#instruments mentioned in the Bible

[granonine]

Sing to the Lord!

Psalm 147 Praise ye the Lord: for it is good to sing praises unto our God; for it is pleasant; and praise is comely. 2 The Lord doth build up Jerusalem: He gathereth together the outcasts of Israel. 3 He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds. 4 He telleth the number of the stars; He calleth them all by their names. 5 Great is our Lord, and of great power: His understanding…

[lanadelreyscokewhor3]

PREACHERS DAUGHTER- P.B PARKER

Pairing: Best Friend! Peter x Fem! Reader

Word Count: 3.4k

Summary: you and peter were complete opposites, you the goodie two shoes preachers daughter, him the bad boy next door. yet fate has pulled the two of you together, and you can’t help but feel a certain lust for him.

Warnings: ORAL (fem), teasing, kissing, marking, pet names, best friends falling in luvvv, swearing, weed involved, booze mentioned, praise kink, masturabtion mentioned, lotsss of dirty talk, peter blowing smoke into reader mouth

based of the album- preachers daughter, by ethel cain

It was mesmerizing- the way his fingers moved. 

You felt as if you were under a trance, the watch on the chain swinging back in forth in front of your eyes, hypnotizing you. 

His rings, silver and shining in the pale moonlight the clock hands, the veins that ran up his wrists acted as the numbers that blurred together after some time. 

Each component drew you in as his fingers strummed each string, moving up and down the fingerboard to play each chord, a sweet melody emerging from the instrument. 

Your mind was far, far off from the homework you swore to yourself you would be doing tonight, despite having your best friend over. You knew you couldn't focus on anything but him, yet you let him slip through your window, with the cracked and peeling paint you refused to paint over- because you and Peter were the reason for its damage. 

You refused to change anything he had touched or wrecked, whether that be the broken dresser handle that was hanging on for dear life, or the jumble of photos the two of you had pasted on your walls while drunk out of your minds.

 They looked awful, all crooked and cluttered to fuck, but you didn’t touch them. 

Refused to. If Peter placed them there, that's where they stayed. 

You looked up at them now, gaze focusing on the smiling faces that stared back at you, that watched over your every move- in a comforting sense. Their presence lingered, as you peered back over to Peter, following the sound of strum from the strings, the sound coming to a screeching halt as he suddenly fished for something in his ripped jean pocket. 

He was so beautiful when he was concentrated. 

The subtlety bite of his lip, pearly whites tugging on the flesh with a sense of urgency as his jaw would clench. The way his messy, slightly ruffled russet hair would fall in front of his eyes, rings glimmering as he slid his hand through the locks to push it back into place. 

You wanted to run your fingers through his hair, wanted to tug on them to make him hiss in pleasure, the way he did the one night he had decided to use your thighs as a pillow. Peter's reaction was tenuous, a slight growl escaping from the cage of his clenched teeth.

 You noticed, though. You always noticed, when it came to him. 

“Bunny? You want one?” he asked softly, pre-rolled in blunt twirling between his large fingers, making you stare in awe. 

“Bun?” 

Oh shit, you were staring. 

“N-no Pete it’s okay. I’m good for now.” you smiled, a heat rising to your cheeks as you forced yourself to stare back down at your tattered notebook filled with scribbles and numbers you had no clue what to do with.

 It was better than looking at his fingers and getting caught again. 

Anything was. 

“Alright pretty but you let me know if you want one okay? Your asshole of a father won't find out, if that's what you're worried about.” he chuckled softly, throwing you a wink as he toyed with the drug, a cat with its dinner.

 Of course that's what you were worried about. You were the minister's daughter, a holy saint if there ever was one. The good girl, your father's little angel. 

We have a reputation to uphold Y/L/N. Don't mess it up, or there'll be consequences. Big ones. 

You had followed his words as he did with passages in that dog-eared bible of his, the rosemary beads sprawled out as a bookmark for his pages. 

So, how in the world did Peter Parker- the boy wrapped in sin your father warned you about, end up as your best friend, the man you trusted with your life? You didn't know, but you were thankful for it. 

It made you laugh every time Peter offered you a smoke, he knew your answer had never changed, yet he always offered anyways. He was sweet that way. It was different with weed, you supposed. 

You were always terrified your father would be able to see right through you, be able to sniff the drugs on you like a hound dog. You made excuses for booze. 

Your father provided red wine during Sunday services, the blood of the lord for all to taste, cannibalism in its cleanest, purest form. Counting on two hands the number of times you and Peter had snuck into the old, gothic church your father managed, getting drunk off the wine in the wooden pews under the stained glass windows was impossible. 

You watched as Peter leaned his guitar against the windowsill, grabbing a lighter from his other pocket, the snake tattoos curled and wrapped along his finger seeming to hiss at you in the dim light of your room. 

“Peter?” you called, making his head snap up, the fire from his light diminishing as fast as it came. “C-can I light it for you?” you asked shyly, watching as that boyish grin that you loved so much came to his face, dimples appearing as he took you in, realizing you were serious. 

“You wanna be an angel and help me out eh?” he teased, making you nod frantically. 

Angel. 

The words alone had your toes curling in your thigh-high socks you knew Peter adored, his fingers always seeming to toy with the little black bows whenever he got the chance. He towered over you even more than he already did as he stood, making his way over to where your body was lounging on the ruffled white sheets. 

“Dad’s not home ya know. I forgot about that.” you tugged on your inner cheek, watching as Peter dropped to his knees before you, like a devil about to spread its wings. 

Begging for mercy before you. 

“Does that mean you do wanna hit then?” he asked, blunt between his teeth as your thumb flicked the flame to life, watching the blues and oranges crackle as you lit his joint. 

“Don’t know how.” you shrugged, watching as he exhaled, the sweet sickly smell of weed filling your senses as he exhaled.

 “We can try something if you want bunny. D’trust me?” You nodded, eager to obey his commands. He smiled, rings cold against your chin as he grabbed it lightly, the pads of his fingers slightly calloused from the strings. 

“Say ahh bunny.” You opened your mouth widely, the smoke he had inhaled floating into your mouth as he exhaled, fogging up your lungs. He was so close you could hear the thud of his heartbeat, could feel the soft heat rolling off him in waves to soothe you in a gentle embrace. 

“Atta girl!” he laughed as you felt the sticky taste coat the back of your throat, mouth turning dry as the Saraha.

 “Peter this tastes like shit.” you groaned, coughing and sputtering as he gently slapped your arm. “No swearing. Or else I’ll wash your mouth out with soap.” he teased, making you burst out in laughter as he rolled onto the bed, smooshing your lower half with his bodyweight- making you groan as his head lolled. 

You felt your skin warm to the touch with how close he was to you, your legs parted slightly so he could wedge his way between them and rest on you. 

“I gotta do my homework silly.” you smiled as he took another puff, his eyes turning a fair shade of red as he watched the smoke slither upwards.

 “I can be your study buddy if ya want.” 

“I’d get no work done if you were my study buddy. You distract me too much.” you teased, giggling as his hand reached over to tickle your thigh gently. “We’d make such a great team. We could be on the mathletes together bunny.” 

You rolled your eyes at his sly commentary, a hand slipping through the soft, messy tumbles of his hair as he sighed in happiness. Nails began to scratch his scalp soothingly, and his chest began to rumble- purring like a cat as you tended to him. 

Just as you wanted. 

The curtains rustled in the breeze that snaked through the cracked window goosebumps appearing on your bare skin as the papes blew. You looked out through the glass, scoping out the graves that surrounded your house. 

You could map out the entire cemetery as you had lived in this old, creaking house your entire life- could picture every little twisted path and old rusting benches that were scattered. It was peaceful here, the only real company consisted of the ghosts and Peter when he came over to visit. 

Your father was never really present, too busy with the works of the church than his own flesh and blood.

 It was an easy silence between the two of you, one you enjoyed immensely. It was different than the other silences you had dealt with in your lifetime- long and uncomfortable. With Peter, they were pleasant and easy, a place where you could be in your own thoughts and not feel bad about it. 

You were lost in them now, as you looked down at him. 

He’s never looked so beautiful. How did I get so lucky- to score him as my best friend? 

Continuing your head scratches, you let your head lull against the headboard, closing your eyes to tune out the world. He continued to smoke, hand resting on your thigh with each inhale. 

“You got somewhere I can put this angel?” he asked, hand waving as he gestured to the stump of the blunt, the weed diminishing. You hadn't realized how much time had passed, the hands on the clock hoping forward since the last time you had looked over at them. 

“Over there is fine.” you pointed to the little dish on the dresser you had left for him whenever he was over, degrading it whenever your father returned home. 

You didn't comment on how much Peter had smoked, just as you didn't comment on how much whisky your father drank whenever he got mad. 

You didn't care enough. 

He shuffled up, puffing the remainder towards you, the smoke cascading around your cheeks, tickling your eyelashes as the old bed creaked. 

“You’re such a doll, you know that?” You smiled. 

“Maybe. It's not like you tell me allll the time or anything.” you teased, poking fun at how sweet he was to you. No one was as ever kind to you as Peter was. It made your insides tingle, made your skin all sensitive to the touch. 

He smiled that cheeky grin that drove you wild, tapping the ash into the dish before he crushed it with his fingers, rings glittering in the soft candlelight. Your homework was long forgotten at this point, your attention solely focused on the beautiful angel of a man that stood before you at the foot of your bed. 

“Hi.” you waved to him, his hand raising to wave back from across the room. 

“Hi bunny.”

 “Cmere.” you insisted, and he smirked as he crawled onto the bed, the look in his eye hungry as he took you in. You looked at him now, really looked at him as his strong arms slid to each side of you, caging you in his hold. 

He was black and blue, the beautiful melancholy shades in between. The way he loved was different than anything you had experienced before. It was scary, a freefall into the depths of the icy water you were scared to tread. But it was numbing- the way he cared. 

A soft and sweet energy, that pricked you gently like pins and needles. His breath was warm as he refused to break eye contact and you wanted to shrink into the depths of the mattress as you felt yourself cave. 

“I bet you taste so good.” he confessed softly, his words making you shudder with delight. 

You knew where this was going. It was heading down the old beaten path the two of you had stumbled down so many times, when you were both drunk off sin in the walls of the church. 

You liked it. 

“Yeah?”

 “Yeah angel. Mmm god I think about tasting you all the time, your skin, your lips, your fingertips..” he trailed off, head dropping down to your chest, rubbing his nose against the skin of your collarbone. 

You felt your hips wriggle, wetness seeping into your panties. “What do you think they taste like?” you sighed as his teeth gently grazed you, biting into your flesh to mark it as his own. 

“Like cinnamon n sugar. So. Fuckin. Sweet.” he kissed your neck between each word as you gigged softly, his plump lips making you squirm. 

“You’re so addicting baby. The things I wanna do to you…” he smirked, licking a stipe where your silky nightgown dipped, revealing the slight curve of your breasts. 

