#just....feeling like he needs to have sufficiently suffered to be worthy of anything good

[dreamcast641]

Ocs as colors

oh man this is going to be long because, knowing myself, I'd explain stuff and yap about them Anyway Claire

Warm Green

''Hey there, how's the whole "finding your reason in life" thing going? Listen, I know that it seems like you need to have some reason to be here, whether it's a goal to strive towards, a purpose, a direction, a passion, a use, anything, but you don't. You don't have to give what happened to you a reason, and your reactions don't always have to make sense. You don't have to keep putting the blame on yourself, and you don't have to try and unravel yourself like a puzzle, either. I know that people often see you as someone who's calmer, someone who seems to have it together, who, even though you struggle, you're always able to make it through it. And you are, and you're able to, and I'm proud of you for that. But, you should be proud of yourself, too, not just of what others are proud of you for, and not just what things you've deemed "worthy" of that praise. You've come far. If freedom is what you want, then you should let yourself have it.'' I like how, when it comes to Claire, those quiz seems to be almost always accurate. Yeah she is the kind of person that wants to have a reason for what happened around her that, at times, effected others as well and not in a good way. She seems to often place the blame of others suffering and her own on herself and herself only, almost inflicting herself more pain mentally to do better next time to not let anyone else down, to learn from her past mistakes. Claire wants people to see what she does and wants them to be at least a bit proud of her and yes, freedom is something that she desire but it's yet almost unreacheable. -------------------------- Dmitry

Burgundy Red

''You're very passionate, maybe passionate in the way of people, maybe passionate in the way of a goal, of a love, of a desire- it doesn't matter that much. You're strong-minded, self-sufficient, and people admire you, perhaps for different reasons, depending on what parts of yourself are true or not. Are you done running from what you don't like? It's okay, to be afraid. Fear is normal, it's what makes someone human, what makes someone real, but that doesn't mean that you can avoid everything. Someday your grief of your old self will find you in the middle of a summer day and ask you if you've forgiven it yet, and you will have to find an answer.''

Nop, I'm not satisfied with that answer. Dmitry isn't a passionate man at all and what he does comes from him giving up from the moment the incident happened and when the heard the doctors saying that he wasn't worthy keep him alive and waste the foundation money on machineries. He's impulsive in his decisions, due to a slow spiral that would lead him in his demise. ------------------------------- Evelynn

Sunflower Yellow

''Hello :] I have a feeling that you might enjoy using little faces like that, so I will, too! You've likely had a bit of a rough life, even if you don't share that with others too often, or if you do, it's so other people know they're not alone. That's admirable, but it's also good to talk about the things that trouble you for your own sake, as well. I know that you're strong, and you should be proud of yourself for how far you've come, but don't forget that it's also okay to step back for a bit, that it's okay if you're not put together. Regardless, you're someone that people tend to find comfort in, and you're a good, cheerful person to be around. It's a bit hard to come across someone like you nowadays- be proud of yourself, and if anyone tries to tell you that you're wrong for enjoying the small joys in life, just be happy that it's obvious you're truly living life.'' Evelynn is the kind of person that, no matter how much life throws at her, she'll always find a reason to be kind to others and maybe that's why she is considered an excellent doctor. She is trying her best to repair whatever past mistakes she did, the hurt she inflicted her children by leaving them behind is something that she can't shake the guilt off and knowing that she never will have the chance to make things right is eating her alive. But knowing that people in that GOC site, that went through a lot due to their past leadership, relies on her and sees her as a good influence, someone to always look for when they need reassurance, it's giving her hope for a better future ----------------------

Lilja

Afternoon Blue

''You can be both gentle, and relentless. Soothing, and unforgiving, whether that's towards yourself, or others. You're someone who is considered a natural born leader, and you tend to take that title in pride, although there are times when you wish that you wouldn't have to always be the one who makes the decisions. The pressure that you've lived with so far has settled heavily onto your shoulders, and even though you've learned to live with it, you can't help but wonder what it would be like to share that burden with someone else, for once. People have always placed their expectations on you, and you always rise to the task- regardless of whether you think you can really do it, or not. Its led to you having some unfair expectations of others- after all, who are they to be so far behind? Who are they to sit and rest, when you must do all this work? You have to learn to let others take some of that burden from you, you have to learn to rest. The only thing truly stopping yourself from resting now, is you.'' Honestly I have no idea because she is a fresh new character and her traits are not well defined yet like are for the others that some I have for almost a decade now. But yeah I can see her being a person with a lot of expectations on her shoulders with a lot of work to do to be someone and at least her hard work was worth something, even something revolutionary even.

[samanddean76]

Ye Of Cumbersome Faith

Sam had always believed.  In most anything, really.  Believed in God, in angels, in demons, in saints, in sinners.  Believed in the inherent potential good of the overwhelmingly vast majority of people, but he also believed that our weaknesses were sometimes the doorway to true evil.  Because Sam believed in monsters too, but the evidence of their existence precluded the need for faith.  No, what had always captivated Sam was the thought that if he was somehow good enough, if he completed a sufficient number of gloriously valorous deeds, if he vowed to protect and fight for those who couldn’t defend themselves, then he would be proven to be worthy.  And then he would be allowed to enter heaven.  To reap the ultimate reward for all of his righteous labors. 

