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s-brant · 3 years

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Baby Names

(gif: @mishellejones) (SERIES MASTERLIST)

Summary: Y/N gets frustrated while putting the crib for her and JJ’s baby together and finds herself missing her dead brother more than ever.

Word Count: 2.2k

Warnings: Fluff and minor angst.

A/N: Asks and ye shall receive, here’s a little blurb about what happens after Tokens! You don’t really have to read the other parts to enjoy this fic if you don’t want to, but I do recommend it for some backstory. This was slightly inspired by this fic by @cognacdelights, so go give her stuff a read! Let me know if you liked this. Have fun!

Y/N Routledge thought she got over her brother's death long ago.

Though you never truly "get over" losing a loved one, though there will always be a small part of you, however small, that aches for their presence again, she thought she moved past the tragedy to the best of her ability...until last week.

To say that the pregnancy was a surprise would be the understatement of the century. She and JJ were both on the same page about children when their relationship began, and that page was that neither of them wanted them yet. Sure, the idea of it in the future stirred their hearts with fond emotion, but considering that they had yet to graduate high school and barely scraped by on their own, they weren't jumping headfirst into that aspect of adulthood.

They were meticulous about safe sex. They couldn't afford another mouth to feed, she wasn't sure she could handle the emotional trauma of having an abortion, and, underneath it all, he had some reservations about being a father. It wasn't that he didn't envision a future with kids in their relationship, he did, but the topic of fatherhood always took him down a dark path within his mind.

So, she went on birth control once they started dating and they went along with no scares for the next six years as they graduated and started figuring out what the next step for their lives was going to be.

Y/N could get lost thinking about it, honestly, but she tries not to get too swept up in the minor mistake that led to this.

"You, my friend, need to stop moving around in there," she whispers down at her protruding belly with a hand cradling the heavy weight of it, "I'm trying to get your crib set up without JJ yelling at me for not asking for help, and if you don't stop kicking me, I'm not gonna get anything done."

She's sprawled out on the floor in the living room of the Chateau with her legs stretched comfortably in each direction while she hunches over to read the directions of the Ikea furniture. The sugarcoated description makes her want to hunt down the company CEO for sport, because for how "simple and easy!" the construction of it claims to be, she is at her wits end.

The last thing she needed after having her grief over John B's death reignited by their decision to name their kid after him last week was to stress herself out over something as stupid as this, but she won't quit. With how much JJ has been coddling her the further into the pregnancy she gets, she wanted to prove that she could do something for herself.

Whenever she brings in the groceries from the car and goes to lift the bag of dog kibble out of the trunk, he rushes up behind her back and scoops it out of the trunk before she dares to touch it. It always ends with her hollering after him that it's under twenty pounds, the upwards limit of the weight she's allowed to carry according to her doctor, but he refuses to hear any of it.

Inside of her, she feels a sharp sensation of something hitting her right in the ribs in response to her comment, and she groans in frustration. It's as if he did it because he knows she wants it to stop, the feisty little fucker.

"You're definitely your daddy's son, aren't you? It's already enough having one of him, the last thing I need is a JJ clone."

Their three-year-old Rottweiler rescue huffs a sigh from where he lays, frog-legging it, on the floor next to the unboxed crib pieces she can't put together to save her life. His drooping jowls produce a puddle of slobber on the her favorite carpet that is past the point of saving from his constant wear and tear. After a year of having him, she decided to stop trying to prevent him from ruining it. There’s no point.

She smiles at him as she leans forward to read through the directions for the billionth time, saying, "I actually think he'll be a lot like his uncle, but that's just me. If he isn't, I'll feel a little stupid over the name situation."

John Booker Routledge-Maybank.

Hell of a name if you ask her yourself, but for every internal struggle it reopened inside of her, she couldn't help but love it as soon as JJ casually proposed the idea on his way out of the door for work one morning.

Going on without John B has been a learning experience in every aspect. Any time she wanted to turn to him for advice or tell him something about the recent events in her life, she had to walk out back to their dying magnolia tree and sit under the shade to talk to the wind. Then, once the tree finally died and they were forced to cut it down, she took to sitting on its stump and doing it there.

It got easier as time went on, but she can't keep herself from wondering what it'd be like if he didn't die ever since she saw the results on the pregnancy test six months ago. Whenever she does something like going to her OBGYN appointments or, case in point, setting up the crib, she pictures him there.

She can see him here now, petting Bowie's shiny coat until he falls asleep with his head propped onto John B's outstretched legs. He'd be twenty-three years old by now with his life barely starting to blossom to its full potential, yet here they are. Correction, here she is, and he's off somewhere at the bottom of the ocean, already decomposed to the extent that not even his bones can be salvaged anymore.

Her chest sinks in another sigh, and she flips through page after page of the instructions with increasing aggression.

"This crib is so fucking—"

"What are you doing?"

The sound of her yelping in surprise at JJ's voice coming from the door is enough to make him laugh to himself, though his amusement is buried partway by what he's walking in on. He specifically asked her to wait for him to put the crib together, knowing damn well it wouldn't be the easy task she thought it was, but he should've known she'd do it anyway.

She looks over her shoulder with a mixture of guilt and frustration painting her features as she throws her hands up in the air and gestures vaguely to the unassembled crib. Her eyes are shining with the rapid onset of hormone-induced tears.

"I can't put this crib together 'cause the instructions aren't right, all the pieces are labeled wrong, your son won't stop kicking me, and I miss my brother so much right now," she spews the words with no pauses to breathe until the very end, when she stops short to suck down a breath as soon as she gets the last part out.

It leaves JJ standing at the entrance to the house with this stunned expression.

There's no amusement to be found anymore. Once she turned and flashed those wide, teary eyes that never fail to spark an ache in his heart at him, his tired smile vanished and his feet started moving before he could say anything to her.

The floorboards creak beneath his half-laced boots on his way across the room to her. It prompts Bowie to pop his head up from around the side of the coffee table to catch a peek of whoever it is that's approaching his emotionally distraught owner. Upon seeing JJ's familiar face, the dog relaxes back into his lounging position atop the carpet and tracks JJ’s movements until he's seated next to her.

"This is about John B?" he asks.

Her cheeks are flushed in embarrassment at her sudden outburst, and she can't bear to meet his gaze right now. Despite him being her closest friend and husband, she feels as small and vulnerable as she did six years ago when she first learned of her brother's death from Shoupe. Time might as well be shaped in the form of a never-ending circle for them, directing them back to their seventeen-year-old state of mind every time things turn sour.

Y/N finally lifts her hanging head to look over at him after another few seconds and thinks she might crumble at the look on his face. He hates watching her cry.

"I guess," she says through a sniffle, "It's about the crib too, but I've been thinking about it a lot more since we picked the name. Our baby’s gonna grow up never knowing who his uncle was..."

With that, JJ takes it as his cue to pull her closer.

He scoots up behind her and lets his chin rest on the curve bridging her neck and shoulder together as he twines his arms around her body. It's a closeness that's as natural as breathing for him, so natural that he can hardly remember the years before it became normal for them to take part in little moments of intimacy like this. The warmth of their bodies cohabitates in the blurred line distinguishing where she ends and he begins, and he feels her relax, sagging in his embrace in appreciation of his miraculous ability to make her feel better no matter how worked up she is.

One of his hands rests on the swell of her bump in an absentminded effort to calm him too. Even though he isn't consciously thinking of it, he knows that her distress must upset the baby too. The contact steadies her, keeps her grounded to the moment rather than allowing her to slip away into the current of her negative thoughts, and she clings to every word he has to say.

He says, "You and I both know that isn’t true. He's gonna grow up seeing all the pictures you have of John B and ask about him all the time. And we'll tell him all the stories"—there's a pause of contemplation as he recalls a few particularly non-PG memories of his best friend—"Well, maybe not all of them, but you know what I mean."

This draws a soft bout of laughter from deep within her chest that he feels with how her body shakes ever so slightly with it. It seems so wrong to laugh with tears in her eyes but she can't help it. Her emotions have been scattered in every direction since the pregnancy began, and it has only gotten worse the further along she gets.

"If you ever tell him about the kief incident, I'm never giving you a bl—"

His free hand smushes over her mouth before she can say the rest.

"Don't even think about finishing that sentence.”

It's said so frantically, it makes her erupt in laughter hard enough to tickle her abdomen muscles with the aching sensation of it. The vibration of it under his palm makes him drop his hand a second later with the need to hear the beautiful sound. After seeing her cry, it's a welcome shift in mood, even if it's at his expense.

Her head is thrown back on his shoulder, mouth parted into a smile with the gleeful giggling filling the room. His stomach churns with butterflies at the sight of her. Even after all these years, he has the same reaction to her laughter every time. It makes him smile to himself and watch her in quiet reverence. It makes him ache with the same inklings of longing he felt for the first time when he was much younger.

Her laughter begins to die down by the time she can draw enough breath in to murmur a soft, "Sorry, angel," to him and reach down to hold the hand he rests on her belly as consolation for her joke.

They remain this way for another few minutes, tangled up in each other's arms on the floor of the living room with Bowie snoring a few feet away, before he manages to convince her to let him be the one to set up the crib instead. It takes a good five minutes of playful back and forth before she concedes under the condition that he'll let her paint the nursery by herself when the time comes, and that's all it takes for her to abandon the task in favor of finding something to snack on in the fridge.

In her defense, the crib is actually quite difficult to put together.

JJ doesn't consider himself an expert handyman by any means, at least not with anything outside of his area of expertise as an electrician, but he likes to think he knows enough to put together a "no assembly required" Ikea crib without wanting to bang his face against the wall.

In the end, it gets finished by the two of them in the middle of the night over a box of cold leftover pizza from the previous day. It takes them two hours of struggling before they get it fully assembled and placed where they want it in the room that'll soon belong to their son.

He pretends not to notice her sneaking back in to tie John B's old bandana around the wooden railing before they go to bed.

Tag List: @gabiatthedisco, @fangirlvoice, @black-syren, @apparrio, @particularcth, @planetdemon, @idk-ijustworkhere, @krisphann, @astrydis, @k-k0129, @zarahsloves, and @stilesflannels.

#jj maybank #jj maybank x reader #jj maybank smut #outer banks #obx #fanfiction #obx s2 #okay but ive been doing some thinking and i can formally declare that i think their song is call it what you want (by taylor swift)#it fits tbh

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blessedarethebinarybreakers · 4 years

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Answer asap (I feel bad saying that, but I'm stuck). Do you have any resources for dating/not dating non-christians? A dear friend of mine told me they care for me, and I feel the same for them, but... all the resources online warn again and again not to date non-christians lest they endanger my faith. I feel like going forward with this would be ignorant at best and would set us both up for heartbreak. And I fear my fear itself would lead to me trying to convert them. But I still care for them.

Hey, anon! Thanks for reaching out -- the rhetoric among many Christians against interfaith relationships, particularly with the argument that they’re “unequally yoked,” is something I haven’t addressed in years, and have been meaning to discuss again.

Little disclaimer at the start that this stuff is so contextual, and it’s personal -- I don’t know your life as well as you do, or this friend of yours like you do. Maybe what i say doesn’t fit you and your situation.

_____________

To begin, I firmly believe that interfaith relationships can be and often are truly beautiful, holy partnerships. (This includes relationships in which one or multiple members identifies as an atheist / otherwise doesn’t ascribe to a particular religion.)

When both (or all) members are respectful of one another’s beliefs, and find as much joy in learning as in teaching their partner(s), their unique perspectives can deeply enrich one another. You can bear good fruit together that glorifies God and nourishes others.

This being said, you definitely want to at least begin working through your worries and fears before starting to date this person. If you enter the relationship overwhelmed with fear or guilt about dating them, it’ll bring a lot of resentment and angst. The rest of this post points out things you’ll want to reflect on and read up on before entering this or any interfaith relationship -- and offers resources that can help.

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Interfaith Partners: Always “Unequally Yoked”?

I’m sure you’ve seen a certain phrase on those websites you mentioned, drawn from 2 Corinthians 6:14 -- “unequally yoked.” I’m going to end this post with some alternative ways of interpreting this verse, but what Christians who advise against interfaith relationships take it to mean is something like this:

Just as two animals yoked to the same plow should be of equal strength and on the same page so that one doesn’t do more of the work, or get tugged away from the work by the other one, two partners should also be of equal “spiritual” strength and on the same page when it comes to their faith...

And of course, these people will say, a person who is Christian is definitely spiritually stronger than any non-Christian -- and a non-Christian might just pull them away from The Way, getting them to skip church or prayers or even stop being Christian entirely.

But there are a lot of assumptions there that don’t hold true in every relationship, right? First off, who says every Christian is necessarily “spiritually stronger” than every non-Christian? To claim that is to assume that non-Christians don’t also have access to spirituality or to the Divine -- which I’m going to push against throughout this post.

Furthermore, the assumption that a non-Christian partner will definitely harm your own Christian faith doesn’t have to be true, as I’ll get to in a second.

So yeah, keeping these assumptions about an interfaith relationship being inherently “unequally yoked” in mind, and with a plan on returning to this phrase at the end, let’s move on to specific things you should think about before entering an interfaith relationship.

______________

Must a non-Christian partner “endanger” your faith -- or can they enrich it?

If being open to learning about how our fellow human beings perceive the world, humanity, and the divine “endangers one’s faith,” perhaps that kind of faith was not made to last. Perhaps it has to give way in order to birth a new, deeper faith -- a faith that is bold enough to wrestle with God as Jacob did; broad enough to survive questions and doubts and times of grief; and wise enough to perceive the Spirit blowing wherever She will (John 3:8), not only among Christians.

If your partner truly respects you and your faith even if it’s different from theirs, they’ll do what they can to help you be the best Christian you can be -- or at the very least, they will give you the space and time you need to go to church, pray, etc. And you will do the same, helping them to be the best Muslim, Buddhist, or simply person they can be.

I highly recommend asking this friend of yours before you start dating what their thoughts are on your being a Christian, and/or on Christianity in general.

Is it something that makes them happy for you? is it something that makes them deeply uncomfortable? or something that they don’t have strong feelings one way or the other on? .

How “involved” would they be open to being in your faith? Would they be interested in going to church with you, as long as they could trust you weren’t trying to force them into anything? Would they enjoy talking about your varying beliefs together and how they impact your lives? Or would they never ever want you to bring up Christianity (which I imagine for you would be a deal breaker)? .

Be open and honest with one another about what expectations you each have about things like boundaries around discussing faith, about time and space you each want for practicing your faith, etc. As you seem aware, it’s better to get all this clear before you start dating, to avoid problems later down the road!

For an example of what such discussions might look like, I found this story from Robert Repta, a Christian man married to a Jewish man. Their union, he says, has included working out what it means not only to be gay persons of faith, but also persons of two different faiths:

“Ultimately, what happened was that in our struggles to find ourselves, we ended up growing closer together. We both supported and challenged each other. We began asking each other bigger life questions and talking about religion, God, science. Both of our lives were evolving, and what started to happen was that we started seeing the similarities in our core beliefs more than the differences. Some of those beliefs even evolved along the way.

We both believed in God. We both believed that God is love. We volunteered together. He would occasionally come with me to church, and I would occasionally go with him to the synagogue. Eventually, I could see that the common thread between us was unconditional love. The same unconditional love of God.”

_____________

On pressuring a non-Christian partner to convert -- assumptions about Christian superiority & fearing for their afterlife destination

It’s really good you recognize that it might end up being hard for you not to try to get this person to convert! Before dating them, you should keep reflecting on this and decide whether that’s something you can let go of or not. If it’s not, then you’re probably right in thinking this relationship won’t work out.

It would be highly disrespectful to this person you care about to pressure them to become a Christian in order for you to feel okay about being with them. (And for more thoughts on how evangelism and conversion as carried out by many Christians isn’t what Jesus had in mind, see this post.) Doing so would imply a lot of things, including that you don’t think they’re a worthy or equal partner unless they make this big change, that whatever beliefs or ideologies they currently hold are inferior to yours, etc.

In order for your interfaith relationship to go well, you would need to come to understand non-Christians as being equally made in God’s image, equally worthy of dignity, equally capable of doing good in the world. You’d have to come to believe that there is much of value within their own religion / ideology that you as a Christian could learn from.

Let’s bring in our lovely Christian/Jewish couple from before: as his relationship with David developed, Robert discovered that

“God is not conformed to this world we live in; God does not belong solely to the Pentecostals or the Baptists, to the Jews or Gentiles, to Muslims or Zoroastrians. Two of the most profound self-identifiers God calls himself in the Bible is “love” and “I am.””

Here are a few resources that can help you explore the idea that other religions are as valid as Christianity and also have much wisdom to bring to the world:

I highly recommend you check out the book Holy Envy by Barbara Brown Taylor to help you explore how you can be a devout Christian and learn from and form mutual relationships with persons who are not Christian. You can check out passages from the book in my tag here. .

You might also like my two podcast episodes on interfaith relationships (in general, not romantic ones, but the same material applies) -- episode 30, “No One Owns God: Readying yourself for respectful interfaith encounters” and episode 31, “It's good to have wings, but you have to have roots too": Cultivating your faith while embracing religious pluralism.” You can find links to both episodes as well as their transcripts over on this webpage. .

There might also be some helpful stuff in my #interfaith tag or #other faiths tag if you wander around. .

Simply getting to know whatever religion this friend does belong to (or what ideologies and value systems they maintain if they’re atheist / non-religious) can also be super helpful. Ask them what resources they can think of that can help get to know their religion as they experience it. Attend worship service (virtually works!), seek out folks on social media who share their religion, etc. I bet you’ll find a lot that you have in common -- and hopefully you’ll find some of the differences thought-provoking and enriching to your own understandings of Divinity!

I’m guessing a lot of your worry stems from the assumption that non-Christians don’t go to heaven. If you believe that not being a Christian leads to hell after death, it’s very hard to view non-Christians and their beliefs as equal to your own!

That Holy Envy book discusses this genuine fear many Christians have on behalf of non-Christians, and how to let it go. .

Here’s a post with links to other posts describing the belief that many faithful and serious Christians hold that non-Christians don’t all get whisked to hell. .

And a post on the harm done by fearmongering about hell. .

Finally, a little more on the academic side but if you’re interested in some history behind Christian views of hell that can help you see that there really is no one “true” belief here, check out the links in this post.