Heels were dug into the ruffled sheets, the sound of your books falling to the hardwood below echoed as the strong breeze brushed you again. No amount of wind could chill the fire that was burning in your veins right now. 

“But we can’t do them. Cause we’re best friends.” you pouted, running your fingers along the back of his neck, curving them around to trace each vein that pulsed as he shivered. 

“Who says?” he whispered, like he was in a trance, and you felt your dress being pushed up, up, up to pool around your waist, your stomach exposed as his head dipped down towards it. 

“Best friends do everything together bunny. Don't you think about me like I think about you?” he asked mischievously and you nodded frantically.

 “Mmm sometimes.”

 “Cause I think about you alll the time. Think about how good you’d be for me when I’m strokin my dick.” he confessed, shuffling down to trail kisses across your stomach, your legs spreading wider as he found his home between them. 

“Y-yeah?” you whimpered, heart beating so fast you heard the blood racing in your ears, his voice sounding distant. It was hard to focus, but at the same time it was hard to focus on anything but him. 

The human body was a funny thing, sometimes. How yours could bend and contract to his will at the whisper of his voice, at the touch of his skin.

 “Mmm yeah. You make me wanna do such bad bad things. But you’re too sweet for that.” 

Oh god. Oh god, oh god, oh god. 

“Peter-” 

“Can I tase you? Please? Just a lil lick, I swear.” 

You moaned at his words alone. How did they sound so sweet, so innocent when there was so much filth behind them? You could never say no to him.

 Never. 

“Please.” you urged, the chill breeze making you tremble as he removed your thong, your knees bent slightly over his shoulders. It happened in a blur, time seeming to jump and snap back again as he had you under his thumb, hanging onto every word he said. 

The first lick sent you into overdrive, body shifting up gears as you crude out his name- hands tugging at his strands of hair as if they were reins. The faint scent of weed trickled through your nose, blemishing your skin and sweat as it trickled. 

You couldn't think. Couldn't move, couldn't speak. 

You and Peter had fooled around before but this…this was new territory. And it felt good. A lick turned into a taste as you heard him growl, tongue stroking through your sensitive folds again. 

“You- you said just a taste-” you panted out, hips thrusting against him as he chuckled.

 “I lied. You should've known.” he teased, eyes meeting yours again- stare so intense you had to look away. 

It was frightening- the eye contact. It was an endless void, a freefall you weren't sure if you'd have a hand to catch you. It was filled with an emotion you couldn’t quite place, a haziness that made you feel sluggish, like you had drank too much cheap booze, and smoked too many cigarettes. 

You were as breathless as the summer's night outside as he dived back in, malnourished and needy as he devoured you. His lips suctioned around your clit, sucking it sweetly as you wethered and moaned. 

“So so sweet…” he murmured. You felt yourself snap under him as his tongue pushed you over the edge, releasing onto his face as you cried out. His hands tightened their grip around the barricade of your thighs, chin gleaming with your juices as your body shuddered from the aftershocks. 

“That's a girl. My sweet sweet angel.” he sang out, shuffling up to kiss your lips gently, the taste of yourself staining your mouth. You savored his affections, wrapping your arms around his neck, desperate for something to cling to. 

You were scared to let him go, scared he would leave you vulnerable and open like all the others. He sensed your hesitation, rolling over to the side of you, nuzzling his head into your neck as you continued to hold him close. 

“Was I good?” you asked meekly, your biggest fear not being enough for him. 

He just smiled. 

“More than good. The best.” he whispered, kissing your skin. You exhaled a sigh of relief, tension seeping from your bones as you cradled him. 

You heard an owl coo out from the branches of the old oak tree that scratched your house, the wind howling against the old siding. You basked in the emptiness of the room, no one here but the two of you and the peeling posters that peered down at you from the walls.

 He wasn't leaving you. He wasn't embarrassed or ashamed and he was staying with you. He wanted to do this. 

It was hard to think about, hard to wrap your head around it as you had been so shameful of your desires towards him for so long. The old wooden cross that was hung above your bed seemed almost mocking as it reflected in your vanity mirror, a symbol of overcoming sin now with a meaning diminished. 

“You awake?” you asked Peter softly, ripping your eyes from the wood, knowing your father's words would haunt you the longer you were left to your own avail.

 There were so many responses you wanted to spew out to him. 

God loves you- but not enough to save you. 

But you didn’t, to save yourself the abuse of his wrath. 

“Mmm.” he mumbled sleepy, the weed putting him a place of serenity and calm as he synced his breathing with yours. “Did you want me to return the favor?” you mumbled, feeling bad he didn't get the same opportunity you did. 

He just shook his head. “Another time angel. Let me just… lie with you. I like when I just get to be with you like this.” he yawned, bed creaking as he slung his arm around your waist to pull you closer.

 “Okay. Whatever you want.” 

Silence. 

You sighed, flexing your feet, then pointing your toes. The red polish glimmered as the shadows of the wax dripping off the candles bounced off the walls, the smell of the incessant to “hide” the weed smelling of sandalwood. 

A truck rumbled in the distance, its tires rolling against the gravel. Peter sat up, eyes flickering to the headlights that beamed towards the house, making you feel anxious as you clung to the bedsheet. 

Was your father home early? He wasn't supposed to be home until tomorrow night, and you knew if he walked in on you and Peter- you’d never hear the end of it. 

“Is he home?” Peter shook his head as he moved towards the window, and you readjusted your nightgown. His hair was messy and rumpled as he stood, hands resting on the windowsill as he peered down.

 A grin was on his face as he turned back to face you, your heartbeat slowing its dangerous pace with an exhale. 

He wasn't home. Or else Peter wouldn't be smiling. 

“Well? Who the hell is at my house at-” Your eyes flickered back to the clock. “Eleven at night?” 

Peter just shrugged, a cheeky look on his face as he walked towards the bedroom door, grip on the brass handle tightening as he swung it wide open. 

You heard the front door open, two familiar voices echoing from down the hallway. 

Bucky and Steve. 

“Look who decided to pay us a visit!” Peter laughed, making you shake your head with a smile. 

Look who decided to visit indeed. 

[aizawas-dryeye]

➭nanami kento headcanons

content: headcanons duh, fluff, drugs mentioned like once, smutty (cunnilingus, ass eating, spanking, TINY bit face slapping, nipple stuff

words: 484

ko-fi

this will include sfw and nsfw headcanons so do with that what you will

• • •

SFW

nanami definitely used to have gauges and maybe even a labret and he tries to hide the piercing scars as much as possible

probably raised by his grandparents OR raised by his mom and his grandma

i feel like he had some sort of bad hobby when he was younger like smoking or something that only really went away when he found his love of baking

day drinking with him is SO fun like if y'all go out to brunch and get mimosas and he gets a lil tipsy???? he turns into SUCH a gossip

this man wants children so bad but he refuses to while he's still a sorcerer

bisexual lmao 30/70 split u decide which is which (JKKKKKK its jus funni)

his cheeks get so pink and cute when he's drunk

he LOVES cats and wants one so bad but he’s sooooo allergic

first time he smoked weed, he lowkey greened out but literally nobody could tell because he has decorum

he can play all types of instruments because he was totally in a lil band in his teen years, but he’s best at bass guitar and the drums ! he doesn’t play now tho

NSFW (minors go away)

this man will eat pussy AND ass he dont give a FUCK ! certified fucking munch bro he will put it down hairy, shaved, sweaty, clean, from the back, upside down, in the shower, sitting on his face, 69 it truly does not matter please just smother him

definitely into spanking, like pulling you over his knee and slapping your ass jus for funzies (i also think he’d be into face slapping but only if requested and he’s very VERY hesitant at first, but i’m just biased bc i want nanami to shlap me across the face !)

he would never have sex in his office building bc hello, but if he had a home office he’d cockwarm you at his desk while he goes over stupid boring paperwork

likes doggy the most because he knows it’s the best way to get deep in your guts

he’s truly open to trying anything once, and lets you know if he’s uncomfortable

his neck is SENSITIIIIIIVE especially the nape bitch. if your scratch at his undercut he’ll like cum in his pants lol

the first time he had sex he had to fake his own orgasm

he’ll let you do all that weird shit where you like hold it while he pisses and stack donuts on it n shit

his thrusts are almost calculated to be torturous like it’s too good it overwhelms you. he reads your body language like it’s the fuckin holy bible, babyyyyy

lowkey likes when you play with his nipples EVEN THO he chastises you when you bite them. one time you accidentally bruised them and for like a week, every time his shirt brushed against his nipples he’d pop a boner

[artist-issues]

That’s cool that you love Twenty One Pilots (they’re one of my favorite bands, too). Quick question: How do you feel about the song Heathens?

Love it. It’s genius. It’s so good.

Musically, what is better than the shotgun-cocking sound that the guitar makes? Or the fact that the sound of the instrument vaguely sounds like the phrase “WATCH IT” that is being repeated over and over, so it sounds like you're getting shot by the words themselves. Like the warning in the lyrics isn't fast enough to save you from the consequences of needing that warning in the first place.

I don’t care at all that it’s in/was commissioned for “Suicide Squad.” I totally think Tyler Joseph is too contemplative and analytical to just write a theme song for characters he didn’t create. Plus, he can’t keep his hands off double-and-triple meanings, even when he’s writing original songs. So all of that to say, I don’t think the song is just basically about Suicide Squad.

But let’s talk about the concept that is in the song.

Can I just break it down this way? Can I just tell you what I would do if I were asked to write a song (nobody would ask me that, because I’m not a songwriter) for a movie where comic book villains were the main characters, and I knew that the movie would be playing on “people sympathizing with characters that are evil?”

I mean, seriously, some of you have asked me questions that get me thinking about the trend of idolizing bad guys. I think I can imagine pretty accurately what my thought process would be if someone asked me to write such a song.

I would think about my worldview. I might be a little uncomfortable, first-blush, at having to write a song that makes villains sound cool. But then I’d think about it. I’d think about what I believe; my knee-jerk response would (hopefully) be "what does the Bible say about villains? Definitely that they're bad, and bad guys are bad, not good to emulate, and they lose." But then as I thought deeper than that I'd realize what more the Bible says: that I am a villain. Or I was, apart from Christ.

Nasty and wicked, psycho and outcasted. I belong locked up. Apart from Him, apart from everything good and pure. But I'm not apart from Him. I still live on this planet and not in heaven, but nos that I’m in Him, what am I supposed to do about people who are not—people who are still “villains?”

Remember who I used to be. Because if I don’t remember who I used to be, I’ll start thinking I’m better than them and judge them and we’ll always be divided. But if I remember who I used to be, that I used to be a villain, I can get in there and tell them “I’m like you but here’s what’s different; I know Christ.”

Oh but you know what? I can’t say it like that. Or if I do, I should be prepared to be mauled by the villains. Because that’s what they do.

Like it’s in a pig’s makeup to roll in the mud, it’s in a villain’s nature to be villainous—especially when they expect you to strike first. I remember that nature because I used to have it.

