sidewalk, I think I am making a fair judgment in saying this: these people do not contribute to society in any meaningful or productive way.  We see, then, the first common and obvious fault of the Capitalist economy.   What is the solution?  It's a rather simple and obvious one.  Those people who are members of this inhuman industry are to be put to productive work.  What does that entail, specifically?  Well, those employees who were stripped of their old professions would be put to work in meaningful jobs.  In particular, they would start to contribute labor to the economy so as to produce goods and services.  That means jobs in agriculture, manufacturing, construction, or transportation and distribution.  I consider these fields of the economy to be productive because they contribute in satisfying the interests of consumers.   Workers on an assembly line, for instance, are creating products that will be consumed: television sets to be watched, clothing to be worn, computers for hobbyists, CDs and DVDs as entertaining media, tools to help other workers accomplish their jobs, etc., etc..  Members of the agricultural economy are invaluable for one obvious reason: they create the food that feeds all of us.  Construction workers produce the buildings that people live and work in; they are simply a different type of manufacturing worker.  Transportation and distribution is essential, in getting the products from the site they were produced to the site they will be used at.  All of these fields are necessary to a healthy and free society. I do not want my opinion on this matter to be misunderstood or misinterpreted.  My contention is not that it should be made a crime for men and women to use their own intellect to change the opinions of others.  I think that the law should reflect a general anti-censorship ethic: whether in matters of politics or economics or religion or philosophy, or any field of study that has been subject to witch-hunts and being burned alive, I think that all should have intellectual liberty.  You should have the right to private discourse, to let the thoughts in your mind mix and meld with memories and experiences, to be the ultimate judge and jury of your own opinion; it is the right to decide that you enjoy something as much as it is the right to say that you dislike something.  You should also always have the right to publish the results of your private discourse, to speak with other members of the community in a way that reflects your thoughts, to try and convert people to your opinion on anything, whether art and culture or politics and society.  The Statists, Fascists, and others of the anti-Democratic tribe will spend hours upon hours, lamenting the tragedies that have occured and will occur again if the people have the right to intellectual freedom.  Whatever tragedies have occured from liberty of thought, they shrink to almost nothing, when one thinks of the tragedies that have occured from the suppression of liberty of thought. We criticize the advertisement industry solely for the sake that it is counter-productive, it works against the general interest and will of all men and women of good character.  It invades communities, turning them in to dry husks, destitute of any real sense of culture and destitute of any real sense of purpose.  It has turned art into a perversity, exploiting painters and sculptors, taking their passion and molding it into "Buy One, Get One Free!"  There is no excuse, no pardon, that could ever be made for this group.  However, when we look at the employment of the distribution economy, we find ourselves looking at the same faults that plagued the advertisement industry.  Distribution centers, whether they're stores or malls or shopping centers, all of them seem to operate on the same principles that the advertisement industry acts upon.  Such an enormous effort is placed on making the products or services look more appealing, so that the consumer is convinced to purchase such items.  It also seems as though these distribution centers are having less and less of specific products.  Many popular chain stores are a combination of department store and grocery.  It seems that almost every store is selling "impulse items" near the counter, including candy and cheap mini-magazines.   These impulse items are in every store, whether it's an office supplies store, a furniture store, or even something as simple as a gift card store.  Many grocery stores are also selling cooked and prepared food, ready to eat.  In their never-ending quest to boost profits and gain stockholder confidence, stores are expanding the line of products that they sell, not to make their selection complete, but to have more income from sales. Distribution centers in an ideal society would not consist in these elegant settings, with employees who act as greeters or make the store look visually appealing, nor would artists be exploited to create artwork for product packaging.  The individuals who fill these positions would be transferred to industry sectors where they can act as productive agents of society.  In examining the American and European economy structures, we have here seen the greatest reforms and changes we would enact.  That is, the greatest reforms and changes we would enact, if the economy was built to serve the interests of mankind, and not built to serve the interests of private corporations and exploiters of labor.  With the abolishment of so many professions, one might think that a massive unemployment might take place.  This is not necessarily so.  Those who would lose their jobs would be relocated to meaningful parts of the economy.  That would mean, that society would produce more goods, at a higher quality, with less hours.  Essentially, yearly wages would be doubled and work time would be halved.  The happiness and satisfaction with life that men and women have would be increased; that is the basic goal of all this discussion and research. Ultimately, in this fair and ideal economy, workers would be paid not according to suggestions and manual aids from the corporate office.  They would be paid according to the value that they create.  Instead of the minimum wage which finds itself the standard of many industrial, farming, and service jobs, workers would be paid upwards of $20 to $30 an hour, a number that certainly can be afforded by the economy.  The primary reason why such workers are not being paid this right now is remarkably simple: those who are the legal owners of capital (mines, farms, stores, factories) want as much money from their business ventures as possible.  That means paying as low as possible so that there is more profit.  It is for these reasons, that all members of the Capitalist class (those who own the productive parts of society) are regarded as the thieves of labor, the enemies of the working class, the exploiters of the proletariat, among other phrases used by Leftist groups. Among the most bitter ironies that history has taught us, it is this: workers in the year 1600 worked only ten hours a day to secure their needs.  When industrial societies arrose, and factories allowed workers to produce ten times as much as when they worked without factories, people started to work 12 to 18 hours a day, sometimes as much as 20 hours a day.  The new economic conditions that came with the industrial revolution allowed the Capitalist class to force people to work for so long, since the members of this class were also the ones who controlled food distribution in society.  And today, when man's productive power is at least several hundred times that of the 1600 worker, the average workday is 8 hours -- and that alone was a struggle that cost the lives of many workers, gunned down by thugs hired by corporate entities, just to obtain. It is for these reasons, these observations and experiences in what has always felt like a dying world, that I am a Communist and a Socialist.  For the motivation of a better world for myself, my fellow human kin of all nations, and the children of the coming generation, that I hold true to these beliefs. Subversive Tactics for Revolutionaries and Reformers There are countless ways in which a willing person can contribute to the revolution of social and economic relations in our world.  If a person becomes interested in social change and political reform, then they only have an entire history of revolution to look to for advice.  The existence of today's conservative, for example, can only be excused for those who were considered radical by society's standards several hundred years ago.  It was once common to think that a king's absolute authority of life and death over every person was just, that the rule of government can be exerted without the authority of the people, that the general will of the population is inconsequential, that the ruling class needs no excuse.  These and a thousand more foul lies were once considered public wisdom by the philosophers of the past age.  And before these things were believed, even more cruel and bitter philosophies were preached as religion.  Before this, there was no conception of justice, no idea of right or wrong.  When men thought of morality, they simply thought of what the men who spoke for god said; when men thought of fairness, they simply thought of what the men of government said.  It is true, that as we look back in history, we find eclipses in timelines, where a people were defiant, revolutionary, and bold -- where men and women dared to live by their own means, not by the guidelines of a king or priest.  But such societies were small and lasted very shortly.  Yet, all of this evidence is clear to all who are interested in changing today's social, economic, and political affairs. If you have this interest, then know this.  There is reason to hope that things will change.  And this hope is fueled by our understanding of history, our own philosophy, and of how today's society operates. The most popular and well-known of the methods of reform is that of the union.  People of a particular trade or business unite together so that they can collectively demand better conditions, through practices like a strike or boycott.  The interest of the common labor union is antithetical to every interest of the Capitalist class.  The labor union demands higher wages, fewer working hours, better working conditions, fair treatment of workers.  These are the things that drive up the costs of the businesses.  A corporation, which the sole interest of gaining power and wealth, looks to union activity as the greatest offense; it is a small group of people who have combined their power together, so that they might force oppressive groups to change their behavior.  The method of the union is the most peaceful method of social change.  The greatest threat its members ever pose to society is the threat to stop working, to start boycotting, and to start picketting.  Their goals are not achieved through violence, but by a very gandhi-like style. The effective goals of the union are simply the improvement of the working class's conditions.  It has always sought economic reorganization, demanding that nobody can be fired except with very good reason (job security) and demanding that the workers are paid fairly according to their labor.  While it is true that these are good and valid causes of any standard labor union, it shouldn't be forgotten that a union can be used as a political tool.  Consider a city council that has just been bribed by corporations to remove the living wage law (a law that provides around $15 per hour minimum wage).  The working class of the city will be greatly hurt.  Their living conditions will start to fall, and in a short while, they will feel that their condition has reached their original position.  They would either see the impending blow to their movement coming, and do nothing, lay still, take the suffering the state thinks they deserve.  Or, all labor unions would combine together, for an enormous general strike.  It must be understood, that products being produced, distributed, and consumed, is the government sanctioned form of slavery.  For everything bought or sold, money is given to taxes, to support the state.  For every hour you work, money is given to federal taxes, to support the state.  For everything owned, money is given as property taxes, to support the state.  If everyone, from every union in the city, from the services unions, the administrator unions, the manufacturing unions, the transportation unions, if every union in the city were to go out on strike at the same time, they would inflict massive, irreparable damage to the government. They could use their power as unions to force the government to change its decision, otherwise the entire infrastructure would collapse under this pressure.  This is also a worthwhile tactic if one union is having difficulty gaining better conditions for itself, and the unions its federated with could go on strike.  They go on strike, to tell their employers, to tell the other CEOs, to listen to their unions and accept some collective bargaining agreement, so that business can proceed as usual and the Capitalist system can continue. It is unfortunate that today's unions fail to see the necessity of a federation of unions and of advocating for political causes that directly effect them.   Unionizing labor today is legal.  That is something they need to realize.  True, the burden of poverty is over their heads; they must work so that they can feed themselves.  It is always the habit of the weaker victim to be less assertive, less bold in their attacks of their enemy.  But we must unite in order that we can oppose our enemies of Capitalism.  We must unite, and we must be strong, in that we can overcome our enemies.  And also, while I said it was a largely peaceful effort at social change, there is no doubt that the Capitalists have done to keep it anything but that.  