But as Sam had found out in an incredibly brutal fashion, that was all just a well-crafted fantasy.  God was nothing more than a cruel and capricious child, whose only amusement was found in the abject suffering of others.  Angels were winged dicks whose self-righteousness was so legendary, that they made Genghis Khan seem like a hermit shut-in by comparison.  Demons were at least honest in their devious intentions, wishing to corrupt and damn all that they could to a hellish existence in their afterlife.  Saints were little more than true believers who lived long enough to do an ample amount of good works before their blind faith doomed them to a horrible death.  And sinners, they might be the purest of the bunch.  Simply doing as they pleased, and caring so little for their immortal soul, that an afterlife in hell might actually be considered an upgrade. 

Yes, Sam had been a believer.  He had prayed to the good Lord above every single day.  Fallen to his knees and asked the angels and the saints for their guidance, their assistance, and vowed to do the best that he could.  He hadn’t always had the best intentions, but he had always fought for those that needed help.  He had killed countless monsters, sent innumerable demons back to hell, he had helped to avert a goddamned motherfucking apocalypse… 

And what was his reward for that incredible sacrifice?  It was to be trapped in a cage with a fallen Archangel whose only interest lay in hearing his own voice wax philosophical about all things unfair, unjust, undeserved, and unwarranted that had been sprung on poor old, little innocent him, just because he had wanted to show his misbegotten father how wrong he was about his new favorite creations.  The hairless apes.  That’s what the angels called humans, Uriel with such venom in his tone as he spoke the damning words.  An insane hatred flaring to life at the mere mention of God favoring those he deemed so unworthy of his father’s love. 

Sam had gone to literal fucking hell and all he had to show for his heroic deeds was to be trapped in a cage while he was being raped, endlessly, by Lucifer and Micheal.  The two brothers had finally seen eye to eye on something, unfortunately for Sam, it was his complete and total degradation. 

Sam’s last hope had been Michael.  The supposedly good Archangel.  The one that had obeyed his father, that was prepared to fight valiantly so that the many people that populated the earth might continue to live, might carry on with the legacy that had been passed on from one generation to the next.  But Sam should have known better, especially after all of their interactions with Zachariah.  Even the good ones aren’t truly good or pure.  They are simply less dickishly evil than their siblings.

Sam was being held down once more, as Michael pounded into him, whispering to him as he violated his immortal soul.  “Do you like that?  Does it feel good?  Oh, you like that, don’t you?”  On and on it went.  Day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, decade after decade, century after century, until finally Death had strolled into the cage, and shown the two bastards who had never taken a break from tormenting Sam for the entirety of his stay in the cage, that they were little more than whining children who were in desperate need of a time-out.  And that Death was taking their favorite toy with him.  It was an image that still haunted Sam, the looks of pure, unadulterated rage that graced the brother’s visages.  How they raged as the only being in all of creation they truly feared, could simply dismiss them as if they were mere errand boys, little more than children playing dress-up. 

Sam clutched desperately tight to the arms that held him close.  As he buried his face into the side of the neck that was above him.  As he whimpered, with each and every stroke of the rock-hard cock that was pleasuring him to within an inch of his life.  He tried to block out the memories of Lucifer forcing him down, and driving in until Sam had screamed himself hoarse, until blood ran down and coated his thighs, but they always crept back in.  Even though he had pleaded with Dean to show him how much he had missed him, the hellscape trauma would always bleed back in.  Always ruin what had always been so perfect, before. 

But Sam still had his faith, he did.  But now he was placing it in someone who was worthy of it.  Someone who would sacrifice for Sam, a being that would slaughter the entire world if it meant that Sam would give him another dimpled smile, a brother who had always cared for him, as best as he could, in the direst of circumstances.  Always fought against all of the incredible odds, always strived to find his way back, to his Sammy. 

To his baby boy. 

Sam felt the thick fingers curl around his cock, and in just a few strokes, he was being torn apart as he came hard, knowing that Dean would put him back together again.  Would soothe every hurt, heal every trauma.  Would move heaven and hell, just so that his Sammy would be whole once more. 

Yes, Sam did have faith.  And he had finally placed it in the right being.

“Love ya, De.” 

“Love ya too, Sammy.” 

And Sam did give him that fragile smile, but then the image faded, and Lucifer began to cruelly mock him once more.  Because even the most fervent faith can’t keep true evil at bay.

Dean could only stare down at his Sam, as he screamed, as he writhed, as he desperately tried to get away.  Simply knowing that he would find something that would fix Sam, even if he had to burn this entire world to the ground to find it. 

So help him God. 

[eclipsednodes]

SHADOW WORK SIMPLIFIED

What is shadow work?