So I have to be careful how I say it. I have to step carefully. I have to convince them that we have things in common—so that I can springboard off of that goodwill, that common ground, and tell the villains about the way out of being villainous. So they don't maul me before I can get the words out.

I genuinely believe that that’s where my Christian worldview would lead me, when looking for a direction to approach the task of “make a song about villains” from.

…And then Tyler Joseph of twenty one pilots writes:

All my friends are heathens take it slow

wait for them to ask you who you know

Please don’t make any sudden moves

You don’t know the half of the abuse

---

We don't deal with outsiders very well

They say newcomers have a certain smell

You have trust issues, not to mention

They say they can smell your intentions

You'll never know the freak show sitting next to you

You'll have some weird people sitting next to you

You'll think "How did I get here sitting next to you?"

---

I mean the easy read is to say, "heathens literally traditionally means 'people who aren't Christians.'" But it can also just carry the connotations of "irreverent, villainous people." So what I'm saying is, he runs the gamut. He's friends with the heathens, but to call them that and to (as the singer) address someone outside that group, he has to be a bridge between the two. Someone who is with the heathens, but is also no longer a heathen himself. And he has to warn the newcomer, who is not a heathen but is about to be among them, of a couple things.

First, be careful. Be careful how you move and what you say.

Second, notice the similarities between yourself and the heathens; you have trust issues and you're trying to figure out the intentions of everyone around you but you'll never be able to do that ("you'll never know.") Just like the heathens are: "they say newcomers have a certain smell." The key to completing your goal is to accept that your similarities, and it's actually not so strange to be sitting among them.

Third, what is your goal? Tyler only gives two hints about why this person the song is "talking" to might be in among the heathens at all. The first hint is "wait for them to ask you who you know." Why'd he say that?

Well one, on the surface, it sounds like you'd need to name-drop someone intimidating to impress criminals. But that doesn't explain why you should wait for them to ask you. So now comes the non-surface read of that lyric, the one that takes into account everything else Tyler's written about and said: wait for them to ask you about why you're there. About the God who makes you different.

Careful, don't come in swinging your sword. You might lop their heads off when you meant to save them. You might provoke them when you meant to bring peace. They've been abused. You're similar but you don't trust each other, and they don't trust your intentions. You can't just sledgehammer them with religious words; they won't understand. They'll associate it with the "abuse."

There's no other plausible way to read that.

You can try to say "it's about becoming a member of the twenty one pilots fandom," okay, but Tyler doesn't think the fandom is touchy about who joins. At least, he doesn't overtly think that. Overtly, he's claimed to be proud of the opposite—he's always quoting that one reviewer who said "your fanbase is the most inclusive clique I've ever seen." He loves the inclusivity. So he wouldn't write a song about a group of heathens who are hard to get in with and be a part of if he was talking about his fans, I don't think.

Now.

Second hint about why the person the songwriter is "speaking" to is in among the heathens; because that's actually the person's rightful place. "It looks like you might be one of us."

I think this is another layer of meaning. Not just "you were once dead," meaning you can still remember who you were before Christ and use that relatability to earn trust. But also, there's something else you have in common with heathens.

And this is where I think you could draw a more meta-line from a listener to twenty one pilots' music. You could go; "I really like this music. But maybe I don't just like it because I can relate to the hope. Maybe I also like it because there's more of me that relates to the struggle than I thought."

Even doubt. I think one of the odd things about Tyler's fans after Blurryface was that they were identifying so much with the struggles and the doubts and the darkness...but in the later eras, there isn't as clear an answer to the dark parts. So you get the vibe that he's noticing that the "brokenness" of his fan base is becoming the loudest part. That even people who came for the hope are also coming for the identifying-with-the-darkness—the bad parts.

[mintartem]

hey, hey! Me again. The one who cursed you for blessing me with two new ships lol

Anywho, since you mentioned it, art of Adam x the other angels? Raphael, Gabriel, Azriel, Sariel, all of 'em!

Would love to see art/ designs, but I can settle for hcs lol

I was going to make this into art but I’ve been busy. I hope you don’t mind headcanons and my portrayal of them instead. (I will draw them and ship them with Adam eventually)

I can’t write ALL of the angels (there’s like 50+ of them and that’s not including the fallen) I’m going to focus on the 7 heavenly virtues first (excluding Michael so 6 of the 7).

Please note all of these are for the Hazbin Hotel fandom and not an actual Bible lore or theology. Although some info here are based on theology.

Gabriel (Seraph) - Diligence

He is an energetic, loud, bubbly, and trustworthy angel who is loved and respected by all. But he is scary when he is angry or pissed off

It’s not easy to piss him off but if you did, it means you’ve done something absolutely horrendous in his eyes

He enjoys watching souls get their deserved justice or punishment

Since his heavenly virtue is diligence, he is the fastest angel to finish his work. But at the same time, he also has a lot on his plate. He values breaks in-between working.

Flirts with Adam and loves to get in his personal space (Adam doesn’t mind and lets him)

He trusts Michael the most

The only beings he follows/listens to are Michael and God

He wonders why he was chosen to be God’s right hand when the position should be Michael’s (in his eyes)

He enjoys his job of delivering messages

Has the best stamina and endurance among the angels

He has a sweet tooth

Like all other angels, he is proficient in playing multiple instruments. But his most favorite instrument to play is the trumpet.

The third brother

He [will be] against Charlie’s plan of redemption

Raphael (Seraph) - Humility

He is a calm, collected, and gentle angel who wants the best for everyone and heal them as much as he can.

He wouldn’t hesitate to scare off souls with medical threats if it means it’ll help them heal

He is a pacifist

As the heavenly virtue of humility, despite his high position and rank, he doesn’t see himself better than others and chose to ground himself (which is confusing for other angels)

As the angel of healing, he heals not just physical pain, but also emotional, mental, spiritual, etc. health.

When it comes for mental health, he does need a winner’s help since he is an angel and can’t understand human thought process that well

Surprisingly, he prefers spicy food

Like all other angels, he is proficient in playing multiple instruments. His most favorite instrument is the lyre.

He [will not be] against Charlie’s plan for redemption, but wouldn’t support it either.

The youngest among the four brothers

The tallest among the brothers

He and Gabriel tease Michael because of his crush on Adam

Also in love with Adam and loves watching Adam tend to his garden

He loves herbs, poisons, and other medical things (that includes snakes)

He is fascinated by human biology and anatomy. Adam is the usual target of this fascination

Has a doctor’s (terrible) handwriting

He is the most mature out of all the brothers

Has a sadistic side

Leader of the virtues

Azrael (Archangel) - Patience

When Adam met him in Eden, the impression he got from him was that he is a shy and quiet angel.

Azrael is a flirty and playful, but kind angel that enjoys the company of his fellow archangels

He loves the nature noises (such as chirping birds, cricket noises, swaying leaves)

He is mostly remembered for his wings. Angels and winners alike describe his wings as “so black that it’s like darkness itself created a solid form to serve as his wings”

He is respected even by the Seraphim for his duty

Originally, Samael was the angel of death. The title was given to Michael, who then gave it to Azrael

He is most known for taking the souls of “The Death of the First Born” plague in Egypt. He does not like being known for it though.

He created the Grim Reapers to help him with his duties.

He once offered Abel to be his first Grim Reaper. Abel declined.

Platonically flirts with Abel. Cain does not like it (he thinks its romantic)

Romantically flirts with Adam. Cain also does not like it

Cain does not like him in general. Azrael think its because Abel sees him as an older brother. (He’s right)

Despite being younger than Michael, Lucifer, and Gabriel, they see him as an older brother figure

The only angel who is allowed to enter Hell and Heaven without permission, paperworks, etc. (This is because some depictions portray him as the one who leads souls to heaven or hell)

Doesn’t care about Charlie’s plan for redemption.

The elders are wary of him

He kept Abel’s soul until Adam died and went to heaven.

He is the one Adam first saw when he died so, like Abel, Adam has an attachment to him

Uriel (Seraph) - Chastity

He is a quiet, serious, scholarly angel with an aloof and unreadable expression.

Contrary to his serious appearance, Uriel enjoys teaching angels and winners.

He is loved by his students. Outlookers would wonder why, but his students know what type of angel he really is

He loves dark chocolates. His students are the only ones who know. He receives a lot of dark chocolate every Teacher’s Day

He tends to question anything and everything for knowledge’s sake

[will] support Charlie if she can defend her redemption project (like a research/thesis defence)

He witness Adam’s creation and grew attached to him

He guarded Eden’s gate with a flaming sword. Currently, he hid away his flaming sword only to be used if Lucifer or anything evil decides to attack Heaven

He was Adam’s teacher when he got to Heaven. Uriel taught him about Heaven, heavenly duties etc.

He doesn’t hate Lucifer per say, but he is extremely disappointed.

He enjoyed watching humanity (especially Adam) discover things. Currently, his focus are now the winners, angels, and heaven borns

He enjoys reading about human philosophers and their philosophies (both east and west)

Loves playing chess against Adam

He is the one who provides strategies to Michael and is the one who helps plan training activities

“My house is not a mess. It’s an organised chaos”

He has his moments where angels cannot tell if he is being smart or lazy.

He is great at multi-tasking

On purposely uses scientific terms to annoy Gabriel and Lucifer. He does know how to “dumb it down a notch” according to Lucifer.

Cannot be wavered once he is focus on something/s

Cassiel (Archangel) - Temperance

He is an empathic, sensitive angel who wants to enjoy Heavenly life with his fellow angels, heaven-born, and winners

When Eden was created, he wanted to visit but he was forbidden to do so. Unlike Lucifer, he controlled himself and decided not to do so

He is the fastest angel

He helps Raphael in healing Adam’s emotional health

He has a pet dragon. The dragon likes Adam

He [would be] conflicted in Charlie’s redemption plan

Like all other angels, he is proficient in playing multiple instruments. His favorite instrument is the harp

Remiel/Jeremiel (Archangel) - Kindness

He is a kind, caring, and understanding angel who wishes the best for everyone

As the archangel of hope, Remiel tends to see the best in everyone. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t see the bad things either

He is an optimist

He is that one angel everyone goes to for comfort

He is usually the voice of reason

Like Cassiel, he also helps Adam in healing his emotional pain

Like all other angels, he is proficient in playing multiple instruments. His favorite instrument is the grand piano

[will] support Charlie’s redemption plan

“Please don’t mistake me as the fallen Ramiel. We’re different”

(I struggled with coming up hc for Remiel and Cassiel)

Bonus - Angels I want to create a character for:

Ariel (Archangel) - self proclaimed “Michael’s girl best friend!” Totally supports Michael and Adam’s relationship. Angry at Lucifer

Jophiel (Archangel) - sees Adam as the most beautiful creation. She hangs with Metatron often. Adam has deep respect for her.

Metatron (Archangel) - Human name: Enoch.