Investors hired armed police squads to subdue picketters.  The social organization of our society has turned us on ourselves.  We are killing and murdering each other for crumbs.   All the while, an army of police officers are guarding corporate headquarters all across the United States, while people are suffering from poverty and want.  Unemployment is high and the wages are low.  We have a very good reason for revolting at the state of things. Another popular effort to gain control of the situation, and create a worker's paradise is to form a political party, and to try and gain as many positions in government as possible during elections.  However, it has been this method that has received the most criticisms from the general public.  Efforts of the state to achieve a truly Socialist effort has had dismal results: the U.S.S.R., the Dictatorship of Cuba, the murder by the allegedly communist governments of Vietnam and Korea.  And then, the efforts of minor socialist parties and international communist tendencies, these efforts have accomplished so little.  True, there are some European countries that have started to elect Socialist parties, and to enact Socialist legislation.  There are campaigns to reduce the average work day, to give better benefits to workers, to protect the consumers from harmful products, and to pay the workers more.  But most Communists agree that they want the economy to be in the control of the people; so too, must the political structure of a society be in the control of the people.  For this reason, most Communist and Socialist reformers have taken to the method of control via unions; to employ it to obtain political ends on behalf of the working class is to engage in a practice of Anarchy known as Anarcho-Syndicalism. There is also a popular case against voting based on Anarchist principles.  Anarchists often argue that if we refuse to vote, then the whole justification of consent with the government falls apart, and the system will collapse.  I can hardly see any justification for this.  Less than a third of the population votes anyway.  If more than two thirds of a nation is not enough force to gain superiority, then at what point do we become effective?  Many Anarchists maintain this position: that to refuse to vote is to make a revolutionary step.  I hear their arguments, and I don't quite find the logic of their evidence.  I do not see how refusing to vote is doing anything to stop the oppressors from continuing to oppress us.  If they find at least one thing sacred, or at least semi-sacred, and they are willing to respect the will of the people in electing a representative of their interests, then why should we shut off this method of social and political change?  Why should we villify it, destroy it, and inhibit all of its functions, when it is the only method we are legally allowed and encouraged to change the system?   Consider this one scenario.  There is an island with twenty people on it.  There is a Democratic vote on whether this person is to be hung for his crimes or not.  Among those who decide not to vote, they argue, "I do not think the collective should ever be able to vote on the life or death of a commune member, so, I shall not vote, and demonstrate my opinion this way," yet, if the majority votes for the killing, then it's the inaction of the Anarchist that played a great role in the murder.   For this reason, and reasons like this, we are apt to believe that we can use voting to change things, whether we are voting on a measure or a proposal, or for a person who seems to be the lesser of two evils (despite the fact that evil is evil). Perhaps some Anarchists will consider by ideals much less Anarchist and much less Libertarian if I support voting to a certain extent.  Perhaps they will say that I am a reformer, but not a revolutionary, that I am reformist Libertarian, or some other such terms.  I have only called myself an Anarchist because my ideals have been in unison with those of passed history, including Emma Goldman, Mikhail Bakunin, and Peter Kropotkin.  I disagreed with them on points, of course, but the basic philosophy remains in tact: elimination of the state, communal ownership of all property, mutual organization of social units, abolishing poverty and all drug prohibition, among so many other efforts to create a better, more lasting peace between men on earth.  If this basic philosophy cannot be defined as "Anarchism," then I can see of no other word to fit my arguments. Among many projects of the Anarchists and Communist, there is that project known as a worker colony.  A worker colony is a collection of workers, who live and work together in close quarters.   They are all assigned housing units and jobs, most of these places catering to industrial or manufacturing jobs.  Then they work four to six hours a day, and are given leisure and a suitable pay for the rest of their day.  Sir Robert Owen was a philanthropist businessman of the early eighteen hundreds, and created such a society.  Instead of the fourteen hour workday, these workers were only required to work eight hours a day.  They were given good, high quality food at inexpensive prices and they were given free medical care.  The leader of the collective, Robert Owen, was capable of turning a profit with this business venture.  In fact, many of these communities were started up by many investors, however, they soon became unfashionable at the sight of rising cost and competitive markets.  Many Anarchists of the new era have suggested the creations of such communities, so that people are capable of living as workers and consumers in a society where their happiness is the main end of all productivity.  I am not aware of any situation where Anarchists and Communists combined their finances in order to buy land and create such a community, but it is definitely a valuable idea to be considered, even if it's just on a small scale. Finally, there is the most popular and accepted method of spreading Anarchism and bringing about the revolution.  That method is propaganda.  This can take numerous forms.  It can be everything from marches and protests to picketing to leafletting.  Personally, I find that leafletting is the most effective way of swaying public opinion against their enemies.  A piece of paper briefly outlining our ideals will be something that a person approaches on their own, it is not an argument or a debate, and it allows the person to ingest the ideas at their own speed.  It is almost a re-education process.  People have to unlearn that social organization should be based upon fear and misery, and have tol earn that all social relationships should be cooperative and fair.  Plus, with more people educated and of Anarchist, Marxian, Communist, Socialist, or Libertarian opinions, there will be more people sympathetic to the cause of the unions.  There will be fewer people who will work as scabs at a striking business or shop at stores where unions are boycotting.  More people will vote for Socialist parties, environmental safe propositions, and Socialist measures.  More cities and regions are to obtain a healthy Anarchist and Socialist population. The more people in a city, the more that can contribute to a massive project like a worker colony.  The more who are convinced of the Anarchist position, the more who are likely to bring that issue to the eyes of the public, in spray painting across corporate property or marching in line at a protest.  With all of these methods, I can hardly see these Anarchists and Communists doing nothing to bring about change. A Free Society: The Appeal for Anarchism I can no doubt expect that many of these ideals are enormously progressive in the eyes of today's American worker.  He looks to these principles, these ideas of workers owning the productive forces in society, these revolutionary fundamentals of the workers being paid the wealth they produce, he looks to these, and he might as well be looking in to the future by thousands of the years.  He is impressed, but also intimidated, and almost scared of the change.  What it would take to change society, he argues, would involve moments of poverty and misery, such great reorganization of the social order, that it must be impossible.  And, even if it were possible, it would be necessary that some government should guide it, that some revolutionary vanguard party is necessary to the construction of a new society.  Without a large collection of highly armed, highly volatile, highly greedy men, nothing that we seek to change would get changed.  It is necessary, in the eyes of these men trained to be hopeless, it is necessary that a government always exist, in order that society can have civil discourse, while the cruel element of mankind is subdued by the police forces and the military barracks. I allude to one incident I uncovered in Portland, Oregon.  Fortunately, it is an extremely Leftist town, full of as many Anarchists, Communists, and Socialists, as there are Liberals and Democrats.  This has allowed some interesting experiments to come up, since so many people of the same political beliefs are collected together in this one city, and can work together on massive projects.   There is one particular cafe which advertises itself as "Worker Owned." It is called Back to Back.  In reality, it is owned by the I.W.W., or the Industrial Workers of the World (AKA: "Wobblies").  It just so happens, though, that the people who work there are not the owners, and beyond that, they are 100% volunteers.  The only payment they receive is in tips.  This is not the realization of the worker's paradise, it is the realization of his worst nightmare.  In their vanguardist efforts, the money that is raised with sales should go to two places, in the eyes of the IWW: To other Capitalists, to fund their exploitation of the working class, by helping them sell their products, and to bureaucrats, who can sit around for hours a day arguing with each other over wealth distribution, convinced that they are the essential piece to Proletarian revolution. But, I do not know all the arguments of the IWW.   Perhaps, they will use the same language of Corporate America.  "In recreating the world, we feel that it is necessary that workers are paid nothing, that they are to live humbly off of charity, while all the wealth in the world is concentrated in the hands of a very small number."  We will heard their arguments about cost production, about competition, about inflation.  They will speak on the same terms that McDonald's or Walmart would speak, in justifying cost reduction and retail increases.  We are Anarchists and Communists.  We believe that the Capitalist system must go if there is to be any justice in the economic or social sense; and, above and beyond that, we believe this change in the socio-economic sphere of the world can best be done by our own efforts.  So many great tragedies and miseries in the world have been caused by people doing exactly as they are told, by people who act without thought, becoming the slaves to some inhuman entity.  We do not need new rulers or more party politics; we need the people to rule for themselves, for each man to be his own master and his own slave. My appeal here, then, for the American people, is an appeal for a Communist economy, as much as it is an appeal for an Anarchist society.  The efforts of previous liberation groups has been in a vanguard party, in a despotic government coupled with all capital as public property, these are the greatest of dictatorships.  The essential argument behind each argument, that of Anarchism and that of Communism, is the same.  The idea of people deserving the wealth they create, and the idea of people living in a democratic society are similar in that both are a demonstration of the common will and desire of the people.  They are both based on improving the lot of the majority of people.  Besides, Communism cannot be properly carried out unless the most Democratic of conditions exist in society.  Look at the Leninist revolution.  It was followed and supported by a wide range of social reformers, but the conclusion was the over empowerment of the government, to the point of dictatorship.  Lenin held elections once.  He lost, and then used his military power to dispose of the winning political candidate.  A reign of terror, of secret police, of torture chambers, of a government subverting the natural will of the people to rule themselves.  The same can be said of the Castro-led revolution in Cuba.  At first, it was a hopeful situation for those who wanted a dramatic change in the social order of the world.  But, it was not long before the revolutionaries who sided with Castro quickly turned against him when they found out he chose himself as dictator.  Castro violated the will of the people, while parading around like he was its greatest demonstration.  So did Lenin.  In both of these international cases, it was a revolutionary party that refused to let the people rule themselves.  If we are to be successful, we must pay respect to our Socialist brothers, and understand the faults that they made.  We must create an Anarchist society, if the Communist economy is ever to be justly employed. I hope that the philosophy, the politics, the economics, and the social views displayed in this essay were enlightening or even heart-warming; I hope I have helped many other workers realize that they are not alone in their opposition of their two greatest enemies, the Capitalists and the government.  The first strips him of all his deserved wealth, the second strip him of all freedoms.  It is the poverty of slavery, the chains of misery.  I hope that the suggested methods for achieving our new world prove helpful, and that the workers of the world are bold and strong enough to try these tactics with me.  By uniting, by organizing, we are becoming stronger than the leader of our enemies.  Stay strong, and stay linked together.