If I had to describe shadow work in one word, it would be introspection. Introspection is the examination of your own mental state and is necessary in order to learn more about your fundamental nature. Although it may sound off-putting and even scary at first, shadow work is a necessary component in the process of healing. We all have aspects of ourselves that we’ve rejected and hidden away out of fear. Through shadow work, we’re able to reflect on our thoughts, emotions, and habits so that we can find the root cause of our suffering and heal ourselves. By reincorporating those aspects of ourselves that we’ve denied, we feel more fulfilled and can begin to love ourselves fully. 

Where does shadow work come from? 

The concept of the shadow self comes from Carl Jung who believed that our shadow self is the subconscious aspect, or “dark side”, of our personality that our conscious ego doesn’t identify with. However, I would like to clarify that “dark” does not imply or equate with bad. That which resides outside of our consciousness can be either good or bad, but aren’t inherently reflective of our value or “goodness” as a person. 

Although these repressed aspects of ourselves can manifest negatively, it isn’t because those parts of us are “bad”, but that the process of repression is inherently painful and toxic. This is reflected by Jung when he states, "Everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individual's conscious life, the blacker and denser it is.” He believed that until we’ve merged our conscious and subconscious selves, that our conscious would be “the slave of the autonomous shadow”. This is due to the shadow self overwhelming our conscious selves by falling victim to our own self-imposed traps. 

Through assimilating this shadow self, not over-identifying with it, Jung believed we go through the process of enantiodromia, thereby integrating the subconscious by reincorporating our shadow selves into our personality and allowing us to solidify ourselves through wholeness. He best described this by stating "assimilation of the shadow gives a man body, so to speak.” However, don’t fall into the misconception that shadow work is a short-term practice. Shadow work is a continuous practice and integration of the shadow self is a will take place throughout your life.

How do I do shadow work?

In the last question, I identified that practicing self-reflection is a key component of shadow work, but what does that mean? What am I supposed to be reflecting on? Well, the first thing that you should focus on is being present throughout the day. Identify feelings that come up throughout the day and observe them objectively. What situation or interaction triggered these emotions? How did I react to those emotions? Were my emotions controlling me or was I in control of my emotions? Why did this situation or interaction cause me to feel this way? How did I cope with those feelings (self-harming, lashing out at others, communicating my feelings, journalling, etc.)? Did I punish myself for getting upset? If so, why? 

There are numerous ways to reflect on your feelings and experiences in order to get a better understanding of yourself. Through evaluating how you react to situations, which situations upset you, and how you managed those feelings, you’re able to build the foundation to understanding your emotions and bridge the gap between your subconscious and conscious mind.

Once you’ve done this, you’ll find that the emotions you feel in the present are reflective of unhealed emotions from your past. Perhaps the reason you feel that you’re unable to set boundaries as an adult is because as a child, your parents never respected your boundaries by going through your phone or diary, yelling at you when you said no to a request, forcing you into situations that made you feel you had no choice. 

By identifying the root cause of your emotional pain, you’re able to address it in the present and heal from the trauma. The simplest way that I’ve found to address them is through journalling. You can purchase a physical journal or even use your notes app, either way, you’re writing out your feelings and reflections to gain deeper insight. It’s important to remember that this looks different for anyone and that the best way to approach shadow work is by doing what feels most natural! You can choose to stick to self-reflective journal prompts, vent about whatever is upsetting you, write letters to whoever has hurt you, etc. Ultimately, you can guide yourself based off of what you feel you need and where you are in your journey.

What parts of yourself do you find yourself rejecting the most? Many of us have experienced the pain of rejection in some aspects of our lives and sometimes, it’s incredibly painful and leaves us with long-lasting wounds. We end up going through our lives carrying baggage that we don’t even know we have! Many times, I’ve found myself wondering why I felt so repulsed by aspects of myself and why I felt so strongly that they needed to be locked away forever. I couldn’t allow myself or others to see my truest self, my whole self, out of fear. I was scared of being rejected, shamed, humiliated by the people around me. I was scared of hurting other people by being myself and of being hurt by others. That’s no way to live, is it? When we tell ourselves that aspects of ourselves aren’t good enough, we end up going through life devaluing ourself. We’ve broken our own trust by rejecting ourselves, we’ve told ourselves that we aren’t good enough or worthy of love. In shadow work, you’re called to go inward and unpack everything that we’ve kept hidden for years and sometimes even decades. 

Bring the parts of yourself that you’ve repressed to the surface and nourish them with love, allow yourself to see that ALL OF YOU is deserving of love and support. For you, that could mean unlearning your unhealthy beliefs about food or eating, allowing yourself to be emotional around the people you love (despite how much you were told that you were too emotional, a crybaby, too sensitive in the past), allowing yourself to relax without feeling guilty about not being productive because you recognize your needs (even though you feel your sense of worth is tied to being productive at the cost of your own health).

Common misconceptions about shadow work?

Shadow work is evil or bad, the shadow is evil or bad 

The purpose of shadow work is healing through working with your subconscious to release repressed aspects of yourself and heal from painful, traumatic experiences. Your shadow side is simply your unconscious and to believe that it’s bad is to believe that you are bad. It’s merely the part of yourself that you aren’t aware of consciously and shouldn’t be feared. 

