#i really do honestly and genuinely believe its fine and morally neutral and not a bad thing

[hirokiyuu]

(ripping my hair out by the handful) Sol Is Not Trapped In The Time Loop Sol Is There Because They Choose To Be

[harley-style]

DREAM SMP Swap AU

Dream = Wilbur : Dream comes into the server to help these two kids who are trying to stir shit up -- why not, right? He's got a fondness for chaos but also very protective and caring over his friends. VERY FOND OF TUBBO. To the point of.. well, brotherhood. Wilbur = Dream : He had a vision, to create a place where people could emancipate -- he's not above being the bad guy to keep that ideal in place. He's charming and self-confident and isn't afraid to use blackmail or get all up in your business. Has dirt on everyone but Dream. Constantly threatens secrets but subtle, yanno? Again, very charming, very persuasive.

Tubbo = Tommy : Still very sweet, but Big Crime often comes out to play more often than not. Also a huge trouble magnet, tried to start a...Honey smuggling empire? For some fucking reason, despite its innocent sounding plan, is a threat to Wilbur's land but no one has any idea why. Tommy = Tubbo : Tommy has an innate fucking fixation on music discs. He's got Cat and Mellohi personally. He dreams of starting up a music cafe/music area...? He and Dream get along swimmingly, Dream actually gifts Tommy a few music discs too, but also pins Tommy with the name discount Dave Strider.

Fundy = Eret : Was convinced earlier on by Wilbur to continue his 'legacy' and ideals. Fundy further grows into a neutral party, doing things only when it benefits him. Is the traitor from the first war. Eret = Fundy : Gets far too involved with stuff and the only way out is if he wiggles through the restraints on him. Yes that's metaphorical.

JSchlatt = Technoblade : Assists through uses of contracts and business deals. Like, hello, Tubbo's Honey smuggling business? He and Dream make an agreement, he supplies Dream and Tubbo with shit, and Dream does favors for Schlatt. Technoblade = Jschlatt : Anarchy lmfao. Was actually brought on by Wilbur in secret. Acted as a benefactor for Dream before turning around and causing chaos in the land Dream Tubbo and Tommy built. Blood for the blood god, only the strongest gets to the top kind of government. There's always fucking pitfights. Oops.

Philza = Callahan : Largely uninvolved in the events, mostly just there to supervise Wilbur, Tommy and Techno. Duh. Callahan = Philza : Has personal history with Dream, tries to convince him not to do the thing that could hurt everyone else. Minimally succeeds.

Alyssa = Niki : Ready to defend her home and her family. Niki = Alyssa : Neutral, but ready to back Wilbur up if need be.

Sapnap = Bad : Arsonist, goes around and burns shit whenever he wants to. His base is a Nether inspired fortress. Also, he has to deal with a Nether problem in reference to the Red Vine problem from the original SMP. Hotlands? LMFAO Bad = Sapnap : Helps when asked. Started out on Wilbur's side, as a favor, but slowly shifts neutral due to the conflict between factions.

Karl = Skeppy : Gets held hostage? That's what preoccupies Sapnap's time. He suddenly disappeears or gets trapped in a cell. Skeppy = Karl : Runs around doing supply runs. Gets his friends into various stints to try and settle the conflict through friendly rivalry and competition. It doesn't always work.

George = Ranboo : Unlike original Ranboo, George is highly unsympathetic and needs concrete fucking facts before he acts, and that kind of backfires on him in the end. As a favor to Dream (how many favors is Dream involved in honestly) he runs messages back and forth from Tubbo to Tommy. Ranboo = George : Largely uninvolved in the conflict, like Niki, but unlike OG George, is not absent. He's just there to assist. One of the most innocent and purest people on the SMP, knows when to keep his head down. When his house burns down, he doesn't really believe its Tubbo who did it -- he knows the kid has been framed because he'd been WITH him at the time, but Wilbur pressures him to admit it.

Quackity = Punz : Wilbur's loyal paid henchman. Quackity will cause shit for the appropriate price, he's not exceptionally picky. That stunt he did as Mexican Dream was great and everyone in L'Manberg loved it. Punz = Quackity : One of the best fighters under Techno. Has more morals, but keeps them secretly. Very good at hiding his true intentions/feelings.

(sorry about the other characters not being on here, i dont know them enough to make swaps, or dont know who they'd make a good swap with. Swap who you wanna swap though! i'd like to hear your take on this matter! HEADCANONS ACCEPTED TOO AT THIS POINT EVERYTHING HERE IS FROM WHAT I REMEMBER AND MY HEADCANONS)

PLOT

-Wilbur starts the SMP with Niki, slowly invites others like Ranboo, Tommy, and Tubbo.

-Tubbo expresses a desire to Fuck Shit Up and Tommy says they can get Dream, he's an expert at getting away.

-Dream is extremely protective of them both. Tubbo more than Tommy but that's fine because Tommy is largely independent.

-Tubbo gets in the weirdest shit but Tommy can roll with the punches really quickly.

-Wilbur gets tired of their crap and burns down Tubbo's establishment. It's like the Disc Wars except it's the Great Honey War. Bee War? Basically he's tired of Tubbo hogging all the Honey related expenditures.

-Dream gets the idea to make a honey smuggling empire, as a joke, but Tubbo is Big Crime and he's going with it. Tommy just wants chaos, and he was getting bored tbh.

-Eventually the Honey thing turns into Resource management, so Tubbo Dream and Tommy have a hold on all major supplies

-Shit happens and Dream, Tubbo, Tommy, Eret, Sam, Fundy and Alyssa establish an independent nation. Dunno what to call it bc the server is called the L'manberg SMP so....

-The fight for indepencence still happens. Instead of 'Green boy' Wilbur is named 'E-boy'. Dream still says "WE HAVE NO MERCY FOR YOU" when Wil calls for a ceasefire negotiation, but Wilbur does threaten the nation saying  "If there is no white flag by tomorrow, then you can kiss your sorry little arses good bye. That's my final warning."

-Turns out Fundy's been secretly funneling information to Wilbur in exchange for the safety of his friends, and also because Wilbur's his dad....uhm. Also! He and Dream are circling each other and others are like "OH MY GOD YOU GUYS ARE DEAD RINGERS FOR QUEERPLATONIC MATES JUST MARRY ALREADY" bc I like FundyWasTaken but others might not and its okay, we'll label it as platonic, but can be read otherwise depending on your tastes. But for this, it's very close platonic.

-Wilbur goads Tommy into a fight, as brothers do, but Tubbo steps in and Wilbur fucking jumps at the chance.

-This is the start of Dream's descent into madness. No one fucking threatens or pulls one of his friends like that. Denied. It's still subtle though, so he's okay for now.

-Tubbo and Wilbur face off. When Tubbo pulls back bc he genuinely doesn't want to hurt anyone, Wilbur takes the chance and beats him.

-Tubbo, however, makes a deal. Let their nation stand on its own, and he'll give up the Resource Empire he started. Wilbur accepts, with the condition that they unify their alliance with a...marriage? So basically, political marriage between Wilbur's heir, Fundy, and Dream, the leader of the revolution.

-YEAH I WENT THERE THIS IS VALID

-They're strained at first, but Dream and Fundy slowly mend their relationship post-betrayal.

-Fast forward a few months later. The Nation doesn't really have a leader, as per the agreement, but it does have a representative. All decisions are made via majority votes, and that decision is voiced by the rep and sub-rep, Dream and Tubbo respectively. Tommy's just there to have a good time and causes chaos as per usual.

-Enter Technoblade. He's been called in by Wilbur to...ah. Dismantle a little...nation. Sounds right up his alley. But he asks Wilbur to wait and see what happens.

-Tommy and Dream get the idea to hold a tournament to celebrate their independence, an all out brawl for everyone to kick back and relieve stress. There. That's where Techno comes in.

-He gets Punz to join him after like, being paid (ofc) and they fucking dominate the tournament. Dream's about to congratulate them but Techno turns the fuck around and declares his right to rule the nation. If anyone wants to fight him for the title, they're welcome to try.

-Dream loses another life to Techno trying and failing to fight it. He and a few others lost their first life sometime elsewhere? I guess? Probably by being blown up by Wilbur, idk.

-Tubbo and Dream are chased out by people who reluctantly follow Techno's orders, and Tommy, torn between his friends and his brothers, stays behind. Oh jeezus.

-Since Techno is a fighting GOD, no one's able to usurp him to make things turn back to normal. But Dream is smart, and knows Wilbur's 100% behind this. Fundy kind of knew but didn't do shit about it, which is why Dream rejects Fundy's offer of sanctuary. He can't be sure his husband will stay on his side, after all. It's nothing personal.