Chazaqiel (Watcher - Fallen) - Sahaquiel’s younger sister

Raguel (Archangel)

Selaphiel/Selathiel (Archangel)

Well this is long so I’ll end it here. I enjoy reading about Theology so this was really fun!

[talonabraxas]

The Ophanim Angels (Thrones) “Wheels within Wheels”

The Ophanim, also known as Thrones Angels, are often described as “wheels within wheels” or the “Many-Eyed Ones.”

Their unique appearance, filled with symbolism and profound meaning, represents a complex interplay between divine wisdom, cosmic order, and eternal movement.

In ancient texts, they are depicted as part of a celestial chariot, moving in harmony with other divine creatures such as the Cherubim. Their intricate design, filled with eyes, symbolizes divine omniscience, while their perpetual motion reflects the unending cycles of creation and transformation.

From Ezekiel’s vivid portrayal in the Hebrew Bible to their mention in the Book of Enoch as Thrones, their role as guardians of divine secrets and instruments of divine will has been a subject of fascination and study.

Let’s dive in to the fascinating world of the Ophanim angels:

[extraordinaryhistories]

#1 – 'We Are What You Say' (A Sun Came, 1998)

The candles are lit. The incense is burning. The choir is in the stalls. The text is on the pulpit, open halfway. The pews are full. The acolytes are hushed. The organ is playing a low E. The bishop is there. His hand is raised. The amber light flickers over his green Michigan t-shirt. He is ready to begin.

---

For those lucky – or foolish – enough to have discovered a copy of A Sun Came in 2000, ‘We Are What You Say’ must have been multiple things all at once. Impressive. Ambitious. Carefully written. Spellbinding, even. But yet also – and this is just undeniable, and Sufjan would probably tell you this himself – the product of standing on the shoulders of giants. ‘We Are What You Say’ has the homespun woodwinds of Celtic folk, the meshing guitars of Nick Drake, the hushed voice of Elliott Smith, the storminess of Fairport Convention, and the ending percussive freakout of early Pink Floyd. It was far from unprecedented. What does make Sufjan unique from the very first song he ever released, however, is that only he would dare bring these influences together at all, let alone convincingly do so. He would develop his own inimitable style very soon; he is not quite there on track one, and that is perfectly fine. ‘We Are What You Say’ is a stunning mélange of Sufjan Stevens’ influences – and arguably the single crowning achievement of A Sun Came. A high bar to clear, that is not. But clear it he does.

And this is all being rather unfair. ‘We Are What You Say’ does carry with it one of the most distinctive Sufjan hallmarks, something that he would develop further across the rest of his career: a radical simplicity. The song is in E minor, and the only chords used (prior to the wild outro, which introduces a seventh and a sixth, elevating the tension slightly) are the first, third and the fifth. Rise, rise, resolve, repeat. Underneath all the trappings of the arrangement, ‘We Are What You Say’ has about as simple of a foundation as one could possibly expect. Much the same with the melodies, dancing around simple scale degrees and resolving neatly on the E (only the double-tracked harmonies, and some of the woodwind lines, provide a degree of uncertainty.) He may be no more than five minutes and twenty-one seconds into his recording career, but there is already an effortless sense of confidence here, of trust in the essentials.

What else do we learn about Sufjan on ‘We Are What You Say’? If anything, we don’t learn so much as we are misled. This song is mysterious, languid, obscure, intimidating. Sufjan is many things, but he is rarely those things. You do not listen to ‘We Are What You Say’ so much as you stumble into it; it is the otherworldly juncture between service and séance, held in a misty church of unclear denomination with a choir dressed in pagan masks. It is a song with weight and heft, with double-tracked vocals and a small orchestra of caterwauling instruments making the constant evocation of the title – its unnamed ‘we’ – feel genuinely mighty. So much of Sufjan’s catalogue finds solace in a delicate, melancholic solitude: not so with ‘We Are What You Say’. We are many, and we have a sermon, and we have a song.

More fitting is the notion that Sufjan’s very first song ever released would directly invoke religion lyrically. It is not just the music itself that sounds cultish – there are mentions of tabernacle choirs and of bishops, of Bibles and of spirits. But this is a distinctly Gothic approach to Christianity, if it is indeed directly referring to any specific faith. The Christianity of ‘We Are What You Say’ is violent, cruel even. The narrator-cum-Sufjan calls his own bishops ‘easy’, ‘wrong’; the faith’s ‘word is a guard and the guard is a cleave’, in an especially well-written line. Sufjan will of course go on to present his religion from the perspective of the Devil’s advocate plenty more times in his career, but nowhere on Seven Swans or on Illinois is God so brutal.

Facing this, and with the benefit of twenty-four years of hindsight, we might be tempted to do one of two things. We might be tempted to dismiss these words altogether as lacking much real meaning, merely the free-associative poetry of an edgy twenty-something fresh out of a liberal arts college (which Sufjan very much was.) Or we might be tempted to interpret this song as a sharp rebuke to religion, whether in the abstract or regarding a specific sect (the latter seems to be a popular interpretation; one Genius user offers a very interesting reading of ‘We Are What You Say’ that suggests the song is a pointed attack against Mormonism.)

I don’t put too much stock into either view. I fear, specifically, that people are far too quick to confuse honesty with assault. ‘We Are What You Say’ seems to be a just-the-facts account of Sufjan’s faith, in all its gory, violent truth. The Lord is a god of vengeance and of tremendous fury; his acolytes are fallible, sinful beings who are susceptible to temptation. They can be wrong. The spirit is not. The spirit will guide its followers towards providence. ‘We Are What You Say’ is boldly about the violence of religion, non-believers be damned. The title is not an empty declaration – it is a warning.

You can certainly hear violence in the music. You can certainly hear it in the outro, a full-bore, top-volume race to the finish line, tin whistles wailing and oboes stuttering out notes, drum circles beating away, the guitar (ever the anchor) strummed with tremendous ferocity. It is one of the rare times that Sufjan shoots for a big, post-rock-esque wall of sound climax, and is certainly the most effective example this side of ‘All Delighted People’; a genuinely roaring, cathartic moment, full of that sort of Abrahamic rage that Sufjan is so fascinated with. And it doesn’t entirely end, either. The outro is so loaded with kinetic energy that when most of the instruments finally cut out, a few still sputter along, eyes bloodshot and crazed, until the song hard-cuts into ‘A Winner Needs a Wand’, which is in many ways this song’s complement.

Sufjan would soon achieve better, of course. But at this very early stage in his artistic development, ‘We Are What You Say’ is his best. All his ambition, his confidence, and his prodigal sense of melody is proudly on display here. Worth a listen if you don’t know it, worth another if you do.

[d1g1tal-d1ary]

Cry // Alex Turner

No summary today as I can‘t think of anything without spoilers ☠️ All I can say that it was inspired by the song "Cry" from cigarettes after sex

Warnings: smoking weed, age gap, female!reader, mentions of sex, no smut, maybe a bit of angst? idk

︶꒦꒷♡꒷꒦︶ ︶꒦꒷♡꒷꒦︶ ︶꒦꒷♡꒷꒦︶ ︶꒦꒷♡꒷꒦︶

"Wish I was good, wish that I could give you my love now“ - Cry, cigarettes after sex

I can't tell when I fell for him. I can't find the exact moment it had been too late to turn back; to maybe even flee from him.

Maybe it happened the moment I first ever laid eyes on him. I had just moved to London and had decided I couldn't just pass day by day alone in such a big city - so I went to one of those Jazzclubs with one of my friends. The ones where the life artist was a weird man with a black hat and the women were all dressed in a bordeaux red dress, sipping on expensive cocktails the whole night. But I wasn't there to drink cocktails - I wasn't a big drinker, after all - I was there to hum quietly to the music and play some cards with that friend of mine.

"You cheated," I exclaimed with a light chuckle when I had to draw another card. That had been the fifth card in a row that I had to draw since I really didn't have any suitable card to lay down.

"I'm not, I swear!" she replied, her red curls falling so effortlessly perfect from her shoulder that I couldn't help but admire her beauty. Nessy - that was a nickname for Vanessa - was the first person I knew in London. Maybe because she lived right beside my little studio apartment or maybe because the universe knew I needed a friend like her. Who knows?

"Well, I need a cigarette after that unfair play of yours," I mumbled and shook my head. "You wanna join me?"

I had searched for the packs of cigarettes when she shook her head in response, making me raise from my seat and search for the exit. The exit was one of those doors to which followed one of those typical London staircases which led to the sidewalk. Luckily, the Jazzclub knew their customers and there was a little bench on which I sat down and lit my cigarette. The street wasn't empty; I remember. There were a lot of people walking by and that was the reason why he had to step closer to me to make me hear him. At least that's what he told me.

"Excuse me," the voice I learned to love in many, so many ways approached me. I turned my head to look at where the raspy, yet kind voice had it's origin and I knew by the way he was looking down at me; so kind, so soft and so, so, so curious that he was going to be trouble. "You've got a lighter?"

My eyes went down to his lips which were his instrument and the thing which he'd make sure that I knew just how much he wanted me. Without a word, but with a smile I began to search my pockets for that stupid, stupid lighter and took it out.

Or maybe it happened when he, instead of taking the lighter to light the cigarette on his own, he leaned down and waited for me to light the cigarette for him. The way he slightly bent over, making me smell his aftershave or the way he grinned down at me spoke more words than there are words in the bible.

"Thanks," he nonchalantly said. With another swift motion, he had taken the seat next to me and that made me wonder exactly how smooth a person could be. Or maybe I was wondering how pretty a person could be without even seeming to try. "Are you even allowed to smoke cigarettes yet?"

A frown crept it's way onto my face at the question and my gaze caught his as I fired back:" How old do I look to you?"

"Dunno," he shrugged but looked into the distance while taking a drag. "Wasn't expecting to see a young girl like you outside of a Jazzclub."

"I'm not young," I replied. "I'm 19, y'know."

"For god's sake," he chuckled, his gaze studying me. "My band is older than you, love."

"That's not my problem," I shrugged and threw the cigarette onto the pathway. "I guess you're really old, then."

"I'm not old," this time it was his turn to carry a frown on his beautiful face. "Are you from around here?"

I took a quick glance and met his gaze once again. He had already been looking at me the entire time. He had already been looking. At me.

"Uh, no, not exactly," I told him, stumbling across my words but I prayed he didn't notice it.

He raised an eyebrow and suddenly looked very boyish even though the few lines on his face said something different. But to me, those lines were what made him so much more beautiful. He questioned me again:" Then where are you from, sweetheart?"

Maybe I fell for him when he called me sweetheart and made me flustered and wobbly with only ten letters. Or maybe it was the way we had talked about an hour at the end of the night. I wonder what would've happened if I realized I was already head over heels for him when he kissed me a good night kiss on the cheek and promised a simple and so easy thing with a smoot "I'll call you".