Certain emotions are “bad”

When you let go of the idea that emotions are either good or bad, you’ll allow yourself to just be and stop putting so much pressure on yourself to feel “good” all of the time. Happiness isn’t a constant state of being so stop expecting to be all of the time, we have a range of emotions for a reason so stop being ashamed of them. Your feelings are natural and if you feel like they’re out of control and something to be ashamed of, there is nothing wrong with that! It’s okay to feel like your emotions are controlling you because that isn’t permanent. Your feelings aren’t permanent and are completely manageable with proper guidance! The reason you feel like your emotions are controlling you is because you probably don’t have the knowledge to cope with them in an effective and healthy way. It’s helpful to sit with your emotions alone and look at them objectively without placing any judgement on them, this will help you calm down and assess your feelings. From there, you can identify what you need to relax and recover as well as acknowledge to yourself that your feelings are natural. When you stop categorizing your emotions as bad, they’re no longer shameful to experience and therefore you can see with better clarity how to cope with them and move on.

I’ve already released it so…

Why am I still upset?

Why does it still keep popping up in my head?

Why haven’t I moved on?

Why am I not making progress?

With the rise of self development and spirituality, I find that more and more people are rushing to complete their healing. Healing is a continuous, life-long cycle and not a destination. Putting the pressure on yourself to reach the place of ultimate healing is not only toxic, but it impedes your ability to actually heal anything. Healing is about love, compassion, and patience and it’s not going to happen according to a timeline. Allow yourself the time to experience your emotions, see them objectively, forgive yourself and others and move on without the pressure of expectations. 

 Another reason that you could be experiencing this is that despite the work you think you’ve done, it hasn’t been sufficient. I’ve found that a lot of journal prompts provided online are surface level at best and can be more pacifying than revealing. If you’re not feeling anything while doing your inner work, you’re not doing it correctly. Ultimately, this is about uncovering what makes us UNCOMFORTABLE and moving through those feelings. When you allow yourself to experience the sadness, hurt, anger, and/or frustration than you’re telling yourself that these feelings are okay and don’t need to be suppressed. The reality is that no matter what you’re feeling, you are allowed to experience those emotions and it’s only human! Unfortunately, many people associate lower vibrational emotions as bad, but this is a huge misconception! Telling yourself that anger, sadness, etc. are “bad” implies that you shouldn’t experience these emotions and that you have to get rid of them which is not only wrong, but unhealthy. There is no right or wrong emotions so don’t buy into the belief that you should feel a certain way, simply allow yourself to be and you’ll find that it’s much easier to navigate your emotions and needs. The only way to make it to the other side is by wading through the water, be patient and know that you’re feeling exactly what you should be. When you stop censoring yourself, you’ll discover a newfound sense of freedom and wholeness. 

 If you find yourself circling back to certain topics, for example, your ex-boyfriend than perhaps there are triggers in your environment that remind you of the situation, you have more that needs to be addressed that you may not have been ready for or aware of previously (hence why shadow work is a practice that is ongoing), or they’re representative of a deeper issue that you’re repressing. Whatever the cause is, the same methods as earlier will apply and can be discerned through your own intuition. 

What are some basic journal prompts that I can do?

What feelings come up when you think of ____?

How did that experience make you feel emotionally? How did it make you feel about yourself? How did it make you feel about the other person or people?

Write a letter to yourself, your inner child, the people who’ve hurt you, and the people you’ve hurt. Express how you feel honestly, without holding back and then forgive yourself and the other person.

If you could say anything to yourself or another person for closure, what would it be?

How have these situations and experiences impacted your mental health? How have they affected your belief system about yourself, other people, and the world?

What about yourself are you ashamed of? What about yourself are you embarrassed of? What about yourself makes you angry? What do you regret? Why do you feel this way about yourself and where do these feelings stem from?

What makes you feel most alone? What makes you feel most loved? How can you incorporate that knowledge into your life to make it better?

What’s the most hurtful thing someone has said or done to you? Why did it hurt you so much? How does it still affect you now? How can you heal from it and allow yourself to move on?

What do you need to forgive yourself for? What do you need to forgive others for?

Where do you feel you lack security in your life? Why? How does this impact your life and your relationships?

This is a list of generic prompts for you to start with, but feel free to message me if you need help with more specific topics or I can make another post altogether for journal prompts.

[corvidiss]

Her Father’s Joy.

(Or some other fancy title because I honestly don’t know what to call my brain-ramble Frankenstein AU that I have no intentions of doing anything with except cry over it.)

TL;DR at the bottom.

Who’s this, you ask? What does she have to do with Frankenstein? Why does she look so gaunt and corpse-like?

Well, my friend, I have the answers for you.

(Long answers though, so below the cut.)

This is a Frankenstein AU where Henry follows Victor up into the mountains to Mont Blanc. Perhaps, when he was nursing Victor back to health at Ingolstadt, he heard something, found something, that spurred this decision. Whatever it was, it meant he caught up with his friend just as the Creature was arriving too.