-Dream and Tubbo hide away somewhere, probably not a ravine but?? A mountain or something? They manage to get Sam away enough to ask him to build a super cool Redstone contraption thing that opens for them. ooooo.

-I'm not good at names but for the sake of jokes I'm gonna call their land the 'Bee's Knees' bc at some point Tubbo finds a fuckton of Hives hanging from Trees. Bee Mountain if Dream's feeling especially salty.

-SPEAKING OF DREAM. his insanity is on course now, it's slowly eating away at him and in fear of hurting Tubbo he's slowly distancing himself away. Tubbo's like what's wrong but Dream can't answer -- he doesn't know what's wrong with himself either.

-Tubbo and Dream need to go back and confront Techno, but they can't wait for long else Techno's going to obliterate everyone and their extra lives. They call Schlatt in.

-Schlatt's a pure business man and draws up a contract. He'll aid them in terms of supplies, but most of the revolution is on them. They agree.

-Tommy is actually really fucking good at lying and skirting around what he reveals to Dream and tubbo as a spy that Techno would have believed him if he didnt' know his brother. and Wilbur's warnings, of course. That results in Techno just being fucking done with Tommy's bullshit and plans his execution in another tournament? I guess?

-It doesn't go like the festival. First of all, Schlatt can't fight for shit, so why would Techno call him up the stage? No, Schlatt fights dirty. techno doesn't set much rules so theres no rule against poisoning Tommy quick and easy before the fight. Tommy loses another life and is on his last. Tubbo is spitting mad, but Schlatt points out that nothing in the contract covered this, so he's free to do as necessary. Tubbo is stopped by Dream who, at this point, is just overtaken by the need to one-up Techno.

-Also, Wilbur's been slowly persuading Dream to just. Let go. Let the monster inside of him free, he 'deserves it'. By the end of it all, Dream does. He snaps and lets loose the monster crying for blood inside him.

-Callahan is left to convince his old friend not to do it. In a moment of clarity, Dream stares on in horror of what he'd done. In his rage he managed to deplete ALL of Techno's lives (not really but shhhh), cause massive bloodshed, and terrified everyone in the process. He asks Callahan to kill him. Callahan does.

-Yes we'll get to Ghost Dream eventually.

-Anyway, Schlatt still does the Wither plan, because, uh, Drunken Rage. He was so stressed out from the ensuing conflict that he's like "LETS JUST FINISH THE REST OF YOU. THERE WILL BE NO CONFLICT IF YOU ARENT THERE TO FIGHT."

-and then he uses the line from the Lego movie on Tubbo like "Oh, Tubbster. It's nothing personal. It's just Business(tm)".

-Schlatt still dies of stroke. He does come back as a ghost though, that's one main difference.

-After everything's said and done, and the dust has settled, everyone decides to disband the nation, and just live their lives. like, they're done, wilbur, they get your point, jfc, let them rest.

-but uhhhh someone frames tubbo for setting fire to ranboo's (the server sweetheart) house. wilbur immediately decides to exile tubbo in 'anger'. acutally, he wants tommy and tubbo separated.

-tommy's not standing for it though, he fucking fights his way until wilbur threatens him and tubbo's like YES FINE OKAY I'LL AGREE TO BEING EXILED STOP THREATENING YOUR BROTHER

-tubbo's exile arc is not as sad as tommy's, but rather very tense because wilbur keeps riling tubbo up and taunting him. he still keeps contact with tommy though because they arent going to be separated just like that. no way. tubbo just gets a little more mad and gets short tempered like a lot.

-ranboo's not even that mad about it, he knows tubbo would never burn his house, there was a conspiracy on board and even if there wasn't he's like "arent yall overreacting its just a house, didnt you all do this like before the first war even began, what even (also, ranboo was WITH tubbo at the time of his house allegedly being set on fire. Not that he'll admit to it, because he and tubbo made that agreement long before)

-eventually he finds out that wilbur just wanted to pin the blame on tubbo to make him leave, and ranboo's like "IM DONE WITH YOUR CRAP WILLBUR STOP HURTING THE PEOPLE I CARE ABOUT" and leaves

-with the nation gone, people started to solidify their groups. sapnap and karl deal with their own thing, quackity still runs errands for wilbur, george is the main person ferrying messages from tubbo to tommy back and forth, etc.

-there's a funeral for dream, ofc, fundy arranged it. all of dream's shit was hidden because fundy doesnt want wilbur to get it.

-niki's still there managing her bakeshop but doubles as an informant for wilbur because she's well liked within the server

-ghost dream is present and he's a chaotic troll who mostly hangs around tommy. he's really hyper active and is always on the move, you can never catch him sitting still for like, 5 minutes

THAT"S ALL I HAVE FOR MY SMP SWAP AU PLEASE BE GENTLE I DONT HAVE TIME TO GET ALL THE FACTS STRAIGHT FROM THE OG SMP qwq

[niennavalier]

So

Because roommates are playing in my D&D campaign, I can’t tell them all the fun rants going through my head. Which means you all/the void get to hear them

Basic premise of the campaign (which has actually been going for like 6-7 sessions now? IDK exactly cause we never initially planned for it to go long): the party has found this lost/legendary city that’s hidden in the middle of the desert and invisible to the world. (I watched Road to El Dorado, okay?) There be some shenanigans, but they learn that the crystal which has been protecting the city/keeping it invisible and such is failing. Monsters getting into the city, and the city itself is now faintly visible from the outside, which wasn’t true before. They learn of the existence of other crystals scattered across the world and that they exist to bind Talos (as a result of some big ol’ good vs evil fight from long in the past). His followers plan to “corrupt” and then take the crystals for themselves in order to reverse those binds and let chaos rule again (which the party doesn’t fully know yet, but they have some hints of it).

And at the same time, the city itself is undergoing some shit. Because I wanted to fill out the world as being more than the party and the crystal. So the Mayor left some months back without returning, and people aren’t pleased with how things have been going since. There are whispers and plans of some sort of uprising in order to demand answers (from the young tiefling left in charge of the city who is Not Ready for this sort of responsibility...and is lowkey panicking cause he knows things aren’t good. The party Rogue isn’t impressed with him and honestly yeah, that was the point) and get shit back in order. And the party split last time, half of them examining the tunnel where I plot dumped about the crystals - and a teleportation circle is laying dormant - while the other half went to go see the crystal. 

So I was like “Nice, I can intro the whole uprising thing to the half of the party not in the tunnel and give them some more shit to deal with/give them more of a sense of the current state of the city/etc etc”. And I did that, had them meet this sorta sketch older dude who was in charge of that movement, saw that they did want to fundamentally help the people of the town, and sorta offered for them to join (while also giving the information much more easily than I normally give them, because a lot of my NPCs have reasons to not implicitly trust these randos). I left the second to last session with “So, what do you say?” as a question of whether they wanted to join (whether genuinely or just to learn more of what was up).

And then was thinking of things for the most recent session, which involved some fleshing out of the people involved in said uprising, assuming they would be interested. And instead got the most blase response to a goddamn uprising: effectively just “that’s great but its not our particular goal here byeee”. Which then led to roommate wanting to investigate the room with the crystal (which I knew was basically empty anyway because the room itself doesn’t serve any purpose beyond...being a room) and rolling well on said roll. And then being like “why do I always roll good on stuff that doesn’t really matter?” And I’m like...I’m sorry the room legit doesn’t have anything in it, but also I legit just threw so much plot at you about this uprising because I thought that would be the main point of what you’d be dealing with??

Which was then compounded by them returning to the rest of the party, relaying the random info that I gave for the investigation check (which amounted to just a rough timeline of what had happened earlier) and sorta glossing over the entire uprising that was coming up. Granted, it was mentioned, but more in that people are just unhappy with the current government, not that shit’s about to go down real soon. AKA, in probably about 6 hours from where they currently stand in game...which also lines up rather well with an invasion of the city by followers of Talos...which is actually happening at the same time because one of the people heading the uprising is actually one of said followers of Talos...but they don’t know this because they chose not to look into the uprising at all.

So they have a lot to deal with soon.

Not to mention the other thing that happened. Because one of the first NPCs I introduced to them was this half-drow rogue (Vaerys, who is probably gonna become a PC for me to play the day I finally don’t have to be the forever DM). And they didn’t trust him, because he wasn’t willing to tell them any actual information (his family is being held by followers of Talos to ensure that he does his job: bringing a shard of obsidian into the city to weaken the crystal and take it...or at least not rat them out long enough for them to do the dirty work themselves...so I’d say he has reason to not trust anyone in this place). But he’s been something of a constant to the game so far, because they know he has information that might be useful, so they’ve gone seeking him out before. And same roommate who was looking around the tower made a good arcana check, so I figured I’d use that to let them in on the obsidian shard and how Vaerys is connected to the entire thing. So that happens, they find him, and I figure I’ll throw them a bone and pretty much just have my boy plot dump his backstory (not the details, but the important bits) at them. (to be fair, he chooses to trust them because roommate’s character is naive and so it’s pretty clearly not a deception. Seemed both a little more lenient than usual without being entirely out of character). So now they know about the demon invasion, and that he plans to get the crystal out so that his family is safe and the town isn’t razed to the ground by a bunch of demons or cultists or whatever the servants of Talos decide to throw at them.