[deniscollins]

In Amazon’s Bookstore, No Second Chances for the Third Reich

In 1998, when Amazon was an ambitious start-up, its founder, Jeff Bezos, said, “We want to make every book available — the good, the bad and the ugly.” Customers reviews, he said, would “let truth loose.”  David Duke has published several books advocating for the Ku Klux Klan, an American white supremacist hate group that argues for the purifying American society of African Americans, often based on distorted information. If you were an Amazon executive would you: (1) allow David Duke’s Klan books to be sold in honor of freedom of speech, or (2) ban Klan books by David Duke, as well as other KKK advocacy books? Why? What are the ethics underlying your decision?

Amazon is quietly canceling its Nazis.

Over the past 18 months, the retailer has removed two books by David Duke, a former leader of the Ku Klux Klan, as well as several titles by George Lincoln Rockwell, the founder of the American Nazi Party. Amazon has also prohibited volumes like “The Ruling Elite: The Zionist Seizure of World Power” and “A History of Central Banking and the Enslavement of Mankind.”

While few may lament the disappearance of these hate-filled books, the increasing number of banished titles has set off concern among some of the third-party booksellers who stock Amazon’s vast virtual shelves. Amazon, they said, seems to operate under vague or nonexistent rules.

“Amazon reserves the right to determine whether content provides an acceptable experience,” said one recent removal notice that the company sent to a bookseller.

Facebook, Twitter and YouTube have been roiled in recent years by controversies that pit freedom of speech against offensive content. Amazon has largely escaped this debate. But with millions of third-party merchants supplying much of what Amazon sells to tens of millions of customers, that ability to maintain a low profile may be reaching its end.

Amazon began as a bookstore and, even as it has moved on to many more lucrative projects, now controls at least two-thirds of the market for new, used and digital volumes in the United States. With its profusion of reader reviews, ability to cut prices without worrying about profitability and its control of the electronic book landscape, to name only three advantages, Amazon has immense power to shape what information people are consuming.

Yet the retailer declines to provide a list of prohibited books, say how they were chosen or even discuss the topic. “Booksellers make decisions every day about what selection of books they choose to offer,” it said in a statement.

Gregory Delzer is a Tennessee bookseller whose Amazon listings account for about a third of his sales. “They don’t tell us the rules and don’t let us have a say,” he said. “But they squeeze us for every penny.”

Nazi-themed items regularly crop up on Amazon, where they are removed under its policy on “offensive and controversial materials.” Those rules pointedly do not apply to books. Amazon merely says that books for sale on its site “should provide a positive customer experience.”

Now Amazon is becoming increasingly proactive in removing Nazi material. It even allowed its own Nazi-themed show, “The Man in the High Castle,” to be cleaned up for a tribute book. The series, which began in 2015 and concluded in November, is set in a parallel United States where the Germans and the Japanese won World War II.

“High Castle” is lavish in its use of National Socialist symbols. “There’s nothing that there isn’t a swastika on,” the actor Rufus Sewell, who played the Nazi antihero, said in a promotional video. The series promoted its portrayal of “the controlling aesthetic of Hitler” in its nomination for a special effects Emmy.

But in “The Man in the High Castle: Creating the Alt World,” published in November by Titan Books, the swastikas and eagle-and-crosses were digitally erased from Mr. Sewell’s uniform, from Times Square and the Statue of Liberty, even from scenes set in Berlin. A note on the copyright page said, “We respect, in this book, the legal and ethical responsibility of not perpetuating the distribution of the symbols of oppression.”

An Amazon spokeswoman said, “We did not make editorial edits to the images.” Titan, which wanted to market the book in Germany, where laws on Nazi imagery are strict, said Amazon approved the changes.

Some fans of the series said they found reading the book as dystopian as the show itself. “If you can’t even have swastikas shown in a book about Nazis taking over America, please do not make books ever again,” wrote one reviewer.

When Amazon drops a book from its store, it is as if it never existed. A recent Google search for David Duke’s “My Awakening: A Path to Racial Understanding” on Amazon yielded a link to a picture of an Amazon employee’s dog. Amazon sellers call these dead ends “dog pages.”

Some booksellers, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation, said they had no problem with the retailer converting as many offensive books to dog pages as it wished.

Mr. Delzer, the proprietor of a secondhand store in Nashville called Defunct Books, has a different view. “If Amazon executives are so proud of their moral high ground, they should issue memos about which books they are banning instead of keeping sellers and readers in the dark,” he said.

The bookseller said he only knew Amazon was forbidding titles because he received an automated message from the retailer, saying two used books he sold seven years ago — “Conspiracy of the Six-Pointed Star: Eye-Opening Revelations and Forbidden Knowledge About Israel, the Jews, Zionism, and the Rothschilds” and “Toward the White Republic” — were now proscribed.

“This product was identified as one that is prohibited for sale,” Amazon told him. Failure to immediately delete listings for these books, the company said, “may result in the deactivation of your selling account” and possible confiscation of any money he was owed.

Amazon said it didn’t really mean any of that about “Toward the White Republic.” “We did not intend to imply the book itself could not be listed for sale,” it said in a statement.

As for “Conspiracy of the Six-Pointed Star,” which is widely available from other online booksellers, Amazon said the book did not comply with its “content guidelines.”

Mr. Delzer said the email, which he posted on an Amazon forum, was clear and Amazon was dissembling about “White Republic.”

A bookseller since 2001, Mr. Delzer said he does not condone white supremacist material but believes people should be free to read what they want. The biggest seller in his shop at the moment is by Greta Thunberg, the young climate activist.

“Amazon wants its customers to trust Amazon,” he said. “The place that sells books doesn’t want much critical thinking.”

In 1998, when Amazon was an ambitious start-up, its founder, Jeff Bezos, said, “We want to make every book available — the good, the bad and the ugly.” Customers reviews, he said, would “let truth loose.”

That expansive philosophy narrowed over the years. In 2010, when the news media discovered the self-published “Pedophile’s Guide to Love and Pleasure” on the site, the retailer’s first reaction was to hang tough.

“Amazon believes it is censorship not to sell certain books simply because we or others believe their message is objectionable,” it said at the time.

That resolution wilted in the face of a barrage of hostility and boycott threats. Amazon pulled the book.

Deborah Caldwell-Stone, director of the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom, said Amazon has the same First Amendment right as any retailer.

“Amazon has a First Amendment right to pick and choose the materials they offer,” she said. “Despite its size, it does not have to sponsor speech it finds unacceptable.”

Physical bookstores rarely stock supremacist literature, for no other reason than it would alienate many customers. The question is whether Amazon, because of its size and power, should behave differently.

“I’m not going to argue for the wider distribution of Nazi material,” said Danny Caine of the Raven Book Store in Lawrence, Kan., who is the author of a critical pamphlet, “How to Resist Amazon and Why.” “But I still don’t trust Amazon to be the arbiters of free speech. What if Amazon decided to pull books representing a less despicable political viewpoint? Or books critical of Amazon’s practices?”

Amazon’s newfound zeal to remove “the ugly” extends beyond the Nazis. The order page for the e-book of The Nation of Islam’s “The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews” stated last week, “This title not currently available for purchase.”