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Reinterpreting “unequally yoked”

I said we’d get back to this, and here we are! While the easiest to find interpretation of 2 Corinthians 6:14′s “Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers” is that it argues against interfaith marriage, there are other ways to read this text.

I adore this article I found on the passage from a Christian minister who is married to a Hindu monk -- “Unequally Yoked”: How Christians Get Interfaith Marriage Wrong.” Incredibly, Rev. J. Dana Trent writes that when she and her now-husband dug into 2 Corinthians 6:14 to see what it was all about, she found that

“An ancient scripture meant to deter us from getting involved with each other actually brought us together. Our core beliefs in God became the focus of our study and relationship, not the issues that divided us.”

She also explains that biblical scholars say this verse isn’t even specifically about interfaith marriage -- which becomes clear when you read the full chapter surrounding it! It’s more general -- about the hazards of “working with” an unbeliever.

And what exactly is an unbeliever? Paul and other “believers” of these very early days of Christianity had a different definition than we might today -- an “unbeliever” wasn’t synonymous with “non-Christian,” because Christianity hadn’t even solidified into an actual religion yet! Instead, a nonbeliever was "anyone exposed to but was not faithful to Christ’s teachings—someone not characterized by devotion, love, peace, mercy, and forgiveness.”

In other words, if a person in those early days was told about the good news of Jesus that entailed things like liberation of the oppressed and love of neighbor, they didn’t have to “become a Christian” to accept that good news. And thus, Rev. Trent continues,

“Today, my husband’s deep Hindu faith has taught me to dig deeper into what Jesus would have me do. Perhaps Paul might have even considered me an “unbeliever,” as I claimed to be a baptized Christian, but my life did not inwardly and outwardly reflect the Gospel. Since marrying Fred, I re-attuned my life to Christian spiritual practices: spending more time in contemplative prayer, practicing non-violence through a vegetarian diet, limiting my consumption, and increasing my service to others.

Much to many Christians’ dismay, it took a person of another faith—a seemingly “unequally yoked” partner, to strengthen my Christian walk.”

Isn’t it beautiful to hear how this relationship between a Christian minister and Hindu monk has born good fruit for both of them? They help one another become the best Christian and best Hindu they can be, respectively. They are both so deeply committed to faith -- that doesn’t sound like an “unequal yoking” to me.

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Whew, this got long! But it’s a big topic, and one I hope you’ll take the time to explore. Bring God into it; bring your friend into as much as they’re comfortable. And feel free to come back and ask me more questions as you go.

If anyone knows of other articles or other resources that explore the good fruit that can come from an interfaith partnership, please share!

#interfaith relationships #unequally yoked #progressive christians #interfaith dating #Anonymous #relationship tag

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pinehutch · 3 years

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(this was longer than I thought, so cw: parental death, a bit of medical stuff, covid mentions (social, not personal or family experiences), grief)

I'm tired and unfocused tonight, and I know why.

I am thinking about how one year ago, I was worried but coping, unsure but proceeding. I knew I would need help and asked for it; I took the notes, I made the phone calls, I looked up "elder care" and "covid safety autoimmune" and "will kit," and I felt my anticipatory grief, and my fear of failing in this, too, and my trust and cautious hope that things would - as I had been told - get better. A year ago I had space inside me to set my relief (that I could keep working, that I could stay safe and keep others safe, and look after my dad; that people were making art to get through the changes) alongside my worry (for everything, everyone, the world).

Here, the swelling of a heart watching videos of apartment buildings bursting into songs.

Here, the fear and the anger for what would be lost to the virus.

Here, at home, learning about the swelling of just one whole heart, lungs, kidneys, all of it, a body drowning in itself.

Here, at home (not the hospital, it's not safe, it isn't safe), sprouting tomatoes and plans for how to Fix Things. How to solve the problem.

***

Ten days ago I drove to the lab where I go for bloodwork every two months. It's routine, to make sure that the things I do to keep my body from going to war against my joints aren't causing any other problems. It's routine in the sense that it used to be routine, and then I fell out of the habit over the last year, and hadn't been since January of 2020.

The path to the lab goes past the hospital, the same hospital dad was in the first time, and for a split second I saw the building through the same eyes that I had last year. Fifteen months ago, when I would walk through the dry, hot hallways to the cardiac ward, when that was a thing a person could do, and I sat with my often-distant father and he told me again about the fear he had felt (on his bad days) or his John Grisham novel (on his good days), and then I would go back to the parking lot and cry in my car and curl around my phone for comfort.

He went home, that time, and no he didn't need anything, he was doing fine, not to worry. And I got a cold, and then he got the flu, and then covid came and we were all in quarantine, and high-risk the lot of us, and so the last time I saw my father was in the hospital where he eventually died, two months later.

The building sits on top of a hill, and when I noticed it on the way to the lab I nearly missed my turn.

***

One year ago, though, I went to bed (probably later than I should, as ever, thanks for the terrible sleep habits, dad) having received all the right assurances that he would be released in a couple of days and being told that I would need to be extremely careful with all of the covid protocols to pick him up. I was anxious about where I would find a mask, in early April of last year, and about the caregiving and advocacy I'd been asked to do. People were saying things like "don't expect to be back in the office until the fall." The world was not without worry, but I didn't have that worry, that specific fear.

So I went to bed, as ever, with my phone on silent. Absolutely unthinking. A reflex, a standard practice. At 3:30 in the morning there was nothing to hear when the hospital called.

***

My mother tells a story about when her dad died. August, windows open in hope of a breeze. She had a three-month-old baby who slept beautifully through the night. She woke up to the curtains moving on a still night, and thought 'oh, dad's here.'

Her stepmother called early in the morning, but she already knew.

***

I woke up, one-year-minus-five-hours-ago, and there were voicemails. A text from my mom. When my stepmother had called, being the second contact at the hospital, she left a voicemail. And then I knew. And I'd failed; I didn't even know the phone was ringing.

***

The plan I'd been growing, to Help, to Care Better, to Fix Things: it wouldn't have been worth anything, because he died when he wasn't supposed to. It's really, really easy for me to see failure here; it's taken me the better part of a year to see past it.

Grief is a slog. There's no shortcut or speedrun, and it takes its place at the table beside all the small and great joys and rages and griefs and loves that have come before it and after it. Sometimes it sits at your right hand and monopolizes the conversation; sometimes it fades into the background noise while you smile over your cup and make eyes at joy or righteous anger or desire. And god, trying to understand where to situate that personal grief when you also live in the world? For not-all-but-most of 2020, grief sat beside me at the table and droned its tiresome, grey banalities in my ear until I could scarcely hear anything else. (There were bright spots, I promise: I know and love some wonderful people.) But honestly? Honestly, I didn't have my good cry, my really ugly sob until Christmas Day.

Things are better, now. There are still dark moments. There are stories I still flinch away from, songs I won't listen to just yet. And I mean, it's one in the morning and I've been typing this sad tumblr post on my phone for an hour.

But: I also made the appointment at the lab. I followed up on other doctor's visits, for me. I've been eating well, keeping the windows open on warm days, cleaning, moving my body. Socializing in the ways that we socialize, now. Trying to lean back from the yawning mouths of grief and guilt, not to throw myself in. Trying to feed myself, I suppose.

Tomorrow, I'll make some phone calls. My brother, my mom, my dad's widow. There will be solemn moments in the day, and times when I get tired and grumpy and feel like I'm being asked to perform sadness, but I'll do it. I'll be a voice in the world, and alive. And I'm sure we'll do this every April 7, for as long as we remember to. And at some point we won't, and that will be fine, too.

It's well past the time that I should sleep, and I will have my phone on silent (god, obviously), and if tomorrow is like any other of the last many, many days, I'll wake up to little thoughts and notes from people who I love, who love me. It's a slog, sure, but I have some company, and some places to rest.

(Wendy Cope was right, folks: I love you. I'm glad I exist.)

#personal #long post #parental loss cw #medical cw #parental death #grief #I'd prefer folks not reblog this but you are welcome to message or inbox me or reply to the post if you like - and only if you like!#just sometimes the text box is comforting and neutral if that makes sense #if there is any clowning on this i WILL bite you #also as mentioned i wrote this on my phone so sorry for typos etc.

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rucbarthatbowtiesarecooldw · 3 years

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Sunday Morning Session

On this day of joy and gladness

Redeemer of Israel

I Love to see the Temple

Elder Ulisses Soares

Christ offers us the glorious possibility of eternal salvation.

“Salvation could not come to the world without the mediation of Jesus Christ. God … prepared a sacrifice in the gift of His own Son, who should be sent in due time to prepare a way, or open a door through which man might enter into the Lord’s presence, whence he had been cast out for disobedience. From time to time these glad tidings were sounded in the ears of men in different ages of the world down to the time of Messiah’s coming.” – Joseph Smith

How can you allow the atonement of Christ become fully effective in your life?

Christ is ever aware of the adversity and experiences in mortality.

The ultimate spiritual caregiver.

On the vary most grief filled days the Savior is there with His arms stretched out.

Sister Reyna I Aburto

Mourning is one of the deepest expressions of pure love. . . . the only way to take sorrow out of death is to take love out of life.

The spirit will give you comfort in difficult times.

Thanks to the resurrection of the Lord eventual resurrection is a possibility for all who follow Him.

Side note: A beautiful talk but I had trouble concentrating because she inspired some song lyrics I had to get down before I forgot them.

He will embrace us in His arms of mercy.

Elder S. Mark Palmer

To be believing is to not doubt God or the Savior and their promises.

Faith gives us hope.

Families can be bound together forever.

If you feel sorrow place your faith in Christ and act in faith – follow the whisperings of the spirit and you will find joy in life.

Elder Edward Dube

Press toward the mark on the path toward God and Christ.

Side note: Jokes on you I always feel overwhelmed and inadequate so.

Never look back, look ahead at what we need to do.

It is not up to you or anyone else, it is up to God whether this pain will leave.

Are you willing to let your will be swallowed up in His?

Let us focus on the goal of pressing toward the mark.

He overcame all to help us.

I Am a Child of God

Elder Jose A Teixeira

Make our way back and remember the Savior.

1 remember that we are children of God.

Knowing who you are changes how you feel and what you do.

2 remember the foundation that protects us.

Put our trust in the safest place: in our Redeemer.

3 remember to be prayerful.

Seek answers from heaven – we can search for anything in a moment, we need to remember to search for answers from God as well.

4 remember to serve others.

Loving service to others guides us along the path to our heavenly home towards our Savior.

May we remember and follow Him home.

Elder Taniela B Wakolo

The Savior's universal love is the motivating force behind everything he does.

How does HF manifest His love for you?

1 relationships with God and family manifest His love.

Let us have face time – ig time without devices??

2 by calling prophets.

Ministering to thousands of One

3 chastening can be a manifestation of God’s love for His children.

Tells us He knows us.

A “spiritual surgery” to bring about change in our lives.

Happy is the man whom God corrects.

Elder Chi Hong Sam Wong

Be determined to let God prevail, learn to hear His voice and use our energy to help gather Israel.

If ye will hear His voice harden not your heart

How can we let God prevail in our lives and not the adversary?

Earth and hell combined against us cannot prevail if we let God prevail.

Fear not to do good, my [children], for whatsoever ye sow, that shall ye also reap; therefore, if ye sow good ye shall also reap good for your reward. Therefore, fear not, little flock; do good; let earth and hell combine against you, for if ye are built upon my rock, they cannot prevail. – D&C 6:33-34

Where are you building your house? And what is your foundation?

If we build on a foundation on Jesus Christ we cannot fall.

And now, my sons, remember, remember that it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall. – Helman 5:12

How will you prepare for what is coming?

We cannot change what is coming, but we can change how we prepare for what is coming.

How often do you fill your life with the gospel.

The Gospel is not part of our lives, our lives are actually part of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Our lives are part of the gospel not the other way around.

Mortal life is only a part of the plan of salvation.

God knows the details of the details of the details of our lives.

For his word ye shall receive, as if from mine own mouth, in all patience and faith. For by doing these things the gates of hell shall not prevail against you; yea, and the Lord God will disperse the powers of darkness from before you, and cause the heavens to shake for your good, and his name’s glory. – D&C 21:5-6

Elder Michael John U Teh

Do we only know about the Savior, or are we trying to come to know Him?

·The atonement of Jesus Christ applies to us personally.

President Russell M Nelson

You will feel the Lord’s unfailing love for you.

The blessings of the gospel are for every land, race, and people. The Church of Jesus Christ is a global church.

No other message is so filled with hope; or can eliminate contention.

Faith in Jesus Christ is a conduit to divine power.

Allowing God to prevail begins with faith that God will take care of us.

True repentance begins with Faith that Jesus Christ has the power to heal, cleanse, and strengthen us.

Exercising faith can be overwhelming.

It is our faith that unlocks the power of God in our lives.

A small but growing faith

The Lord does not require a perfect faith for us to have access to His power – but He does ask us to believe.

Start today to increase your faith.

What are your mountains??

They will vary but the answer is to increase your faith. Lazy learners and lax disciples will have problems because this takes effort.

1 Study. Become an engaged learner. Immerse yourself in the scriptures. Internalize the truth that the Atonement of Jesus Christ applies to you.

Central to faith is trusting His will and timetable.

Only unbelief will prevent God from moving the mountains in your life.

The Savior is never closer to you than when you are climbing a mountain with faith.

2 choose to believe in Jesus Christ and stay faithful.

Take your questions to the Lord and other faithful sources.

Don’t look for inconsistences.

Do not increase your doubts by rehearsing them with other doubters.

Doubt your doubts before you doubt your faith.

3 Act in faith.

What would you do if you had more faith? Think about it, then do it.

4 Partake of sacred ordinances worthily.

5 Ask your Heavenly Father in the name of Jesus Christ for help. Faith takes work, revelation takes work. God will help.

But he that asketh receiveth .

Ask then ask again.

It takes faith to follow Prophets rather then popular opinion.

Our faith will always propel us forward. Always increases our access to Godly power.

Your faith will move the mountains of misery in your lives.

Jesus Christ will not fail you. His church will not fail you.

The people in the church definitely can and sometimes will fail you - but His church and gospel will not,.

That Great Easter Anthem He is Risen

#ldsconf #genconf #general conference #tumblrstake #church of jesus christ of latter day saints #april 2021

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tagsecretsanta · 4 years

Text

from @Little-old-rachel

to @misssquidtracy

Secret Santa does not own this work, full credit to the author above!

Part Two: Second First Snow

After they lose Mom, Gordon finds he can’t stand the snow, unable to marry that wonderful day with the same substance that leeched life from his mother.

And he’s not alone. Virgil can’t even bear to be cold, takes to bundling layer upon layer in winter, long sleeves even in summer. John watches weather forecasts anxiously, cross-examining different stations’ reports and awaiting the first signs of black ice. Even little Allie learns from Scott’s fretting that snow = bad. Gordon can’t help but wonder if they are all following their father’s lead - a man who increasingly finds any excuse to reach for the whiskey bottle, but especially when the cooler weather closes in.

It doesn’t snow again, or at least, not enough to blur road and field into one endless white landscape. Instead the tarmac becomes a slushy stream, refreezing into deadly ice runs (or incredible tobogganing slopes, if only Gordon could bring himself to join the other kids without intense anxiety of what it might bring).

And then - all at once - they’re living on a tropical island (“really, Dad, that’s a little bit extreme even for you,” Gordon smirks at his father, receiving a Look in return), and Gordon thinks he’ll never have to worry about snow again. His experiences with it are now strictly limited to rescues - because people will insist on attempting skiing in a blizzard. As much as they all love what they do, rescues aren’t exactly the place to form happy new memories and so Gordon never quite loses his dislike of snow, even as he grows old enough, smart enough, skilled enough to know a thousand different ways to save lives from it.

(It’s in the same way that Virg has now shed most layers, even if he still wears a plaid shirt and undershirt in tropical heat. Or how John still tracks snowstorms obsessively when he thinks nobody notices - well Gordon’s on to you, Johnny. Or how Scott insists that snow rescues are done in pairs or not at all.)

(They cope as best they can. Because they’re International goddamn Rescue.)

(And the world needs them to be coping).

****

Except this year, apparently.

They’re fast approaching the end of a second year without Dad, preparing to stagger through their second Christmas without him.

And then all of a sudden, John gives himself a concussion - he won’t tell them how and EOS mournfully says that she’s sworn to secrecy - up on Five, and has to be dragged down to recover. In the same twenty-four hour period, Scott misjudges the speed at which he could hit the ground and fractures his wrist, much to Virgil’s consternation (“I was right behind you, Scott, if you had just waited twenty seconds-”). Except then it was Virgil’s turn to eat humble pie, because he nearly passed out in the middle of flying back to the island, because! Turns out you shouldn’t keep quiet about having the flu!

And then Alan slips off a cliff in the midst of a tropical storm, and whilst he’s fine (“I’m okay, guys, really - see, not even a scratch”), he’s understandably shaken up, and the Smother Brothers descend full force to take him off rescues.

And so, as brilliant as Gordon is, he’s not quite up to the task of single-handedly running International Rescue, even with Kayo picking up the slack - they’re only human.

All in all, tensions are running high.

Grandma’s all: the-world-won’t-fall-apart without-you-watching-over-it-Jonny, humankind-can-get-by-without-International-Rescue-for-a-week-Scott, so-help-me-God-Virgil-get-back-into-bed, taking out his older brothers in one fell swoop as only she can. She doesn’t so much pose the idea of spending their week off somewhere that isn’t Tracy Island, rather she tells them to pack their warmest clothes and be ready to leave that afternoon “or so help me God.”

****

The Squad descend on Kansas with subdued hearts and confiscated paperwork (“you’re on holiday, Scott”). They have happy memories here, of course - almost all of their memories involving Mom took place in this rickety house and its surrounding fields. Every room contains echoes of her singing, ghostly brushes of her forehead kisses, the smell of hot cocoa.

Which is why it’s also so very painful to be here again.

They haven’t come here since Dad’s disappearance - because he’s disappeared, he’s not gone. So why can Gordon also feel the ghosts of his Dad’s arm around his shoulders?

That first day, Grandma recruits the non-incapacitated members of the family (Kayo, Gordon, Alan and herself) to decorate the house, whilst Scott stomps about, lamenting that he can’t join in properly. The four of them make short work of the job, and before long, the lounge is lit with the soft glow of golden fairy lights. They’ve dragged the artificial tree from the loft, and Gordon feels oddly nostalgic for the cheap plastic baubles they’ve strung around it.