Being your typical dumbass good characters, roommate is like “just give us the crystal so we can destroy it and the servants of Talos, and we can protect your family!” To which his response is effectively “How about no, because you’re like, 5 people vs an entire cult and whatever army they’ve gathered, and I’m not risking my family just cause you’ve got an inflated sense of morality. I get that you want to do the right thing - I don’t want these people to die either - but this isn’t a black and white thing, and you definitely can’t kill a whole army on your own”. 

To which roommate responded by essentially quoting Spock (you all know the quote), and I’m internally like “ooh boy, that’s not getting on his good side. ‘Just sacrifice your family so that we can maybe protect this town’. That’s really gonna resonate with him”. Obviously he’s not responsive to that logic, so then roommate goes “I’m gonna try to steal the amulet”

What

“...okay, I think that’s a Dex check in this case, cause it’s pretty small and he’s holding it up slightly away from himself”

Now, keep in mind, I rolled for Vaerys’ stats, so he’s a Rogue at slightly higher level than they are. Roommate is playing a Barbarian. Guess whose Dex was too fucking high for roommate to beat?

Yeah.

So now roommate’s character (and her boyfriend’s character, who was sorta just along for the ride) are now on Vaerys’ bad side, and they have no idea where he is either, because they ended up getting stopped by the bartender in the tavern where they found him. (cause, yknow, people running through the tavern means trouble so barkeep stopped them like “What the fuck is going on. Get out. Now” Especially after roommate tried to convince them all to go chasing after him and failed...although what she doesn’t know is that those patrons are either normal people who were hoping for a normal evening, or people involved in the uprising with much more pressing things on their mind than the barbarian telling them to go on a wild goose chase for reasons they don’t even know to be true yet)

Aaand then they activated the teleportation circle (after relaying all of this wonderful news), two of them went through, and now are stuck on the other side because those were the decided on mechanics of these teleportation circles for this game. While the rest of them are in a city - essentially on the brink of some kind of revolution - which is about to be probably raided by an evil army, with a once-potential ally on the loose and no longer on great terms with them

(because side note: Vaerys also feels like he’d been betrayed by other roommate’s character, who told him that they wouldn’t rat him out to the wizards working on figuring out the crystal - aka another of my PCs who’s getting recycled for this game, and then brought said wizards down to the tunnel where Vaerys was presumably still hiding. They wanted to get help deciphering the walls, but instead shit just went sideways because I warned them that Vaerys might still be in there and I stalled for as long as I fucking could, but then they just went in anyway and I was like “...well, I warned yall. Now there’s a dagger at your side.” So Vaerys is only okay with the party Rogue - because hell yeah neutral characters, that whole solution was actually rather creative. And the sorcerer who just joined the party last session, because he just hasn’t actually met her yet)

(Other notable bit from that part between roommate and Vaerys was her saying that “well if the demons can know if you betray them, then if we take the amulet and smash it, then they’ll know it’s not your fault and your family will be fine!” And this wasn’t exactly how I said it in character but like...these people are chaotic evil. Emphasis on Chaotic. Would you trust them to care the specifics on why things went wrong? Or just believe that if things go wrong, they’ll kill your family regardless? Talos is the god of chaos, after all. These folks ain’t lawful by any means)

Point being: they got a lot to deal with

[almightygodismydependence-blog]

Christian Testimony: A Father and His Step-Daughter Surpass the Ties of Blood

By Xia Zixuan, Hubei Province

A Grey Childhood

There was no mother and no father around when Zixuan was growing up; she didn’t know what the cakes the children from the city talked about tasted like, and she’d never seen a goldfish blow bubbles in a fish tank. On no evening did she ever hear the stories of Grimm’s fairytales, but instead she listened to her grandpa tell her the story of The Seven Heroes and Five Gallants. Her real father leaving and her mother remarrying had brought about feelings of inferiority when she was little, and even more so had become a shadow in the depth of her heart that she could not drive away. Especially when she saw the other children with their parents, caring for them and being with them, Zixuan’s heart would ache with pain.

An Untraversable Chasm

At the time of the millennium, Zixuan’s mother brought Zixuan to live with her in the city. Her step-father was good to her, but in her heart, Zixuan believed that “blood was thicker than water,” and that only family bonds built upon the kinship of blood were real. After all, her step-father was different from her biological father, and he could never treat her like his own daughter; even if he was good to her, it was a false display put on for her mother, and he was simply incapable of being sincerely and honestly good to her. Therefore, Zixuan felt very biased against her step-father, and they argued often. Even with tiny matters that were hardly worth a mention, as long as they happened in front of them both, it would develop into an entirely irrational quarrel. In over ten years, the family battles never ceased, their antagonism got worse and worse, and every one of them lived in a state of pain …

Once the question of whether mushrooms should be blanched or not came up, and Zixuan and her step-father both stuck to their own views, in the end they both stomped off in anger, and after that they didn’t speak to each other again for two weeks. Zixuan’s mother was caught in the middle, and felt like she may as well adopt a neutral attitude, scolding them both and then employing the traditional virtue of “respecting the old and cherishing the young” to try to rein them both in. Because of her mother’s attempts to restrain them, Zixuan and her step-father would act very “harmoniously” in front of her mother, but the minute she was gone, they would quarrel unceasingly. Every time, it was Zixuan who would pick up on something, do something that was deliberately provocative and push her step-father to the end of his tether. But because Zixuan was the younger, she could only be reprimanded and lectured. Zixuan didn’t want to hear it, however, and felt it was unfair, and she thought: “How come the responsibility is always on me? Why is it always my fault?” This brought Zixuan much pain, and it proved to her even more that, in the absence of any blood ties, her step-father really was without any genuine concern or care for her after all—her real father would never have treated her this way, she thought. And so Zixuan couldn’t find it in her heart to love her step-father, and it seemed as though there existed an untraversable chasm between them.

Feelings Reach Breaking Point

Although Zixuan and her step-father were on “friendly terms” with each other when her mother was around, this feigned harmony could not last long. That year, the two of them couldn’t take it any longer and blew up over a certain matter, and thereafter their quarrels escalated, and the family was pushed toward breaking point.

Winter came and temperatures dropped, and Zixuan’s step-father’s old illness of sinusitis returned. When they switched on their central heating, his nose would get so stuffy that he could hardly breathe, and to clear his nasal passages, he would open all the windows on the balcony. Yet Zixuan thought what a waste of money it was, to pay for central heating and yet have their home open to the four winds, like a great shack exposed to the elements. Not only that, but she was anemic and feared the cold, and so she resolutely forbade her step-father to open the windows. When it came to this issue, neither one of them would back down. Zixuan thought how her step-father was not as good as her biological father, and that he didn’t know how to love her, whereas her step-father thought of how he’d raised Zixuan for over ten years, all to no avail, and had expended so much of himself and yet had still failed to make her heart warm to him, and she didn’t understand him in the slightest. Zixuan’s mother saw that neither one of them would make a concession, and her patience had reached its limit. She just couldn’t stand it anymore, and so she yelled at them: “You’ve argued so often through all these years over such tiny things, have you ever once thought about my feelings? I’ve been stuck in the middle of you two for 18 years, how do you think I’ve managed to get through it?” Zixuan’s step-father felt bitterly disappointed, and he really couldn’t stand it any longer either, and so suggested to Zixuan’s mother that they divorce. Zixuan had also long since had enough of their life together, and she said angrily to her step-father, “Fine! Then we’ll each go our separate ways from now on, and stay clear of each other. I’m grown up now and can look after my mom. All our property and the house belong to you and I don’t want any of it. You’ve earned money all these years to raise me, so from now on I’ll pay it all back to you!” Seeing her family argue so, her mother felt grieved and helpless, and all she could do was sit in the living room, crying. This winter really had become a cold one for this family of three. Living in this awkward environment, Zixuan suffered greatly and felt much oppressed, and she felt even worse than she had done before. Yet she still didn’t know what to do, and could only yell silently at the sky every day: “Heavens, what should I do? Please help me …”