That doesn’t go down well with Victor. It’s a wonder he doesn’t have a full on breakdown in that moment, but somehow bears it out and despite his strong attempts to get Henry to turn around and walk away, there is no stopping the horrified yet determined wonder that appears on Clerval’s face.

They listen to the Creature’s tale together, and Henry finds sympathy for the abandoned child. He witnesses and contributes to Victor’s decision to agree to the Creature’s terms and create him a bride.

They set off for Britain soon after that. Victor is dreading repeating the process of creating life and is troubled by guilt and doubt; but Henry encourages him, compelled by the image of mournful desperation in the Creature’s eyes, which stays with him long after their meeting.

Henry helps to gather supplies as they travel through England and into Scotland. Victor tries to keep as much as he can a secret – but although Henry is disturbed by what he learns, he is determined to be aware this time. He is determined to understand and be there to help.

So they arrive at a secluded cottage on a remote Scottish island, and as Victor unpacks and arranges his materials, Henry sets about making sure their living space is at least a little comfortable.

During their travels, Henry met with the Creature a few times, to assure him that they were on track and that Victor was remaining true to his word. Over the first months on the island, Henry meets with the Creature again a few times, but Victor refuses to see him. Victor only wants to get this task done and finished, so he can return to his remaining family and forget he ever created life.

But as the months pass, Henry brings the Creature ever closer to their home, and eventually Victor allows him into the house. From then on, Henry takes care of not just Victor (who needs constant nagging to rest, drink and eat) but also Victor’s first creation (who needs a regular good meal, a bath, and most importantly a friend).

And Henry and the Creature begin to talk on matters less relevant to the bride’s creation and progress. They begin to speak about ethics, and philosophy, and self-worth and humanity and identity. All the things that someone should have spoken about with him when he was younger, before the world turned him sour. Conversations entail whether the Creature is justified in his anger (yes) and his violent acts (no) and whether he is unworthy of love because of them (no); whether Victor was right to abandon him (no) and whether people should get second chances; how a child should be raised and cherished and how families function and interact.

And after the Creature witnesses Henry giving Victor a small kiss and whirls away exclaiming disgust, they talk about romantic relationships, and when one would be ready for them.

Henry was aware from the outset that the Creature was at least in some respects a child; but the more he talks with him, the more wide and evident this fact becomes. Even Victor, who gradually begins to contribute a word here and there to these conversations, agrees that his creation is, though large in form and eloquently spoken, still young in mind.

So when the bride is near to reanimation, 21 months after the work began, Henry asks the Creature, “What will you call her?” – and the Creature responds, “I shall call her Sister.”

Victor gives life to the sister, and as she lies, blinking, astounded by the cacophony of senses that surround her in her first hours of existence, the Creature sits by her side and silently holds her hand.

When she becomes accustomed to the sounds and sights and smells and sensations, she sits up, and the Creature helps her to stand and leads her carefully to the door and out onto thin grass, as the sun rises on a land calm after a storm and a glistening sea.

She spends her first days numbly watching the world, blinking large, inquisitive eyes at all that passes, never once letting go of the hand she woke up holding. And yet while her wonder of the world enchants Henry, and even manages to move Victor, the Creature suffers a turmoil. All through her creation, he had eagerly awaited her first breath, rejoiced at the thought of receiving one like him – one like him! – to stem his loneliness and save him from despair. But now, watching her guileless face shine in the sunlight, he begins to wonder if he has only condemned another poor soul to the blights of his own sorry existence; if asking for another of his kind was a purely selfish act that had doomed another innocent being to the vilest of lives one can endure.

But as time passes, as she begins to imitate speech and take an interest in Henry’s attempts to teach her to talk and read, as she gradually realises that she can move separately from the Creature and lets go of his hand the first time, as she begins to wander on her own through the grass and across the sand... the Creature sees that her life can be so much better than his own. That he has a chance to give her something he never had, something Henry wants to give her too: a family. Even Victor begins to reconsider his plans to leave them the moment they become self-sufficient, and to take a role in supporting her development (though he hides this at first in excuses of how “scientific records must be kept”).

After her first couple of weeks of life, Henry insists that they give her a name. (He had asked the Creature if he wanted a name back in the earlier stages of their interactions, but the suggestion had been refused; at that time, the Creature hadn’t seen himself worthy of a name, and didn’t readdress the possibility until the question of his sister’s came up.) After some debate and a general hot-potato of the responsibility, Henry names her Abigail, until she or someone else decide on something better. Even when the family later settles on Adelaide, he continues to use Abigail for her out of habit and affection.

And, several months on, the Creature chooses a name for himself; Ambrose. It signifies not only the development of self-worth but an acceptance of his own being. Ambrose means “immortal.”

And Abigail means “my father’s joy.”

TL;DR:

In this AU, Henry follows Victor to Mont Blanc, and as a result meets the Creature with him. Victor and Henry travel to Scotland together and Victor begins to build the bride while Henry makes sure he’s fed, rested and watered, and begins to talk to the Creature and get to know him. They talk about many things including morality, ethics and relationships, and Henry comes to realise that the Creature is more of a child than he initially thought.