“The Man in the High Castle” was based on a 1962 novel of the same name by Philip K. Dick, whose stories are often about the slippery nature of reality and how it will be controlled in the future by governments and corporations. One character in the streaming series was Mr. Rockwell, the American Nazi Party founder.

In photos in “Creating the Alt World,” the tribute book, the swastika around Mr. Rockwell’s neck was removed. The real life Mr. Rockwell has been largely removed from Amazon’s bookstore as well.

After a complaint by a member of Congress in 2018, a children’s book that Mr. Rockwell wrote disappeared from Amazon. So did his book “White Power.” Other Rockwell material, like The Stormtrooper Magazine, is described as “currently unavailable.”

Some sellers circumvent the blocks by listing titles with a word or two changed, other booksellers said. One seller said he recently received a message from Amazon that several titles by Savitri Devi, also known as “Hitler’s Priestess,” were forbidden. But they are now on the site. And a copy of “Toward the White Republic” recently popped up on Amazon, for $973 plus postage.

There is still an abundance of other Nazi material available on Amazon, much of it with favorable reviews. There is the “SS Leadership Guide,” many editions of Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” and Joseph Goebbels’s “Nature and Form of National Socialism,” to name just a few.

That only underlines how hard it can be to tell exactly what Amazon’s rules are. The confusion is reinforced by AbeBooks, the biggest secondhand book platform outside of Amazon itself.

Some of the books dropped from Amazon are available on Abe. Recently, there were 18 copies of Mr. Duke’s books on Abe, at prices up to $150. Amazon, which owns Abe, declined to comment.

[thedcdunce]

Lex Luthor

“Metropolis and her people are mine -- and they'll live or die as I see fit!” - Lex Luthor

Real Name: Alexander Joseph Luthor

Aliases:

Mockingbird

Gender: Male

Height: 6′ 2″

Weight: 210 lbs (95 kg)

Eyes: Green

Hair: Bald

Abilities:

Genius Level Intellect

Hand-to-Hand Combat (Basic)

Weaknesses:

Arrogance

Equipment:

Kryptonite

Sunstone

Lex Luthor's Warsuit

Universe: New Earth

Base of Operations: Metropolis

Citizenship: American

Parents: 

Lionel Luthor; father

Letitia Luthor; mother

Marital Status: 

Divorced (Elizabeth Perske; wife)

Widowed (Contessa Erica Alexandra del Portenza; wife)

Occupation:

Businessman

Scientist

President of the United States

First Appearance: Swamp Thing Vol 2 #52 (September, 1986)

Last Appearance: Convergence #6 (July, 2015)

Abilities

Genius Level Intellect: Luthor's intelligence is nearly unrivaled, making one of the smartest minds on Earth. Luthor has solved complicated equations in a few minutes and holds a myriad of masters and degrees. He's found cures for diseases in deep thought and found ways to better mankind while still profiting from its destruction.

Business Management: Lex Luthor is one of the most shrewd businessmen in the world, a trait that has earned him an immense fortune. Luthor is not above using cutthroat tactics, unethical practices and illegal operations to maintain the success of his business empire. Lex Luthor virtually owned every business enterprise in the city of Metropolis.

Political Science: Lex Luthor's corporate skills applied just as sharply in the political arena as they did in the boardroom. As President of the United States, he groomed the best candidates to serve as his cabinet members and knew the intricacies of bureaucratic politicking as well as any other former Chief Executive.

Leadership: Although Luthor's tenure as president ended in scandal, he successfully guided the nation during the massive alien invasion. He's led a large amount of supervillain teams and done so quite effectively.

Science: Lex has solved complicated chemical equations in seconds. He understands the variety of powers associated with the human metagene and manipulated it for his own purposes. He claims he found a cure for cancer as well as AIDS but holds them in his personal notes to better bank on it's research.

Hand-to-Hand Combat (Basic): Lex Luthor is also trained in hand-to-hand combat, though his personal Amazon fighting instructors consider him a sub-par combatant with poor form.

Weaknesses

Arrogance

Equipment

Kryptonite

Sunstone

Lex Luthor's Warsuit

Personality

Luthor is commonly seen as a power-hungry and sadistic villain of pure evil. His sole ambition in life is to destroy Superman so that he can become humanity's rightful champion.

Luthor was already antisocial and bitter during his childhood. Having endured continuous abuse from his father and mother, Luthor murdered them and made their deaths look like an accident. Since then, Luthor has become more and more ruthless, seeing people as tools to be manipulated or as enemies to be destroyed. His hatred grew even more when Superman first appeared, as Luthor believed the people of Metropolis had replaced him for Superman as the city's savior. Swearing vengeance on Superman, Luthor has tried to destroy the Man of Steel for an eternity.

For all his attempts to destroy Superman, Luthor sees himself as a hero and Superman as a villain. He believes Superman's heroic acts are an obstacle for human progress. Luthor has stated on many occasions that after he destroys Superman, he will work towards the betterment of mankind. However, Superman has proven that Luthor will not keep this supposed promise, noting that Luthor did nothing during Superman's year-long absence after his fight with Superboy-Prime but find an old Kryptonian warship to break things.

Luthor's primary handicap in facing Superman and other heroes has always been his arrogance. As he fundamentally defines himself by his opposition to Superman, he believes that the reverse is also true, convinced that most of Superman's actions are simply to prove that he is 'better' than Luthor, incapable of recognizing how Superman and other heroes would do good for the sake of it.

Despite his crimes, Luthor has established an image as a wealthy philanthropist and manages to maintain a notable political popularity.

Early Life

Lex Luthor was born and raised in the poverty stricken area of Metropolis known as Suicide Slum, the child of abusive parents, with a fierce desire to better himself. Cunning, vengeful and ambitious even at a young age, Lex was every bit the charismatic and malicious manipulator he is in his adulthood. Such that he could enlist the ne'er-do-well's of the ghetto to dispatch bullies for him, was a habitual misogynist who was cruel to the girls of his classroom, his own teachers were even frightened by him. And as a teenager, young Lex engineered the deaths of his parents by paying off or threatening their auto-mechanic to sabotage their automobile in order to profit from a large life insurance policy he had taken out in their names, and went on to found his own company LexCorp.

Luthor the Businessman

Lex turned the company into a multi-national corporation that would ultimately come to dominate the city of Metropolis. With it he owns every media corporation in the city and uses them to reinforce his public image as a wealthy benefactor. The one paper outlet that had always stood free was the Daily Planet. One such critic was the young reporter, and Editor In Chief, Perry White. Luthor detested White, due to his outspoken attitudes and a release by the Planet condemning his actions with an outrageous editorial signed by White himself. As a result, when Clark Kent is first inducted into the Planet, the newspaper is almost bankrupt, dilapidated, and unable to afford new reporters. Luthor made many criminal connections and industries, anything to help him rise to be the unchallenged master of Metropolis. His legitimate businesses attached to LexCorp cover a variety of enterprises ranging from telephone companies to personal gaming devices. As part of his image, Lex created the illusion of being a caring philanthropist. He became the most powerful man in Metropolis, both financially and in the world of organized crime. Lex would create havoc on the streets by selling weapons to the gangs of Metropolis and using his primarily female staff of underlings to keep blackmail files on all of the major organized crime groups in the city. Lex could use them to further any schemes he had planned. However, this all ended with the arrival of Superman.

Superman Arrives

Several months after Superman first arrived in Metropolis, terrorists attacked a society gala aboard Luthor's yacht. Lois Lane, whom Luthor had tried to romance as a ninth trophy wife some time before, was present during the attack which was stopped by Superman. Luthor tried unsuccessfully to hire Superman as a bodyguard. But when he admitted that he had known the attack was to occur and had allowed it to proceed in order to see Superman in action first hand, Mayor Berkowitz deputized Superman on the spot to arrest Luthor for reckless endangerment. He avoided prison thanks to a legal technicality, but still had to endure the humiliation of being publicly led away under arrest.

Luthor vowed to destroy Superman for this humiliation, and he has since devoted much time and energy to that goal. An early attempt led to the creation of an imperfect clone of Superman meant to destroy him, but was unsuccessful because Superman's alien DNA made the clone unstable. Luthor continued his vendetta. He was a man driven to be the best, having fought his way up from lowly beginnings by his own efforts, and was resentful of how Superman was given his powers by random fate of birth. Superman survived subsequent attempts Luthor made on his life, but he had never been able to prove Luthor's role in the attacks. Aside from Lex's immense wealth and connections, he was able to weasel his way out of trouble due to the fact that Superman, being liable as a witness, would have to reveal his true identity in court to testify against him.

Kryptonite Power

Luthor soon acquired the only known sample of Kryptonite on Earth from the kryptonite-powered cyborg Metallo, whom LexCorp abducted just before Metallo succeeded in killing Superman. Fashioning a signet ring from the alien ore deadly to Superman, Luthor began wearing it constantly to ward off his enemy. Unfortunately, Luthor suffered from severe cancer in the 1990s, caused by long-term radiation exposure to his Kryptonite ring. Later, he would find a way to protect himself from its side effects. He also discovered more than one kind of Kryptonite, which he would later use in his battles against Superman.