Saved by God’s Hand

Just when Zixuan was at her most pained and helpless, God’s salvation came upon her, and so her family that had been at breaking point was saved. Zixuan read these words of God: “One has no say in who one’s parents and relatives are, what kind of environment one grows up in; one’s relationships with the people, events, and things in one’s surroundings, and how they influence one’s development, are all beyond one’s control. Who decides these things, then? Who arranges them? Since people have no choice in the matter, since they cannot decide these things for themselves, and since they obviously do not take shape naturally, it goes without saying that the formation of all this rests in the hands of the Creator. Just as the Creator arranges the particular circumstances of every person’s birth, He also arranges the specific circumstances under which one grows up, needless to say. If a person’s birth brings changes to the people, events, and things around him or her, then that person’s growth and development will necessarily affect them as well. For example, some people are born into poor families, but grow up surrounded by wealth; others are born into affluent families but cause their families’ fortunes to decline, such that they grow up in poor environments. No one’s birth is governed by a fixed rule, and no one grows up under an inevitable, fixed set of circumstances. These are not things that a person can imagine or control; they are the products of one’s fate, and are determined by one’s fate. Of course, the bottom line is that they are predestined for a person’s fate by the Creator, they are determined by the Creator’s sovereignty over, and His plans for, that person’s fate” (“God Himself, the Unique III” in The Word Appears in the Flesh). God’s words brought sudden enlightenment to Zixuan; it turned out that the family in which every single person is born, their background growing up, and who their parents, relatives and friends are, and so on, all have their source in the sovereignty and predestination of the Creator; it is not decided by parents, much less is it chosen by oneself. Zixuan thought of how she had been born into a poor family and her parents had not been around while she was growing up, but instead she had lived with her grandparents. Later, she became a family together with her step-father and, as it happened, these environments and backdrops as she grew up had all been predestined and arranged by the Creator. And because Zixuan had been nurtured on the ideas of atheism and evolutionism all these years, she hadn’t been aware that there was a God, nor did she know that people’s fates were ruled and predestined by God. Therefore, she had always felt dissatisfied with this kind of family, and had complained about her unfortunate fate. When it came to her step-father, she always treated him with bias, believing that, no matter how good a step-father he was to her, he could never be as good as a real father, and so she had become estranged from him and had always quarreled with him. For this reason, she had lived constantly in pain, and hadn’t this been brought about by her resisting and contending with the sovereignty and predestination of the Creator? And yet Zixuan couldn’t figure it out—what exactly was the reason that caused her to be dissatisfied with the fate the Creator had given her?

That night, as Zixuan sat at her desk holding a book of God’s words in both hands, she continued searching for the answers, and she read these words of God: “Born into such a filthy land, man has been severely blighted by society, he has been influenced by feudal ethics, and he has been taught at ‘institutes of higher learning.’ The backward thinking, corrupt morality, mean view on life, despicable philosophy, utterly worthless existence, and depraved lifestyle and customs—all of these things have severely intruded upon man’s heart, and severely undermined and attacked his conscience. As a result, man is ever more distant from God, and ever more opposed to Him” (“To Have an Unchanged Disposition Is to Be in Enmity to God” in The Word Appears in the Flesh). “But when you truly know, when you truly come to recognize that God has sovereignty over human fate, when you truly understand that everything God has planned for and decided for you is a great benefit, and is a great protection, then you feel your pain gradually lighten, and the whole of you become relaxed, free, liberated” (“God Himself, the Unique III” in The Word Appears in the Flesh).

Zixuan felt suddenly like she understood: The root cause of why she hadn’t been able to get along with her step-father all these years was that she had been influenced and indoctrinated by the absurd traditional ideas of Satan, such as “blood is thicker than water,” and “without blood ties, it’s not a real family.” She had mistakenly believed that only those people who were related to her by blood were real relatives, and only they could be sincerely good to her—her step-father could never compare with her biological father. And so Zixuan had always suspected that her step-father’s good treatment of her had not come from a place of sincerity, and no matter how good he was to her, she always saw him as being false. So in over ten years, she had been unable to accept him or understand him, and she had quarreled with him often over tiny things that weren’t really worth mentioning; she had been raised by her step-father without knowing to be grateful, and nor did she have a shred of the conscience or sense or humanity that a normal person should have, and so she had not only hurt her step-father, but she had also brought great pain to her mother and had suffered a great deal herself. Now, she thought of her real father who had been a gambler, and about how he had never once bothered with her in all these years. Although her grandparents were getting on in years and didn’t have the strength to raise her, her real father had never given them any money to help out. Then she thought of her step-father: Although he was not related to Zixuan by blood, he had been willing to take on the responsibility of raising her, and had provided her with food, clothing, and had paid for her to go to school. Only when she thought this did Zixuan perceive that the Creator had arranged what was best and most suitable for her, and that it was God’s love that had enabled her to live a life in which she had everything she needed under her step-father’s roof. But her mind had been distorted by the mistaken ideas of Satan, and she had never been able to accept her step-father or fit into this new family after her mother remarried. At that moment, Zixuan felt like crying, and she thought of how she had enjoyed the Creator’s love and yet had never felt any gratitude, nor had she expressed any gratitude toward her step-father for his kindness of having raised her for 18 years—she felt so devoid of conscience! After she’d come to this understanding, her heart at last was brightened, and the haze that had shrouded her heart for so many years was swept away. She offered up a prayer to God: “O God! You have arranged what was best for me, and yet I have always been deceived by Satan, and have been deceived and held in bondage by the idea and the view that ‘blood is thicker than water.’ I have always felt displeased with the family that You arranged and predestined for me, and I have lived in misunderstandings and blame, unable to accept or submit to Your sovereignty and arrangements and bringing so much hurt and pain to my mother and step-father. O God! I now wish to let go of my previous mistaken views, submit to Your sovereignty and arrangements concerning my fate, treat my step-father fairly, and by Your word live out a human likeness. Amen!”

Beginning A New Life

From that time on, Zixuan began to cherish the family and relatives the Creator had arranged for her, and through being watered by God’s words, she seemed to grow up all of a sudden and become sensible. Zixuan no longer saw her step-father as an interloper, but instead treated him as her own family; she also learned to consider matters from other people’s perspectives, and understand and show consideration for the difficulties faced by her step-father and mother. She took responsibility for herself within the family, and did to the best of her ability the things she was supposed to do: She actively took responsibility for cooking the family meals so that at least when her step-father and mother returned home from work every day, they were sure to eat a meal Zixuan had cooked; whenever the sun showed its face, Zixuan actively hung her step-father’s duvet out to expose it to the sunshine; whenever her step-father expressed a view, she no longer contradicted him or opposed him, but instead she learned to respect her step-father, and if his opinion was correct, then she would agree with him. Little by little, Zixuan came to realize that the family God had predestined for her was actually really great, and all she ever perceived was love …

One afternoon, when the blazing sun was high in the sky, Zixuan’s step-father braved the scorching heat and traveled a long distance to buy her a kind of cantaloupe that was grown far afield that she most enjoyed eating. When he got back, he was sweating profusely and his face had been burnt red by the sun, but when Zixuan was not there, he said to her mother: “This cantaloupe was really hard to buy. I’ve bought it especially for Zixuan, so don’t eat too much of it.” When he saw that Zixuan was still studying at 2 a.m. in the morning, he made a special trip to the market to buy her a brighter lamp, so that she could use it at nighttime…. Actually, he normally did things like this anyway, but Zixuan had never previously thought much of it. When she now looked again at these things her step-father was doing for her, her eyes overran with tears. She had truly come to appreciate that the family the Creator had predestined for her had always been one of love and warmth, it was just that she had always lived in blame and had never really perceived it. In gratitude, she offered up her thanks and praise to the Creator!

Later, when her step-father went to the market to buy food, Zixuan would often go to help him, and their neighbors admired them. When Zixuan wasn’t around, her step-father would often praise her to her mother on how she had matured and become sensible, and about how she was able to be considerate to people, and long-awaited smiles bloomed on her mother’s face; Zixuan also left the pain of all those years behind at last, and began to live a relaxed and happy life.

From then on, God’s word became the principle with which the family associated with each other, and more so became the standard of their conduct. The battles of the past were replaced by the practice of the truth, and love, understanding and tolerance took the place of the blame and misunderstandings of the past…. Although Zixuan and her step-father weren’t real father and daughter, yet they became something better, and the love and consideration between them surpassed the ties of blood. This was all because of the change wrought in them by God’s words, and God’s words also enabled this family, which had been at breaking point, to start anew!