When Victor’s new creation is reanimated, the Creature has come to think of her as a sister, not a bride. He holds her hand as she lies, coming to her senses, and helps her to walk outside and see the sun rise. Her first days are spent watching the world with a wide-eyed wonder, and the Creature begins to feel guilt at having demanded another of his cursed kind to be brought into existence, to suffer a life as abhorred and cruel as his. But as time passes, he sees that here, she has a chance to live a life so much better than his own; with a family. Even Victor begins to reconsider his original plan to leave them on their own once they become self-sufficient, and to take a parental role.

When the topic of name comes up, Henry decides to call her Abigail until someone has a better idea – but even when the family settles on Adelaide, he continues to call her Abigail out of habit and affection.

And the Creature eventually chooses Ambrose, which signifies an acceptance of himself. It means “immortal.”

And Abigail means “my father’s joy.”

[chiimmchiimm]

❝ 𝖒𝖔𝖓𝖘𝖙𝖊𝖗 !¡ 𝓉𝒽𝒾𝓇𝓉𝑒𝑒𝓃 ❞

CHAPTERS “  01 - 02 - 03 - 04 - 05 - 06 - 07 - 08 - 09 - 10 -  11  - 12 - 13 - 14 - 15 - 16 - 17 - 18 - 19 - 20 - 21 - 22 - 23 - 24 - 25 - 26 - 27 “  

The northern jail was the most dangerous in the country, social scum, thousands of criminals were locked behind their bars. Who would tell poor Blair that he would end up there because of his father’s mistake. The problem was not the lack of hot water, but that inhuman obsession that many of the prisoners had for “new toys.” Rookies had two options; be submissive and abide by veterans’ orders or suffer the dangerous anger of those disturbed minds. It all started one night when Blair had the bad idea of ​​going to shower alone.

𝒫𝒶𝒾𝓇𝒾𝓃𝑔: Jungkookoffender au x (female: Blair).   𝒢𝑒𝓃𝓇𝑒: Genre: smut.(later), offender au, fluff, angst. 𝒲𝑜𝓇𝒹𝓈: 4.3 k 𝑅𝒶𝓃𝓆𝓊𝒾𝓃𝑔:  +18   𝒲𝒶𝓇𝓃𝒾𝓃𝑔:   dirty language, lies, mood swings, spectacular and close bodies, muscles, biceps, problems, very big problems, resolved threats, future friends, jealousy on her part, sad but spicy conversation in the end, rare metaphors ... 𝒜𝓊𝓉𝒽𝑜𝓇’𝓈 𝓃𝑜𝓉𝑒:  A long time, dear readers, I paused to finish the story completely. I will try to upload the chapters more often. Great things are coming !! Thank you very much for reading and enjoy the chapter !!

Did you have me for what?

  Fucking shit because every time we talked, he left me with the word in his mouth and left, leaving the greatest suspense in history. It seemed like her favorite hobby, confusing me as she tried to make sense of everything she said. But all that was a dead end because every time I reached a conclusion he would come and make me think a thousand different times. I never understood men, much less this one. I did not like the feeling of uncertainty that settled in my chest every time I had the privilege of being the recipient of such ambiguous words.

   My fist hit the leather material with enthusiasm. I did not know at what point I had arrived at the prison gym, I was only aware of my actions when I noticed the cold latex contrast with the heat of my knuckles. Maybe I had found my way to let off steam. When he hit the bag he didn't think, he just moved the muscles unconsciously. I needed that, let go of instinct and stop thinking about deep eyes and strong arms with wonderfully perfect tattoos.

  I liked that inmates ignored me, it had been a long time since I had heard loud compliments and overly embarrassing sexist comments. In a way, they had learned to respect my space and they didn't bother me as much, of course, the presence of Thirteen had been a mitigating factor worthy of note. In these weeks my relationship with Thirteen (if the strange bond that unites us can be called that) had advanced to such a point that I did nothing without him at my side. I suppose that we had a common goal, to protect his sister, but in fact, I liked that he will also ensure my safety. Since the occurrence of the baths he had not detached himself from me, and in a way, his company did not bother me as surprisingly I thought he would. He was not as bad as he thought, his grumpy character had been lowered considerably in these weeks, he was no longer the same serious boy whose only facial gesture was manifested through a slight involuntary blink. Without going any further, he continued to maintain that firm and regal posture but there were times when he thought he saw a small smile appear.

 A smile like now.

"If the sack had a mouth, it would be laughing at your blows." I hear his mockery between the roars of my fists hitting the leather material. His back was turned to him but I could imagine how his corners rose in a mischievous smile that only screamed the desire he had to make me rage. His longtime favorite hobby. Buffet exhausted and then stop hitting the stuff to turn me around. Thirteen received my frown with a small laugh.