I often question myself. Am I as funny as I think I am? Do people think I'm loud? But I never questioned myself when I was with him; because it was enough for me that he had really called a few days later. I noticed very early on that he was simply knittet and wasn't actually looking for love. Or anything that could lead to love.

"Then why did you call me back?" I asked him curiously while the rush hour had begun and tons of people were walking by the little table we sat at. "I mean, if you're not looking for anything. I'm not going to fuck you, that's for sure."

"For sure?" he questioned and raised an eyebrow, an amused smirk on his face. "Ah, I dunno. I'm not exactly eager to take you home with me, either. I don't know why I called you. I guess something about you caught my interst."

I missed the way his tiny phone kept buzzing during his little speech. I missed the way girls were turning around when they saw him and I missed the way my heart was beating faster than it'd ever done before. Because all I saw was him; all I wanted was him and I must've realized back then that I couldn't have turned back or ignored him.

But that wasn't the moment I fell for him. I never dared to question why me, out of all the people in the world. And maybe that was one of the reasons I fell for him in the end.

I would've guessed it was the first time he called me late at night. I had been sitting on the couch in my apartment when his message came through - enough to make my palms sweat.

>> U up? <<

I looked out the window, weighting the options I had to text him back, but I should've known I'd be wherever he wanted me to be in a matter of thirty minutes. And that's how I ended up in a dark studio; smoke filled the air and I watched him play soft tunes on his E-guitar.

And maybe that was the moment I fell for him. Just the two of us in a room where he had only ever invited the closest people to. Just the two of us sharing secrets in the late - or early hours, however you'd like to call it - hours of the day as no one else knew he was there with me.

I realized I could stare at him for hours when I had watched him play the same song over and over again. When I'd mesmerized every detail his face, his hands and the guitar itself and I was sure I could draw him exactly as he was in that very moment. Because I adored him. I adored him so much that I didn't bat an eye when he pulled out a joint from his pocket and sat down next to me.

"Have you ever smoked weed before?" he asked me. Even though I could see his muscles relaxing and the weed working its wonder on my beautiful, beautiful boy he still made sure not to let me out of his sight.

"Yea," I lied.

With a satisfied hum, he passed the burning wonder to me and watched me take a drag. If I had been honest, I would've said the taste was disgusting. If I would've been honest, I would've told him that I was in love with him.

But I wasn't. And that's why I never realized when I fell for him. He had caught my interest from the very first interaction and when he took me for the first time on that dirty couch in his studio all high and sloppy, I never questioned why I did all of that with him. And I always told myself I did all of that because youth is supposed to feel that way. Confusing, shattering and even heartbreaking.

But I never opened my eyes enough to see that I was doing all of that for him; taking an uber at two AM and letting him do whatever he was feeling like that night because I wanted him to love me. Because I loved him. With every inch of my body, every vein in my body pumping blood and every pump of my heart - I loved him.

But my mistake was that I always wondered when I fell for him and not if he ever fell for me.

[siberian-khatru]

ALRIGHT IT'S 2112 TIME!!!!

Now, obviously, the title track is split into seven segments, and I will be sort of... treating each segment as their own song for the sake of my Rushathon live-blogging. 1a. "2112- Overture"- HOLY GOD I MEAN. From the opening ghostly synths, to the just powerhouse of drumming, to the faint haunting of an "ooooh" in the beginning, this is a proper overture that hints at everything to come. Not to mention, it quotes the 1812 overture during the ending, and has that Bible quote "And the meek shall inherit the earth" which, when viewed with the full song and the ending, sort of hints that the protagonist's cause does win out eventually. 1b. "2112- Temples of Syrinx" - Opens with that epic riff, and sets up the antagonists of the story, which takes places under a theocracy that worships technology, with the Priests and their "great computers filling their hallowed halls". There seemed to be quite a lot of talk about technology around this time, and I wrote up a comparison last year between this epic and ELP's "Karn Evil 9" and the dangers of AI technology (that's on my essay account). Both epics feature a struggle between man and machine, which I find very interesting. 1c. "2112- Discovery"- Starts with gentle guitar playing and water flowing in the background. In the liner notes, it says the protagonist (never named) discovers a guitar in a cave, after the personal creation of music has been outlawed by the Priests of Syrinx. This is about discovering the joy that creating and writing your own music can bring you--- and how music can inspire protest and individual thought. A young musician can relate to it on a personal level--- the discovery of their instrument, and learning to master it, and it also has parallels to real-life theocracies, where sometimes all secular music is banned. There's also a bit of naïveté here, where the protagonist thinks they can take on an entire system alone. 1d. "2112- Presentation"- I just. LOVVVEEEE this part. I love how Geddy jumps the octave between the character of the protagonists, and the priests, who are practically shrieking at this person. They're giving the protagonist the excuse that him playing his guitar doesn't fit whatever has been calculated for them by the computer, and smashes the guitar. I do wonder if Geddy was inspired a little by Peter Gabriel's voices in Genesis, like when he's playing different characters in "Get Em Out By Friday", for example. 1e. "2112- The Oracle"- This is where the protagonist inadvertently contacts the "Elder Race of Man" --- ngl I got a little distracted singing it instead of writing for this part LOL. 1f. "2112- Soliloquy" - This is my favorite part of the entire song. The pain in the protagonists' voice when he jumps the octave makes me shiver. It's a heartbreaking end to the protagonist, but so so well done.

1g. "2112- Grand Finale"- HELL YEAH HERE WE GOOOO!!! I love the ambiguous ending to 2112, where one doesn't know if the Temples of Syrinx were overthrown following a rebellion, or whether they were the ones to "assume control" once more, or if they did succeed, if they were replaced by something just as bad. It's just so open-ended, and I think one's interpretation of it says a lot about them as a person. ALSO!!! "Attention all planets of the solar federations" - said 3x is 21 words "We have assumed control" - said 3x is 12 words, so the ending also spells out 2112!!! 2. "A Passage to Bangkok"- Now, following one of the most famous prog epics of all time is... a song about smoking weed around the world. It sort of reminds me of how, immediately after the epic that is "Tarkus", ELP launches right into "Jeremy Bender", which is another humorous sort of song. I guess it's sort of a palate cleanser, in a way. The interesting thing about APTB is the bong hit right before the solo, and the way that the drums actually lag behind the guitarist and the bass, by adding an extra beat I believe, adding to a sort of psychedelic feel that is never the same. My only criticism of this song is the sort of orientalist motif that recurs a few times, which is a bit of a stereotype. 3. "The Twilight Zone"- This was the song that started the tradition of Rush recording a last-minute song on their records, and is, of course, an homage to the television of the same name, describing the plot lines to several episodes. Funnily enough, the prior album, Caress of Steel, is also dedicated to Rod Serling. I also love the overdubbed whispering in the choruses after the first one--- that's always made me laugh. 4. "Lessons"- The lyrics to this song are written by Alex, and would be his last lyrical contribution until the final contribution by Geddy and Alex on Signals, "Chemistry". I do love the guitar on this song, and I think I like it a little more than Geddy's lyrical contribution to the album, "Tears". To me, it feels like a callback to some of their earlier songs, with a little more sophistication and experience. 5. "Tears"- I'm a little torn over this song, admittedly. On one hand, I think it's beautiful and touching, and on the other, sometimes I feel it's a little melodramatic. I'm never sure if it's coming from a place of sincerity or not. Right now, I think it is, but when I was younger and perhaps a touch more cynical, I thought it was almost sarcastic, and making fun of people who wrote songs like this in order to get laid. Either way, it is a gorgeous song, and I think there's a synth in the background as well (sounds like a mellotron, but I don't think they had access to a mellotron). It does credit Hugh Syme with keyboards on this track, so perhaps that does include a mellotron. 6. "Something for Nothing"- This is my favorite non-2112 song on this album, and might be one of my favorite Rush songs period. I had the lyrics to the bridge tucked in the back of my phone case for a while, and it always motivates me to go and do something. Because things can't get better if you don't work for it--- which doesn't even mean on a personal basis. If we want the world to be a better place, people need to fight for it. I know that Neil was heavily influenced by Rand at that time, but you can look at this from a leftist lens of criticizing Rapture culture--- that someone will come along and save the world and make everything better.

Okay, I'm not entirely sure if I want to do AFWTK/Hemispheres next, so I think I'll wait until Moving Pictures to write again.

[granonine]

Be Thou Exalted!

Psalm 108:1-5. O God, my heart is fixed; I will sing and give praise, even with my glory. Awake, psaltery and harp: I myself will awake early. I will praise Thee, O LORD, among the people: and I will sing praises unto Thee among the nations. For Thy mercy is great above the heavens: and Thy truth reacheth unto the clouds. Be Thou exalted, O God, above the heavens: and Thy glory above all the…

[amphibious-thing]

I wish I realised how heavily edited Helena Whitbread's version of the diaries of Anne Lister was before I bought both volumes. Take for example Anne's entry for the 13th of November 1816.

This is Whitbread's version:

She asked if I thought the thing wrong - if it was forbidden in the bible & said she felt quere [sic] when she heard Sir Thomas Horton mentioned. I dexterously parried all these points - said Sir T.H.'s case was quite a different thing. That was positively forbidden & signally punished in the bible - that the other was certainly not named. Besides, Sir T.H.was proved to be a perfect man by his having a child & it was infamous to be connected with both sexes - but that [there] were beings who were so unfortunate as to be not quite so perfect &, supposing they kept to one side [of] the question, was there no excuse for them. It would be hard to deny them all gratification of this kind. I urged in my own defence the strength of natural feeling & instinct, for so I might call it, as I had always had the same turn from infancy. That it had been made known to me, as it were, by inclination. That I had never varied & no effort on my part had been able to counteract it. That the girls liked me & had always liked me. That I had never been refused by anyone & that, without attempting to account for the thing, I hoped it might under such circumstances be excused.