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[almightygod-mybeloved-blog]

Christian Testimony | A Father and His Step-Daughter Surpass the Ties of Blood (Audio Essay)

                                 By Xia Zixuan, Hubei Province

                                          A Grey Childhood

There was no mother and no father around when Zixuan was growing up; she didn’t know what the cakes the children from the city talked about tasted like, and she’d never seen a goldfish blow bubbles in a fish tank. On no evening did she ever hear the stories of Grimm’s fairytales, but instead she listened to her grandpa tell her the story of The Seven Heroes and Five Gallants. Her real father leaving and her mother remarrying had brought about feelings of inferiority when she was little, and even more so had become a shadow in the depth of her heart that she could not drive away. Especially when she saw the other children with their parents, caring for them and being with them, Zixuan’s heart would ache with pain.

                                    An Untraversable Chasm

At the time of the millennium, Zixuan’s mother brought Zixuan to live with her in the city. Her step-father was good to her, but in her heart, Zixuan believed that “blood was thicker than water,” and that only family bonds built upon the kinship of blood were real. After all, her step-father was different from her biological father, and he could never treat her like his own daughter; even if he was good to her, it was a false display put on for her mother, and he was simply incapable of being sincerely and honestly good to her. Therefore, Zixuan felt very biased against her step-father, and they argued often. Even with tiny matters that were hardly worth a mention, as long as they happened in front of them both, it would develop into an entirely irrational quarrel. In over ten years, the family battles never ceased, their antagonism got worse and worse, and every one of them lived in a state of pain …

Once the question of whether mushrooms should be blanched or not came up, and Zixuan and her step-father both stuck to their own views, in the end they both stomped off in anger, and after that they didn’t speak to each other again for two weeks. Zixuan’s mother was caught in the middle, and felt like she may as well adopt a neutral attitude, scolding them both and then employing the traditional virtue of “respecting the old and cherishing the young” to try to rein them both in. Because of her mother’s attempts to restrain them, Zixuan and her step-father would act very “harmoniously” in front of her mother, but the minute she was gone, they would quarrel unceasingly. Every time, it was Zixuan who would pick up on something, do something that was deliberately provocative and push her step-father to the end of his tether. But because Zixuan was the younger, she could only be reprimanded and lectured. Zixuan didn’t want to hear it, however, and felt it was unfair, and she thought: “How come the responsibility is always on me? Why is it always my fault?” This brought Zixuan much pain, and it proved to her even more that, in the absence of any blood ties, her step-father really was without any genuine concern or care for her after all—her real father would never have treated her this way, she thought. And so Zixuan couldn’t find it in her heart to love her step-father, and it seemed as though there existed an untraversable chasm between them.

                                 Feelings Reach Breaking Point

Although Zixuan and her step-father were on “friendly terms” with each other when her mother was around, this feigned harmony could not last long. That year, the two of them couldn’t take it any longer and blew up over a certain matter, and thereafter their quarrels escalated, and the family was pushed toward breaking point.

Winter came and temperatures dropped, and Zixuan’s step-father’s old illness of sinusitis returned. When they switched on their central heating, his nose would get so stuffy that he could hardly breathe, and to clear his nasal passages, he would open all the windows on the balcony. Yet Zixuan thought what a waste of money it was, to pay for central heating and yet have their home open to the four winds, like a great shack exposed to the elements. Not only that, but she was anemic and feared the cold, and so she resolutely forbade her step-father to open the windows. When it came to this issue, neither one of them would back down. Zixuan thought how her step-father was not as good as her biological father, and that he didn’t know how to love her, whereas her step-father thought of how he’d raised Zixuan for over ten years, all to no avail, and had expended so much of himself and yet had still failed to make her heart warm to him, and she didn’t understand him in the slightest. Zixuan’s mother saw that neither one of them would make a concession, and her patience had reached its limit. She just couldn’t stand it anymore, and so she yelled at them: “You’ve argued so often through all these years over such tiny things, have you ever once thought about my feelings? I’ve been stuck in the middle of you two for 18 years, how do you think I’ve managed to get through it?” Zixuan’s step-father felt bitterly disappointed, and he really couldn’t stand it any longer either, and so suggested to Zixuan’s mother that they divorce. Zixuan had also long since had enough of their life together, and she said angrily to her step-father, “Fine! Then we’ll each go our separate ways from now on, and stay clear of each other. I’m grown up now and can look after my mom. All our property and the house belong to you and I don’t want any of it. You’ve earned money all these years to raise me, so from now on I’ll pay it all back to you!” Seeing her family argue so, her mother felt grieved and helpless, and all she could do was sit in the living room, crying. This winter really had become a cold one for this family of three. Living in this awkward environment, Zixuan suffered greatly and felt much oppressed, and she felt even worse than she had done before. Yet she still didn’t know what to do, and could only yell silently at the sky every day: “Heavens, what should I do? Please help me …”

                                          Saved by God’s Hand

Just when Zixuan was at her most pained and helpless, God’s salvation came upon her, and so her family that had been at breaking point was saved. Zixuan read these words of God: “One has no say in who one’s parents and relatives are, what kind of environment one grows up in; one’s relationships with the people, events, and things in one’s surroundings, and how they influence one’s development, are all beyond one’s control. Who decides these things, then? Who arranges them? Since people have no choice in the matter, since they cannot decide these things for themselves, and since they obviously do not take shape naturally, it goes without saying that the formation of all this rests in the hands of the Creator. Just as the Creator arranges the particular circumstances of every person’s birth, He also arranges the specific circumstances under which one grows up, needless to say. If a person’s birth brings changes to the people, events, and things around him or her, then that person’s growth and development will necessarily affect them as well. For example, some people are born into poor families, but grow up surrounded by wealth; others are born into affluent families but cause their families’ fortunes to decline, such that they grow up in poor environments. No one’s birth is governed by a fixed rule, and no one grows up under an inevitable, fixed set of circumstances. These are not things that a person can imagine or control; they are the products of one’s fate, and are determined by one’s fate. Of course, the bottom line is that they are predestined for a person’s fate by the Creator, they are determined by the Creator’s sovereignty over, and His plans for, that person’s fate” (“God Himself, the Unique III” in The Word Appears in the Flesh). God’s words brought sudden enlightenment to Zixuan; it turned out that the family in which every single person is born, their background growing up, and who their parents, relatives and friends are, and so on, all have their source in the sovereignty and predestination of the Creator; it is not decided by parents, much less is it chosen by oneself. Zixuan thought of how she had been born into a poor family and her parents had not been around while she was growing up, but instead she had lived with her grandparents. Later, she became a family together with her step-father and, as it happened, these environments and backdrops as she grew up had all been predestined and arranged by the Creator. And because Zixuan had been nurtured on the ideas of atheism and evolutionism all these years, she hadn’t been aware that there was a God, nor did she know that people’s fates were ruled and predestined by God. Therefore, she had always felt dissatisfied with this kind of family, and had complained about her unfortunate fate. When it came to her step-father, she always treated him with bias, believing that, no matter how good a step-father he was to her, he could never be as good as a real father, and so she had become estranged from him and had always quarreled with him. For this reason, she had lived constantly in pain, and hadn’t this been brought about by her resisting and contending with the sovereignty and predestination of the Creator? And yet Zixuan couldn’t figure it out—what exactly was the reason that caused her to be dissatisfied with the fate the Creator had given her?

That night, as Zixuan sat at her desk holding a book of God’s words in both hands, she continued searching for the answers, and she read these words of God: “Born into such a filthy land, man has been severely blighted by society, he has been influenced by feudal ethics, and he has been taught at ‘institutes of higher learning.’ The backward thinking, corrupt morality, mean view on life, despicable philosophy, utterly worthless existence, and depraved lifestyle and customs—all of these things have severely intruded upon man’s heart, and severely undermined and attacked his conscience. As a result, man is ever more distant from God, and ever more opposed to Him” (“To Have an Unchanged Disposition Is to Be in Enmity to God” in The Word Appears in the Flesh). “But when you truly know, when you truly come to recognize that God has sovereignty over human fate, when you truly understand that everything God has planned for and decided for you is a great benefit, and is a great protection, then you feel your pain gradually lighten, and the whole of you become relaxed, free, liberated” (“God Himself, the Unique III” in The Word Appears in the Flesh).