"Yeah, but you have to understand that not everyone lives three meters away and has arms bigger than their head." I blurted out, she seemed to look annoyed but both he and I knew that my contemptuous tone was overactive. Cross your arms to calm the hectic movement of my chest. For him it had been nothing more than small blows but he had really left my breath. Long heavy breaths with her mouth ajar as she skeptically watched him. I felt how the beads of sweat gradually accumulated on my forehead and then bathed my neck with pride. Thirteen observed me sitting from an exercise table, with his dark eyebrow raised as he followed the path of a drop that went down the column of my neck towards my tank top. My breathing increased dramatically for reasons other than exercise when her tongue came out in a provocative dance to wet her two parted lips. I squeezed my arms to cover the view of my semi-transparent white sweatshirt. I felt very intimidated on my feet, as her eyes traveled everywhere she had exposed. Even more when her dramatic silence began to bore me and my mind began to produce thoughts about how good the white T-shirt she wore today looked, how well her tattoos stood out in the artificial light of the bar lamps and in the wide and fluffy that turned his thighs when crushed when sitting.

I swallowed hard to catch my breath as Thirteen scrambled to her feet to impose her height on me. I had to tilt my neck up to see the dark glow in his eyes.

"I'm not ten feet tall," I groan with a small pout as I wrinkle my nose and frown. Her gesture made me laugh a little. However, I stopped laughing when his eyes dropped to my wet little cleavage. My breath hitched and the mouth of my throat began to dry. I part my lips in a snap, causing her to soon admire his movement. "However, I have parts of my body that are quite large."

  Snap your fingers in front of your face to catch their attention. Immediately his eyes stopped admiring the beginning of my breasts to settle on me as if nothing.

"My face is up here, Thirteen."

   I pass a slanting self-sufficient smile as I stared at mine. A look too intense to hold for too long. For a fraction of a second I wished I had closed my mouth, because at least the other way I didn't notice how nervous I was when his pupils dominated mine too easily. Turn the sack around and hit it to camouflage the tension that had formed from the awkward silence.

  Center the force of my punches at one point to increase damage to the bag, isolating myself from around me. Suddenly, my back hit the hard surface of his chest. I immediately froze by canceling any future moves I intended to make. I swallowed so that the dryness of my mouth was not so bothersome. My stomach clenched as the weight of his hands began to warmly embrace my hip. I tried to glance askance at his body but his hands held me in place. One of his legs came slowly down the side of my body, when his thigh brushed against mine I swore I heard a gasp escape from his lips that landed directly on the surface of my ear when he leaned enough so that I could feel the wetness of my skin from his lip.

"You are too weak to leave all the weight of the blow in your hands," he whispered in a graver tone than usual. I deduced from the movement of his chest that he looked more disturbed than the normal stability of his voice reflected. He raised his hands leaving a silky path too nice, I closed my eyes unconsciously when he left them on my waist. By then, my breathing was too strong to try to hide it. It was as if after his hot walk my joints would stop working, submitting to the sweet torture of his overly provocative caresses. In a movement that caught me completely off guard, he thrust his knee into the hollow of mine and dug his fingers into my waist to propel me forward so that my fist hit the material. Incredibly the bag moved for the first time since I started my workouts. I opened my eyes forgetting, or rather, trying to ignore how good my whole body felt when feeling the cozy warmth of his big hands.

“But how?” I asked, too surprised by the simple fact that I never thought I would ever be able to move the bag on my own. In a quick blink I managed to glance askance at her face, her sharp detailed jaw in front of my eyes giving me a perfect perspective of her wonderful profile. His well-formed cheekbones and the relief of his large nose. I even managed to discover amid the roughness of his broad neck a small mole that caused a sweetness to the eye. Thirteen realizing my devotion to new discoveries of her skin, I turn my head completely. His wild pupils dominated mine leaving me at his disposal. The moisture on my lips felt a sharp chill as it contrasted with his hot breath.

"You are small, you have almost no muscle and you hardly know how to defend yourself." All you can do is attack strong enough first to give yourself time to run away.

I felt ashamed for her lack of confidence in my physical state, more than hurt, however, deep down I knew she was right and that's why I kept quiet. I was never a physically strong girl before, I did not win a fight in my life and if I did it was not for me, but because someone interrupted. And maybe that was what bothered me so much that even knowing I was right I didn't want him to see me as a helpless animal that had no other way than to flee. I've been running away from an abuser all my life, and I think sometimes people get tired of running away. In my case, quite a long time ago.

"Well then, teach me how to defend myself," I whispered in a conciliatory tone. Thirteen I raise one leaves surprised by my interest, however, a short time later began to form a smile marked by pride. I felt good at the time, able to do anything.