Faking his Own Death

Luthor's hand soon had to be amputated and replaced by a prosthetic version to prevent the cancer's spread, but unfortunately by then it had already metastasized. It was eventually determined that the disease was terminal. Luthor faked his own death shortly afterward by taking his personally designed jet, the Lexwing, on a proposed trip around the world. He crashed it in the Andes of Peru as a cover for the transplant of his brain into a healthy clone of himself which he passed off as his hitherto unknown son and heir by Dr. Gretchen Kelley, Lex Luthor II. The young Luthor had apparently been secretly raised by foster parents in Australia to protect him from his father's enemies. This deception was bolstered by his new body having a full head of red hair and a beard, as well as the appropriate Australian accent created through use of audio teaching tapes.

Send in the Clone

Luthor used his new identity as his own son to seduce Supergirl and continue to torment Superman from the shadows. However, everything quickly fell apart when Luthor's new clone body began to deteriorate and age at a rapid rate. This caused Luthor to begin to slip. Lois Lane discovered proof that Lex Luthor had murdered a female LexCorp employee and framed an innocent man for the murder years earlier. This led to Lois finding the truth about Lex faking his death and being his own son. This caused Luthor to systematically destroy Lois's life and have her fired from the Daily Planet. Lois fought back, and with help from Superman, exposed the truth about Lex Luthor, his faked death, and his evil criminal activities to the public. Luthor, right before his body became so old that he couldn't move or communicate, activated a "Doomsday Plan" to destroy Metropolis. The city was burned to the ground and thousands killed as Luthor became a permanent prisoner in his cloned body. However, aid would come in the form of the demon Neron. Luthor sold his soul in exchange for Neron restoring his body to perfect health. Returning to a rebuilt Metropolis, Luthor turned himself over to the police and was put on trial. He was acquitted of all crimes when Luthor claimed to have been kidnapped by renegade scientists who replaced him with a clone responsible for all the crimes he was charged with.

Luthor the Philanthropist

Lex Luthor had cultivated a popular image as a great philanthropist. He had been instrumental in reverse-engineering alien technology for use in general consumer goods, upgrading Metropolis into a true "City of Tomorrow." When Gotham City was destroyed by an earthquake and abandoned by the American government, it was LexCorp that took up the massive task of rebuilding the city. Later, Luthor also played an instrumental role in assisting the Justice League in recharging the sun during the Final Night storyline.

Despite his hatred for Lois Lane for temporarily bringing down his evil criminal empire, Lex Luthor has an unspoken love for her. On several occasions Luthor has commented that had Superman not arrived in Metropolis, Lex would have used his time and energy to romantically pursue Lois and marry her. He has been married eight times in his life, though the first seven marriages occurred off-panel in Luthor's past sometime before Superman showed up in Metropolis. While his previous seven marriages were hinted to have been based on love, Luthor's eighth marriage to Contessa Erica Alexandra del Portenza was a marriage that was based on mutual manipulation and greed. The Contessa had bought controlling interest in LexCorp after Luthor was exposed as evil, forcing Lex into a marriage with her in order to regain control over the company. The marriage was doomed from the beginning as the two fought constantly and never loved each other. The Contessa became pregnant with Lex's child and began using the unborn child to dominate Lex into doing her bidding. Luthor's response to the Contessa's actions was to use her desire to be unconscious during childbirth to lock her in the basement of his corporate headquarters in a permanently-drugged unconscious state. Luthor took over as a single father to his daughter and vowed never to marry again, stating that he wanted to never have to share his daughter's love with anyone else. It was later implied that Lex killed the Contessa months afterward, although no body was ever found.

President of the United States

Lex became the President of the United States, winning the election on a platform of promoting technological progresses for the common people. His first action as President was to take a proposed moratorium on fossil-based fuels to U.S. Congress in hopes of putting "a flying car in every garage". Despite Luthor's more villainous traits, he was assisted by the extreme unpopularity of the previous administration due to its mishandling of the No Man's Land crisis. Ironically, Batman would ultimately learn that Luthor was involved in the mishandling of the Gotham City rebuilding process, provoking Bruce Wayne to sever all military contract ties between the U.S. government and Wayne Enterprises. Luthor responded by ordering the murder of Batman's lover Vesper Fairchild and framing Bruce Wayne for the murder.

One of the greater successes that came with his emancipation presented itself in the form of the ultimate revelation. A CIA informant presented him with the surveillance footage of an extraterrestrial object landing near Smallville, Kansas. Wishing to keep this information personal, Lex disintegrated his lowly whitsleblower while pretending it was a mess to be cleaned up as he ruminated over the epiphany of "Clark Kent is Superman". He would soon lose this information along with any memory of extra backups of it when Manchester Black, former head of his presidential sanctioned Suicide Squad, erased it from his mind moments before committing suicide.

An early triumph of his political career was his handling of the Imperiex War, in which he coordinated the U.S. Army, Earth's superheroes and a number of untrustworthy alien forces to battle the story's villain, Imperiex. However, as it would later be revealed, Lex knew about the alien invasion in advance and did nothing to alert Earth's heroes to it.

Impeachment

Lex Luthor finally accepted Superman's secret identity as Clark Kent. He had been aware of this from their earliest meetings but refused to accept it for his own personal belief that people of power always crave and reflect themselves as people of power, never as one of the masses. Thus, to Luthor, a being like Superman would never try and pass himself off as Clark Kent who was less than extraordinary. In a story published in 2002, a lowly scientist was able to get a meeting with Lex and reveal top secret government documents showing the rocket containing baby Superman crashing near the farm of Martha and Jonathan Kent. Killing the scientist, Lex surprisingly decided to keep the knowledge a secret. He did so regardless that Clark Kent took the fall for Lois publishing proof that Lex Luthor knew of the alien invasion of "Our Worlds At War," but had opted not to make any defensive plans to save the people of Kansas from attack. Clark was fired from the Daily Planet as a result of Manchester Black using his telepathic powers on an unknowing Lex to allow him to pass an assortment of lie detector tests to prove that Lois and Clark's story was a lie. When Manchester Black tried to kill Superman and his friends and family, Luthor came to Superman's aid. He admitted that he had kept Superman's identity as Clark Kent secret both out of a sense of nostalgia for their past confrontations and the knowledge that revealing the truth about Superman would endanger Lois, nearly the only woman he cared for. In the end, Manchester Black was defeated and as revenge for Lex helping Superman defeat him, Black erased all knowledge that Clark Kent was Superman from Lex's mind before taking his own life.

Later, as his success at framing Bruce Wayne for the murder of Vesper Fairchild caused him to get arrogant, Luthor once again overplayed his hand in an attempt to blame Superman for a kryptonite meteor approaching the Earth. Initially convinced that everyone would listen to his claims against Superman simply because he was President despite his failure to produce any evidence of Superman's 'guilt', he instead raised questions about himself as Superman and Batman uncovered a plot of Luthor's to further torment Batman that involved tricking Batman into thinking that Metallo was the man who killed Batman's parents. In desperation, he used a variant combination of the "super-steroid" Venom, liquid synthetic green kryptonite, and an Apokaliptian battlesuit to battle Superman directly. Unfortunately, the madness that is a side effect of Venom took hold, and he revealed his true colors during the battle. The final straw was the revelation that Talia Head, the acting CEO of LexCorp, had sold all the company assets to the Wayne Foundation. He has since gone underground, leaving the Presidency to his Vice President, Pete Ross.

Infinite Crisis

Lex Luthor had retreated into obscurity before the events of Infinite Crisis, as he prepared to try and activate the mind control programming inside the brain of then current Superboy to help him gain revenge against Earth's mightiest heroes. He was also revealed to have orchestrated, with help from the newly created robotic Brainiac, the murder of Teen Titan member Donna Troy, who is destined to play a critical role in "Infinite Crisis". He's also been carefully surveying the new Supergirl, and has plans for her involving his newly-acquired Black Kryptonite.

With Lex Luthor acting in secret, Alexander Luthor, Jr. returned to New Earth and began his own plot that was interfering with Lex's own plans. Assuming the Post-Crisis Lex Luthor's identity, Alexander began an elaborate scheme, with help from Superboy-Prime and Kal-L, to restore the original Multiverse. His intentions were not just to recreate them as they once were, but as the basis of his ultimate goal, as he told Superboy-Prime that he would help them "whether [he] likes it or not".

As one of the premier reformers of the "Secret Society of Super-Villains", Alexander Luthor, Jr. recruited Black Adam, Doctor Psycho, Calculator, Talia Head, and Deathstroke as his inner circle. The new Society exploited the villain community's fear of mind-wipes at the hands of the Justice League as a means to recruit an army of villains under the premise of creating their own "mind-wipe" device to erase the memories of Earth's heroes as payback. However, this was just another cover for his even darker scheme involving the kidnapping of heroes, each representing alternate Earths, to power the giant tower being used to alter reality. Alexander Luthor, Jr., formerly of Earth-Three, had decided to restore the previously existing multiverse as a base selection to create a so-called "perfect" universe, as the current reality seemed to be failing. It was, in Alexander Luthor, Jr.'s own words, " a world of villains". Abandoned by his allies, Alex Jr. was depowered, due to the villains that Lex assembled under his alias of Mockingbird. Lex tracked down the supposedly depowered Alex Jr. and allowed the Joker to kill him in a fit of revenge.