Zixuan suddenly felt/felt suddenly like she understood: The root cause of why she hadn’t been able to get along with her step-father all these years was that she had been influenced and indoctrinated by the absurd traditional ideas of Satan, such as “blood is thicker than water,” and “without blood ties, it’s not a real family.” She had mistakenly believed that only those people who were related to her by blood were real relatives, and only they could be sincerely good to her—her step-father could never compare with her biological father. And so Zixuan had always suspected that her step-father’s good treatment of her had not come from a place of sincerity, and no matter how good he was to her, she always saw him as being false. So in over ten years, she had been unable to accept him or understand him, and she had quarreled with him often over tiny things that weren’t really worth mentioning; she had been raised by her step-father without knowing to be grateful, and nor did she have a shred of the conscience or sense or humanity that a normal person should have, and so she had not only hurt her step-father, but she had also brought great pain to her mother and had suffered a great deal herself. Now, she thought of her real father who had been a gambler, and about how he had never once bothered with her in all these years. Although her grandparents were getting on in years and didn’t have the strength to raise her, her real father had never given them any money to help out. Then she thought of her step-father: Although he was not related to Zixuan by blood, he had been willing to take on the responsibility of raising her, and had provided her with food, clothing, and had paid for her to go to school. Only when she thought this did Zixuan perceive that the Creator had arranged what was best and most suitable for her, and that it was God’s love that had enabled her to live a life in which she had everything she needed under her step-father’s roof. But her mind had been distorted by the mistaken ideas of Satan, and she had never been able to accept her step-father or fit into this new family after her mother remarried. At that moment, Zixuan felt like crying, and she thought of how she had enjoyed the Creator’s love and yet had never felt any gratitude, nor had she expressed any gratitude toward her step-father for his kindness of having raised her for 18 years—she felt so devoid of conscience! After she’d come to this understanding, her heart at last was brightened, and the haze that had shrouded her heart for so many years was swept away. She offered up a prayer to God: “O God! You have arranged what was best for me, and yet I have always been deceived by Satan, and have been deceived and held in bondage by the idea and the view that ‘blood is thicker than water.’ I have always felt displeased with the family that You arranged and predestined for me, and I have lived in misunderstandings and blame, unable to accept or submit to Your sovereignty and arrangements and bringing so much hurt and pain to my mother and step-father. O God! I now wish to let go of my previous mistaken views, submit to Your sovereignty and arrangements concerning my fate, treat my step-father fairly, and by Your word live out a human likeness. Amen!”

                                      Beginning A New Life

From that time on, Zixuan began to cherish the family and relatives the Creator had arranged for her, and through being watered by God’s words, she seemed to grow up all of a sudden and become sensible. Zixuan no longer saw her step-father as an interloper, but instead treated him as her own family; she also learned to consider matters from other people’s perspectives, and understand and show consideration for the difficulties faced by her step-father and mother. She took responsibility for herself within the family, and did to the best of her ability the things she was supposed to do: She actively took responsibility for cooking the family meals so that at least when her step-father and mother returned home from work every day, they were sure to eat a meal Zixuan had cooked; whenever the sun showed its face, Zixuan actively hung her step-father’s duvet out to expose it to the sunshine; whenever her step-father expressed a view, she no longer contradicted him or opposed him, but instead she learned to respect her step-father, and if his opinion was correct, then she would agree with him. Little by little, Zixuan came to realize that the family God had predestined for her was actually really great, and all she ever perceived was love …

One afternoon, when the blazing sun was high in the sky, Zixuan’s step-father braved the scorching heat and traveled a long distance to buy her a kind of cantaloupe that was grown far afield that she most enjoyed eating. When he got back, he was sweating profusely and his face had been burnt red by the sun, but when Zixuan was not there, he said to her mother: “This cantaloupe was really hard to buy. I’ve bought it especially for Zixuan, so don’t eat too much of it.” When he saw that Zixuan was still studying at 2 a.m. in the morning, he made a special trip to the market to buy her a brighter lamp, so that she could use it at nighttime…. Actually, he normally did things like this anyway, but Zixuan had never previously thought much of it. When she now looked again at these things her step-father was doing for her, her eyes overran with tears. She had truly come to appreciate that the family the Creator had predestined for her had always been one of love and warmth, it was just that she had always lived in blame and had never really perceived it. In gratitude, she offered up her thanks and praise to the Creator!

Later, when her step-father went to the market to buy food, Zixuan would often go to help him, and their neighbors admired them. When Zixuan wasn’t around, her step-father would often praise her to her mother on how she had matured and become sensible, and about how she was able to be considerate to people, and long-awaited smiles bloomed on her mother’s face; Zixuan also left the pain of all those years behind at last, and began to live a relaxed and happy life.

From then on, God’s word became the principle with which the family associated with each other, and more so became the standard of their conduct. The battles of the past were replaced by the practice of the truth, and love, understanding and tolerance took the place of the blame and misunderstandings of the past…. Although Zixuan and her step-father weren’t real father and daughter, yet they became something better, and the love and consideration between them surpassed the ties of blood. This was all because of the change wrought in them by God’s words, and God’s words also enabled this family, which had been at breaking point, to start anew!

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[gedwimora-arc]

Reposting this instead of just reblogging this from Regulus’ main bc it’s Very Long and I originally made the choice to not cut it because of its importance, which was fine for his main but on here it’s a bit much imo. So naturally I’ve had to repost in order to cut.

Something that’s very important to me and I don’t budge on is Regulus’s continued attachment to his family and connections in the elitist pureblood society. There’s a few reasons for this, which I’ll go into here.

1. Life is Messy

Did Regulus grow thanks to his exposure to the darkest parts of his community, the reality behind their beliefs and his views become less bigoted over time? Yes. But the fact he no longer views muggleborns as filth doesn’t eradicate a lifetime of indoctrination, a need for human connection, a justified fear of rejection, still loving your family even when they’re awful, or utterly pragmatic needs like business partnerships. He’s not Sirius or Andromeda, for Regulus utterly removing himself from the society they were raised in is not an option. Life is messy and sometimes you’re the liberal-ish gay cousin at christmas dinner trying to fend off war flashbacks because your baby cousin just said the word “lake”.

Regulus – like Draco – became a Death Eater at 16 and in canon died at 18. By the end of the second war Regulus is 36. He saw and did terrible things at an incredibly young age, then had to totally restructure his whole world view alone with no one to really talk to about it and rebuild his entire life– all while dealing with the physical, psychological and social consequences of his actions. While it doesn’t take him long at all to mellow out, it does take him longer to defrag his ideology and figure out what the hell he does believe now and how to express those new beliefs accurately. Basically the man’s a mess and that’s really to be expected.

2. Portraying the Spectrum

I also feel it’s very important to have people who fall more on the “Bad Side” who are well, not so bad. While on paper these topics are very black and white in reality they’re not always so clean cut. Something I’ve always hated about Harry Potter is that until about the last 2 books there’s basically not a single “Good” Slytherin even mentioned let alone seen. Yes there are people like Severus who are there from the start, but he’s not revealed to be a “Good Slytherin” until the very end, the rest of the time he’s portrayed as one of the worst ones. This always just pissed me off so much, it’s just such an unnecessary and trite demonization of a whole group– worse, a group of children. Yes it’s the most likely place for the Dracos of the world to end up, but that doesn’t mean every single child who was ever sorted into it is a Death Eater in the making. But we never see those Slytherins and it really, really pisses me off.

Regulus is not a “Good Person” in the sense he was always secretly good and eventually ~~broke free of the evil mind control and is now Pure again~~. I hesitate to even call him a good person honestly, even though his last and only canon acts speak to someone who is unwavering good and self-sacrificing. In his youth he genuinely believed in some truly terrible things but he had his own inherit limits and morals he could not sacrifice even for his family and their beliefs. That’s important, not everyone on that side is a Bellatrix, and while being less awful than Bellatrix doesn’t exactly earn you a medal it does speak to the spectrum. He’s not the best, but he’s definitely not the worst.

By the time the first war is over Regulus is on a knife’s edge at the near perfect center of the spectrum between acceptance and bigotry. He’s proof that a Slytherin coming from the most stereotypical, toxic pureblood upbringing with all the classic Slytherin traits can still buck a lot of the script and actually manage to not be a complete bastard.

3. Never Burn Bridges You Could Still Use

In true Slytherin fashion, we come to a manipulative, Game of Thrones-y  reason. This is one of the key reasons for him IC and also one of the things I think can be difficult for people to get or swallow. Where most people likely feel that the only correct option would be to pull a Sirius and disown the family– that they themselves could never stomach putting up with all the heinous things these pureblood types say and cannot imagine someone who doesn’t believe it doing just that for any reason– the fact is that’s not always the right move, and that there are people who can do it just fine.

Regulus isn’t a fool. He’s the well-educated, intelligent son of a rich, prominent pureblood family with lots of connections all over the place in the wizarding community who got sorted into the “win or die trying” house. Publicly renouncing half or more of those connections is frankly a terrible idea for him to do on so many levels. He loses a LOT of power, access and leverage he could actually use to do things that could actually be a boon in the long run. While unlike Severus he wasn’t –and likely doesn’t become a spy ( though that is up for debate )– those connections could be vital for his continued survival and provide a means of keeping tabs on enemies.