This is the full transcript:

Made a trial for a kiss last night and did not succeed had a good one on a second trial very soon after had a long conversation on the nature of kisses Anne said she sometimes felt odd when I looked at her but that when I was so very near her that is when I was getting a kiss it was rather pain than pleasure but that she knew when I was happy and said my feelings were very warm she asked if I thought the thing wrong and if it was forbidden in the bible and said she felt quere when she heard Sir Thomas Horton mentioned I dexterously parried all these points said Sir THs [Sir Thomas Horton’s] case was quite a different thing that was positively forbidden and signally punished in the bible that the other was certainly not named besides Sir THs [Sir Thomas Horton] was proved to be a perfect man by his having a child and it was infamous to be connected with both sexes but that were beings who were so unfortunate as to be not quite so perfect and supposing they kept to one side the question was there no excuse for them as it would be hard to deny them all gratification of this kind I urged in my own defence the strength of natural feeling and instinct for so I might call it as I had always had the same turn from infancy that it had been made known to me as it were by intuition that I had never varied and no effort on my part had been able to counteract it that the girls liked me and had always liked me that I had never been refused by anyone and that without attempting to account for the thing I hoped it might under such circumstances be excused I mentioned the wickedness said to be practised by girls at schools but explained how this was quite different such as making use of instruments named the girl in Dublin who was obliged to have a surgeon to extract a stick from her (Jane Duffins story to Eliza Raine) secret and solitary vice in all which I had never any concern that in fact ther[e] would have given me no pleasure and that I abhorred them all in naming my peculiar detestation of solitary vice Anne suddenly exclaimed surely you don’t suspect me of that in a tone and manner that at once convinced me she had been a culprit however she seemed quite satisfied with my logic I told her I thought the sin was in my violating my engagement said I was doubtful about this point and asked what she thought she waved this part of the subject and we fell asleep

Took a lit[tle] walk on the terrace bef[ore] din[ner]. Told Anne π [Mariana] made me promise not to kiss her that I did promise had broken my promise and should be obliged to tell a lie as π [Mariana] was certain to ask this I said made me unhappy as I was sure if π [Mariana] knew she would never forgive me Anne turned pale and complained of feeling very sick when I told her of π’s [Mariana] making me promise she asked me how such a thing could be how it could enter her head I explained this away by proving that nothing was more natural as I had all along frankly told π [Mariana] every circumstance every folly of my life that she was the only real judicious friend I had and always advised me properly I said I loved her because she kept me in order and strange to say because she was the only woman whose conduct to me had been at all times what it ought to be thus was the rising suspicion at once quashed in Anne’s mind and π [Mariana] is literally the last being in the world whose affections in this sense of the word she could believe it possible for me to gain -

a note from Mrs Edw[ar]ds, Pye Nest to ask Nantz and me to dine there tomorrow and stay all night – Last night very stormy – rain and boisterous wind – today the same – aft[er] tea r[ea]d al[ou]d fr[om] p[age] 201 to 319 of Humboldt’s Researches – aft[er] Anne and I came upst[ai]rs to bed we had a good deal of conversat[io]n about C[harles] and M[ariana] I show[e]d Nantz C[harles]’s note of the 19 M[ar]ch 1816 and also r[ea]d her the copy of the story I wrote to M[ariana] ab[ou]t the pass[in]g thro[ugh] H[alifa]x. It appear[e]d how[eve]r th[a]t M[ariana] had been beforehand w[i]th me and had told both Mrs Steph and Nantz how I abus[e]d C[harles] what the peop[le] of H[alifa]x – s[ai]d of him etc etc L mention[e]d the remarks I had sent her – I partic[ularl]y desir[e]d her not giving as a reason the impropriety of my being known to make such communications to π [Mariana] besides I told her I had kept a copy of the story and should send it verbatim to Anne when I wrote tho I afterwards changed my mind and told her so I read Nantz my journ[al] of the 18 and 19 of M[a]rch 1816 and some previous passages that of surely no other wife would deny her husband putting his hand up his wifes petticoats and feeling her cunt astonished and disgusted her not a little she had not believed him quite so brutal -

[rathologic]

hi, sorry to send something again so soon 😅

so, the religion Clara tries to convert people to in P1. is it meant to be a spin on Christianity? because there are references to God, figures from the Bible, and many mentions of Heaven and Hell. P2 Clara especially seems to have a much more religious aspect to her character (if the “God loves me 😌” line doesn’t give that away)

and i’ve always been really curious about that. is it an altered version of Christianity? (i say altered because i know Clara has a line in P2 where she’s like “why does everyone think God is up above us? he’s down below!”)

the "religion" she's converting people to is the ideology of Humility, as developed by yulia lyuricheva and katerina saburova -- I'd summarize it as "justification of sacrifice to keep the world in order". the Law it maintains is the same as that which aglaya is an instrument of, but it's also integrated into the Kin's cosmology (moreso in p2 with one of p2's worst twists). humility itself is the mechanism of the saburovs' insane death gamble to save the town via clara, so it's also manipulation all the way down :-)

The first thing, the original creation, was the Earth. The ancient one, giving life to plants and animals. She begat the Abattoir; she begat the Kin. She gives and she takes. The dead go into her; everything ends with her. She is the inception and the completion. Such is the Law. We, the Saburovs, act in the interests of the Law, by which everyone must abide. Ours is a faith of Humility.

The faith of humility is a faith for the doomed. Whoever is resigned to death deserves to die.

Let me tell you about the Law. It's not a state law, but rather a natural one. When mysterious evil emerges from nonexistence, it's a clear sign that this law has been violated. Disease is a retribution for trespassers. It's an attempt to restore the balance.

the thing with all of the Humbles is that they believe themselves responsible for the tragedy that's befallen the town, by way of some immediate or past misdeed, and by converting them to the faith of Humility they agree to sacrifice their lives to stop the plague. while the idea of the humbles' "sin" and of a "miracle" in this framework are basically christian, I'd say that comes from the lens of how Clara is interfacing with the idea of humility, and not a foundational way of describing it as a religion

which is because Clara herself 100% identifies with what I'd call not altered, but neutered christianity - the type of cultural implicit christianity where text and worship aren't rigorous (per there not being any functional religious meeting places in the town) but like the ideas are there. patho goes to some lengths to avoid mentioning, e.g., jesus, but the biblical tie-ins especially re: peter stamatin, the idea of the Cathedral, and the dialogue you mentioned lay out that the settler-town is influenced by a basically christian worldview. though I don't have the background on Russian christianity to give any implementation details 😄 (this also applying to pathologic being written from mostly the same cultural context)

+ the changeling justifies her existence (having woken up in a grave five minutes ago) by believing she's a saint and miracle-worker, which in the context of the town's beliefs, of her being a kid, and of how she finds her powers to work, spin into mysticism where within this culturally christian baseline (a post I drafted this very week basically asks why this is the case for newborn clara, given that she's ultimately better described by the Kin's beliefs and imagery) she bends the rules to portray herself as more legitimate (consciously or not) i.e. the voiceline in 2 above. so since she's the point-of-view character for 95% of the interaction the player has with humility, it gets translated through her own lens :-)

[steveezekiel]

IT IS BETTER TO WAIT 2

17 EVEN THOUGH THE FIG TREES HAVE NO BLOSSOMS, AND THERE ARE NO GRAPES ON THE VINES; EVEN THOUGH THE OLIVE CROP FAILS, AND THE FIELDS LIE EMPTY AND BARREN; EVEN THOUGH THE FLOCKS DIE IN THE FIELDS, AND THE CATTLE BARNS ARE EMPTY,

18 YET I WILL REJOICE IN THE LORD! I WILL BE JOYFUL IN THE GOD OF MY SALVATION!

19 THE SOVEREIGN LORD IS MY STRENGTH! He makes me as SUREFOOTED as A DEER, ABLE to TREAD upon the HEIGHTS. (For the choir director: This prayer is to be accompanied by stringed instruments.)

Habakkuk 3:17–19 (NLT)

• A number of the points in this teaching had been shared in the first part of it, some other points to know and the concluding part is shared here.

• Believers are to study the Bible in order to learn how to walk and relate with God. Things that are written in the Bible are meant for our admonishments; warnings and instructions:

10 NOR COMPLAIN, AS SOME OF THEM [the Israelites in the wilderness] ALSO COMPLAINED, AND WERE DESTROYED BY THE DESTROYER. 11 NOW ALL THESE THINGS HAPPENED TO THEM AS EXAMPLES, AND THEY WERE WRITTEN FOR OUR ADMONITION, UPON WHOM THE ENDS OF THE AGES HAVE COME" (1 Corinthians 10:10,11 NKJV).

READ: Romans 15:4

- The way to walk or relate with God could mainly be learnt through the study of the Bible—the Word of God.

- Since God is not your equal, mate or peer, It would be unwise on your part to talk to Him without honour and respect. The Bible says, we, humans, are the sheep of His pasture: "KNOW THAT THE LORD, HE IS GOD; IT IS HE WHO HAS MADE US, AND NOT WE OURSELVES; WE ARE HIS PEOPLE AND THE SHEEP OF HIS PASTURE" (Psalm 100:3 NKJV).

• Rejoice in the Lord with the fact that He is able to do all things. It is my believe that as you correct those things, negative traits, which God had told you about; you will come out stronger and better.

- You will experience a sudden turn around in every department of your life in Jesus' name.

- Do not procrastinate on whatever to be changed or corrected, do something on it now.

• Note: If, however, you are yet to know the thing, or the area, where correction is needed in your life:

a. Pray and ask God to help see that which He wanted you to correct or change in your life, for a change to come in your situation.

b. Promise and be determined not to go back into that which He is correcting you on.

c. Any relationship, whoever you cultivate friendship with, which would not help your resolve to walk with God; should be called a quit.

DO not just pray about it, but do take a step on it. Friendship is by choice and not by Force.

- If the steps mentioned here are taken, you would experience growth in your walk with God.

- You would also learn to be patient with Him, and not to go ahead of Him in the matters of your life.

- Whatever you might be passing through, rejoice in God, you have better days ahead of you.

• You will not fail in Jesus' name.

- Should there be any ailment in your body, I declare your healing now in Jesus' name.

- Hold of sicknesses is broken now in Jesus' name. And the Affliction will never rise again in Jesus' name.

Peace!

STEPS TO SALVATION

• Take notice of this:

IF you are yet to take the step of salvation, that is, yet to be born-again, do it now, tomorrow might be too late (2 Corinthians 6:1,2; Hebrews 3:7,8,15).

a. Acknowledge that you are a sinner and confess your Sins (1 John 1:9); And ask Jesus Christ to come into your life (Revelation 3:20).

b. Confess that you believe in your heart that Jesus Christ is Lord, and that you confess it with your mouth, Thus, you accept Him As your Lord and Saviour (Romans 10:9,10).

c. Ask that He will write your name in the Book of Life (Philippians 4:3; Revelation 3:8).

- If you took the steps As highlighted above, It means you are saved—born-again. Join a Word based church in your area and Town or city, and be part of whatever they are doing there. Peace!

[santoschristos]

Ophanim The Ophanim Angels (Thrones) “Wheels within Wheels”

The Ophanim, also known as Thrones Angels, are often described as “wheels within wheels” or the “Many-Eyed Ones.”

Their unique appearance, filled with symbolism and profound meaning, represents a complex interplay between divine wisdom, cosmic order, and eternal movement.

In ancient texts, they are depicted as part of a celestial chariot, moving in harmony with other divine creatures such as the Cherubim. Their intricate design, filled with eyes, symbolizes divine omniscience, while their perpetual motion reflects the unending cycles of creation and transformation.

From Ezekiel’s vivid portrayal in the Hebrew Bible to their mention in the Book of Enoch as Thrones, their role as guardians of divine secrets and instruments of divine will has been a subject of fascination and study.

The Ophanim by Mahaboka

[intogenshin]

The Symbol of the City

I’ve noticed some interesting things in Fontaine that I want to share, but I haven’t had time to play any quests besides the main storyline so I’m doing it with the understanding that some of it might fall through. All corrections are welcome though.