Kayo has just thrashed Gordon in a race to make paper chains quicker when John says quietly, “hey. Snow.”

Virgil staggers up from the couch, cloaked in blankets and waving off Scott’s hovering hands. He makes his way to John’s window seat at the same time as Gordon.

Light snowflakes are indeed falling from thick white clouds, pirouetting gently downwards to settle in dusty heaps on the frost-tipped yard. The landscape turns slowly whiter around them, and the snowfall gets heavier.

Alan ducks under Scott’s non-injured arm to peek out too, and Scott swallows hard, likely remembering the last time they stood here and watched the snow fall in this way.

They all feel the ache of the two missing family members like a physical wound. Gordon finds himself having to blink hard to shake off the visions playing tricks on his eyes. A tiny Gordon, gloveless, clueless, but joyful, rushing towards Mom, whose arms are outstretched. Virgil’s face as he concentrates on positioning the snowman’s features. John flopping his limbs into the snow to make angels. Dad and Scott, hurling snowballs at one another battling it out to the bitter end.

Virgil wraps an arm around Gordon’s shoulders, and with a start, Gordon realises he’s crying.

Only they aren’t tears of grief or anger or pain - though he’s definitely felt all of those things.

These are tears of a man overwhelmed.

But the memories are good ones, they nestle in his chest, temporarily defrosting the icy tendrils of anxiety that have taken root there. They pour warmth and love and belonging into his chest, filling the pit of sorrow in his stomach and rushing to overflow in every small, aching part of his body. Gordon tips his head against Virgil’s shoulder, takes a shaky breath, and smiles.

John is tucked against Gordon’s other side, Kayo’s fingers laced in his own. Alan is nestled into Scott’s chest, who has a hand on Virgil’s back too.

United. As they always are.

Outside, the temperature drops to freezing and the roads become treacherous. But the snow also dances in mesmerisingly beautiful patterns, and the trees sway as they gather their fine trimmings.

And here, in the centre of it all, is his family.

His wonderful, loving, giving, crazy, ridiculous family. God, he’s the luckiest man alive.

Maybe towards the end of the week, when John’s able to stand without wavering, and Virgil’s stopped mumbling deliriously, they’ll go tobogganing near the quarries. Hell, if they time it right, Scott will probably try and join them - the jury’s out on whether or not they can sneak that past Grandma.

But for now, Gordon’s perfectly content to stand with his family, and watch the snow fall.

#thunderbirds are go #Thunderbirds 2015 #Gordon Tracy #grandma tracy #Scott Tracy #John Tracy #Virgil Tracy #alan tracy #kayo kyrano #tag team secret santa #secret santa 2020

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destieltropecollection · 4 years

Photo

Destiel Trope Collection 2020 Day 4: Canon Compliant

The End and the Beginning | @deansrightfulangerissue

Rating: Teen & Up Word Count: 1019 Main Tags/Warnings: Loss, Canon Universe, Angst, Rebirth Summary: There is only one way for Cas to escape The Empty's reach.

Where Happiness Exists | @spnsmile

Rating: General Word Count: 1398 Main Tags/Warnings: Fluff, Hurt and Comfort, Summary: Castiel listens to Eileen and Sam's goodbye and asks Dean questions... Why is she going? Why is Sam not stopping her? Dean makes a guess or two. and Cas learns not everyone stays. At least, not for Dean.

Don’t Worry, Bee Happy | @wargurl83

Rating: Teen & Up Word Count: 2264 Main Tags/Warnings: Fluff, Bees, Destiel if you squint, Dean's language is the reason for the T rating, I've been informed that it's Destiel even if you don't squint Summary: Dean doesn't get time off. So when he does, he tends to take every advantage of it that he can. Except there are dicks with wings that just won't leave him alone.

A Drive Under the Moonlight | @gii-heylittleangel

Rating: General Word Count: 2530 Main Tags/Warnings: beteen 5x01 and 5x03 Summary: Dean has had a lot of fights with Sam—growing up so close together can do that—but sometimes he just can’t stand being near his brother, so he just takes Baby for a drive until his head gets clear.

Why Did You Do It? | @gii-heylittleangel

Rating: Teen & Up Word Count: 2751 Main Tags/Warnings: ex-demon!Dean; mild hurt/comfort Summary: Dean doesn't know how to feel after being cured. If he's being really honest, he would say that he misses being a demon.

Creation Day | @noiproksa

Rating: General Word Count: 2800 Main Tags/Warnings: Fluff, Family Feels, Canon Compliant, Angel Culture and Customs Summary: Angels are such a weird species, but Dean is prepared to look past all that if it means making Cas feel comfortable. So when Sam finds a book entitled ‘Angel Customs and Rituals,’ Dean’s curiosity is piqued.

No Vacancy | @pray4jensen

Rating: Explicit Word Count: 2803 Main Tags/Warnings: Canon Compliant, Hurt Castiel, Sharing a Bed, Angst, Fallen Castiel, Bittersweet Ending, Coda to 9.06, Top Dean/Bottom Castiel Summary: After the Rit Zien attacks Cas at Nora's house, Dean takes him to his motel room to treat his injuries. He ends up staying the night.

Truth Or Dare | @cr-noble-writes

Rating: Explicit Word Count: 2944 Main Tags/Warnings: canon-compliant, pwp, top!cas, bottom!dean, adult truth or dare Summary: Truth or Dare seemed like a good way to pass the time until they had to go after Lucifer. After everyone else fell asleep, the game turns naughty between Dean and Castiel.

The End for the Last Time | @deansrightfulangerissue

Rating: Mature Word Count: 3024 Main Tags/Warnings: Temporary Majoy Character Death, Pre-fic Minor Character Death, Canon Universe, Angst with a Happy Ending, Divine!Dean Summary: In the end, Dean kills God. But his action brings unfathomable consequence that forces him to make a sacrifice he could never expect.

Ramble On | @misha-moose-dean-burger-lover

Rating: General Word Count: 3059 Main Tags/Warnings: John Winchester's A+ Parenting, Dean Winchester-centric, Mentions of childhood, Sam Winchester ships Castiel/Dean Winchester, Castiel and Selfies, Established Castiel/Dean Winchester Summary: When Dean got his first phone under his real name, he was seventeen. It wasn't even his birthday or anything. There was a vamp nest, a couple cities over. And that time, Sam had won the argument with Dad, and the brothers were to stay behind - and go to school, Sam had primarily argued - while John went off to take care of the hunt. But it was close to holiday season, so no motels had vacancies for more nights than one, and they were looking to stay indefinitely - so John's only option had been to rent a flat. It was a one bedroom place, the kind which would've been cramped if they'd had any furniture at all. The building had an air of misery, but it was probably just the cold. Even the landlord didn't live there anymore. But now, Sam was thirteen and tall, and Dean worked weekends - so they were old enough in John's book, to be left back; with money that wasn't theirs, and that one cellphone with a month's bill paid. Dean's first cellphone.

The Most Important Soul | @cloverhighfive

Rating: General Word Count: 3179 Main Tags/Warnings: canon violence, angst, angsty fluff Summary: Castiel saving Dean from Hell. Castiel has to fight demons but mostly Dean’s own brokenness to try and save him.

Love Me Like There's No Tomorrow | @gii-heylittleangel

Rating: General Word Count: 3490 Main Tags/Warnings: hurt/comfort Summary: It's been a few weeks ever since Chuck decided to end the world. They've been working non-stop since then, but Castiel thinks they deserve a break, at least one day.

The Chamber of Truths | @noiproksa

Rating: General Word Count: 3627 Main Tags/Warnings: Truth Spells, Canon Compliant, Confessions, Friendship, Team Free Will, Fluff, Banter Summary: On a case, Dean and Cas get stuck in a cursed room and the only chance they have at getting out in time is to play along and tell each other ‘meaningful truths.’ (Intended as gen, but can be read as Destiel pre-slash.)

now speak of ruin | @curioussubjects

Rating: Teen & Up Word Count: 4150 Main Tags/Warnings: Coda, Episode Tag, Episode: s15e03 The Rupture, Episode: s15e04 Atomic Monsters, Episode: s15e05 Proverbs 17:3, Episode: s15e06 Golden Time, Episode: s15e07 Last Call, Episode: s15e08 Our Father Who Aren't In Heaven, Angst, Mutual Pining, Canon Compliant, POV Alternating, Character Study Summary: A story about what happens when you don't feel better in the morning.

Whatever It Takes | @cr-noble-writes

Rating: Teen & Up Word Count: 5056 Main Tags/Warnings: major character injury, angst without a happy ending, canon divergent human!Cas Summary: Cas gets hit by a car and ends up in a coma. Dean will do anything to make sure he can tell his boyfriend he loves him at least once. Even if it costs him everything.

Babysitter | @peanutbutterjelly-pie

Rating: General Word Count: 5242 Main Tags/Warnings: Fluff, De-Aged Dean, De-Aged Castiel, Witch Curse, Sam POV Summary: In which the elder Winchester and his angel are turned into three-year-olds, Sam is forced to play the babysitter, Castiel keeps weirding people out with his fancy vocabulary and Dean has got the biggest kid-crush ever.

Angel Cuddles | @noiproksa

Rating: Teen & Up Word Count: 5511 Main Tags/Warnings: Cuddling & Snuggling, Fluff, Witch Curses, Canon Compliant, Self-Made Family, Hurt/Comfort, Team Free Will, Touch-Starved Castiel, Gen or Pre-Slash Summary: Angels need a lot of physical contact, especially when in a human vessel. Dean is determined to give Cas the ‘physical contact’ he requires. Cas is more than suspicious when suddenly, Dean starts touching him more and more.

Hands of Mercy | @amyoatmeal

Rating: Explicit Word Count: 7058 Main Tags/Warnings: human cas, 9x06 coda, hurt/comfort, bed sharing Summary: ""Nobody told you. Nobody explained. You're just shoved out kicking and screaming into this human life, without any idea why any of it feels the way it feels, or why this confusion, which feels like it's … a hair's breadth from terror or pain. You know, just when you think you do understand, it'll turn out you're wrong. You didn't understand anything at all."" After taking out the Rit Zien, Cas finds he has no where to go and asks Dean if he can spend the night with him in his motel room.

Laid Bare | kradarua (AO3)

Rating: Explicit Word Count: 7172 Main Tags/Warnings: Post-Case, djinn, Hallucinations, First Time, First Kiss, Pining Castiel, Rimming, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Dean Winchester Has a Panty Kink Summary: Hunts never go exactly according to plan. Victim is unhelpfully tight-lipped about their experience? Typical. Someone gets thrown into a wall? Par for the course. Djinn captures and poisons one of them? To be expected. Except that Sam killed the Djinn hours ago. And Dean still hasn't woken up. - After a Djinn hunt gone wrong, Castiel takes a stroll through Dean's mind to dispel any remaining poison. The hallucination Dean is trapped in is...unexpected. But not unwelcome.

From The Outside | @peanutbutterjelly-pie

Rating: General Word Count: 10338 Main Tags/Warnings: Fluff, Canon Compliant, Outsider POV Summary: Six people. Six different points of view. And only one conclusion.

Hunger | @ellis-park

Rating: Mature Word Count: 10775 Main Tags/Warnings: Temporary character death, suicidal ideation, eating disorders, grief/mourning, hopeful ending Summary: Dean takes his meal and throws it away, plate and all. He's not hungry. How can he even begin to eat, knowing what he kept from Cas — what he kept from both of them? They could have had something, and now all Dean has is this gaping, empty hole in his stomach, in his chest, and he has to learn to breathe and eat and move around it.

He Said, He Said | zaphodsgirl (AO3)

Rating: Teen & Up Word Count: 11824 Main Tags/Warnings: Case Fic, First Kiss, Monster of the Week Summary: Sam gets a lead on a case somewhere he's sure Dean is going to love, but as they investigate some other things are uncovered instead.

A Hole in the World | FriendofCarlotta (AO3)

Rating: Mature Word Count: 14600 Main Tags/Warnings: Canon-Compliant, POV Dean Winchester, Cas' Deal with The Empty, Alternate Season 15 Summary: Dean wakes up one morning, and everything just feels off. Like something's been taken from him. When the situation becomes unsustainable and Dean needs answers, he heads to Sioux Falls. Soon, Team Free Will 2.0 and the Wayward Sisters find themselves in the middle of their last, greatest fight: the fight to tell their own story.

Tacoma | @ellis-park

Rating: Mature Word Count: 20055 Main Tags/Warnings: Angst with a happy ending, season 15, emotional hurt/comfort Summary: After an explosive fight, Castiel leaves the bunker and Dean decides to let him go. As Cas ventures halfway across the country on a journey to find himself, Dean reevaluates what he needs from life. And what he needs is Cas.

Sounds of Someday (WIP) | @wingsandimpalas

Rating: Explicit Word Count: 31009 Main Tags/Warnings: Canon Divergence, Season 15 - Canon Divergence, post 15x03, Wish-list fic, coda fic Cabin Fic, hurt then comfort, Grief, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Angst with a Happy Ending, Mutual Pining, Snowed In, Dean has abandonment issues. Touch-Starved Dean Post Break-up, Making Up, Getting Together, retirement fic, human cas, Domestic Fluff Summary: ""His relationship with Cas is complicated. Dean doesn't know if he can fix what’s broken between them. But he sure as hell can fix the roof of the cabin so it doesn't cave when the first snowfalls.” ------------------------------------------- Dean’s world has crumbled around him. Learning God's responsible for every awful thing in his life is hitting him hard and worst of all he pushed the person he loves most away. Determined to fix them, Dean tracks Cas down to Rufus's old cabin hoping to repair it and their relationship along the way.

What I Need Most | @a-mandala-rose

Rating: Explicit Word Count: 32297 Main Tags/Warnings: Dean/Cas, Canon Compliant through 11X23, Fake Marriage, Slow Burn, Minor Canonical Character Death, Switching Summary: “I don’t see what makes them, ‘chick flicks’ Dean. Approximately half the cast are males.” “They’re romances Cas. Highly exaggerated and unrealistic love stories. Here,” he says, scrolling through the channel guide and making a new selection, “Star Wars. There’s a movie worth watching.” “You’ve made me watch the entire series before,” Cas points out with a frown. Dean grins. “No such thing as too much Leia, Cas,” he says with a wink. “You do realize that the story of Leia and Han Solo could quite accurately be described as a ‘highly exaggerated and unrealistic love story,’ right?” “But it’s a manly love story, Cas,” Dean defends with a glare, “and there’s nothing highly exaggerated about Han Solo. He’s a badass!” “Wouldn’t a ‘manly’ love story involve a relationship between two men?” Cas asks, seemingly innocent. “I did see a movie like that once, although I’m not certain..” “Dinner!” Dean, splutters, choking on his beer. “How about we make some dinner?” What if Mary wasn't what Dean ""needed most?"" After helping God reconcile with his sister, Dean finds himself in a world with no monsters, no magic, and no way home. At least his best friend is here with him..

The Infinity of the Stars (WIP) | @legendary-destiel

Rating: Explicit Word Count: 49164 Main Tags/Warnings: archangel Cas, true form Cas, wings, feathers, deal with the empty, finding a weapon to kill the empty, bad place, apocalypse world, extracting grace, mutual pining, profound bond, canon-typical violence, stargazing, post-possession nightmares, love confessions, oral sex, anal sex, bottom!Dean/top!Cas, Summary: Castiel wakes up in a familiar place and meets someone he has not seen in years. Explanations are made, and Castiel is confronted with an overwhelming truth. So the Winchesters and their allies head out to an epic adventure - Can they save the universe by finding a way to kill the most powerful cosmic entity? On his way to saving the world, Castiel has to face his fears and restrain his real desires - which gets harder and harder, because a special soul reaches out to his grace - like a flame rearing up to burn dry grass.

Righteous Side Of Hell | Maleyah (AO3)

Rating: Explicit Word Count: 71142 Main Tags/Warnings: Bounty Hunter!Cas, Actual Demon!Dean, Wing Kink, Modern AU, Canon Compliant, Canon Predictions pre-Season 15, Top!Cas, Bottom!Dean, Red String Of Fate, Memory Alteration, Abuse, Happy End, Switching in the end, Fluff and Angst and Smut, Referenced Suicide, Mental Health Issues, Slow Build Summary: Bounty hunters are notorious for getting by on their wits and training. Those who don’t usually land six feet under. Castiel’s been around the block. A former member of The Seekers, he navigates the underbelly of the world alone, his reputation preceding him, his past slithering up in the darkest hours of the night. Sometimes he allows himself to dream of early dawn breakfasts, crackling fires and open windows. One night, high on adrenaline, he boasts there’s a demon watching over him. Guardianship is a divine job. Divine beings are wired for it. Sometimes, however, a peculiar mix of elements draws a less than angelic creature into the mix. These unusual combinations tend to be volatile in nature and the human involved usually doesn’t live long. When he gets bombarded into being a guardian, Dean plans on getting rid of ‘his human’ in a heartbeat. Until he recognises the mess of dark hair and those blue eyes. The last time he saw them, their owner had been sprawled against his bed sheets. Well, fuck me, was the most eloquent thought he could muster in his head. And then they dumped a phonebook worth of rules in his lap. Dean had always despised rules.

it’s an inherently romantic gesture (you keep those) (WIP) | @contemplativepancakes

Rating: Explicit Word Count: 126766 Main Tags/Warnings: fix it fic, canon violence, switch!Dean and Cas, angst with a happy ending Summary: They find him by a river, with dirt streaked down his face. Later that night, Dean sits beside Cas in the cave they had managed to clear out. Dean thinks back to all the lingering touches and looks they’ve exchanged and his frenzied search of purgatory for Cas. He can feel the resolve that’s failed him for years forming. Fuck it, Dean thinks and leans forward to cross the scant distance between them. He’s so close, he can feel Cas’s breath puffing onto his mouth before he leans forward and brushes his lips against Cas. Cas is frozen, so Dean pulls back. “Cas, I just, I can’t lose you again, man. I don’t know if I’d survive that,” he says. Cas looks up at Dean with startled eyes. What would happen if Dean and Cas managed to pull their heads out of their asses while they were in purgatory? This is their canon compliant romance behind closed doors from season 8 to beyond.