Lex used Alex's corpse as evidence that he had an impostor who was responsible for all his recent illegal activities. He was cleared of many of the criminal actions he was accused of.

Post Infinite Crisis Origin

The events of Infinite Crisis and Alex Luthor's attempts to rewrite history actually led to alterations in Lex Luthor's personal history. In the newly created time line, the current Luthor family has a long history with the city of Metropolis. Some of Lex's ancestors were among the pilgrims who founded the city, others were amongst the Native Americans who were there to meet them. Over the centuries, the Luthor family became wealthy and influential. Lex's great-grandfather Wallace Luthor being a millionaire industrialist at the beginning of the 20th Century. He lost his fortune though, in the stock market crash of 1929, and went to his grave a pauper after having to declare bankruptcy. The family fortune would not be rebuilt until the arrival of Lex Luthor, the son of abusive alcoholic Lionel Luthor and his wife Letitia. Lex cared little for his parents, though he did love his sister Lena. In his teens, he lived for a time in Smallville with his aunt, also called Lena, and there met the young Clark Kent and his friends Lana Lang and Pete Ross. The stand-offish and superior Lex was friendly with Clark for a time, but eventually left Smallville under a cloud of suspicion after his father died in mysterious circumstances. Leaving his sister in Smallville, Lex went to Metropolis and, as before, founded LexCorp.

Superman Arrives (Again)

In this new timeline, Luthor's first meeting with Superman was also somewhat different. As part of his philanthropic image, Luthor had taken to picking a random person from the supplicants who gathered at LexCorp's gates every morning to bestow the chance of a new life upon them. His choice on this occasion, though, was Rudy Jones who, after eating a doughnut contaminated by an unknown radioactive chemical compound, was transformed into the Parasite. Superman stopped the Parasite's rampage, overshadowing Luthor and infuriating him. Lex contacted General Sam Lane, who was convinced Superman was a threat, and informed him that Superman was an alien. He transformed one of Lane's men, Sgt John Corben, into Metallo and sent him out after Superman. However, Metallo was defeated and Superman, previously an object of suspicion in the city, feted as a hero. When Luthor came to bestow his gifts on a grateful populace the next day, no-one was there. Lex was no longer the most powerful man in Metropolis. This cemented Lex's lifelong hatred of the Man of Steel. Eventually, as before, Luthor went from hero of the people to public enemy number one.

52

Through his still impressive financial resources, Lex has engaged in a public promotion campaign to regain his popularity through the Everyman Project, a scientific process that could grant superhuman powers to non-metahumans. The first several subjects of his process became the latest incarnation of Infinity, Inc. Luthor's own body, however, was not compatible with the process, a fact which pained him greatly.

When newly minted meta-humans began falling out of the sky, the media-dubbed Fall Of The Supermen, Luthor's building was attacked by John Henry Irons and his niece. Steel confronted Luthor and was beaten, Lex having discovered a way to gain meta-powers of his own. Lex was still defeated, however, and arrested. It was later found that the Lex that was imprisoned was, in fact, Everyman. Lex was found in a hidden room still inside the Lexcorp building.

One Year Later and Countdown

One year after the events of Infinite Crisis, Luthor had been cleared of over 120 criminal counts ranging from malfeasance to first-degree murder relating to the New Year's Eve massacre from 52. However, his role in the massacre has permanently ruined his public image and, thanks to the machinations of Doctor Sivana, has lost most of his wealth and all of his control over his newly reformed LexCorp, run by Lana Lang. He blames Clark Kent for writing several articles unraveling his schemes and pledges vengeance on Metropolis after an angry mob jeers him on the courthouse steps. After amassing large quantities of Kryptonite, and kidnapping the supervillains Metallo and Kryptonite Man, Lex uses it to power a Kryptonian battleship controlled through a "sunstone" crystal, using it to lash out at Metropolis for 'forgetting' him. While giant crystal formations began to appear throughout the ground, Superman tried to save as many people as he could and find the source of the attack. He found Lex high above the city in a ship made of the crystal where he was controlling it all from. Lex turned all of the crystal into kryptonite, forcing Superman to stay away from Metropolis and the ship, but he didn't count on Superman charging him. Superman knew Luthor would have some form of personal shielding and was right as they both fell down towards the ground. Luthor had time to say one thing: “I hate you. So much.” Superman was again powerless and Luthor's shield was weak when they struck the ground. They both arose weak and injured, and Lex began to fist-fight with Superman. With each traded punch, Lex spoke of how if Superman hadn't arrived on Earth and came to Metropolis, he would have made so many scientific breakthroughs instead of trying to come up with ways to destroy him, claiming that it was all Superman's fault that Lex wasn't the top of the food chain anymore. Superman countered with the fact that he had been away for an entire year, yet Luthor had accomplished none of these things he claimed he could have done, simply finding a big machine so that he could break things. The fight ended with Superman victorious.

Luthor was subsequently abducted from prison and drafted in Project 7734 under General Lane. He had hopes of using the project to fulfill his goals against Superman, but Lane had been keeping him on topic.

Lex later sends Bizarro after the newly arrived "Superboy" only for the creature to be defeated by Superman. Undaunted, Luthor gathers together a new Revenge Squad to fight against invading Kryptonians led by General Zod, working alongside Superman only so that Superman can see that Luthor was right about the threat he poses to Earth.

In JLA, Luthor gathers together a new "Injustice League" and, outfitted in a new version of his warsuit, sets out to destroy the Justice League with them. On a related note during this section, he was responsible for creating the third Shaggy Man and the third Blockbuster.

Luthor plays a large role in the Countdown to Final Crisis tie-in event, Salvation Run. Having been sent to the prison planet after his Injustice League was defeated, Lex quickly assumes control of the amassed villains. He received competition only from Joker and Gorilla Grodd, who convince half of the villains to join them. He does fight the Joker until the battle was interrupted by an attack by Desaad's Parademons. After the attack, Luthor manages to get the villains off the planet with a makeshift teleporter, secretly powered by Neutron, Heatmonger, Plasmus, Warp, Thunder and Lightning. When called a "monster" by Thunder, Luthor claims it is the ones who sent them there who are the real monsters, and that he is the hero. He later sets the teleporter to self-destruct after he uses it, killing the attacking Parademons, and his living batteries.

Final Crisis

Luthor associated with Libra's Secret Society of Super Villains and placed in its Inner Circle. Lex Luthor wanted Libra to prove himself, so Libra sends Clayface to blow up the Daily Planet building. As Lex Luthor attempts to ambush Libra after learning that he is a prophet of Darkseid, Luthor soon ends up surrounded by Justifiers. Libra tells Lex Luthor to make a final choice... swear an oath to Darkseid or become a mindless slave. Later, Lex Luthor witnessed Libra blaming Calculator for cracking the computer codes that will help the resistance. Luthor was silent on the matter and was picked to lead the rearguard action against the heroes at Blüdhaven. He assumed it as an honor, but he didn't look very pleased. A short time later, Libra figured out that Luthor had been the mole in the Society of Supervillains. Luthor, in league with Doctor Sivana, seemingly destroyed Libra and overturned the Anti-Life Equation being broadcast into the Justifiers' helmets.

New Krypton

Luthor ended up imprisoned for his crimes, but rather than going to jail, General Sam Lane had him serve out his sentence working for the secretive Project 7734. While still forced to wear chains, Luthor was assigned the job of accessing the knowledge stored within the captured Brainiac who had recently been defeated by Superman. Luthor successfully accessed Brainiac's brain and after Metallo and Reactron were taken to Kandor as prisoners of the Kryptonians who had now settled on Earth, he used Brainiac to reactivate the Coluans ship that was also being held in Kandor. Brainiac's robots attacked the Kryptonians, providing a distraction as Metallo and Reactron used their Kryptonite hearts to kill their captors and murder Zor-El.

After his success with Brainiac, Luthor was given the seemingly dead body of Doomsday, who had been defeated by the Kryptonians, to study as it had “potential.”

Luthor later manages to use Brainiac's connection to his ship to kill the soldiers assigned to watch him. Brainiac manages to free himself from Luthor's control, forcing him onboard the ship, and the two make their escape. The two are later shown to have entered into an alliance, with Brainiac promising Luthor the Earth when he is done with it. While reading newspapers to catch up on what happened during his imprisonment, Luthor learns of the resurrection of Superboy.

Blackest Night

During the Blackest Night event, when word gets out that apparently everyone around the world are rising as undead Black Lanterns, Luthor isolates himself in his safehouse in fear of all the people he had murdered over the years seeking revenge on him. In Blackest Night Vol 1 6, it is seen that Luthor is being attacked in his safehouse by Black Lanterns, including his father. An Orange Lantern Ring arrives and attaches itself to Luthor, inducting him into the Orange Lantern Corps as a deputy member, only for him to attack Scarecrow and Mera to claim their Yellow Lantern Corps ring and Red Lantern Ring before his own was taken from him by Larfleeze, the only true member of the Orange Lantern Corps, who subsequently dismissively dropped Luthor in front of the other Lanterns.