This post will cover:

Fontaine history

The relationship between music and technology

The meaning of technology according to German philosopher Martin Heidegger

The influence of the 1927 silent film Metropolis in Fontaine’s narrative

How the Bible plays into all of it

Music & Technology

Firstly, the Fontaine symbol looks like 2 things:

A fountain and a retro futuristic city design.

At the same time, the design of the fountains in the city resemble a musical organ. The melusine named Blathine outside Opera Eclipse mentions that the pillars of water formed in the fountains are “like the music that plays in the background during an opera”, most likely referring to an organ.

On the other hand, a city works as a high expression of technological advance.

These two elements are closely tied to the history of the region. Remuria’s empire centered its development around the arts and intellectual fields (especially music), while Fontaine does it around machinery and engineering.

Music and technology are thus introduced as companion concepts.

It’s not the first time Genshin relates the two though: back in last year’s Lantern Rite event, it was revealed that madam Ping (alias Streetward Rambler) used to have a rivalry with Guizhong over the authenticity of music that is composed and played on an instrument and that which is produced by a mechanical invention.

In Guizhong’s opinion, while mechanisms were no substitute for human composers, they were yet capable of producing simple but fine melodies. But Streetward Rambler believed music to be an expression of the soul, an emotional enterprise that could never hope to be replicated by machinery. —Story Teaser: Echoes of the Heart

Eventually, Madam Ping changes her mind: Guizhong’s memory lived on through her invention, and madam Ping was able to express her feelings of grief accompanied by the tune in the bell she left behind.

But Streetward Rambler did not acquire [Guizhong’s bell] from Rex Lapis for the purpose of producing further funerary tunes. No, each time she rang it, it was to play the tune that Guizhong composed on it. The two once clashed over their beliefs about the meaning of music, who would have thought that with Guizhong’s passing and Streetward Rambler’s mourning, two tunes composed in discord would eventually become one harmonious composition?

That which is expressed through an instrument is not that different from that which is produced by a machine. While the musician uses their instrument to project their emotions as an extension of the soul, an engineer uses machinery to project their intellect as an extension of the mind.

Estelle: Truth be told, letting someone as feeble in body as I serve as a blacksmith is the main point of this machine. Estelle: Humans can use tools, and exquisitely-designed tools can make the impossible, possible. Estelle: Some say that all automated forgings are hollow and soulless. But if you ask me, the machine is just as much of a tool as a regular smith's hammer. Really, I would love to see those smiths knock metal into shape with their bare hands... —Semi-Automatic Forging quest

Music was the defining trait of Remuria’s identity as a nation, and technology is one of Fontaine’s.

Technology & Domination

King Remus built multiple fairways (perhaps like the pipes of an organ?) that he used to rule his nation, either literally or metaphorically with music, and conquered neighboring tribes in order to have full control of Remuria and avoid its prophesied demise:

The King, resting peacefully at the heart of the palace, listened closely to every melody and every note coming from every corner of the empire. Upon hearing any discord, the God King would correct it immediately with a pluck of his strings, bringing perfection to the symphony of his empire. To spread the harmonious symphony throughout the world, he built far-reaching fairways, which conveyed the melodies as never ending ripples from Capitolium to every corner that sat above the high waters.With his immortal fleet, Remus conquered all the islands on the high waters. Even the great dragon beneath the abyssal depths submitted to his power. Those were the best days since the end of earliest peoples, and eternal prosperity seemed so near at hand. He believed that as long as all the cities echoed with this greatest of songs, they would escape the judgment of fate and at last reach the land of eternal bliss. —The history of the decline and fall of Remuria

Fontaine is currently doing something similar, just that instead of conquering other people through the symbolic force of music, they’re asserting control over the land through first - the allegorical climate change they’re not preventing, and second - the developing of technology at the expense of the integrity, health and life of their own people:

Sir Arthur: Disaster! Disaster! At a recent public exhibition, the Babich Automated Analysis Engine suddenly exploded in a shower of gears, causing great injury and death to onlookers! Sir Arthur: Mr. Babich himself was severely injured and remains unconscious! Sir Arthur: Analysts' Guild President Marco Borja has opined that this tragedy was nonetheless an inevitable step on the path to progress, and that the Guild expresses its deep sympathies and condolences.

Musical instruments in Remuria function the same way machinery does in Fontaine, they are technology developed with the purpose to control by forcing the enemy tribes into submission or as a justification to exploit their workers.

Allegorical (or not so much) imperialism and capitalism, if you will.

These are precisely the dangers that German philosopher Martin Heidegger warned about technology in 1954 with his essay The Question Concerning Technology.

The Question Concerning Technology

Heidegger centered his work around the concept of “being” not as isolated sentience, but as a result of the relationship between a subject and its surrounding environment. He thought, for instance, that the term “ousia” (known as “essence” in philosophy) had been misinterpreted by previous philosophers and lost its real meaning, which he attributed to the conflicts of the modern era due to forgetting what it meant “to be”.

To put it simply, the phrase “I think, therefore I am” proposes the act of thinking is the essence of what it means to be, but Heidegger believed there had to be a state prior to the generation of that thought for the thought to be generated in the first place. A being exists with its environment, and that relationship between the subject and object is the essence of what it means “to be”.

However, it is hard to realize this reality of “being”. For example, when you’re doing an activity for long periods of time like writing or hammering a nail on the wall, you will eventually forget the existence of the pen or the hammer in your hand. At that point, it is not part of your reality even though it very much exists. Life in the modern era is the same, we become blind to certain parts of our existence in doing routinary tasks to survive until we interact with those parts.

So everything we perceive or interact with becomes “unconcealed”, but it’s a reality that’s defined by our own individuality, not an objective truth.

In this sense, the “essence” of technology is not anything technological, it’s not the machines or what’s produced with them, but something that goes deeper into its relationship with humanity.

Heidegger thought the essence of technology was neither a means to an end nor a human activity, but a way to reveal (or “unconceal”) reality.

Technology embodies a specific way of revealing the world, a revealing in which humans take power over reality. While the ancient Greeks experienced the ‘making’ of something as ‘helping something to come into being’ – as Heidegger explains by analysing classical texts and words – modern technology is rather a ‘forcing into being’. Technology reveals the world as raw material, available for production and manipulation. —Future Learn, The Technological View of the World of Martin Heidegger

Heidegger draws attention to technology’s place in bringing about our decline by constricting our experience of things as they are. He argues that we now view nature, and increasingly human beings too, only technologically — that is, we see nature and people only as raw material for technical operations. Heidegger seeks to illuminate this phenomenon and to find a way of thinking by which we might be saved from its controlling power —The New Atlantis, Understanding Heidegger on Technology

Machine-like People

The danger Heidegger warned about had to do with becoming a society that understands all aspects of reality through the technological lens: that both nature and people would be treated as nothing but resources to be used, like pieces of a machine.

All things increasingly present themselves to us as technological: we see them and treat them as what Heidegger calls a “standing reserve,” supplies in a storeroom, as it were, pieces of inventory to be ordered and conscripted, assembled and disassembled, set up and set aside. Everything approaches us merely as a source of energy or as something we must organize. We treat even human capabilities as though they were only means for technological procedures, as when a worker becomes nothing but an instrument for production. Leaders and planners, along with the rest of us, are mere human resources to be arranged, rearranged, and disposed of. Each and every thing that presents itself technologically thereby loses its distinctive independence and form. We push aside, obscure, or simply cannot see, other possibilities. —The New Atlantis, Understanding Heidegger on Technology

Fontaine has adopted this general worldview not only in relation to the workers, but also in the way they treat court cases as spectacles.

If Sumeru explored the question of what it means to be or what can be accepted as a living being (through stories like that of Karkata, Benben and Wanderer), Fontaine on the other hand seems to be asking what separates a living being from a machine when interpreted through the lens of technology, where workers are exploited as disposable objects and people’s tragedy is commodified for entertainment.

For King Remus also, those within his borders had to be controlled, and those outside had to be conquered.

Both Fontaine and Remuria are cities whose culture has become technologically driven.

When society adopts the technological lens —whether technology itself is involved or not— to understand themselves, their humanity is stripped from them. And do they not become just like a machine?

Gontharet: Those who always work and work will find themselves little different from clockwork machines. It is only through constant questioning and asking that we can forge a new path! Gontharet: Our history and present are all proof of this.

"All I have to do is put on my helmet, shut out the background noise, and carry out my orders." Freminet began to see himself as an unfeeling clockwork toy. —Freminet’s Official Introduction

Freminet, alongside Lyney and Lynette, is a member of the House of the Hearth, a secret Fatui organization composed of orphans who work for the Harbinger Arlecchino, who they call “father”, doing missions of espionage and other not so legal activities that more often than not risk their safety. It is unclear what exactly is Freminet’s role, but by the looks of it, he seems to feel less like a human and more like an automaton when carrying out his missions.

The City As A Symbol

(or: let’s get biblicaI)

There is no doubt that Remuria is based on the Roman Empire, but there’s another aspect to Fontaine that’s very intrinsically influenced by the Bible: the city as the epitome of human virtue and decadence.

God’s kingdom is represented as a garden. Adam and Eve are said to have wandered in the wilderness after they were kicked out. When their son Cain became jealous of his brother Abel, who was receiving God’s favor, he murdered him and was marked as a sinner.

Cain further isolated himself from God by running away and establishing the first city. A city in ancient times was just a group of homes, but what characterized it was the tall walls Cain erected as a means to protect himself from retaliation for his crime.

Cain’s city, much like Jerusalem and Babylon later, breeds a culture of violence and abuse, but also of man-made inventions like animal domestication, arts, and metalwork —aka, technology.

Those in power (starting with King David) always end up succumbing to their lowly desires, impulses and vices in Jerusalem. Babylon (which enslaved the Israelites) goes on to become not just a single city in its historical period, but the metaphorical and almost cyclical condition in which humanity condemns itself over and over again through the symbol of the city.

There are two main ways to deal with humanity becoming corrupt in the Bible: a flood or a messiah (mr Jesus The Christ for the Christians). The flood reboots everything and the messiah solution is more about accepting the city for its virtues and defeating sin through death and reincarnation, then God brings his garden into the world, so it’s like a Hannah Montana situation with the best of both worlds.

Anyway, let’s go back to Genshin:

After the first civilization was nuked with a flood, the survivors lived in the wilderness:

When the tide receded and the earth was revealed again, no cities nor civilizations now stood above the high waters. Survivors and the newborn alike lived amidst the forests and rivers, shorn of all knowledge and wisdom. Human lives were no different from those of wild animals on the earth or in the sea, driven on by the laws of nature — muddling through time with neither beginning nor end. Civilization and order were finally restored to the land named Fontaine the day the great king Remus descended upon Meropis in his golden Fortuna. He taught people how to farm and raise crops in the land, and built temples and cities with giant rocks to house the people. Most importantly, it was he who spread the beauty of music and art, which differentiated humans from other living things, causing them to see themselves as masters of all things. —The History of the Decline and Fall Remuria

Remus taught the people of what would become Remuria good things, but also reintroduced arrogance. And the cycle of Cain’s city was fulfilled again, with the nation causing their own destruction.