Season Z | @cr-noble-writes, malmuses, castielslostwings, cutelittlekittykorner, fangirlingtodeath513, donteverchange-mydude, son-of-a-bitch-spn-family, ellen-of-oz, gii-heylittleangel

Rating: Explicit Word Count: 220673 Main Tags/Warnings: Canon Universe, Canon Divergent from 14x20, Zombie Apocalypse, Miscommunication, Minor Rowena MacLeod/Sam Winchester, Alternate Angel Lore (Supernatural), Fix-It, Chuck is not a good guy, Co-Written, Canon-Typical Violence, Potential Muggle Deaths, Amputation, NSFW, Smut, Slow Burn, Graphic depictions of demons and zombie torture, Gore, Hand Jobs, Blow Jobs, Top Castiel/Bottom Dean Winchester, Temporary Character Death Summary: When Chuck clicked his fingers, the world went to hell. Now it's up to Team Free Will and some unexpected allies to put it back together again. But first, they have to get past the graveyard full of zombies...

#destiel trope collection 2020 #destiel trope collection #destiel #canon compliant #day 4

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dorizardthewizard · 5 years

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Did the Parallax retcon let Hal get off scot-free?

So sometimes I’ve been hearing people saying that retconning Hal as being possessed by a yellow space bug takes away from his character development as Parallax, which is fair enough, but did it really erase all responsibility and consequences of his phase as a villain? Long post under the readmore lol

The Significance of Emerald Twilight

First of all, what good things did Hal becoming Parallax bring to the table? What I like about ET is that is showcased how his biggest strength can also be his biggest weakness – how too much willpower can be extremely damaging. After Coast City was destroyed, Hal couldn’t accept it – until then he always felt that with the most powerful weapon in the universe on his side, with enough willpower he could achieve anything. However, that just leads to him being ten times harder on himself when he makes mistakes. There was no way to reverse Coast City’s destruction, but he still tried to will the whole place back into existence, trying to fix what cannot be undone (hold that thought for later).

When the Guardians reprimanded him for using the ring for personal gain (which is kinda dumb considering what we’ve seen the rings be used for before), it all came crashing down and he was overcome with grief and fear that he’ll fail again, as well as anger at the Guardians for letting this happen. He became obsessed with becoming as powerful as possible to make things right, so that he’ll never fail again, no matter the cost.

Looking back on it, we could argue that it’s a story with great potential but was rushed and really only came into existence to try and shake up sales through shock factor. It would have been much better if they had previously written more hints towards Hal being burnt out, putting too much pressure on himself, growing disillusioned with the Guardians and questioning whether the GLC has made enough of a difference. Instead it just felt like they wanted to send him off as quick as possible, which feels like a great disservice to the character who was the star of GL comics for so many years. Plus, to be honest I don’t really like how he ended up like a cliché villain in stories like Zero Hour. But hey, that’s just me, and we did get Kyle out of it all. Either way, everything changed when the fire nation attacked GL Rebirth happened.

Was Hal released from all responsibility?

I really like the early Geoff Johns era before all the end-of-the-universe events, because it had these stories about Hal trying to rebuild his life and make up for what he’d done. For a start, Johns didn’t just sweep the whole Parallax thing under the rug as if it never happened; Hal wasn’t completely absolved of the blame and responsibility. It took a while for his fellow Lanterns to accept him again, and for him to make peace with his past.

I think this could have been done better though – Johns made it seem like Parallax had been affecting Hal since way before Emerald Twilight, so any moments of self-doubt or reflection before that weren’t truly him. I guess this was to push forward the confident flyboy persona, but we could have had something like Parallax only being able to affect him once he’d had his breakdown. Still, Hal gets some blame put on him since Parallax managed to get hold of him precisely because he did the one thing a Green Lantern should never do: let fear and anger overwhelm him.

It’s also worth mentioning that unlike Kyle’s possession by Parallax in Sinestro Corps War, Hal seemed to be more in control the whole time. Whether because Parallax decided to lay low to take advantage of the fact Hal didn’t know of his existence, or because Hal’s willpower was that strong, I can’t really imagine a yellow space bug wanting to do some of the things Hal did as Parallax. You could see it as Hal’s fear and anger being entirely his, but Parallax warping them to the point of destroying the corps and turning against all his friends. I’m just saying, we could have had a bit more of a compromise between making him redeemable and keeping some of his development from ET, but oh well.

Either way, Hal claimed responsibility for his actions and it wasn’t an easy journey moving on from that. Step one – getting over the guilt.

The consequences: Character progression post-Parallax

You know it’s rough when Guy Gardner is giving Hal Jordan a pep talk. This is a turning point though, where he’s starting to regain his willpower and use it to try and fix what he’s done. Here, it’s rescuing the Lost Lanterns, who he left for dead as Parallax. Luckily he saves almost all of them from Cyborg Superman, but he isn’t forgiven yet for getting them in that situation in the first place.

Much like during ET, he’s still trying to fix everything and make things right, but in order to truly move on he’ll need to do what he couldn’t when Coast City got destroyed – accept that not everything can be reversed.

You can see him progressing towards this in his Earth-based stories. In his adventure with Green Arrow, his tangle with Mongul and his Black Mercies ends with him realising how he needs to focus not on what he’s lost, but on the friends and family he still has.

He starts looking to the future – he reconciles with Batman, becoming a hero again in the eyes of the most skeptical, he reconnects with his family and becomes an inspiration to them for overcoming fear. We see him take his life back again, piece by piece.

It’s subtle, but by Blackest Night, he’s regained his willpower again.

This is actually really refreshing, to see a character who’s been through some shit manage to overcome it and not let others use their past against them. Like what Guy said earlier, he now knows there’s no way to erase his mistakes, so there’s no point in constantly beating himself up over it. All he can do is use his willpower to do more good than bad, and make sure something like Coast City never happens again. It’s honestly inspiring, seeing him fight his way to redemption and come back stronger than before.

His development due to Parallax is not just in how he deals with the aftermath, but also in how he approaches being a Green Lantern at all. Previously, Hal was known intergalactically for being fearless, doing everything he could to live up to his father’s bravery. It wasn’t until Parallax that he truly understood that being a Green Lantern isn’t about ignoring fear, but acknowledging it, and overcoming it. He couldn’t deal with his fears last time and let them overwhelm him, but now he’s learnt to be more in touch with those emotions so no one can use them against him again.

However, there’s still a ways for his character to go.

Future progression

It’s only natural that something like Parallax will have long-term consequences, even if they are more subtle. Hal did well in learning from his experience, but since becoming his willful self again it’s like he takes on too much responsibility. When Earth becomes the setting for Krona to capture the emotional entities, he allies himself with characters like Atrocitus and Larfleeze to look for them, instead of asking the Justice League for help, or at least alerting them on what’s going on. Naturally they weren’t very happy about that.

To be fair, it would be the opposite of helpful if someone like Superman got possessed by Parallax, and Barry actually does briefly in the same issue. Still, letting people like Atrocitus and Sinestro roam around when you’re unable to keep an eye on them all the time isn’t the best idea. Having the JL on call would have been helpful, and if they’d been around to help even sooner, they could have helped locate the entities. It’s too late though – Krona shows up with some entities already in tow and Hal gets his butt kicked so bad he ends up on the Watchtower infirmary, but he still won’t accept their help.

Insisting on flying solo is already a pretty core trait of his, which only gets worse at moments like this. He tries to handle as much as he can on his own so no one else gets hurt because of him again, but all this does is wear him out and push away those who want to help. I kinda wish we could have focused on the consequences of this a bit more so he’d learn something from it, but Johns didn’t really touch on it again before Venditti took over. This theme does actually carry over into his time as corps leader though, but maybe that’s a post for another time – this one is long enough as it is :’P

TL;DR

The Parallax retcon may have made Hal redeemable, but he still had to work for it. Parallax was developed throughout Johns’s run rather than shoved aside and forgotten, and some of the best Green Lantern stories came from this.

#dc #green lantern #hal jordan #parallax #justice league #blackest night #geoff johns #dc meta #green lantern meta #dc comics #this probably made more sense in my head lol #someone: hal was boring after parallax #me: but have you conSIDERED-#my posts

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antiquatedfuture · 5 years

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Zine Care Packages (Antiquated Future Spring Newsletter)

What a challenging time. Things have felt pretty bleak and I debated about whether to send this spring newsletter a lot, but friends convinced me we're all in need of good news. If nothing else, I want to say two things: 1) We'll still be shipping orders (with plenty of hand-washing and sanitizing) several times a week. 2) While we always appreciate and need your financial support, we'd also like to offer the resources we have to any of you who are having a hard time.

In short: We're offering free zines (and tapes and books) to anyone who's currently struggling financially, mentally, or physically right now. No need to tell us details, just email and say "I'd like a package," and we'll send one your way. Let it be a surprise or make a list of what you'd like and we'll send you what we can. Feel free to spread the word to your friends and community through our Facebook or Twitter posts. It's not much, admittedly, but hopefully it's something.

In more general distro news: we have a few more calendars & planners in stock (and very very on sale), we’ve been restocking things as much as we can, and we accidentally left up our temporary store-wide cassette sale (that also includes a decent handful of LPs and CDs) as well as our zine sale on select titles. We also just posted a newsletter from the record label side of Antiquated Future. We're currently lending some small financial assistance to Portland writer Martha Grover as she recovers from a brain surgery by selling a fundraiser pack of her Somnambulist zine. And if you're in the Portland area, we're helping do porch deliveries of food, baby supplies, and various resources. Please reach out if you'd like one or you know someone in need.

NEW ZINES Antonia- A rare, almost-sublime zine about place, memory, and lost history. About the ways things change and stay the same. About how the place you're from shapes who you become. About growing up in a small Midwestern town without a zip code, a place not on most maps. ($5) Behind the Zines #9: A Zine About Zines- The latest issue of newest best zine about zines around. Within: the evolution of DIY comics culture, zine-fest history, imagined zines, One Punk's Guide to collaborative zines, a history of that one Crimethinc poster, The Most Unwanted Zine, confessions of a sex-zine zinester. Contributions from our own Gina Sarti, as well as John Porcellino and so many others. ($3) Brainscan #34: A Dabbler's Week of DIY Witchery- In the wake of the controversy surrounding a recent viral article about spending a week "becoming a witch," Alex considers what her guide to a witchcraft practice would look like. The results are a day-by-day guide to trying out her particular variety of secular witchcraft (that she lovingly refers to as "DIY witchery"). ($4)

Caboose #12: Jury Duty- A personal story of serving as a juror on a medical malpractice suit. As usual, Liz Mason's playful, endlessly curious take on the world makes this a ride worth taking. A peek into the court system through the eyes of this long-running zine-star. ($4) Clock Tower Nine #15- One of our favorite Seattle zines is back with tales from the record store counter, long walks in various locales, dangerous doppelgängers, and 8-track tapes. As Clock Tower Nine ringleader Danny Noonan describes it in the introduction: "This fanzine is like a bunch of people sitting around a fire in late fall, all taking turns telling a story." ($3) Cometbus #59: Post-Mortem- How does Cometbus, after 38 years as a zine, just get better and better? It's a mystery, but it does. Issue 59 is a deep dive into both death and longevity in the underground. In short: what does sustainability look like in counterculture? This question takes Aaron on a journey from the Epitaph Records and Thrasher magazine offices to hanging out at a punk-owned vegan donut shop and a tamale stand at the farmer's market with Allison Wolfe (of Bratmobile). ($5)

Doris #23- A back-issue fave from one of the best zines ever. Long personal stories that look both outward and inward in surprising ways. ($2) Doris #26- Shy-punk-girl comics, social ecology, the cynical hour, a grandpa who built malls, hammer and nail history, and more. ($2) Eulalia #3- Two issues of the art zine Eulalia in one. Grief and romance, hand-in-hand. Gorgeously designed! Letterpress-printed covers. Each issue is bound with a special do-si-do binding, so each half can be read separately. ($10) Fluke Fanzine #17- Since 1991, Fluke has been creating great variety zines covering all realms of punk and underground culture. Graphic novelist Nate Powell, skateboard magazine historians, Maximum Rocknroll, R.E.M., '90s women-led punk, the Soophie Nun Squad family tree, more. ($3)

Forever & Everything #5- Comics on parenting, depression, coffee, therapy, alcohol, Willie Nelson, Charlie Brown, and living in New Orleans. ($5) Good Days Gone Cold Days- A photography zine/art zine made while living and working in "a house without heat, without doorknobs, and without much insulation or electricity to speak of" for a late fall in western Pennsylvania. Comes with homemade bookmark, building permit, and banjo tab. ($12) Keep Loving, Keep Fighting #8- A reprint of this 2008 issue of Keep Loving, Keep Fighting. Forty pages of feeling at home in New Orleans, communication between friends, death, visiting Montreal, and moving away. ($5)

Learning Good Consent- An essential compilation zine about consent. From personal stories to worksheets, approaches, definitions, resources, and beyond, Learning Good Consent is here to help us all feel more comfortable and be more respectful. ($4)

Little Leagues #1- The companion comics scrapbook to Simon Moreton's epic Minor Leagues series. Prose, comics and photos about being in Japan, making chutney, experiencing autumn. ($3) Little Leagues #2- Comics about being in the snow. Drawings and photos of spring. A fold-out cover with facts about lesser-spotted dogfish. ($3) Our Lady of Near Death Experiences- Jodi Darby writes about becoming a cross-country truck driver as a 23-year-old woman in the mid 1990s. A mini-memoir told in vignettes, Our Lady is a twisted love song to the road in all its complexities. A gorgeous reprint of this zine classic from 1998. (And we have the last few copies before it goes out of print!) ($10)

The Paruretic #1: The Story of a Guy Who's Pee Shy- The first issue of one of our favorite new zine series. The Paruretic tells what the intricacies and complexities of life with parusesis, the social phobia of being pee shy. Illuminating, accessible, and worth reading every issue. ($2)

The Paruretic #2: The Story of a Guy Who's Pee Shy (College)- In this issue, Mark recalls figuring out the debilitating effects of his bladder issues when he goes to college and, for the first time, navigates living in dorms, drinking at college-town bars, and hooking-up. ($3)

The Paruretic #3: The Story of a Guy Who's Pee Shy (Vacation)- In this issue: searching out acceptable bathrooms while on the road, not urinating for ten hours while in the air, and a bathroom-by-bathroom diary of experiences. ($3) The Paruretic #4: The Story of a Guy Who's Pee Shy (The Search for Help)- In this issue, Mark reaches out, looking for help, and is met with a less-than-sympathetic medical system. Within: clueless medical professionals, almost losing a job over a urinalysis, and finally finding someone who understands. ($3) The Paruretic #5: The Story of a Guy Who's Pee Shy (Dating)- The dating issue covers how Mark handled (or avoided handling) dating in high school and college. It's a chronicle of, as Mark says, "how my shy bladder has driven every part of my love life." ($3)

Somnambulist Zine Pack Fundraiser- For the past 17 years, Portland memoirist and illustrator Martha Grover has been publishing Somnambulist zine, an expansive and playful look at the world at large (and easily one of the best zines running today). This pack includes all nine in-print issues of Somnambulist (a $40 value for $25!). All proceeds go straight to Martha's brain surgery recovery fund. Help a great writer, get nine amazing zines. ($25) Somnambulist #33: How to Survive the Portland Winter- A fun how-to guide from Portland-born writer Martha Grover. Within: dealing with all the rain, taking care of your mental health, venturing out, staying in, eating soup (with recipes!), and the truth about umbrellas. Illustrated by Liz Yerby. ($5)

Somnambulist #34: The Starfish- A single, long-form essay about Martha's journey through Cushing's disease and Addison's disease, and the lingering tumor she's chosen to not demonize or see as something separate. The Starfish is a surprising and exciting meditation on what it means to be in a body. ($3) Surely, They'll Tear it Down- A short zine letter about gender, race, identity, and not-knowing from the author of Fixer Eraser and We, the Drowned. ($2) Tattoo Punk Fanzine, Issue 3- A jam-packed new issue of Tattoo Punk, the fanzine about tattoos, punks, and tattooed punks. Edited by Ben Trogdon of everyone's favorite artsy punk paper, Nuts! ($15) Valentines Every Day- Weirdo anytime-valentines from zine-seller extraordinaire, Julie Wade. Funny, bizarre, off-kilter, occasionally unsettling. The perfect gift for that especially-odd someone. ($6) What Happened- A dreamy comic from UK artist Simon Moreton. Set in a '90s boyhood of meadows, sci-fi VHS tapes, MTV, crushes, first kisses. ($5)

NEW BOOKS & MISCELLANY The Collected Plays by Portland Preschoolers- In short: One of our favorite little books around! A modern classic, even. Five years of collected plays written by Portland, Oregon preschoolers. Hilarious, invariably bizarre, oddly brilliant, sometimes surprisingly profound. Perfect for putting out on the coffee table, reading aloud to friends, impromptu group performances. ($10) Four-Year Depression- A book about figuring out how to love your family in the Trump era. From Billy McCall of Proof I Exist and Behind the Zines. ($10) Zine Game- A long-time favorite in the zine community, now in a fancy, professionally-made version accessible to all game lovers. Playing like a cross between canasta and Magic: The Gathering, Zine Game is all about building your own zines. A really fun time with tons of possibilities. ($16)

NEW MUSIC & SPOKEN WORD Alice Notley "Live in Seattle"- An LP of one of the most adored living poets. Alice Notley pushes boundaries, and it's an absolute joy to hear her reading her work. (LP + digital download) ($16.95) Annelyse Gelman & Jason Grier "About Repulsion"- A collaboration between poet Annelyse Gelman and sound artist Jason Grier. About Repulsion mixes songs, sampled poems, textural walls, beats, noise, to create this EP of one-of-a-kind soundscapes. (LP + digital download) ($16.95) Eileen Myles "Aloha / Irish Trees"- The legendary poet Eileen Myles, on vinyl for the first time. Aloha/Irish Trees features nearly an hour of Myles live in the studio, reading past and present poems. Intimate, playful, raw. (LP + digital download) ($16.95)

Harmony Holiday "The Black Saint and the Sinnerman"- Harmony Holiday's record of poems and sound collage. Adventurous and accessible, twisting cultural images into something surprising, political, socially aware. In conversation with Charles Mingus’ classic 1963 album The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady. (LP + digital download) ($16.95) Rae Armantrout "Conflation"- Fifty-four surprising and gloriously unique poems from Rae Armantrout, a Pulitzer-winning poet of great gifts. (LP + digital download) ($16.95) Susan Howe & Nathaniel Mackey "Stray: A Graphic Tone"- Made in collaboration with Shannon Ebner, Stray: A Graphic Tone juxtaposes historic and recent material from poets Susan Howe and Nathaniel Mackey. An adventurous LP of spoken word delights. (LP + digital download) ($16.95)

Stay well, take care of each other as much as possible. Xo, Antiquated Future

#zine distro #new zines #zines #chapbooks #spoken word #vinyl #new lps #new books #care packages #zine care packages #free zines #portland

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ceekbee · 4 years

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Anger

I feel very bad for angry people, for I see them creating their own hells to live in, and they usually don't even realize it. I've seen few things in the world that deserve the kind of anger that we see on a regular basis; on the radio this morning, one of the disc jockeys was telling about taking her mother to a cancer treatment center. She parked the car close to the entrance to help her mother into the center, and as soon as she was out of the car, the person in the car behind her started laying on the horn. This person actually came up and hit the back of her car with his car-- not hard enough to do any damage, but hard enough to let them know he was angry.