Why on earth would he run around making enemies of everyone he could still use? How does that help anyone? Especially when he’s already mastered the art of placating and maneuvering these types of people.

4. Love, Sentimentality and Loyalty are just as Powerful Weaknesses as Strengths

Something we actually get from canon is that Regulus is an unquestionably loving, loyal and compassionate person. When he has Kreacher take him to the cave he drinks the potion, he sacrifices himself. This is not something someone who is not at their core compassionate, empathetic and loving does. He saw the effects the potion had on Kreacher, he heard what he had gone through, and when the time came he refused to make the elf go through that again.

“And he order– Kreacher to leave– without him. And he told Kreacher – to go home– and never to tell my Mistress– what he had done– but to destroy– the first locket. And he drank– all the potion– and Kreacher swapped the lockets– and watched … as Master Regulus … was dragged beneath the water … and …”

“[…] that Regulus changed his mind … but he doesn’t seem to have explained that to Kreacher, does he? And I think I know why. Kreacher and Regulus’s family were all safest if they kept to the old pure-blood line. Regulus was trying to protect them all.” “[…]  I’ve said all along that wizards would pay for how they treat house-elves. Well, Voldemort did … and so did Sirius.” […] I do not think Sirius ever saw Kreacher as a being with feelings as acute as a human’s …

This core of kindness and empathy is both what ended up causing him to defect and also what keeps him tied to what family and friends he has left. It’s hard, especially when you are so loyal and loving to cut out people who you’ve known your whole life, who you love and love you back. Bellatrix is a monster she’s easy to cut out but Narcissa? How could he really cut ties with one of his only living relatives, who’s likely his favorite cousin? Who is herself a fiercely loving and loyal woman? It would take a lot for him to finally cut ties with his loved ones still in the purist community and it’s frankly one of his greatest failings.

5. No One likes a Former Death Eater

The cruel fact of the matter is that regardless of your reformation most people will not accept or acknowledge it and treat you like you are still a monster. Regulus could try – and does try– to integrate more with the mainstream, but it’ll always be met with mixed success at best because he was a Death Eater. Unless he moved to a different country, it’d be difficult to really start over again completely with any real solid success. The majority of the wizarding world socially ostracizes him while still engaging with him on a business and political level because of his status. The only people who still want to have a cuppa with him are all in the same boat as him, bigots or purist sympathizers.

He’s human, and however much he’d like to gripe about people and wanting to be left alone forever to become a hermit he craves interaction, especially since he himself is an intensely social extroverted person. If he cuts these people out of his life he basically has no one to talk to anymore and he’s left totally isolated, which would frankly lead to much worse and dangerous places for him.

6. Someone here has to be the Voice of Reason

Having literally no one in that community who isn’t a total nightmare is asking for trouble. Not only because it allows the toxicity to stew and intensify unchecked but it also means no one is there to try and help the younger generations break free of the cycle. If he just left like Andromeda and Sirius he’s just making it worse by removing a more moderate voice from the communal discussion. It’s not even about trying to show them the error of their ways, that’s in fact a terrible way to go about things with people like this. It’s about diluting the toxic ideology, providing the less dangerous paths and laying out the framework that can act as the basis for someone else’s journey out of the quagmire.

For example, when looking at cults and hate groups, the worst way to reach those people is by trying to point out everything wrong and arguing with them, it only entrenches them more. You make more progress by staying close and quietly slipping in the information and tools they need to work things out themselves. Telling someone they’re in a destructive cult will get you nothing, but telling them about this book you read about some terrible cult and all the signs of one you learned from it and isn’t that just wild? These people are bad news huh? Here give it a read yourself– Is far more effective in the long run.

By being there he acts as a moderate, neutral adult figure who the children can both model and look to for support. He’s much safer than most of their families and willing to be the sounding board for their own debates and give advice from a place of having literally been right where they are now. He can act as a mid-point between the extremely insular and toxic pureblood community, the mainstream wizarding world, and thanks to his time in hiding, the muggle world for purebloods looking to escape or just broaden themselves.

[focusontheeasternlightning-blog]

Christian Testimony | A Father and His Step-Daughter Surpass the Ties of Blood (Audio Essay)

                                  By Xia Zixuan, Hubei Province

                                           A Grey Childhood

There was no mother and no father around when Zixuan was growing up; she didn’t know what the cakes the children from the city talked about tasted like, and she’d never seen a goldfish blow bubbles in a fish tank. On no evening did she ever hear the stories of Grimm’s fairytales, but instead she listened to her grandpa tell her the story of The Seven Heroes and Five Gallants. Her real father leaving and her mother remarrying had brought about feelings of inferiority when she was little, and even more so had become a shadow in the depth of her heart that she could not drive away. Especially when she saw the other children with their parents, caring for them and being with them, Zixuan’s heart would ache with pain.

An Untraversable Chasm

At the time of the millennium, Zixuan’s mother brought Zixuan to live with her in the city. Her step-father was good to her, but in her heart, Zixuan believed that “blood was thicker than water,” and that only family bonds built upon the kinship of blood were real. After all, her step-father was different from her biological father, and he could never treat her like his own daughter; even if he was good to her, it was a false display put on for her mother, and he was simply incapable of being sincerely and honestly good to her. Therefore, Zixuan felt very biased against her step-father, and they argued often. Even with tiny matters that were hardly worth a mention, as long as they happened in front of them both, it would develop into an entirely irrational quarrel. In over ten years, the family battles never ceased, their antagonism got worse and worse, and every one of them lived in a state of pain …

Family

Once the question of whether mushrooms should be blanched or not came up, and Zixuan and her step-father both stuck to their own views, in the end they both stomped off in anger, and after that they didn’t speak to each other again for two weeks. Zixuan’s mother was caught in the middle, and felt like she may as well adopt a neutral attitude, scolding them both and then employing the traditional virtue of “respecting the old and cherishing the young” to try to rein them both in. Because of her mother’s attempts to restrain them, Zixuan and her step-father would act very “harmoniously” in front of her mother, but the minute she was gone, they would quarrel unceasingly. Every time, it was Zixuan who would pick up on something, do something that was deliberately provocative and push her step-father to the end of his tether. But because Zixuan was the younger, she could only be reprimanded and lectured. Zixuan didn’t want to hear it, however, and felt it was unfair, and she thought: “How come the responsibility is always on me? Why is it always my fault?” This brought Zixuan much pain, and it proved to her even more that, in the absence of any blood ties, her step-father really was without any genuine concern or care for her after all—her real father would never have treated her this way, she thought. And so Zixuan couldn’t find it in her heart to love her step-father, and it seemed as though there existed an untraversable chasm between them.

Feelings Reach Breaking Point

Although Zixuan and her step-father were on “friendly terms” with each other when her mother was around, this feigned harmony could not last long. That year, the two of them couldn’t take it any longer and blew up over a certain matter, and thereafter their quarrels escalated, and the family was pushed toward breaking point.

Winter came and temperatures dropped, and Zixuan’s step-father’s old illness of sinusitis returned. When they switched on their central heating, his nose would get so stuffy that he could hardly breathe, and to clear his nasal passages, he would open all the windows on the balcony. Yet Zixuan thought what a waste of money it was, to pay for central heating and yet have their home open to the four winds, like a great shack exposed to the elements. Not only that, but she was anemic and feared the cold, and so she resolutely forbade her step-father to open the windows. When it came to this issue, neither one of them would back down. Zixuan thought how her step-father was not as good as her biological father, and that he didn’t know how to love her, whereas her step-father thought of how he’d raised Zixuan for over ten years, all to no avail, and had expended so much of himself and yet had still failed to make her heart warm to him, and she didn’t understand him in the slightest. Zixuan’s mother saw that neither one of them would make a concession, and her patience had reached its limit. She just couldn’t stand it anymore, and so she yelled at them: “You’ve argued so often through all these years over such tiny things, have you ever once thought about my feelings? I’ve been stuck in the middle of you two for 18 years, how do you think I’ve managed to get through it?” Zixuan’s step-father felt bitterly disappointed, and he really couldn’t stand it any longer either, and so suggested to Zixuan’s mother that they divorce. Zixuan had also long since had enough of their life together, and she said angrily to her step-father, “Fine! Then we’ll each go our separate ways from now on, and stay clear of each other. I’m grown up now and can look after my mom. All our property and the house belong to you and I don’t want any of it. You’ve earned money all these years to raise me, so from now on I’ll pay it all back to you!” Seeing her family argue so, her mother felt grieved and helpless, and all she could do was sit in the living room, crying. This winter really had become a cold one for this family of three. Living in this awkward environment, Zixuan suffered greatly and felt much oppressed, and she felt even worse than she had done before. Yet she still didn’t know what to do, and could only yell silently at the sky every day: “Heavens, what should I do? Please help me …”