Brightest Day

After the conclusion of the New Krypton event, Luthor grew more aggressive for the lust for power after his exposure to a power ring during the Blackest Night. After being infused with the Orange Light of Avarice, Luthor begins a universal quest to locate the energy of the Black Lantern Corps.

During the midst of the Brightest Day, Deathstroke and his new team of Titans are hired to assassinate Luthor while he is visiting Midway City with Nava Mendelssohn, his new personal assistant and bodyguard. When the Titans ambush Lex's convoy and begin killing his hired mercenaries, Nava takes him into the sewers, where she is shot and apparently killed by Deathstroke. It is then revealed that Luthor himself had paid the Titans to fake an attempt on his life, in hopes that it would draw out conspirators within LexCorp. Nava's injuries soon heal, and she reveals herself to be a shapeshifter named Facade, who had murdered and impersonated the real Nava in order to get close enough to Lex to kill him. After a massive battle, Deathstroke and Osiris are able to defeat Facade and turn him over to Lex. In the end, LexCorp scientists are shown performing experiments on the captured Facade. Luthor assembles his staff and reveals that he knows that it was one of his employees who had hired the creature in the first place. Luthor warns them not to try such a tactic again, as he will turn them into his next morbid experiment if they do.

With the aid of a robotic duplicate of Lois Lane created to give him an honest opinion on his actions, Luthor searched for the energy of the Black Lantern in space. In doing so he sent Doomsday 'clones' created from the original to distract Earth's heroes. There Luthor encountered Brainiac in while attempting to alter the last of the Black Lantern energy, acting upon an unspoken theory of his. Brainiac revealed that Loisbot was an unwilling pawn in his bid to hijack Luthor's quest. Luthor then replied that he had anticipated this for some time, he then attacked Brainiac and snapped his neck, temporarily incapacitating him. Loisbot pleaded for Lex's forgivness, and he accepted her apology. After he altered the four remaining black spheres, he opened a Phantom Zone portal which unleashed an extremely powerful, monstrously large being which intended to kill all life in the universe because the negative emotions of sentient creatures hurt it. Luthor promptly impaled Loisbot's head, allowing himself to be infected with Kryptonian technology. He used it to engage the monster on a mental plane of existence. Grappling with the creature, Luthor's body and mental essence suddenly fused with it. Luthor learned that it evolved in the Phantom Zone and now seeks to escape from the grief and anger of the Zone prisoners. Using this new power, Luthor draws Superman to him, attempting to drive Superman mad by forcing him to experience the human emotions that he believes the alien merely fakes to blend in. However, Luthor is outraged when he learns that Superman's defining moment of tragedy is the loss of his father, confirming his true identity as Clark Kent. Being unable to cope with the fact that not only was his greatest enemy an old associate who was raised by humans, but he also had a father he would actually mourn rather than the anguish Luthor endured in his own relationship with his father. As Luthor becomes one with the creature, Superman and Mr. Mind, who had been aiding Luthor's search, realize that the creature allows Luthor to create a feeling of peace and bliss throughout the entire universe at the cost of never allowing him to cause any harm to another being at the same time. Superman attempts to appeal to Luthor about the potential of doing something even he never accomplished, but Luthor is unable to let go of his hate for Superman, his subsequent attack costing him control of the entity, as well as his memory of everything he learned or did while he was merged with it. It departs for another part of the universe. Luthor is ultimately defeated when he falls into one of the Phantom Zone holes created by the creature, seemingly forever.

Fun Facts

In addition to the details of Luthor's early life and upbringing having been changed somewhat by the events of Infinite Crisis, his hair color has also changed. In the former timeline, he had red hair, but the current Luthor's hair was brown. Since his hair eventually receded leaving him bald in both versions of his history, this is largely unimportant.

Lex's birthday is often given as September 28th.

Lex Luthor self-identifies as an atheist.

Luthor wears reading glasses, as shown in "Metropolis - 900 Mi."

[roninwarrior47]

Does any of this sound Familiar already!!!

21 Goals of the Illuminati and The Committee of 300 by Dr. John Coleman (ca. 1993)

1. To establish a One World Government/New World Order with a unified church and monetary system under their direction. The One World Government began to set up its church in the 1920:s and 30:s, for they realized the need for a religious belief inherent in mankind must have an outlet and, therefore, set up a "church" body to channel that belief in the direction they desired.

2. To bring about the utter destruction of all national identity and national pride, which was a primary consideration if the concept of a One World Government was to work.

3. To engineer and bring about the destruction of religion, and more especially, the Christian Religion, with the one exception, their own creation, as mentioned above.

4. To establish the ability to control of each and every person through means of mind control and what Zbignew Brzezinski called techonotronics, which would create human-like robots and a system of terror which would make Felix Dzerzinhski's Red Terror look like children at play.

5. To bring about the end to all industrialization and to end the production of nuclear generated electric power in what they call " the post-industrial zero-growth society". Excepted are the computer- and service industries. US industries that remain will be exported to countries such as Mexico where abundant slave labor is available. As we saw in 1993, this has become a fact through the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement, known as NAFTA. Unemployables in the US, in the wake of industrial destruction, will either become opium-heroin and/or cocaine addicts, or become statistics in the elimination of the "excess population" process we know of today as Global 2000.

6. To encourage, and eventually legalize the use of drugs and make pornography an "art-form", which will be widely accepted and, eventually, become quite commonplace.

7. To bring about depopulation of large cities according to the trial run carried out by the Pol Pot regime in Cambodia. It is interesting to note that Pol Pot's genocidal plans were drawn up in the US by one of the Club of Rome's research foundations, and overseen by Thomas Enders, a high-ranking State Department official. It is also interesting that the committee is currently seeking to reinstate the Pol Pot butchers in Cambodia.

8. To suppress all scientific development except for those deemed beneficial by the Illuminati. Especially targeted is nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. Particularly hated are the fusion experiments currently being scorned and ridiculed by the Illuminati and its jackals of the press. Development of the fusion torch would blow the Illuminati's conception of "limited natural resources" right out of the window. A fusion torch, properly used, could create unlimited and as yet untapped natural resources, even from the most ordinary substances. Fusion torch uses are legion, and would benefit mankind in a manner which, as yet, is not even remotely comprehended by the public.

9. To cause. by means of A) limited wars in the advanced countries, 😎 by means of starvation and diseases in the Third World countries, the death of three billion people by the year 2050, people they call "useless eaters". The Committee of 300 (Illuminati) commissioned Cyrus Vance to write a paper on this subject of how to bring about such genocide. The paper was produced under the title " Global 2000 Report" and was accepted and approved for action by former President James Earl Carter, and Edwin Muskie, then Secretary of States, for and on behalf of the US Government. Under the terms of the Global 2000 Report, the population of the US is to be reduced by 100 million by the year of 2050.

10. To weaken the moral fiber of the nation and to demoralize workers in the labor class by creating mass unemployment. As jobs dwindle due to the post industrial zero growth policies introduced by the Club of Rome, the report envisages demoralized and discouraged workers resorting to alcohol and drugs. The youth of the land will be encouraged by means of rock music and drugs to rebel against the status quo, thus undermining and eventually destroying the family unit. In this regard, the Committee commissioned Tavistock Institute to prepare a blueprint as to how this could be achieved. Tavistock directed Stanford Research to undertake the work under the direction of Professor Willis Harmon. This work later became known as the " Aquarian Conspiracy".

11. To keep people everywhere from deciding their own destinies by means of one created crisis after another and then "managing" such crises. This will confuse and demoralize the population to the extent where faced with too many choices, apathy on a massive scale will result. In the case of the US, an agency for Crisis Management is already in place. It is called the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), whose existence I first enclosed in 1980.

12. To introduce new cults and continue to boost those already functioning which include rock music gangsters such as the Rolling Stones (a gangster group much favored by European Black Nobility), and all of the Tavistock-created rock groups which began with the Beatles.

13. To continue to build up the cult of Christian Fundamentalism begun by the British East India Company's servant Darby, which will be misused to strengthen the Zionist State of Israel by identifying with the Jews through the myth of "God's chosen people", and by donating very substantial amounts of money to what they mistakenly believe is a religious cause in the furtherance of Christianity.

14. To press for the spread of religious cults such as the Moslem Brotherhood, Moslem Fundamentalism, the Sikhs, and to carry out mind control experiments of the Jim Jones and "Son of Sam" type. It is worth noting that the late Khomeini was a creation of British Military Intelligence Div. 6, MI6. This detailed work spelled out the step-by-step process which the US Government implemented to put Khomeini in power.