I feel very sad for this man. He can't be happy with life if such a trivial thing can cause such rage in him. Inner peace? Forget it. He's probably so busy looking for excuses to be angry that he never notices the beauty of the world, the wonderful parts of life, the nice people who surround him every day. I've known people like him, and there's no convincing them that life is wonderful, because it can't be since people are such jerks. But people aren't jerks. They do jerk-like things on a regular basis--we all do--but that doesn't make us jerks.

The angry person reacts in anger and causes others to be angry, and a cycle begins. My hope is that I'm able to be a person who ends such a cycle, a person who reacts to anger with love and understanding, because the angry people need that more than anything else.

Reacting in anger is merely perpetuating these people's belief that their anger is justified, but reacting in love may get them to question whether or not their anger is justified, effective, and/or helpful to them.

We can't psychoanalyze everyone we meet. We can't say this person is angry because she's been neglected, or this one is angry because he's trying to compensate for feelings of inadequacy. We need to separate the anger from the person, the creation of God who stands before us and who deserves our love.

When I'm tempted to react angrily myself, I try to remember to ask myself this question: Am I contributing to the anger in the world, or am I contributing to the peace and love in the world? I need to contribute to the love--we all do. Love is the only power that can cause a permanent change.

Of course, we have to look at the other side of anger--the side that gets us to act when we see an injustice done to another person, the side that causes the feeling of righteous indignation that gets us moving and feeling for others. There is injustice in the world, and as Arthur Ponsoby points out below, if our lack of anger is a sign of indifference, then it's a big problem for us and for those people with whom we share the world.

But we still have to control this anger, as Aristotle points out below. Unchecked and misdirected anger is destructive, and if we're to be angry at all, we want that anger to be constructive, not destructive. Controlling our anger takes learning and practice, and we have to keep learning from our mistakes and the mistakes of others to learn how to use our anger effectively, and to know when to recognize anger that's justified, and anger that's a reflection, a symptom, of something else that's going wrong in our lives.

Anger destroys the angry person and all those around him or her. The

angry father can cause fear and terror among his children. The angry

wife and mother can manipulate with a force and subtlety that can be

felt for years. Open anger roars through human relations with a

destructive force--a firestorm. The hidden anger that burns and attacks

and manipulates can last for years. It destroys the underbrush; it twists

and poisons the ground growth. And so with us. The ferocious exterior

flame is uncontrollable except over a long period of work and time.

We must isolate our anger and allow it to burn itself out.

Edward J. Lavin

quotations - contents - welcome page - obstacles

the people behind the words - our current e-zine - articles and excerpts

Daily Meditations, Year One - Year Two - Year Three - Year Four

Eugene Carman

Rhodes' slave! Selling shoes and gingham,

Flour and bacon, overalls, clothing, all day long

For fourteen hours a day for three hundred and thirteen days

for more than twenty years.

Saying "Yes'm" and "Yes, sir" and "Thank you"

A thousand times a day, and all for fifty dollars a month.

Living in this stinking room in the rattle-trap "Commercial."

And compelled to go to Sunday School, and to listen

To the Rev. Abner Peet one hundred and four times a year

For more than an hour at a time,

Because Thomas Rhodes ran the church

As well as the store and the bank.

So while I was tying my neck-tie that morning

I suddenly saw myself in the glass:

My hair all gray, my face like a sodden pie.

So I cursed and cursed: You damned old thing!

You cowardly dog! You rotten pauper!

You Rhodes' slave! Till Roger Baughman

Thought I was having a fight with someone,

And looked through the transom just in time

To see me fall on the floor in a heap

From a broken vein in my head.

Edgar Lee Masters

from Spoon River Anthology

How could I feel so miserable in the midst of such splendor? The question flashed

through me all at once, not waiting for words to express it. The answer came

more slowly: No one makes you angry. Anger, like love, is something you choose.

Stunned, I sat down in the middle of the field I'd been walking through.

I knew I needed to look within myself, let go of my anger and have a quiet talk with God.

Susan L. Taylor

No person can think clearly when his or her fists are clenched.

George Jean Nathan

Anger is a symptom, a way of cloaking and expressing feelings too awful

to experience directly--hurt, bitterness, grief and, most of all, fear.

Joan Rivers

Anger is not only inevitable, it is necessary. Its absence

means indifference, the most disastrous of all human failings.

Arthur Ponsoby

As long as anger lives, it continues to be the fruitful parent of

many unhappy children.

St. John Climacus

They are fools who cannot be angry;

but they are wise people who will not.

Proverb

anger 2

Anger in its time and place,

May assume a kind of grace.

It must have some reason in it,

And not last beyond a minute.

If to further lengths it go,

It does into malice grow.

'Tis the difference we can see

'Twixt the serpent and the bee.

If the latter you provoke,

It inflicts a hasty stroke,

Put you to some little pain,

But it never stings again.

Close in tufted bush or brake

Lurks the poison-swelled snake

Nursing up his cherished wrath;

In the purlieus* of his path,

In the cold, or in the warm,

Mean him good, or mean him harm,

Wheresoever fate may bring you

The vile snake will always sting you.

Charles and Mary Lamb

*place where one goes often

Anger makes you smaller, while forgiveness

forces you to grow beyond what you were.

Cherie Carter-Scott

Ruby stepped toward him. "Edward," she said softly. It was

the first time she had called him by name. "Learn this from me.

Holding anger is a poison. It eats you from inside. We think that

hating is a weapon that attacks the person who harmed us. But

hatred is a curved blade. And the harm we do, we do to ourselves.

"Forgive, Edward. Forgive. Do you remember the lightness

you felt when you first arrived in heaven?"

Eddie did. Where is my pain?

"That's because no one is born with anger. And when we die,

the soul is freed of it. But now, here, in order to move on, you must

understand why you felt what you did, and why you no longer need to feel it."

She touched his hand.

"You need to forgive your father."

Mitch Albom

The Five People You Meet in Heaven

It is wise to direct your anger towards problems--not people;

to focus your energies on answers--not excuses.

William Arthur Ward

If you get angry easily, it may be because the seed of anger in

you has been watered frequently over many years, and unfortunately

you have allowed it or even encouraged it to be watered.

Thich Nhat Hanh

- From Living Life Fully

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frmartinshomiliesandreflections · 4 years

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14th April >> Fr. Martin’s Gospel Reflections / Homilies on John 20:11-18 for Easter Tuesday: ‘Who are you looking for?’.

Easter Tuesday

Gospel (Europe, Africa, New Zealand, Australia & Canada)

John 20:11-18

'I have seen the Lord and he has spoken to me'

Mary stayed outside near the tomb, weeping. Then, still weeping, she stooped to look inside, and saw two angels in white sitting where the body of Jesus had been, one at the head, the other at the feet. They said, ‘Woman, why are you weeping?’ ‘They have taken my Lord away’ she replied ‘and I don’t know where they have put him.’ As she said this she turned round and saw Jesus standing there, though she did not recognise him. Jesus said, ‘Woman, why are you weeping? Who are you looking for?’ Supposing him to be the gardener, she said, ‘Sir, if you have taken him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will go and remove him.’ Jesus said, ‘Mary!’ She knew him then and said to him in Hebrew, ‘Rabbuni!’ – which means Master. Jesus said to her, ‘Do not cling to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go and find the brothers, and tell them: I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’ So Mary of Magdala went and told the disciples that she had seen the Lord and that he had said these things to her.

Gospel (USA)

John 20:11–18

I have seen the Lord, and he said these things to me.

Mary Magdalene stayed outside the tomb weeping. And as she wept, she bent over into the tomb and saw two angels in white sitting there, one at the head and one at the feet where the Body of Jesus had been. And they said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken my Lord, and I don’t know where they laid him.” When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus there, but did not know it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” She thought it was the gardener and said to him, “Sir, if you carried him away, tell me where you laid him, and I will take him.” Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni,” which means Teacher. Jesus said to her, “Stop holding on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am going to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” Mary went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord,” and then reported what he had told her.

Reflections (7)

(i) Easter Tuesday

In these days when so many people are confined to their homes, those who have a back garden consider themselves very fortunate. We have had some lovely weather and it is very therapeutic to go out into the garden and ‘potter around’, as my father used to say. At this time of the year, gardens are places of new life. Shrubs are coming into bud, grass is beginning to grow and some flowers are starting to show their colour. According to John’s gospel, the tomb where Jesus was buried was in a garden. When the risen Lord appeared to Mary Magdalene near to the empty tomb, she initially thought he must be the gardener. There is some relationship between the work of the risen Lord and the work of a gardener. The gardener tends the ground so that it bears the life of nature. The risen Lord tends the human person so that he or she bears the life of the Spirit. It was only when this stranger called Mary by her name that she recognized his true identity. He was not the gardener; he was the Lord whose body she had been seeking and for whom she had been weeping. The light of the risen Lord’s presence penetrated the darkness of her grief. She would go on to say to the other disciples, ‘I have seen the Lord’. Like Mary, we don’t always recognize the presence of the Lord in our lives. She was blinded by her grief. We too can be blinded by grief, or anxiety or remorse or despondency. There was something about the way the Lord came to Mary that made her think that he could have been the gardener. The Lord often comes to us in very simple and ordinary guises, calling us by name, as he called Mary by name. In these difficult days, we pray for eyes to see the Lord’s presence and ears to hear his very personal call to us. He comes to us every day as light into our darkness, as he came to Mary while in the depths of her loss and grief, and he sends us out to say with our lives, ‘I have seen the Lord’.

And/Or

(ii) Easter Tuesday

All of us will have wept at the death of a loved one at some point in our lives. When people who are close to us die it affects us deeply. The sadness of loss is one of the deepest of human agonies. In this morning’s gospel reading Mary Magdalene is to be found weeping outside the tomb of Jesus. Her deep sadness at the death of Jesus has been compounded by the absence of his body. When there is no body to focus our grief the sadness of loss can be even more traumatic. To the question, ‘Why are you weeping?’ she can only answer, ‘they have taken my Lord away and I don’t know where they have put him’. Into that deep grief of Mary steps the risen Lord. Initially, Mary’s grief blinds her to his presence; she mistakes him for the gardener. When we are grieving the loss of a loved one, we don’t always recognize the Lord’s presence to us initially. Our grief can overwhelm us and isolate us. It was when the risen Lord spoke Mary’s name that she recognized him. The Lord speaks our name too when we find ourselves in a dark valley of grief or in some other form of darkness. We need to be attentive to the Lord speaking our name. He relates to each of us in a very personal way, especially in our darkest moments. He comes to us as he came to Mary to bring light to our darkness and to proclaim the triumph of life over death. From being paralyzed by grief, Mary became the messenger of Easter joy to the other disciples, the apostle to the disciples. The Lord who was transformed by his resurrection had a transforming effect on Mary. The risen Lord can have the same transforming impact on all of our lives, empowering us to become his messengers of the good news of Easter.

And/Or

(iii) Easter Tuesday

In the gospel reading, the risen Lord asks Mary two questions, ‘Woman, why are you weeping? Who are you looking for?’ Mary was weeping because she could not find Jesus for whom she was looking. Some of the sadness in our lives comes from a sense of loss, an awareness of unfulfilled longing. We have probably all known that particular form of sadness. We long for something or someone, and because that longing goes unfulfilled, we experience a sense of deep sadness. In the gospel reading, Mary’s longing for Jesus was satisfied. The risen Lord spoke her name, and her sadness was banished as she clung to him. Yet, even in that moment of great joy, she had to learn to let go of Jesus as she had known him. Because Jesus was returning to the Father, from now on he would relate to her and to all of his disciples in a new way. He would be as close to her and his disciples as he ever was, indeed even closer, but in a different way. The gospel reading assures us that, even if many of our longings go unsatisfied, our longing for the Lord, which is our deepest longing, will always be satisfied. The Lord speaks our name as he spoke Mary’s name. Because of his death and resurrection, his Father is now our Father and his God is now our God. In journeying from this world to the Father, the Lord draws us into his relationship with God, thereby making us his brothers and sisters and brothers and sisters of each other. If we open our lives to him and search for him as Mary did, we will come to experience this quality of communion with him and with each other.

And/Or

(iv) Easter Tuesday

There is a very strong emphasis in this morning’s gospel reading on the weeping of Mary Magdalene. She stood outside the tomb weeping. The angels asked her, ‘Woman, why are you weeping?’ Jesus asked her, ‘Why are you weeping?’ She weeps because she cannot find the Lord. We weep when we lose someone who is significant for us, or when we cannot seem to connect with someone important to us, no matter how hard we try. We search and we cannot find, and, so, we grieve. In the case of Mary, she searched and she found – or, rather, the Lord for whom she was searching found her, as he called out to her by her name, ‘Mary’. We may not always succeed in finding our loved ones for whom we search, but we will always find the Lord if we search for him, because he is always searching for us. He is the good shepherd who calls his own by name. The Lord is calling our name, even before we begin to search for him. Our finding the Lord is always in response to the Lord’s search for us. He came to seek and to save the lost, and we are all lost to some degree. The Lord seeks us out in his love. All we need to do is to put ourselves in the way of his searching love, as Mary Magdalene did. She has something to teach us about seeking the Lord in our pain and loss.

And/Or

(v) Easter Tuesday

The Easter garden in our church is looking lovely. Several parishioners have contributed potted plants to transform what was a Lenten garden with a desert look into a flowering Easter garden. The gospel reading this morning makes a link between Easter and a garden. John’s gospel from which we read this morning places the tomb of Jesus in a garden. When the risen Lord appears to Mary Magdalene, she initially mistakes him for the gardener. Because Jesus had been raised into a new and glorious life, into a transformed life, he wasn’t initially recognizable by his disciples. He was the same Jesus who had been crucified and, yet, he had been changed. He could no longer be seen in the way other people are seen. It was only when the risen Jesus called Mary by name that she recognized that the man speaking with her was not the gardener but Jesus himself. We too do not see the Lord as we see other people and, yet, the Lord is as present to us as other people are. Indeed he is more present to us than other people are, because he is more alive than anyone else, as he shares in God’s glorious life. The risen Lord calls us by name as he called Mary Magdalene by name. He declares to us as he declared to her that his Father is our Father and his God is our God. He draws us into a sharing in his own intimate relationship with God, because of which we become his brothers and sisters. These are the graces of Easter. This Easter week is a time when we allow ourselves some space to savour these graces and, also, to hear the call that goes with those graces, the call to witness to the risen Lord before others, as Mary Magdalene did.

And/Or

(vi) Easter Tuesday

In today’s gospel reading, the evangelist traces Mary Magdalene’s journey towards Easter faith. Initially she is weeping at the empty tomb of Jesus. She then saw Jesus standing there but didn’t recognize him, assuming he was the gardener. Then in response to Jesus calling her name, she recognized the figure standing before her as Jesus. She was not yet at Easter faith. She called Jesus ‘Master’, which was the title she had given him before his death, and she clung to him. She had to learn to let Jesus go. He would no longer be with his disciples as he was before his death. He would be with them in a new way in and through the Holy Spirit. Only when she had let go of her former relationship with Jesus could she finally be sent out as a messenger of Easter faith, ‘I have seen the Lord’. At the beginning of the gospel reading, Mary was a disciple weeping for the dead Jesus. At the end of the reading, she was a joyful messenger of the Easter good news. We are all on a similar journey towards a fully mature Easter faith. Part of that journey will involve for us, as it did for Mary, a letting go of Jesus. Mary had to learn that she could not possess Jesus. There was more to Jesus as risen Lord than she imagined. We too have to let go of Jesus as we might want him to be. We cannot possess the risen Lord, no more than Mary could. We can only allow ourselves to be possessed by him who said of himself, ‘I am the Truth’. I have recently been readingBenedict XVI: Last Testament in his own words. Towards the end of this extended interview he says, ‘We cannot say, “I have the truth”, but the truth has us, it touches us. And we try to let ourselves be guided by this touch’.

And/Or

(vii) Easter Tuesday

At the beginning of today’s gospel reading, we find a very sorrowful Mary Magdalene. She is outside the tomb of Jesus weeping. Not only has Jesus been crucified, but now, in her judgement, some people have stolen his body. When someone dies tragically and the person’s body is not found, it makes the grieving process for loved ones all the more difficult and complicated. The risen Lord was present to Mary in her grief, just as earlier in John’s gospel Jesus had been present to the grieving Martha and Mary in the wake of the death of their brother Lazarus. Yet, Mary Magdalene’s grief blinded her to the presence of the risen Lord. The risen Jesus was no less present to his disciples than he had been during his public ministry, but his presence as risen Lord was of a different quality. He had been transformed through his resurrection from the dead and the mode of his presence to his disciples had also been transformed and wasn’t as easily recognizable. The two disciples on the road to Emmaus did not recognize him in the stranger who journeyed with them. With the exception of the beloved disciple, the group of disciples in a boat on the Sea of Galilee after Easter did not recognize the Lord in the stranger who called out to them from the shore. Now Mary Magdalene images the risen Lord who speaks to her to be the gardener. We too often fail to recognize the many ways the risen Lord is present to us. He can be present to us in the gardener, or in the one who walks with us on our journey or in the one who calls out to us from the shore. The same kind of deep sadness that Mary Magdalene experienced can blind us to the Lord’s presence to us in such dark times. Mary Magdalene recognized the risen Lord when he called her name, when he related to her in a very personal way. The Lord calls out to us by name too; he wants to enter into a deeply personal relationship with each of us. This Easter we are invited to allow ourselves to become more attuned to the Lord calling us by name, speaking a word of light and life into our own uniquely personal situation in life.