Remuria also is described with some kind of tower at its center, just like Babylon. And from the story of the Tower of Babel, this tower can be understood as the symbol of the city itself, the expression of human ingenuity.

I want this to be understood not as a direct reference to the biblical stories, but as a narrative parallel to an ancient story about the dangers of technology.

A city is an isolated concentration of humanity’s sins and virtues, surrounded by tall, imposing walls. A city gives rise to arts and technology, and it also breeds hedonistic desires and dangerous machinery.

I’d say the tall walls of Fontaine aren’t just to make the city look like a dam and annoy players who want to climb. And its technology seems on the right track for devastation.

Technology is not the enemy though

I said in the beginning that Fontaine’s symbol resembles a retro futuristic city. More specifically, both the symbol and the design of the city itself remind me of the futuristic envisioned city in Metropolis, a 1927 silent film by director Fritz Lang that has influenced the sci-fi genre to this day.

Metropolis is divided into two classes: the elite that lives on the surface, and the workers who live underground and produce the energy that powers the city.

(Sound familiar?)

The movie makes a point of depicting the workers moving mechanically, in a zombie like state, when they walk towards the machine they operate and while they work on them, as if they were parts of the machine themselves.

The son of the city’s master, Freder, ventures into the underground tunnels and discovers this reality for the first time. When a worker fails to operate the machine correctly, it suffers a malfunction that causes an explosion, leaving many victims behind. Freder is hit by the explosion and has a hallucination where the machine turns into Moloch, a pagan god in the Old Testament that had to be fed human sacrifices, while a group of slaves is being forced into its mouth, and then the workers behind them walk into it voluntarily.

A woman called Maria promises the underground workers that a mediator will eventually help them, as Maria believes the “head” (upper class) and “hands” (workers) just need a “heart” to communicate with each other. This mediator turns out to be Freder, who voluntarily takes the place of one of the workers and suffers the horrors of working in the machines in the flesh.

When Freder’s father finds out, he asks his local mad scientist —who has been working on a robot with human faculties— to give his creation the appearance of Maria, and orders this robot-Maria to twist the beliefs of the workers so they’ll antagonize the real Maria. Robot-Maria also shows up in the city as the figure of the Whore of Babylon, and inspires the upper class men to give in to their desires and vices.

Meanwhile, the workers are encouraged to revolt and destroy the very machines they’re enslaved by, against Maria’s ideology of unity. This destruction causes a flood that almost kills the workers’ children, but they’re saved by Maria and Freder.

The workers burn robot-Maria in the stake and later realize it was just a machine. Freder also fights the mad scientist at the top of a building from where the latter falls and dies.

At the end, Freder acts as a mediator between his father and a representative of the workers.

Ok but why was that whole summary necessary?

In essence, Metropolis is both a dystopian cautionary tale about the dangers of technology that we’ve discussed in this post, and also an allegory for the Bible (yes fr).

Maria is a Virgin Mary expy and Freder is the figure of the messiah (the “mediator”), Jesus Christ. He descends from the paradise above and suffers the pains of the people in the flesh. The mad scientist is a stand in for the devil, and Freder’s father represents the kings that continuously become corrupted in the history of Jerusalem.

Maria is who preaches true belief, while robot-Maria represents an idol of false belief that the workers are fooled by and also the sins and desires the upper class are enslaved by.

The flood that’s caused by the workers’ revolt is pretty much self explanatory in the biblical sense, you know what that is.

In the context of the industrial revolution, the narrative of the false belief aligns with what Heidegger would later address as the danger of technology, the inhuman lens through which the reality of the modern man is interpreted. The desire and sins the upper class is seduced by are of course capitalist interests.

Maria doesn’t condemn technology itself, she even tells the workers an altered version of the story of the Tower of Babel in which the tower couldn’t be finished because the intellectuals who designed it and the slaves who were building it just didn’t understand each other. The tower itself was an accomplishment of human ingenuity in her version.

Likewise, the movie closes with the hopes that this new understanding between head and hands will lead into a better, more fair society.

The figure of the messiah is not what’s important, but the ability to conciliate the power of governance and the working power in order to redirect the course of the city into an enterprise that serves humanity instead of using them like a machine.

Now, in the context of Fontaine, the energy that fuels the city and belief are more closely intertwined than in Metropolis.

The city is powered by Indemnitium, a form of energy which is produced by the belief in justice extracted from trials. We’d have to wonder, then, whether the integrity of this belief remains truthful, or if it has been replaced by the false idol of spectacle.

We know that at least one person in the city harbors discontent for the work, the spectacle and the Indemnitium energy:

Message in Cafe Lucerne’s board:

”For future generations, for our descendants, we must refuse work, refuse the trials, and oppose Indemnitium!”

King Remus in Remuria attempted to avoid the fate of their destruction, Fortuna, by conquering other tribes and establishing control over his people through a shared government, yet he ended up fulfilling the prophecy and condemning himself with those very decisions.

So I wonder if Fontaine might be in danger of self fulfilling their own prophecy should the workers of the city revolt against Indemnitium, since the members of the Narzissenkreuz Institute came up with it as a means to avoid their impending fate. And whether the people of Fontaine will survive their prophesied flood just like the children of the workers in Metropolis survived the flood the workers themselves caused.

[anastachord]

wtf ao3 tags - the sequel

vampire ballet

Slap Slap Kiss

Irish Republicanism

Setting Zombies on Fire

Woke Up Gay

Autoerotic Asphyxiation

i was raised a catholic and went to religious schools so this is the time to exploit that

There isn't a tag for titties OR man titties and that's really disappointing

a sheep farm

Happy Enging

they are GAY and they are STUPID

Misue of Louisiana Slang

FEDDY FABEAR

Subway Meet-Cute

YO-HO-HO HERE WE GO BITCHES

hehe

actual chicken

nae nae swag

tossing salad

Zuho puts coins up his nose

stanky leg

the transgenderification of the ninja turtles

Improper use of OceanGate's Titan Submarine

when the sound "mmmm" is a weapon

Inappropriate use of butterflies

impending doom

that's not what windows are for

when blushing causes an existential crisis

flirting via security cameras

pretending everything is fine when it's clearly NOT

I swear to god there's a happy ending in here somewhere please believe me

Warning: reading this may require the use of a defibrillator

Inappropriate use of mayonnaise

unholy use of mayonnaise

the looming threat of a fedora

zombie chickens covered in jam

religion...???

violence against musical instruments

the mechanics of a good hug

I have been told reading this fix has curative properties, I have also been told that it has killed people

ill advised climbing

this fic is chicken noodle soup for your soul

accidental improper use of setting tablet

screams into the sun

i claim my right to remain silent your honour

I'm happy to announce that I'm back on my bullshit

Inappropriate use of tv

teeth extraction kink

mind fucking, literally

innapropriate use of a santa hat

Reader gets peeled like a grape

torture, visualize peeling a banana

improper use of a detached arm

eats a mushroom and becomes a communist

Inappropriate use of a McDonalds cup

improper use of religiously oriented yogurt

the homeless man i gave a burger to in 2017

Non con bc lamps can't consent

improper use of a wine bottle (it doesn't break)

whipped cream as lube

improper use of a decomposed finger

no children were actually kidnapped, just temporarily acquired

ovary popping like grapes

Improper use of goose

soap uses drugs and alcohol to cope with being a furry

Sharpened Bones of Brendan Urie

improper use of a swiffer wetjet

OceanGate Titan Submarine/RMS Titanic (Anthropomorphic)

Tennis, i dont know how to play tennis

Questionable anger management solutions

setting off fireworks in hands

An abundance of baby oil

submarine sandwich

the mortifying ordeal of discovering you're into bdsm while you're caught up in a political intrigue

Unacceptable use of tragedy

spoilers for the bible... i guess??

exploitation of magical swords

Bees

improper use of duct tape that would make OSHA cry

Punching your future father in law in the face as a metaphor for love

smut bit also i'm too scared to write it

ryan reynolds - Freeform

sharks dying

A walking brick of cocaine

The Curse of the Bonus Vajayjay

Refrigerator

Brief mentions of a dog in a top hat

that one song by the buttholes of whatever the fuck they're called

Sink me like one of your French girls

Biblically Incorrect

Moose

a decade-long streak of Pining is ruined by a false hickey

Tim is homophobic??

this is half smut and half roasting two thirty year old men for being fucking stupid

something that is sort of crossdressing but not really

holy shit barbed dick is already a tag, i fucking love the internet

Robbery, by a dumbass

human toilet

Abuse of gummy worms

someone please help this fish

Mentions of heterosexuality

yogurt (i can explain)

Nuns

Tim gets fucking attacked

weirdly sexual cheeseburgers

university of arkansas

Out of Character, but I'm out of fucks so it's fine

TW straight people

car seats as an expression of love

alarm clock to lovers

it's not game of thrones inspired but it's not not game of thrones inspired so

shoe licking

Inappropriate use of Logitech controllers

Decidedly non-platonic BDSM

how to create a romance epic for dummies

aggressive mutual caretaking

the usual amount of murdering characters in my fics

weirdly long talks about fnaf lore

All the men die but the boats are okay

SPOILER: it is not an egg!!

yelling at people to show you care

set in australia in my hometown but that affects literally nothing

somehow a harmonica gets involved

Top Shadow the Hedgehog

Elevator Butt

gru's noise

Accidental Uncle Acquisition

frog tie

Quantum Mechanics, but wikipedia's version, so take that with a grain of salt

a crazy amount of john mulaney reference that carries on for multiple chapters for some reason

sadist slime

questionable use of dortitos

scandalous use of musical vocabulary

swallowed alive

human on mushroom violence

misuse of whirlpool baths

sir this is a Wendy's pull up your pants

let me delulu in peace

the eternal question of who is doing the laundry

screaming into the void

somewhere ogre the rainbow

a random horse appears

Mentions of a goat

don't let your memes be dreams

shrek eats beans

Santa Claus has seen some shit

green cow milk

erotic birth

unhealthy relationship but in a spicy way

a truly pathetic amount of pining

gratuitous use of Narwhals

one sorta severed limb but not really

putting the fun in funeral

tragedy my lord

is it murder when they die themselves?

meet tired

falling in love over a coffin

dirt as a love language

Sugar Daddy Voldemort

Florida AU

Canonical Character Death, It gets better I promise, the death not the fic

what's the tag for come coming out of your nose

Tentacle Dick, actually more dolphin dick but no one needs to know what i looked up for this

if you guys KNEW my google search history right now

There are deer that are wizards that have human hands

Multiple historical events were caused by a sentient pitcher of Kool-Aid