                                       Saved by God’s Hand

Family Just when Zixuan was at her most pained and helpless, God’s salvation came upon her, and so her family that had been at breaking point was saved. Zixuan read these words of God: “One has no say in who one’s parents and relatives are, what kind of environment one grows up in; one’s relationships with the people, events, and things in one’s surroundings, and how they influence one’s development, are all beyond one’s control. Who decides these things, then? Who arranges them? Since people have no choice in the matter, since they cannot decide these things for themselves, and since they obviously do not take shape naturally, it goes without saying that the formation of all this rests in the hands of the Creator. Just as the Creator arranges the particular circumstances of every person’s birth, He also arranges the specific circumstances under which one grows up, needless to say. If a person’s birth brings changes to the people, events, and things around him or her, then that person’s growth and development will necessarily affect them as well. For example, some people are born into poor families, but grow up surrounded by wealth; others are born into affluent families but cause their families’ fortunes to decline, such that they grow up in poor environments. No one’s birth is governed by a fixed rule, and no one grows up under an inevitable, fixed set of circumstances. These are not things that a person can imagine or control; they are the products of one’s fate, and are determined by one’s fate. Of course, the bottom line is that they are predestined for a person’s fate by the Creator, they are determined by the Creator’s sovereignty over, and His plans for, that person’s fate” (“God Himself, the Unique III” in The Word Appears in the Flesh). God’s words brought sudden enlightenment to Zixuan; it turned out that the family in which every single person is born, their background growing up, and who their parents, relatives and friends are, and so on, all have their source in the sovereignty and predestination of the Creator; it is not decided by parents, much less is it chosen by oneself. Zixuan thought of how she had been born into a poor family and her parents had not been around while she was growing up, but instead she had lived with her grandparents. Later, she became a family together with her step-father and, as it happened, these environments and backdrops as she grew up had all been predestined and arranged by the Creator. And because Zixuan had been nurtured on the ideas of atheism and evolutionism all these years, she hadn’t been aware that there was a God, nor did she know that people’s fates were ruled and predestined by God. Therefore, she had always felt dissatisfied with this kind of family, and had complained about her unfortunate fate. When it came to her step-father, she always treated him with bias, believing that, no matter how good a step-father he was to her, he could never be as good as a real father, and so she had become estranged from him and had always quarreled with him. For this reason, she had lived constantly in pain, and hadn’t this been brought about by her resisting and contending with the sovereignty and predestination of the Creator? And yet Zixuan couldn’t figure it out—what exactly was the reason that caused her to be dissatisfied with the fate the Creator had given her?

That night, as Zixuan sat at her desk holding a book of God’s words in both hands, she continued searching for the answers, and she read these words of God: “Born into such a filthy land, man has been severely blighted by society, he has been influenced by feudal ethics, and he has been taught at ‘institutes of higher learning.’ The backward thinking, corrupt morality, mean view on life, despicable philosophy, utterly worthless existence, and depraved lifestyle and customs—all of these things have severely intruded upon man’s heart, and severely undermined and attacked his conscience. As a result, man is ever more distant from God, and ever more opposed to Him” (“To Have an Unchanged Disposition Is to Be in Enmity to God” in The Word Appears in the Flesh). “But when you truly know, when you truly come to recognize that God has sovereignty over human fate, when you truly understand that everything God has planned for and decided for you is a great benefit, and is a great protection, then you feel your pain gradually lighten, and the whole of you become relaxed, free, liberated” (“God Himself, the Unique III” in The Word Appears in the Flesh).

Zixuan suddenly felt/felt suddenly like she understood: The root cause of why she hadn’t been able to get along with her step-father all these years was that she had been influenced and indoctrinated by the absurd traditional ideas of Satan, such as “blood is thicker than water,” and “without blood ties, it’s not a real family.” She had mistakenly believed that only those people who were related to her by blood were real relatives, and only they could be sincerely good to her—her step-father could never compare with her biological father. And so Zixuan had always suspected that her step-father’s good treatment of her had not come from a place of sincerity, and no matter how good he was to her, she always saw him as being false. So in over ten years, she had been unable to accept him or understand him, and she had quarreled with him often over tiny things that weren’t really worth mentioning; she had been raised by her step-father without knowing to be grateful, and nor did she have a shred of the conscience or sense or humanity that a normal person should have, and so she had not only hurt her step-father, but she had also brought great pain to her mother and had suffered a great deal herself. Now, she thought of her real father who had been a gambler, and about how he had never once bothered with her in all these years. Although her grandparents were getting on in years and didn’t have the strength to raise her, her real father had never given them any money to help out. Then she thought of her step-father: Although he was not related to Zixuan by blood, he had been willing to take on the responsibility of raising her, and had provided her with food, clothing, and had paid for her to go to school. Only when she thought this did Zixuan perceive that the Creator had arranged what was best and most suitable for her, and that it was God’s love that had enabled her to live a life in which she had everything she needed under her step-father’s roof. But her mind had been distorted by the mistaken ideas of Satan, and she had never been able to accept her step-father or fit into this new family after her mother remarried. At that moment, Zixuan felt like crying, and she thought of how she had enjoyed the Creator’s love and yet had never felt any gratitude, nor had she expressed any gratitude toward her step-father for his kindness of having raised her for 18 years—she felt so devoid of conscience! After she’d come to this understanding, her heart at last was brightened, and the haze that had shrouded her heart for so many years was swept away. She offered up a prayer to God: “O God! You have arranged what was best for me, and yet I have always been deceived by Satan, and have been deceived and held in bondage by the idea and the view that ‘blood is thicker than water.’ I have always felt displeased with the family that You arranged and predestined for me, and I have lived in misunderstandings and blame, unable to accept or submit to Your sovereignty and arrangements and bringing so much hurt and pain to my mother and step-father. O God! I now wish to let go of my previous mistaken views, submit to Your sovereignty and arrangements concerning my fate, treat my step-father fairly, and by Your word live out a human likeness. Amen!”

Beginning A New Life

From that time on, Zixuan began to cherish the family and relatives the Creator had arranged for her, and through being watered by God’s words, she seemed to grow up all of a sudden and become sensible. Zixuan no longer saw her step-father as an interloper, but instead treated him as her own family; she also learned to consider matters from other people’s perspectives, and understand and show consideration for the difficulties faced by her step-father and mother. She took responsibility for herself within the family, and did to the best of her ability the things she was supposed to do: She actively took responsibility for cooking the family meals so that at least when her step-father and mother returned home from work every day, they were sure to eat a meal Zixuan had cooked; whenever the sun showed its face, Zixuan actively hung her step-father’s duvet out to expose it to the sunshine; whenever her step-father expressed a view, she no longer contradicted him or opposed him, but instead she learned to respect her step-father, and if his opinion was correct, then she would agree with him. Little by little, Zixuan came to realize that the family God had predestined for her was actually really great, and all she ever perceived was love …

One afternoon, when the blazing sun was high in the sky, Zixuan’s step-father braved the scorching heat and traveled a long distance to buy her a kind of cantaloupe that was grown far afield that she most enjoyed eating. When he got back, he was sweating profusely and his face had been burnt red by the sun, but when Zixuan was not there, he said to her mother: “This cantaloupe was really hard to buy. I’ve bought it especially for Zixuan, so don’t eat too much of it.” When he saw that Zixuan was still studying at 2 a.m. in the morning, he made a special trip to the market to buy her a brighter lamp, so that she could use it at nighttime…. Actually, he normally did things like this anyway, but Zixuan had never previously thought much of it. When she now looked again at these things her step-father was doing for her, her eyes overran with tears. She had truly come to appreciate that the family the Creator had predestined for her had always been one of love and warmth, it was just that she had always lived in blame and had never really perceived it. In gratitude, she offered up her thanks and praise to the Creator!

Later, when her step-father went to the market to buy food, Zixuan would often go to help him, and their neighbors admired them. When Zixuan wasn’t around, her step-father would often praise her to her mother on how she had matured and become sensible, and about how she was able to be considerate to people, and long-awaited smiles bloomed on her mother’s face; Zixuan also left the pain of all those years behind at last, and began to live a relaxed and happy life.

From then on, God’s word became the principle with which the family associated with each other, and more so became the standard of their conduct. The battles of the past were replaced by the practice of the truth, and love, understanding and tolerance took the place of the blame and misunderstandings of the past…. Although Zixuan and her step-father weren’t real father and daughter, yet they became something better, and the love and consideration between them surpassed the ties of blood. This was all because of the change wrought in them by God’s words, and God’s words also enabled this family, which had been at breaking point, to start anew!