15. To e xport "religious liberation" ideas around the world so as to undermine all existing religions, but more especially the Christian religion. This began with the "Jesuit Liberation Theology", that brought an end to the Somoza Family rule in Nicaragua, and which today is destroying El Salvador, now 25 years into a "civil war". Costa Rica and Honduras are also embroiled in revolutionary activities, instigated by the Jesuits. One very active entity engaged in the so-called liberation theology, is the Communist-oriented Mary Knoll Mission. This accounts for the extensive media attention to the murder of four of Mary Knoll's so-called nuns in El Salvador a few years ago. The four nuns were Communist subversive agents and their activities were widely documented by the Government of El Salvador. The US press and the new media refused to give any space or coverage to the mass of documentation possessed by the Salvadorian Government, which proved what the Mary Knoll Mission nuns were doing in the country. Mary Knoll is in service in many countries, and placed a leading role in bringing Communism to Rhodesia, Moçambique, Angola and South Africa.

16. To cause a total collapse of the world's economies and engender total political chaos.

17. To take control of all foreign and domestic policies of the US.

18. To give the fullest support to supranational institutions such as the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Bank of International Settlements, the World Court and, as far as possible, make local institutions less effective, by gradually phasing them out or bringing them under the mantle of the UN.

19. To penetrate and subvert all governments, and work from within them to destroy the sovereign integrity of the nations represented by them.

20. To organize a world-wide terrorist apparatus [Al-queda, ISIS, ISIL, etc.] and to negotiate with terrorists whenever terrorist activities take place. It will be recalled that it was Bettino Craxi, who persuaded the Italian and US Governments to negotiate with the Red Brigades kidnapers of Prime Minister Moro and General Dozier. As an aside, Dozier was placed under strict orders not to talk what happened to him. Should he ever break that silence, he will no doubt be made "a horrible example of", in the manner in which Henry Kissinger dealt with Aldo Moro, Ali Bhutto and General Zia ul Haq.

21. To take control of education in America with the intent and p urpose of utterly and completely destroying it. By 1993, the full force effect of this policy is becoming apparent, and will be even more destructive as primary and secondary schools begin to teach " Outcome Based Education" (OBE).

[science-jumps]

Children of Fenris

The sky-warrior came for them in the dark.

Fenrisian nights were howling cacophonies of wind and sleet, and they huddled together to keep it away before the crackling, dying flames, skins pulled tightly about fresh scars. The carcasses, each larger than four fully-grown hunters, would feed their pack-siblings for weeks if they weren’t stolen by the Angus or Koralla families, or gorged upon by cunning vulture-predators. Flickering shadows threw themselves onto the cave walls like the arctic sea on kilometre-high cliffs, flashing nightmares across the rocks, the ice, their minds.

The armoured giant entered the cave, and Amare pounced, metal spear hurled with pinpoint accuracy at the his head. He swatted it away as if it were an insect. Zané was next, and the axe-head clanged off the intruder’s burnished, dirty grey plating, leaving a scratch in the patchwork paint and little more. Finally, Oni, still nursing near-disembowelment, sprang into position and bared small fangs - spear in each hand, the trio surrounded the metal man, knowing that they could not triumph, but unwilling to surrender their hard-earned kills.

He looked about the cave, then at the massive wolf-corpses that dominated the tiny rock shelter. The pelts on his back and waist were of the exact same colour. For a moment, no one spoke but the gale outside and the clinking fetishes - a bronze shell, a tooth, a chain of cracked skulls - adorning his ornate armour. Runes glowed faintly under his weathered face. His beard itself had seen more lifetimes than the three hunters had seen combined.

“You killed these wolves?” His tongue was harsh, as if he had to dredge up the runes from a half-forgotten memory. It was no more a question than it was an accusation.

They did not answer. The russkin, the ones that elders hailed as vlka fenryka and the ultimate warriors, were not known for being benign. They came every year for their initiation rites, taking away prideful young men who never returned. It was said that the chosen were culled and their humanity shorn away - forged into living weapons of the Allfather, living forever in the halls of glory in the vast mountain fortress of the World Spine. Legends told of wielded lightning and ice, of Leman Russ himself walking the stones that paved volda hammarki. They also told of whispering mutants in the dark, screaming wolf-men in the night, and the Nightganger horrors that awaited in the deadly barrows beneath the world mountains.

The sky-warrior’s stony features wrinkled like a rockfall. “Did you kill these wolves?” he rumbled.

“You already know, don’t you?”

Zané suppressed a smirk. For beings larger than some mountain trolls, they did not conceal surprise very well. “You were watching from the southern side of the mountain. What do you want?”

Oni spat and growled. “This is our hunt. Our kill. Not yours.” Provoking. Testing the waters. It was a hobby, honed into a fine edge that gave them the edge when reading enemy hunters.

“I have no need for your pithy skins and meat, youngling.” 

“Then why do you come, son of Russ?” Amare’s voice rang through the cave, sarcasm not having any visible effect on the giant before them. 

“I have come for you. You have been chosen for the vlka fenryka.”

“You lie!” Zané Ice-breaker shouted. “Only men are taken by the Aett. The elders say so.”

The giant nodded. “You are impulsive. Have you no fear?”

“Not of you, russkin.” The lie felt bold and sweet. 

A massive hand, larger than any of their heads, reached up and wrapped itself about the point of Amare’s spear. The wolfkin closed his fist and let the rock-dust sift through his finger to the ground. “Times have changed, youngling. Ragnarök , the end of days, is upon us. The night will reign eternal, and the Allfather calls all blades to his side for the final battle.”

The cave reverberated with the weight of his words: Ragnarök, the end, Ragnarök, the twillight, the crowing of Fjalar.

“Has the Allfather forsaken us?”

The giant hesitated. “He has given us the tools for the coming judgement. You have been judged fit to use these tools.”

“What has happened?” Oni said quietly. “The elders have visions of an eye in their dreams, and our priest clawed his tongue out. What goes on in the Sea of Stars, russkin?”

“Enough questions, whelp.” The first sign of irritation broke through his stormy gaze, and the cave was silent but for the echoes of shrieking winds. He stared at the crusting blood on the wolf carcasses and the rivulets running through pure snow, human and beast. “Few can claim to have killed a Fenrisian wolf, let alone two.”

“We planned for weeks,” Amare said, trying and failing to keep out hints of pride.

“And we lost four of our own as well.” Zané spat on the ground. The giant said nothing.

“So, what now? Do we leave our trophies here and follow you into Hel or the Aett, whichever comes first?”

“No,” grunted the hulking metal man. “You will return to your tribe and nurse your wounds. Amare of the Peak,  Zané Ice-breaker, Oni Troll-killer, you have been chosen by the vlka fenryka. Come dawn, I will return and take you to the end of the world.”

Then he was gone, and the night continued to scream.

++++++++++++++

[Two minutes to impact.]

Oni breathed heavily, letting the combat stimulants flood into the suit’s reserve. The drop pod rumbled with savage re-entry turbulence; it was dark, and the status indicators lining the weapon racks glinted ominously, flickering with the data-feed of fuel lines, atmospheric pressure, altitude, hull integrity. As the whole pod shuddered its way through thirty kilometres of nitrogen-rich air, damage lights came to life.

“Nervous?” The grunt came over a closed vox-channel. Blink-clicking through the feed to distract from the growing throat-itch - the new gene-seed apparently took a bit longer to acclimatise to, according to the Wolf Priests - Amare noticed  Zané fidgeting, Heavy Bolter safety already off. As a squad leader, that itself deserved punishment on its own for violating safety protocol, but  Zané’s anger was not the only one permeating the silent crew of Squad Lokasenna. 

The world was crawling with the servants of the Blood God, foul daemons that had slaughtered every man, woman and child in its teeming hives and piled their skulls into literal mountains, filling gullies with gore and the seas with torn bodies in their orgy of violence. It was with gleeful pride that the Planetary Governor scorned the Wolves of Fenris, sealing their cold judgement on the system and its blasphemers. The man’s arrogance filled every russkin with bloodlust worthy of a Great Hunt on its own. Amare, being the oldest, watched the squad twitch in anticipation of war, their birthright, their purpose.

“Lokasenna, status report.”

“Oni, ready.”

“Zané, ready to kill.”

“Omari Mountain-Dweller, loaded.”

“Bunme, bladed.”

“Amare.”

[Thirty seconds to impact.]

“Our objective is to clear the first wave of daemons and establish a landing zone. They know we are coming.”

“Good,” Bunme snarled.

“Don’t get too cocky, whelp. If you die, you won’t be able to pay me.”

“And if you die, I won’t have to.”

[Ten seconds.]

We are the Rout.

We are the void-striders, blazing a trail through the Sea of Souls to bring the fury of Russ to the enemies of mankind.

[Eight seconds.]

It matters not how high your walls soar, It matter not how many will answer your call, It matters not how keen your blade glimmers, Nor how bright burns your hearth fire. The wolf waits, The wolf waits in darkness for us all.

[Five seconds.]

We are the Wolf that Stalks the Stars.

We are vlka fenryka.

“For Russ and the Emperor!” Amare roared.

“FOR RUSS AND THE EMPEROR!” The squad responded.

[Three.]

[Two.]

[One.]

Amare allowed herself a small smile.

The drop pod smashed into  loamy soil wet with blood, sending up gouts of sizzling red and black into the crimson sky. It would have shattered the eardrums of any nearby humans, if there were any left alive to witness the falling comets descend like the bullets of an angry god.

With a hiss and thump, the panels burst open, and the Wolves were unleashed.

“FENRYS HJOLDA!”