Fr. Martin Hogan, Saint John the Baptist Parish, Clontarf, Dublin, D03 AO62, Ireland.

Email: [email protected] or [email protected]

Parish Website: www.stjohnsclontarf.ie Please join us via our webcam.

Twitter: @SJtBClontarfRC.

Facebook: St John the Baptist RC Parish, Clontarf.

Tumblr: Saint John the Baptist Parish, Clontarf, Dublin.

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blessedarethebinarybreakers · 4 years

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What is your thoughts on feelings? Like, my dad and I get into this argument a lot, its mainly that you shouldn't let feelings dictate your life and you should let God have full control over it because your heart is in nature sinful. I agree with him to a certain extent, it's just that we're human and we have feelings for a reason. Idk but I'd really like to know what you think!

I’m with you -- by all means, we shouldn’t let our feelings control us; we should be aware that our feelings can mislead us or cause us to act rashly or lash out at others. But they are also important parts of how God fashioned us. God didn’t fashion us to be, what? thoughtless or emotionless automatons! or puppets God controls!

God gifted us with free will because Xe longs for genuine, mutual relationship with us -- such a relationship cannot happen when one party controls the other. So God chooses to limit Hir power to let us choose our own path -- even while God continuously guides us towards the paths that will lead to our abundance.

And yeah, our feelings are influenced by sin, and by things like fear, and our limited perspective on any given situation. But they also help us recognize things we might not otherwise notice -- our needs and wants, what we are called to do and how we are called to grow... We are embodied, inspirited beings, and from the beginning God called that embodiment and that inspiritedness good (Genesis 1:31). So it’s good for us to learn how best to live as embodied spirits -- not to let our emotions control us, but to learn how to listen to them, what they can tell us about ourselves and our relationships with others and with God.

I want to share this quote with you, and recommend the book it’s from -- Learning to Walk in the Dark by Barbara Brown Taylor. It’s all about learning to faithfully embrace our emotions, from joy into pain, to listen to them and ask God to help us learn what all these many feelings can teach us. Here’s the quote:

“What if I could learn to trust my feelings, instead of asking to be delivered from them? What if I could follow one of my great fears all the way to the edge of the abyss, take a breath, and keep going? Isn’t there a better chance of being surprised by what happens next? …After years of being taught that the way to deal with painful emotions is to get rid of them, it can take a lot of reschooling to learn to sit with them instead, finding out from those who feel them what they have learned by sleeping in the wilderness that those who sleep in comfortable houses may never know.”

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Jesus, who is one of the Three Persons of the Triune God, experienced feelings -- the full range of feelings, from happiness to grief, from exhaustion to anger! Examples:

Jesus feels “deeply troubled” or “disturbed” in John 13:21

Jesus feels compassion and tenderness over and over and over again -- towards people who are hungry, or oppressed, or asking for his help, or weeping, and more (e.g. Luke 7;13, Matthew 9:36 and 14:14 and 15:32 and 20:34...)

In Matthew 23:37 / Luke 13:34, Jesus seems to fill a mix of dismay/anger and tenderness, as he complains that Jerusalem has been the execution for many prophets and he wishes he could gather the people there “just as a mother hen gathers her chicks under her wings.”

Likewise in Luke 19:41, he weeps over the city.

Jesus gets pissed off at a fig tree and in the temple (Mark 11:12-25)

Jesus gets frustrated with his disciples for not getting what he’s trying to tell them (Matthew 16:8-12)

Jesus feels tired and thirsty (John 4:6)

Jesus is so full of grief at the death of his friend Lazarus and in viewing the grief of his friends Mary and Martha that he himself sobs and groans (often translated something about being “deeply troubled”) (John 11:33)

And let’s get some happiness in here! “At that very moment, Jesus overflowed with joy from the Holy Spirit and said, ‘I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you’ve hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and shown them to babies. Indeed, Father, this brings you happiness’” (John 10:21). Jesus felt so much joy that he was overflowing with it!

Jesus also speaks of his joy in John 15:11 - “I have said these things to you so that my joy will be in you and your joy will be complete.”

And I do believe that Jesus often felt happiness, and took the time to enjoy food, and nature, and good company. He was visiting people’s homes for dinner like. all the time. And speaks so lovingly of “the flowers of the field” in their beautiful “clothing” (Matthew 6:28)

Jesus apparently was happy, and eating, and drinking, often enough that some accused him of being a drunkard! (Luke 7:34)

Jesus experiences deep fear and agony in the garden of Gethsemane, an emotion so deep that he sweats blood! (Bible passages)

And the ultimate: Jesus feels so much agony and betrayal and pain and humiliation on the cross that he feels abandoned by God, and cries out “My God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46)

If we believe that Jesus never sinned, and he felt the full range of emotion, then how can feelings be sinful? If we consider him a role model, can’t we learn from how he experienced and expressed feelings?

And God Themself is often moved to anger, to compassion, to grief, and more throughout the Bible. I invite you to pay attention to God’s feelings any time you read a bit of scripture -- you’ll notice a lot of them!

___________

Gonna link you to some other posts on my blog that go into this stuff in more detail -- and if you have more questions after checking some of those out feel free to ask!

Some posts about emotions from my FAQ and elsewhere...

Is it a sin to feel anger/hate? What do I do? Answer, Answer

See my #anger tag for more!

See also my #hard emotions tag

Also my #in the valley of the shadow tag

Here’s a nice post on “how to change your mood while honoring your feelings”

And a wonderful post on listening to feelings like anger and jealousy without letting them control you

Posts with examples of feelings in the Bible!...

Quote with examples of biblical figures experiencing difficult feelings.

Here’s a post with some examples of biblical figures calling out to God with deep emotion.

I recommend reading through the Book of Psalms for examples of faithful people feeling the whole range of feelings, from anger and loneliness and doubt to joy and connection and gratitude. Some of these feelings, like hate, shouldn’t be acted on, but the psalmist didn’t pretend they weren’t feeling that hate just because it’s “ugly” or dangerous -- they brought it to God instead.

A quote on Jesus’ suffering

You also might like my tag #the human Jesus

For the idea of God having full control over our lives + free will stuff...

I’ve got a video on the idea of God’s control and “let go, let God” type sentiments

A post on God self-limiting in order to enable our free will

A post on how God is not abusive, and thus will not force or control us

The rest of my #free will tag

#feelings #emotions #control #hard emotions tag #free will #Anonymous #the human jesus #jesus' emotions

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marielle-heller · 5 years

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I’ve been talking with Julie (@marsvronica) about Tim Murphy a lot and I just feel like I need to share our headcanons so here we go, some random ideas:

so I think that most people agree that adult Tim is a paleontologist--and I want to add professor, Dr. Tim Murphy, which is very sexy--and he is extremely passionate about it. despite his experiences in the park he hasn’t been deterred from loving dinosaurs, though he does much prefer them from afar (in both physical distance and time), as nature intended them. he loves this piece of the past, but all of his dealings with it tell him that it should be left in the past

because of this, he is absolutely opposed to the idea of Jurassic World. from the moment he first hears that they want to try again, he is just incredibly angry, like there is no way this is going to be a good thing. and Julie decided that because of this he actually ends up storming into Simon Masrani’s office (who initially anticipates that the arrival of John Hammond’s grandson will be a good thing) and just chews him the hell out, though Masrani won’t budge

Tim also finds out in this meeting that it was apparently his grandfather’s dying wish to make the park work and that just adds to his anger. pal is pissed

so speaking of, Tim is typically rather calm, but when he is angry, he will go the fuck off. he just flies into a rage, comprised mostly of yelling, but combining some over-gesticulating and stomping (even once knocking things off a desk), and it’s kind of incredible just the way he lays into people for being so IDIOTIC. he doesn’t swear much normally, but many a bad word is used

so also since he’s not in the films he may not know, but if he ever finds out that that bitch was trying to sell dinosaurs for soldiers and for entertainment? oh my god the rant would be legendary. like viral on youtube worthy. he would just fucking go at it, yelling until his voice is hoarse and he’s seeing red and he has to sit down and someone has to get him a glass of water, because oh my god when will we fucking learn that man cannot, and should not, try to control dinosaurs? like how many times?

Tim is tired

anyway, Tim is actually pretty surprised when Jurassic World opens and things go well. he even manages to relax after it’s been a few weeks and it seems like no one’s died. but he keeps pretty close tabs on the place, and being Hammond’s grandson gets him good intel--even if he and Masrani are not on speaking terms anymore--so the second he finds out they’re trying to engineer scarier dinosaurs, he just knows things are going to end badly

in fact, he tries to get another meeting, and manages one with park operations manager, Claire Dearing. despite trying to be as calm as he possibly can while freaking out, he is not able to convince her it is a terrible idea

so yes he sees the park’s collapse coming a mile away, and no, no one will listen to him, and yes he is so tired

when the park is evacuated and the dinosaurs are left to populate the island without human interference, he feels like it’s absolutely the best case scenario. even when it turns out they’re going to be taken out by the volcano, he is staunchly against interference (not that anyone will listen to him). yes, he loves the dinosaurs (especially the herbivores who technically have done no wrong) but they were never meant to be alive and all they’ve ever caused is chaos and this is literally a solution to that problem but no one sees that

also, at the end of that whole debacle with the dinosaurs now just roaming free in America?? and some of them are the violent kind??? oh my god the boy is pissed. like he did not survive the park just for this bs. he literally refuses to die in a dinosaur attack 30 years later because someone couldn’t get it through their thick skull after the first time that this was a bad idea

getting into some slightly more relaxed ideas:

I do feel like he’s generally a calm dude. but an enduring quality from his youth is that he is incredibly talkative, and has a great tendency to cling to people whose work he admires, or that he’s just met but sound super fascinating. he’s just very lively and passionate and loves to talk to people! it does still scare some people away at first, but it’s endearing enough that he tends to grow on people

Julie- as passionate as he is about his own work, he's also definitely the kind of guy who encourages other people to talk about stuff they’re passionate about (ooh especially his students and they love him for it), which comes from the fact that he kinda knows what it feels like to not bring up interests when you know people will just give you grief for it. so he’s always trying to bring out the passion in others and it just really makes him the kindest guy

like he’ll go to a friend’s party and he’ll meet some new people and he’ll be trying to get them to tell him all about what they care most about in the world and it’s just so cute

this especially applies if he meets a child. he will listen to them talk for ages, and will tell them that they can absolutely achieve their dreams and they just have to commit to whatever they care about and it will happen

this makes him incredible with kids, and especially I can see him being the world’s most amazing uncle when Lex has children. like those babies are getting the most affection and love and encouragement, they are gonna grow up to rule the world

(also, he’s really good at playing with the kids and like, just getting down on their level and joining them with the toys and it’s just iconic)

so Julie added that Tim is partly this way because he remembers being the kid obsessed with dinosaurs that everybody got tired of hearing from, or else that they only wanted to know about what he went through on the island, so now he's like "just tell me whatever you want to talk about, whatever you care about, I wanna hear all about it"

and to go off of that, people would totally hound him about the island and I feel like he’d just get so annoyed. cause like, the first few times, especially relaying it to people he knows, fine. maybe a bit taxing, emotionally, but it’s still not worn-out in his mind, and this is his family, and his closest friends, so it’s whatever. but when it’s always the first question a new person asks, he gets so tired he just does not want to discuss it

also, sometimes people don’t know who he is but they ask about the scars on his palms or his eyebrow (I can’t imagine it ever healed back to normal, or that the hair came back, so he’s just got a cool scar in lieu of the majority of it and it makes him look kinda badass even though he’s really just a soft nerd) and unless he really likes the person, he tends to come up with a ridiculous excuse to throw them off because it’s so much easier than opening up the whole Jurassic Park can of worms (which is interesting if he later comes to like the person and ends up telling them the truth at some point)

but I feel like sometimes when he’s extra annoyed with the question of what it was like, he’ll just kind of be like “well, there was a t-rex, and fun fact about them...” and then launch into like a 30 minute spiel of all the facts he knows cause it’s a loophole to A. avoid the question, and hopefully convince the person it’s not worth asking again and B. put his focus into gushing about what he loves which is much better for him

J- just like “you thought you were gonna learn about Jurassic Park but joke’s on you here's everything you need to know about dinosaurs from a paleontologist’s perspective”

and yeah he’s the most encouraging person most people know and everyone loves that about him, which also thankfully means that he’s able to start to amass a reputation for being like everyone’s personal cheerleader rather than Jurassic Park boy, which he really appreciates. especially the first time he’s intro’d to someone new and it’s not like “this is Tim, he’s John Hammond’s grandson” or “this is Tim, he was one of the few people who got to see the original Jurassic Park” and instead just “this is Tim and he’s the kindest person you’ll ever meet, you’ll love him” like big 💖 energy

this also happens a bit with his academic work, that he reaches a certain point and he’s finally known more for his research than his family/experience. but unfortunately he is still an academic in a field of people obsessed with dinosaurs, so the topic does come up pretty easily and people do point him out

speaking of, the first time another paleontologist trashes Jurassic World in his presence, someone quickly points out who he is, and the person is in the midst of saying “oh my god I’m so sorry” when he cuts them off with a simple gesture and is like “no it’s okay, I absolutely agree”

after that, most of colleagues know that he will not only participate in, but also sometimes lead the trashtalk, and it’s a fun time, though every once in a while if there are a few new people around, the same scene of realizing who he is and apologizing will play out

one time it happens when he’s a bit tipsy and he’s just kind of a lot less filtered and it comes out more “no it’s okay, fuck that place”, and it’s very non-malicious, but no one’s ever heard him swear when he wasn’t angry so everyone’s kinda looking at him for a few seconds worried he’s about to get pissed about the park again, but then he’s like “um... okay, come on let’s dance” and that’s how his colleagues know that they have given him too much alcohol (at Julie’s suggestion, it was only like 2 glasses (maybe even less), the boy is a light-weight)

also if you thought sober Tim liked to ramble about dinosaurs, just wait till you meet drunk Tim? he’s basically the same, but just a lot more stream-of-consciousness in a way where he doesn’t make any sense but he’s always like “ya know?” and you feel obligated to be like “yeah, I sure do”

and he also likes to make dinosaur jokes. and dance. he’s already got quite a bit of energy when sober and when he’s drunk it just all leaks out in dancing

also one final thing but a few ideas on scars:

so obviously he has quite a few, but as cool as the eyebrow is, I really wanna focus on his palms

I’m imagining them like white patches on his hands, softer, more sensitive skin, that branch out into sharp spindly lines running up his wrist? he thinks they look kind of cool, but they’re definitely a magnet for unwanted attention

sometimes they tingle a bit during a thunderstorm, and times like those he finds it a bit harder to work with his hands

similarly, if he’s been writing for too long, either with a pen or typing, they tend to ache quite a bit, so he’s forced to break more often than he’d like. he tries not to let them slow him down, but occasionally they get to him

especially when he’s working on his thesis (which, sidenote, I don’t know a thing about theses, but I’m gonna go ahead and say that his definitely had to do with the technological breakthroughs that allowed the dinosaurs to be brought back to life, as well as the inaccuracies (due to the missing DNA and a desire to make them scarier rather than realistic), and how they can have a severely negative impact since they were meant to be extinct), they can really frustrate him, but he just tries to take deep breaths, go do something simple for a while like watch TV, and eventually he’s able to get back to it. but seriously, some days when he’s in the flow and he does not want to break it, he either has to fight past the pain (which is going to leave him hurting for longer), or sacrifice that train of thought, and he just gets so frustrated sometimes

his students can usually tell when the scars are bothering him while he’s trying to write at the board. he’ll start to get a bit restless about it, moving around the room more in between writing his notes. in response, they tend to try raising their hands more, asking simple but distracting questions so he has a bit of time away from writing

when he first realizes what they’re doing he’s so appreciative he almost starts crying. he loves these kids and they love him and it’s so sweet

okay I know I said final thing but just one more and then I am finished

Julie and I talked about this a while ago so I can no longer remember who said what, but Tim absolutely has a Jurassic Park shirt

it was given to him by his grandpa a bit before the trip to get the kids really excited

unfortunately there was an order error and the only shirts that came in time were adult large, so Tim didn’t exactly fit into it

that’s fine with him though, and he basically wears it as a night-gown for the whole week leading up to the trip

afterwards, he feels a bit weird about it, and doesn’t really wear it until years later, after his grandpa’s died, when he finds it buried in his closet as he’s packing up to move out for school

he starts wearing it again to bed some nights. he likes to wear it when he really misses his grandpa. despite mixed feelings on the park itself, Tim feels close to his grandfather in that way

by now he’s grown into it, and it’s just the exact perfect fit for him, a little loose, but so well worn in and soft that it’s just absolutely perfect for him 🥰

I think that might actually be it. I love Timothy Murphy so much, this is a PSA

#tim murphy #jurassic park #joe mazzello #long post #nicole watches jurassic park #sorry it's so long?

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karazor--el · 5 years

Text

‘The Flash’ Showrunner on Season 6, How New Villain Bloodwork Leads to “Crisis”, and More

*Be aware that SPOILERS are discussed*

The CW series The Flash, now in its sixth season, not only has a new showrunner in executive producer/writer Eric Wallace, but it also has a new feel, with new storytelling devices and a new villain with interesting parallels to the show’s titular hero, and it’s all leading to the big “Crisis on Infinite Earths” crossover. In the season opener, called “Into the Void,” Barry (Grant Gustin) and Iris (Candice Patton) are dealing with the heartbreaking loss of their daughter Nora, and Team Flash must, yet again, save Central City from their greatest threat yet.

After a recent screening of the Season 6 premiere, held at the offices of The CW, showrunner Eric Wallace answered questions about the episode, what’s to come, how it all leads to the “Crisis on Infinite Earth” crossover, and where they go from there. During the chat, he talked about how Barry and Iris will be dealing with the knowledge that Barry will die and how that will differ from when Iris’ life was at stake, the parallel in storylines between Barry and Bloodwork (Sendhil Ramamurthy), the first villain of Season 6, getting to see much more of Iris’ work as a journalist, Cisco’s (Carlos Valdes) love life, Caitlin (Danielle Panabaker) and Killer Frost’s agreement, expanding the meta storytelling, the latest Wells (Tom Cavanagh), the return of John Wesley Shipp and Keiynan Lonsdale, and the science of it all.

Question: With The Monitor telling Barry and Iris that The Flash must die, how will they grapple with that, this season?

ERIC WALLACE: That would be the plot of Episode 602. “Crisis” turned out to be the best thing that could have happened to The Flash because it created an immediacy to things. We know that, on December 10, 2019, The Flash will die. He said it. We’re not messing around. So, as a married couple, they can count the number of days and weeks. The countdown begins next week. What kind of urgency does that give them? An extreme one. It turns the dial up to 10, and it makes them think, is every moment together our last? What can we do? Should we find this? Is it inevitable? Those are all of the things that they’re grappling with, for these next seven episodes. Episode 608 ends and it’s “Crisis” time. It’s time to go off to, literally, cosmic war. So, their relationship is strained, but it’s also going to bring them closer together than ever before because that’s what tragedy does.

In Season 3, Barry and Iris had a similar situation when they learned that Iris was going to die in the future. What did that experience teach them, that could help them now?

WALLACE: You should watch [Episode 602], when that exact question is asked and answered. That is literally the plot. What this story has enabled us to do is to look back at any other time, when somebody was facing life and death, and see how they reacted then. So, in the writers’ room, we had a lengthy discussion about it being the other side of the coin. We know how they reacted with Iris, but how will they react, in Episode 602? I will tell you that, it’s different. It’s not the same because of what they learn next week. That’s the great part of this story. The Monitor showing up and making a cosmic pronouncement drives them to extremes, in order to fight against or except the coming crisis. Episodes 602, 603, 604, 605 and 606, especially, are all about, do I accept death, or do I fight it?

This show seems to sort be setting up “Crisis”, in its own way. How did you balance telling the story of Bloodwork, while also setting up this massive crossover?

WALLACE: Fortunately, it worked out really great because “Crisis” is about grief, and about death, and about the end of all worlds. You have the Bloodwork villain, who is facing the end of his own world. So, from his point of view, who cares about “Crisis” because he’s more concerned about the immediacy of his own life. Now, does that mean he could perhaps live past “Crisis”? That’s the real question that he has to grapple with, and I won’t give you the answer. So, it turned out to be the most fortuitous set of story events possible, dealing with life and death, dealing with his death as a villain, and dealing with the death of all worlds. When all of the showrunners got together to talk about “Crisis”, I pitched them what Bloodwork does, and they were like, “Oh, that’s great!” And then, all of this synergy started to happen. The Arrow folks said, “Hey, we’re gonna do something crazy in Episode 801.” And I went, “Oh, that’s perfect!” It was this dominoes situation that fell. There’s a lot of cross collaboration. It might not seem like it, at first, but it all comes together very nicely in “Crisis”, our crossover event. It all feeds into itself.

How aware is the rest of the team about what’s going on with what The Monitor said?

WALLACE: You’ll have to watch Episode 603. You’re right on the money. We asked that same question in the writers’ room, so we made it an episode. You’ll get your answer in Episode 603.

Is Barry aware that Oliver Queen is also working for The Monitor right now?

WALLACE: No, and when they both find out, it’s good stuff. It’s so great. I can’t tell you when it happens, but I will tell you that is a scene that happened. It is a moment, and it is coming. Let’s just say that people might get pissed off, a little bit.

In the “Crisis” comic book story, both The Flash and Supergirl died, and there were variations of them later. What were your thoughts about that, when it was done?

WALLACE: I was the perfect age for “Crisis”, when it first came out, and it blew my mind that so many characters that were beloved died, and then they were re-booted. So, when we were approaching the writing of “Crisis”, obviously, we can’t just kill all of our number ones on our shows. That’s insane. You can kill a couple of them, and we do, but you have to find the balance. What it meant to me was that we should tap into that feeling that the readers in 1985 would have had, when reading that story, with the tectonic shifts in the comic world, underneath. When you watch the crossover, you’re going to feel those tectonic shifts, especially at the end. It’s not small. It’s game-changer, in the same way that the ending of “Crisis”, the comic book, was a game changer, and it opens up to a whole new world.

How much more of Iris, as a journalist, will we see, over the course of this season?

WALLACE: You’ll be ridiculously happy, this year. Before I even got here, as a fan, I kept asking myself, “Why isn’t this woman a journalist? I don’t understand. She doesn’t have a staff. She has no office. That’s a pretty crappy journalist. Does she work out of her house?” If we know, from Episode 518, that she becomes a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and that she has an empire, we need to start building those seeds, and we need to do it now. So, we have very urgently done that, this season. You will meet her new staff member very soon. The new staff starts in Episode 602. Why waste time? We just get to it. Depending on how the back season goes, because we have a budget, it might be a small staff at first, but it’s very much about seeing her take charge of what we refer to as Team Citizen. They will appear, and they will be getting into trouble, especially in the back half of our show because now we have a new way to bring in meta storylines, with her investigations. It doesn’t always have to be a bank robber anymore. It’s been the blessing, from the story gods.

Will Iris meet Lois Lane?

WALLACE: I’m not going to answer that, but I think you know the answer. Is that clear? I’m not saying a word.

Cisco’s relationships haven’t always been well-served on the show. Will it be, this time?

WALLACE: Yes. In fact, we love Kamilla. That’s why, when we skipped forward four months, we wanted to just rip the band-aid off and be like, “She’s already in the family. She knows Barry is The Flash, and she knows about Vibe. They’re doing just fine, and having a healthy relationship that’s not Barry and Iris. As far as their relationship ups and downs, and highs and lows, they won’t be having that kind of drama. They’re doing great. That’s one of the themes of his season arc that plays over all 22 episodes. Can you be happy, being human? Can you be happy, not being a meta? Can you be happy, not saving the world, every week? Yeah, you can. You can get a beer at the picnic, and maybe you do punch in nine to five and let The Flash handle everything else. That’s nice. That’s a big thing that Cisco will be struggling with, all season, and Kamilla is a part of that.

With Killer Frost and Caitlin coming to an agreement, what will we see from Killer Frost, trying to live a life?

WALLACE: Now that she has a life coach? It has been a pure delight, writing Killer Frost this season. She’s much more in the forefront than Caitlin is. That life coach stuff starts in Episode 602. It’s the second scene, and we honor the promise of the premise. We deliver, and it’s led to these hilarious situations. We talk of her almost as a teenager who finally got the keys to the car, but doesn’t know how to drive, and then she’s gotta drive to go to the store, or the movies, or wherever. Everything is new, through her eyes, which means she’s gonna make some mistakes, which is great. It’s going to lead to some more tears, but she’s also going to grow into something that didn’t exist before. Maybe you do lose that Killer. Maybe it’s just Frost, down the line. And Danielle is having a blast. I told her what’s coming in the back half [of the season], because that’s what we’re breaking. We’re at graphic novel number two, and the result of where she ends up, emotionally, in graphic novel one, gives her the strength to face what lies in graphic novel two.

Will we be seeing more meta storylines that show different types of metas that aren’t criminals?

WALLACE: Yes. It goes back to honoring the old of the first five seasons, but finding new ways to make it fresh. You should just watch Episode 602. There are two new story devices to bring in cases. One is that they don’t have to be a bad guy, and the second one appears next week. It’s a new way to get stories in because it’s based in character. That’s part of the fun. Let’s see different kinds of stories. Just ‘cause this show is The Flash, it doesn’t mean another main character can’t take center stage for an entire episode. Look for that, ‘cause that’s happening. We have such a talented cast, so why aren’t we using them?

The synopsis for Episode 602 mentions John Wesley Shipp. Which version of him will we see?

WALLACE: It’s Jay Garrick. Season 6 is a little more serialized now, which probably comes from me having been on Teen Wolf. Sometimes we pick up right from where something left off. We fooled the audience [with the premiere] because we did a direct pick-up, but then we jumped forward five months. But a lot of the episodes, especially Episodes 602, 603 and 604, end, and then, it picks up one second later because I want the immediacy that audiences get when they’re watching a streaming show that’s eight or ten episodes. That’s our competition, quite frankly. I want that same immediacy brought to The CW, and I love them so much for saying, “Do it. We support this.”

The Season 6 premiere talks a lot about getting to know a new version of Nora, eventually. Is there a pregnancy storyline bubbling for Iris, at all?

WALLACE: Not this season, but that doesn’t mean a huge hint about Nora isn’t coming, this season. There will be two. One will probably be misinterpreted the wrong way ‘cause it’s a deliberate misdirect. I like that, and I like mysteries, but it’s real. So, look for that. The comic book fans will be watching Episode 602, and they’ll see a particular thing and go, “Oh, my god, I know what that means.”

In the Bronze Age comics, we learned that Iris was actually born in the 30th century and was sent back in time. Is that a story that would ever be adapted to the TV show?

WALLACE: Yes.

Can you elaborate?

WALLACE: No, but I’m telling you yes.

What’s the process for honoring the stories that so many of us know from the comics, and yet presenting them in a way for modern audiences, where you can deviate a little for surprises?

WALLACE: As a Bronze Age reader, myself, I know what storyline you’re talking about, and I love it. The comics are so rich with wonderful themes and ideas, so that’s what we want to honor, every week, and draw from. But ultimately, what we have to do is tell modern, contemporary, grounded stories, so we have to find a way to mix them. Everything should start with, “What cool thing do I want to see? I just want to see that because it’s insane, or because I love it. When I was reading my Bronze Age comic book, this is what happened. And then, I’ll sit back and go, “Well, we do need Iris to get to this place, emotionally, and now this storyline supports that.” So, suddenly, we’ve got a piece of Bronze Age hard data, and we’re incorporating it into a story. That’s why it, hopefully, feels a little seamless, and it rewards the Bronze Age and Silver Age reader, and even the modern readers with Bloodwork. Bloodwork is a contemporary villain, who’s in the comics right now. That’s something I specifically wanted to do. I wanted to pull in a new kid who’s reading The Flash right now and goes, “Oh, I love Bloodwork. He’s so crazy!” I want him to connect to our show, too, and not just his dad, who’s probably my age and has had a long Flash connection.

We haven’t yet met the new Wells, so what can you say about Tom Cavanagh’s latest character?

WALLACE: He’s my favorite since Harrison Wells, the Reverse Flash of Season 1. He’s cool and suave. This is a man of adventure. This is a man who can get in a fight and old his own. We haven’t seen a Wells like that. There’s this completely unexpected side to him, which I will not spoil, that’s just wonderful, and he has a secret. It’s a secret that will be slowly dripped out in graphic novel number one, but which will really mess with his mind, literally, in graphic novel number two. It’s going to lead him to an emotional place that’s similar territory to one of the other Wells, and I don’t want to give a spoiler away, but it takes it in a completely opposite direction. It will be very apparent, by Episode 606, what his secret is. You all will ask yourselves, “Wait a minute, that’s like the other Wells, but I don’t think it’s gonna end the same way.” It’s a very emotional story that we’re very excited, and I know Tom’s excited about it. And he looks good in his costume. He’s having a good time, and I’m loving it. I’m laughing, as I write it, which is great.

Sue Dearbon has been teased a bit. Will we be meeting Sue, this season, and could you ever see Ralph and Sue in their own spin-off series?

WALLACE: I’ll answer the second question first, and yes, without question. We’re actually writing the episode right now, where Sue first appears, and boy, are we having a blast because Sue is such a delight. Sue Dearbon will appear in the back half. But sometimes what you see, isn’t what you see. Is that opaque enough?

Keiynan Lonsdale has said that he’ll be back this season. When might we see that?

WALLACE: We’ll start breaking his episode next week, and my nervous problem is that I’ve talked to him and he said he’s gonna be in it. I’ve heard that he’s still saying it, but I’m dreading the phone call of, “I’m busy. I’m doing another album.” I support, so much, his music career and his other artistic endeavors, which I think are terrific. But if all goes well, we should be breaking his story, in the next couple of weeks. I’m trying my best to honor that and get Kid Flash in for a couple [of episodes] because the story is so good. Kid Flash will now meet a classic villain from the classic days of the classic comic books, and maybe he’ll have to save The Flash’s behind, which is what I want to see. He’s not a kid anymore. He’s grown up.

How do you approach the science of it all, on this show?

WALLACE: I’m a science nut. I used to write a comic for DC comics, called Mr. Terrific, which was super sciency, to the wazoo. And I used to work on Eureka, back in the day, which was a science-based, family comedy-drama. I got in a habit, way back in the Eureka days, of just reading Scientific American and Googling websites and NASA sites, on a regular basis, so science is my friend. I like to use the Stephen King rules of writing, where you come up with the crazy idea, and then find the facts to support it. We’ll write the science in the scripts, in a way that’s very complicated and very technical, and then, we’ll do what we call a simplicity pass to make sure everyone can understand the basic concepts. And then, we’ll do another pass for how much we really need to explain because it is a science-fiction and fantasy show, but we don’t have 800 pages. We have 42 minutes, and the scripts will get too long, if you bog them down with that type of stuff. It is a balancing act, but I do like to put as much real science into the stories as possible because there might be young people watching this and going, “I wanna be a scientist, like Caitlin. I wanna be a scientist like Cisco.” Suddenly, maybe there will be one more scientist in the world, and that would be really awesome. So, I take it very seriously, the messages that the show is presenting to our young people and to people of color.

The Flash returns for Season 6 on The CW on October 8th.

Collier.

#The Flash #Crisis on Infinite Earths

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takaraphoenix · 6 years

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“I want a dog.” - “I want a cat.” Jagnus

“Pansexual, huh?”, grunted Jace curiously, tilting his head.

Isabelle grinned and tucked her hair behind her ear. “It’s what Simon calls it. Never heard that before either, to be honest. But the color-combination is interesting.”

Apparently, Simon was pansexual – whatever that meant – and was going on a pride. And as his new girlfriend, Isabelle was going with him. Shadowhunters barely had a grasp on gay and bisexual and neither was quite tolerated. That there was even more…? Jace, sprawled out on Izzy’s bed in boredom, looking over her shoulder onto her laptop. She was working on some color-coded clothes for the pride. She also wanted to drag Alec along, because it might help him settle with his sexuality more. He was still struggling a little. He might have come out, but he still struggled with living it out in the open. He had been endearingly flustered when John Underhill had asked him out on a date the other week. Izzy and Jace were still having fun teasing him with that.

“There are a lot of sexual orientations, you know?”, offered Simon with a broad grin. “Don’t tell me the big, bad Shadowhunter’s always ever just seen… straight.”

“I’ve just never thought about… a name for it”, shrugged Jace thoughtfully, looking over at Simon. “I don’t really care. Girls, guys, Seelies, vampires, warlocks… whatever.”

“Maybe you should read up on it too?”, suggested Simon, one eyebrow raised.

“Oh, that color-scheme is nice”, noted Isabelle, not minding their conversation.

Tilting his head, Jace turned to look over her shoulder again. Black, gray, white, magenta. Yeah, that looked more like a color-combo that Izzy could rock. He scoffed lightly when he read what that was the flag off. Crossing his arms behind his head, he collapsed back onto the bed.

“Don’t tell me you’re aphobic, Jace”, grunted Simon with a frown.

“I just don’t get it”, shrugged Jace with a frown. “How can you not want sex at all? It’s fun. And how can you not want anyone at your side…? That’s just… lonely.”

“That’s not…”, started Simon and sighed. “That’s not what asexuality is, Jace.”

Jace frowned confused. He didn’t really have an understanding on any of this – all those mundie terms for what they liked in bed or didn’t like in bed. To Jace it all was just… whatever. But the way he saw it, the way the term made sense, asexual meant no sexuality.

“For one, asexual doesn’t mean aromantic. You can still want someone at your side even when you don’t want sex. And you can still want sex without wanting romance”, started Simon carefully. “And being asexual doesn’t have to mean you never have sex.”

“Yeah, that makes somehow even less sense, Lewis”, pointed Jace out, eyebrows raised.

“Being asexual means not experiencing sexual attraction. But not every asexual is sex-repulsed”, continued Simon. “Some are. Some don’t want any kind of sex. Others are very fine with masturbation, because orgasms are fun. Some don’t mind… uh… you know, getting each other off. Others don’t mind sex at all – for the, you know, release. It’s just that they don’t feel sexual attraction. That’s… really all there is to it.”

“My boyfriend is a walking encyclopedia of sexualities”, chuckled Isabelle amused.

Jace just frowned confused as Simon continued babbling on about the Pride and how excited he was to go with Izzy and how this could be a bonding moment for Simon and Alec and all.

/break\

“I did not expect you to tag along too, Jace”, noted Alec.

“I didn’t expect you to agree to this”, countered Jace amused. “Willingly spending time with Simon? And… you know, being this open about your sexuality.”

Alec shrugged, mildly uncomfortably. He had a rainbow button attached to his black shirt and that was the highest of his feelings, but it was still so much for him. Jace wore a pan button. He had never really thought about labels and such, but he figured there must be something to it. To feeling like being part of something – of a group. A community was what Simon had called it.

“I don’t know”, shrugged Alec, avoiding to look at Jace. “I… took John up on the date. And I figured I should… grow more comfortable with being open about it, because as soon as I start dating someone… I will have to learn to be more open about it.”

“Wow”, grunted Jace surprised, eyes wide.

“What… What about you, Jace?”, asked Alec gently, looking at him.

Jace paused and shrugged awkwardly, not looking at Alec. Everything had been awkward in those past three months. Since they had broken the possession. Since Clary had… died. Jace still didn’t know if he felt anything about that. The potion Magnus had brewed for Lilith, it had effectively broken any feelings he ever might have had for Clary. And even though Magnus gave his magic to break the possession, the potion had nothing to do with the possession, it was strong and irreversible magic. Sometimes, Jace was glad about it. They had told him he had loved Clary and her death would have only broken his heart anymore – with everything he was dealing with at the time, he didn’t know how well he could have been able to handle that on top of everything else.

Over the past three months, Jace had concentrated on getting better. He had been at the City of Bones for two months and had only returned back home three weeks ago. He was better now, mentally. Now he could focus on other things again. Like his sexuality, apparently.

“I’m not interested in anyone at the moment”, shrugged Jace. “I guess.”

“My, my. Unexpected colors on you, blondie.”

Blinking slowly, Jace turned to see Magnus Bane. He hadn’t really seen Magnus since his return from the City of Bones. It was mostly guilt, because Magnus had to give up his magic to save Jace. Apparently, while Jace had been gone, Magnus had gotten his magic back.

“Magnus”, stated Jace awkwardly.

The warlock looked gorgeous in bi-colors. Dramatic and fashionable as always. Handsome as always. Magnus smiled delighted, wrapping an arm around Alec’s shoulders. The two had become friends. While Magnus had flirted with Alec in the beginning, Alec had shot him down, being too deep in the closet at the time. So Magnus accepted it and settled for a good friendship, helping Alec come around on his own sexuality. It was good, seeing Alec actually make friends.

“Ah, so he does still know my name”, chuckled Magnus amused.

“Jace! I didn’t expect you to come along too!”, exclaimed Simon, interrupting them.

Jace scowled and scoffed as they started walking together. “Guess I’ve been… thinking about stuff. You made me think about it, I guess. I never really thought about sexuality before.”

“And you came to the conclusion that you’re pan?”, asked Simon with a broad grin.

Jace elegantly dodged him when Simon tried wrapping an arm around his shoulder. “Yeah.”

Only that being pan wasn’t the only thing he had been thinking about. He had also been thinking a lot about asexuality. It was weird, but the things Simon had said had really confused him, mainly. And the whole thing about sexual attraction and all… He tried reading up on it, on people’s individual experiences. But they all differed so much and he… he kind of wished he had someone to talk to. A real, actual human being who might be able to help him. It was borderline painful to consider asking, but Simon seemed to be the only one who had an actual grasp on anything so Jace might be forced to talk to Simon. What a horrible thought. Making a face, he watched Simon and Isabelle, dance around and kiss. Alec and Magnus next to him were talking casually.

“Why do you look constipated, Jace?”, asked Alec curiously after a little while. “If you’re uncomfortable here, then… you know you don’t have to be here.”

“No, it’s not that. This… is actually pretty cool”, whispered Jace, looking around at all those out and proud people. “I just… think I have to… talk to Simon. Because I might need his help.”

“How utterly dreadful”, noted Magnus. “Well, what is it? I have a few centuries on Simon, I might be of more help than him, you know?”

“I…”, started Jace, shifting a little. “I think… I think I might be… asexual.”

Alec nearly stumbled at that. “You? Sorry. I don’t mean it like that, I’m just… you have so much sex. Seriously, with everyone. Hence that… button?”

“That’s actually not what asexuality means”, supplied Jace. “And that’s why I’m confused. I figured that it was just… not having sex. Not wanting anyone. But it’s just… lack of sexual attraction.”

“But aren’t you more like… sexually attracted to nearly everyone?”, argued Alec doubtfully.

“Not… really, no. I never looked at someone and thought ‘damn, I really wanna have sex with them, in particular’…”, replied Jace with an awkward, little shrug. “I look for someone willing and take them home, without really, you know… thinking on it.”

“And you think Simon is the right person to talk to about your sex-life?”, mused Magnus.

“No”, grunted Jace and made a face. “But he seems to… know a lot about it and I’m just… I’m confused. I’ve been thinking about this for the whole last week and went like… through the different stages of grief or some shit. And I’m just… at my wits’ end.”

Magnus sighed and reached a hand out to rest on Jace’s shoulder, squeezing a little. “How about you come by the loft this weekend? I do know someone who is asexual. Talking to someone with personal experience is definitely more helpful than… Simon’s google search skills.”

“Really?”, asked Jace hopefully, perking up a little bit.

“Why—y are you back there? Come on, guys!”, interrupted Simon with a broad grin.

“He’s right. Come on, brothers”, ordered Isabelle, hooking arms with Jace and Alec.

With that, the conversation was ended rather abruptly, but it was still somehow… fun.

/break\

“I am only doing this for you, papá”, stated Raphael very pointedly. “Because I know what he means to you and because I owe you one for bringing me back to New York. But this is a one time thing, you hear me, papá?”

Magnus smiled pleased and pulled Raphael in to kiss his cheek. “Let’s not mention what he means to me in front of him, please, mijo?”

Raphael huffed but nodded. Magnus’ feelings for Jace did not have to be brought to Jace’s attention. The blonde had made it very clear over the past month that he didn’t care for Magnus’ company anymore. Not that Magnus could hold it against him. It was Magnus’ fault that Jace had lost the love of his life and now he couldn’t even properly mourn her because he didn’t remember ever having any sort of feelings for her. Magnus was the one who had made the potion, after all. It broke all feelings he had for her and as an after-effect to it, Jace had been fully possessed by Lilith. How could Magnus possibly expect Jace to ever return his feelings like that…?

It wasn’t like Magnus had planned to fall for Jace. It had happened gradually, after Jace had moved into the loft with him. Magnus had grown fond of Jace, more than just fond. Perhaps it had been a bit selfish to invite Jace here. He was still trying to make up for what he had done. Yes, he had given up his magic to get him back, had gone to Edom and talked to his father, all to get Jace back. But it still didn’t feel like enough. The potion had been a whole different issue though and Magnus was the one who had brought it on Jace. There was nothing he could have done about it.

“He—ey, Magnus”, greeted Jace awkwardly as he entered the loft. “So who-”

“Let’s get this over with and make it the least amount of painful, yes?”, sighed Raphael.

Jace stared wide-eyed at Raphael for an awkward, long moment. Raphael heaved a sigh and sat down on the couch, motioning for Jace to join him. He was mainly only doing this because he knew Magnus was in love with Jace, but a part of Raphael also did it because he remembered how lost he had felt for years, before the label asexuality was truly a thing to be used. He knew how out of touch the Shadowhunters were with the mundie world, they most likely had no idea about most of the newer terms when it came to sexuality. They were still stuck in their homophobic ways, he doubted they could look much past what else there was.

“Okay, tell me about it”, prompted Raphael, grabbing the glass of wine next to him that Magnus had provided. “Why are we here? Why do you think you might be asexual?”

Magnus left for the kitchen. Out of sight, but still in ear-shot. It was not okay to eavesdrop but he couldn’t help it. Jace all the while shifted uncomfortably, glaring. Raphael Santiago, of all people? The two… No, actually he might be a rather safe choice. The two had absolutely no personal history. Neither positive nor negative. A neutral party, in a away.

“I don’t think I’ve ever experienced sexual attraction”, stated Jace carefully. “I’ve had a lot of sex. But… But it was never about wanting to have sex with that particular person.”

Raphael had to admit, he was a bit intrigued. “Then what was it about for you?”

“Exercise, mainly”, shrugged Jace thoughtfully, pulling his legs up against his chest. “When missions aren’t satisfying enough, it gives me that last kick of adrenaline. Exhausting my body. Sometimes, it’s about… distraction. When I’m having a shitty day, because it’s…”

“It’s…?”, echoed Raphael when Jace didn’t continue.

“Let’s just say, Valentine wasn’t exactly into hugging and family-cuddles”, drawled Jace dryly. “I’m not exactly… used to seeking physical comfort. When I was a teen, I learned that sex is an acceptable form of physical comfort, I guess. I don’t know. Izzy and I, we got drunk a lot and went out to bars to hook up with people. And…”

“And it was kind of what was expected of you?”, suggested Raphael, voice nearly gentle. “A young, strong Shadowhunters, while everyone else was starting to have sex, it’s the thing to do?”

“Kinda, I guess”, shrugged Jace. “Yeah. And I realized it was a good way of blowing off steam and… it was oddly comforting. But I always… loved the part after more, I guess.”

Raphael sighed. Why had he allowed Magnus to drag him into this? He understood what Jace was talking about. Back in his youth, it had been the same for him. A young Latino not wooing the women, back in his day and age? It wasn’t exactly something a potent young man should skip out on. There was a certain social pressure and especially for a young man who had no idea that asexuality even existed…? That there was a term for it, that he wasn’t alone or broken…?

“And that’s it?”, asked Raphael, watching how shifty Jace was.

“No”, sighed Jace, running his fingers through his hair. “It’s… that… relationship with Clary. I mean, I don’t remember loving her, so I have a… neutral look on it and… it wasn’t… it wasn’t good. This girl really mainly wanted my body. She was constantly groping me, even before we got together and that’s kind of… rather inappropriate. And after we got together… After… After I died and absolutely no one but her knew about it, she… She came to my room, not to talk to me, to see how I was handling having died, she just… came to me to make out with me. On the second day we were together, when I was planning a romantic date, she… threw a fit afterward, about how I must not desire her because we hadn’t fucked. In the two whole days we had been together. Back then, I think, it were the pink glasses I was wearing that were so desperate for her attention. But now, when I look back… I just wanted to be… valued. Loved, I guess. I didn’t even really want to have sex with her, because I thought being in an actual relationship meant… more. But she wanted just the same things I had done before, for years. She… didn’t appreciate my attempt for a date at all, even though… that was all I really wanted from her. A proper relationship. Mundie dates, holding hands, all that… cheesy stuff, you know. She… wasn’t really interested in any of that. That was, I think, where I started really… questioning it. Myself. That something must be, you know, wrong with me. Dating a gorgeous girl but wanting everything but sex.”

Raphael nodded slowly, observing Jace carefully. “So you’re not… angry about the potion?”

“No”, huffed Jace with a frown. “I don’t think my love for Clary was ever a good thing. From the get-go. I jeopardized my relationship with Alec, I nearly got us all killed on multiple occasions. She… She brought out the worst in me, when she was around, all I could see was her and I put everyone else at risk, just because I never felt that way for someone and I didn’t know how to handle that. So I… became desperate for her attention… any kind of attention, even when it wasn’t the kind of attention I wanted. I wanted her to love me. Not just to desire me… I guess it’s biased for me to say it, since I don’t actually remember what it felt like to love her, but I’m glad I don’t anymore. What… good would it do me? She’s dead. I hear Isabelle and Simon cry about it sometimes, through the walls… But to me, it’s just… a stranger. So, what do people want? That I’d want my feelings for her back, so I can be heartbroken over her death…? No. She wasn’t good for me, our relationship wasn’t good for me. It literally got me killed once before, it would have gotten me killed again for good in the end, probably.”

“You truly think that your love for Clary is what got you killed?”, asked Raphael.

“She made me more reckless. I made her more reckless too. We weren’t good for each other”, shrugged Jace with a frown. “We went there, alone, just the two of us. And in the end, that’s what got me killed. Running head first into danger with someone as reckless as me. We wanted different things from each other and we brought out the worst in each other. We… we weren’t good together and it would have never ended well anyway.”

“And what is it you want?”, wanted Raphael to know. “Not sex, apparently.”

“I mean, I don’t mind it”, shrugged Jace. “Like I said, it’s… exercise. It’d be something I could do with my partner, I guess. I don’t know. So does that… Can I really be asexual then? I just…”

“Of course”, offered Raphael, his voice unusually warm. “If it is not what you truly desire. If you think you can go entirely without it. If you feel like asexual is the right thing to describe you.”

“Damn”, grunted Jace with a frown. “I didn’t expect you to be this… insightful? Understanding?”

“I remember what the struggle with myself felt like when I went through it”, replied Raphael after a beat. “Feeling like you are only half a man for not enjoying sex the way others expect of you…”

Jace paused and nodded slowly. Right. Raphael was older than he looked. Back in the day, it must have been even harder. It was an odd thing to think, but perhaps Raphael really did just understand what Jace was going through right now and just… provided some guidance that he himself had missed back then. Jace blinked a couple of times and sighed.

“But is it even possible to have such a relationship?”, asked Jace softly.

“Mh?”, grunted Raphael, frowning curiously. “A relationship without sex? Of course.”

“But for… me”, sighed Jace, rubbing his face. “Been doing so much soul-bearing, why not some more…?” He heaved another sigh and sat up straighter. “I can’t quite imagine someone loving me for who I am, I suppose. Love is… not exactly what Valentine liked teaching, you know? And the only thing that ever attracted people to me… is my body. I somehow can’t quite see it ending any differently than it did with Clary.”

“Here. You need a drink”, sighed Raphael and handed Jace a glass.

For the next two hours, the two of them drank, mostly accompanied with silence but also with some stories from Raphael, sharing about his own experiences. Jace seemed to relax more and more into it and talking to Raphael actually seemed to help settle his nerves.

/break\

An unexpected friendship started forming between Raphael and Jace, but both knowing they would earn odd looks from their respective peers, they continued on meeting at Magnus’ loft. Magnus slowly started to join their little meetings, the three of them enjoying the moonlight on the balcony. It took a few weeks before Magnus managed to naturally bring it up how he had thought that Jace was avoiding him. Raphael was running late with clan business.

“It’s good to see you again more often, puppy”, smiled Magnus gently.

A light blush lit up Jace’s face at the familiar but somehow old nickname. Magnus had given it to him when Jace had moved into the loft, saying Jace had looked like a sad, homeless puppy and that Magnus always took in strays in need of shelter. Jace somehow really liked the nickname.

“Mh…? It… really?”, asked Jace slowly, turning toward Magnus. “I… didn’t think you’d want to see me, because you… you lost your magic because of me.”

“I got it back. And I didn’t lose it, I willingly gave it up”, corrected Magnus. “I gave it up to save you, after… after I put you in danger. I made the potion that took your love for Clary away, that allowed you to be possessed by Lilith… I thought you were avoiding me, because you were still… angry about what I had done.”

“She… didn’t want what I wanted. And I didn’t want what she wanted. The logical and best solution would have been a break-up anyway. And… she’s dead, Magnus”, pointed Jace out, eyebrows raised. “And it’s not like you did what you did on purpose.”

“It might look that way though”, sighed Magnus and returned his attention to the moon.

“Why would you?”, scoffed Jace. “Unless you really hate me and wanted me to suffer.”

“Or I really loved you and… me using magic to break your love could easily be seen as me trying to kick the competition to the curb”, offered Magnus casually.

“Yeah, right”, snorted Jace before he started laughing.

He stopped surprised when Magnus didn’t join the laughter but rather looked subdued. Clearing his throat, Jace adjusted to also look out at New York again. Magnus, loving him…?

“So… you were in love with me…”, drawled Jace awkwardly.

“Am”, corrected Magnus cautiously. “I am in love with you, Jace. I worried so much about you while you were in the City of Bones and when you returned… I have to admit, I used every cabinet meeting trying to… get a glimpse of you… Getting over you was a nice concept, but it didn’t work. You being back only brought that back full force. Having you here, now… I just…”

“Mh…”, grunted Jace and nodded, still not looking at Magnus. “What… What do you… want…?”

“You”, offered Magnus honestly, turning to look at Jace’s profile, illuminated by the moonlight. “You know… I’ve… always thought I was strictly a cat-person. Always just wanted cats. Lots and lots of cats. But now I think… I don’t necessarily need cats. I think… I want a dog.”

“I want a cat”, replied Jace and tilted his head. “I mean, I don’t need a cat, but… since… the guy I like really likes cats, I wouldn’t mind cats…”

“But I’d prefer a gentle, soft puppy, if I can have him”, mused Magnus gently, reaching out to cup Jace’s cheek. “You wouldn’t have to… to hang out with cats, if that’s not what you want.”

“Please, stop talking in metaphors, that’s just painful to watch. Jace, Magnus loves you… for who you are. Magnus, Jace while willing to have sex, would like your relationship to focus on… other things. Now, I was promised wine”, interrupted Raphael with a sigh and a roll of his eyes.

Jace and Magnus were both mildly flustered as they turned to look at the exasperated vampire. Magnus cleared his throat and summoned the wine before turning toward Jace one last time.

“I’d like to take you out on a date, Jace”, offered Magnus gently. “And I’m more than willing to take the relationship at your pace. All I want is you, Jace.”

Jace gulped and blinked, unsure what to think of this. “O… Okay. Dazzle me, Bane.”

/break\

Magnus was good at dazzling. Jace couldn’t deny he had a crush on Magnus before, the man was absolutely gorgeous, inside and out. But dating Magnus effectively made Jace fall in love with the warlock. It was all about the romance, the gentle comfort. Dates, walks under the moonlight, traveling the world with portals. There was an insane amount of cuddling.

“Hey”, whispered Magnus with a gentle smile, lifting the blanket.

It was late, or early, depending on how one looked at the night. Jace had just gotten home from a long-running mission. Home. The loft had become home again three months into dating Magnus, because he loved to be with Magnus, to fall asleep in the warlock’s arms, be kissed awake by his boyfriend, have breakfast in bed with Magnus. Groaning softly, Jace collapsed face-first onto the bed. Magnus smiled and carefully pulled the blonde closer until Jace could properly curl against him his head resting on Magnus’ chest and nuzzling against him.

“I love you”, whispered Jace softly.

Magnus’ fingers stilled in Jace’s hair, the warlock laying stiff for a second. “Not… how I expected for you to to tell me that you loved me for the first time.”

Jace paused and slowly looked up. “Is… Is that really…”

“The first time you told me that you love me?”, asked Magnus amused. “Yes, it is.”

“…Ooops?”, offered Jace sheepishly. “I thought I…” He paused and frowned. “I… I didn’t expect to really fall in love with you, but… I did. I love you. I love you. And it… feels right to say. Yeah.”

The smile Magnus offered him at that made his heart flutter. And while Jace knew Magnus desired him, he knew by the looks, the intensity of Magnus’ eyes, he knew that Magnus loved him. They did have sex, because Jace didn’t really mind, but he only felt secure enough in their relationship after he had moved in with Magnus. Feeling like sex was not the only thing Magnus would want from him. That it was more like a bonus. And for Jace, it was still a good outlet for stress, a great coping mechanism and a good way for exercise. He also found that it helped deepen the trust between himself and Magnus. And now he was just absolutely in love with the warlock.

“I love you too, puppy”, whispered Magnus with gentle eyes before kissing Jace.

And oh he did. He had thought he loved Jace before, but ever since they got together? How affectionate and cuddly Jace could be, when he trusted someone, loved someone. Magnus smiled as his cuddly puppy snuggled up to him, sprawled out on top of the warlock, seeking warmth and affection – something Magnus was more than willing to give, knowing he got it back in return.

Slight change of schedule, because what’d be a better time to post my first asexuality-headcanon fic if not Asexual Awareness Week? ;)

Read this here on FFNet & here on AO3

#jagnus #divergent-raven #magnus bane #jace herondale #shadowhunters #asexual jace #phoe's tumblr drabbles #OTP: keep it in your pants

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