“Do you see the black area of ​​the bag?” He pointed his eyes forward, making him turn his head towards his directions. Take a close look at the black stripe that covered the top of the bag. He bit back an unsatisfied moan as he remembered that it was the hardest area. At first I had tried to soften her but had done nothing other than bruise my knuckles thoroughly. I nodded a little confused for not understanding what was the interest of her looking right there. His finger reached to the start of the sack just on the edge as the material slipped in to form a flattened circumference. Raise your head to facilitate my perspective. It was almost funny to see how his hand reached that height without any problem knowing that I would not even jump. I gave a little frightened gasp when I stick his lip to the cartilage of my ear and whisper softly as if he were telling me a story. "This area corresponds to the beginning of the forehead. and the small fissure that corresponds to the mouth, lower is the jaw and a little lower is the jugular and finally the neck. "I was amazed to be a spectator of so much strategy. It was true, if I could get a better look there were marked parts that corresponded to all the parts that he had named, it was only necessary to pay more attention to the details. His finger attached to the hand of his tattooed joint looked powerful, large, so mesmerizing from the dance of his marked veins. "You just have to look for the area that you think can fuck the most." But if I give you some advice, the first blow send it directly to the neck, you will leave it breathless for a few seconds long enough so that you can punch it and knock it to the ground.

"I will," I swore safely.

"Yes," he whispered, dragging me into a world full of chills. Her lip had settled on my skin like it was her second home. The contrast was so relaxing when enough time passed. Her lip was so soft as well as hot. In an instant I found myself casting a longing gaze at him. I did not know why I simply began to feel an exaggerated desire to see his black eyes again. He reciprocated in seconds. I regretted when I realized the very compromising position I was in. His face was too close to the point that his nose was caressing mine. The long arm I had as a support began to slide down until it was inches from my neck. Everything seemed to disappear around me when Thirteen began to bow her head with a desperate slowness.

“Am I interrupting?” A voice foreign to us interrupted the moment too abruptly. Thirteen stopped leaning quickly to look at the unknown person. Suddenly, I noticed how his jaw clenched and his nose widened. When I could feel the tension in his shoulders I couldn't help but turn around and understand why Thirteen had reacted that way. "I was looking for you, Thirteen."

    I instantly recognized that wicked smile and that piercing look.

"I don't have time for your psycho shit, Hong Kong." Thirteen replied with a tired air in the reflection of his voice. The named broadening the smile further exposing his tongue pircing more than macabre. His yellowish, sharp teeth began to create small retches at the beginning of my stomach. I don't know if it was fear of everything I had heard from him or simply because I didn't like how tense everything was getting, I just knew that I wanted to leave urgently. 

Suddenly, Thirteen's hand caught my wrist too hard to push me on its way. However, we could not take two steps as miraculously two men appeared in front of us just as creepy as the other one standing in our way. I heard a deep sound come from Thirteen's throat as a warning. The taller of the two, a blond with a beard, seemed unaffected, however the smaller one truly doubted his position.

"I said I was looking for you." He spoke again in the same neutral tone. I looked at Thirteen immediately but he didn't stop terrifyingly shooting the bearded blond. His fingers wrapped more and more tightly around my wrist, letting me understand that he was getting quite angry, but also that he was getting nervous.

"Take off," he growled at the blonde. I was quite surprised by the cold and terrifying tone I use. It had been a long time since I had seen that part of him. And I admit, I wasn't liking seeing her again, it was too scary.

"You should thank me that I have had the education to introduce myself here to ask you myself if the rumors I have heard from some prisoners are true."

   Suddenly, the air became much heavier. I watched with some panic as he closed his left hand into a fist. I had never seen him lose control like that, it was as if his rational part had suddenly vanished and another good had appeared instead. There was a moment when his fingers were clenching too hard, he groaned silently but with enough plea for him to hear my complaint. As if it was a sign that she was being carried away by the impulse her hand loosened suddenly causing her to exhale in relief.

"Surprise me," he spelled slowly but very demanding.

"Well, it turns out that one of my trusted men was suspiciously sent to the hospital with a broken jaw. Rumors have it that it was because he messed with the wrong girl."

    My mouth clenched impossibly to hold back a gasp. I had an urge to cover my lips to hide a scream but I held steady for the sake of both of us. You didn't have to be very smart to know what he was talking about. My good imagination played a trick on me, scenes of a guy lying on the floor drinking his own blood while Thirteen kept giving him more blows. I felt guilty because this was all for me. I knew I was that girl Hong Kong was talking about as I also knew that my problems were starting to affect Thirteen and I felt pretty bad.

"Yes, he messed with the wrong girl."

   Hong Kong slowly shook his head to the side. His smile exuded amusement, an ironic glow that had rendered me speechless. Thirteen managed to move a little toward him to keep his gaze. He positioned himself with his back to me and when I was afraid to stay behind with the two Hong Kong men, suddenly, I felt a hand catch mine to calm me down. Ironically, this was the first time he had shaken my hand. I couldn't turn off the disappointment of my heart because I really waited for that moment for a long time without realizing it. Fears left me when the warmth of his hand took mine.

   However, my eyes caught an abundant body moving from the corner of my periphery, I slightly turned my neck and it was when all the nerves returned ripping without mercy. The sweat suddenly turned cold as I froze as I saw something shiny and pointed mockingly peek out of the blonde's sleeve.

    When he took a step forward, I knew in that instant his terrifying intentions. His eyes glued to a fixed point on Thirteen's back as his eyes sparkled with anticipation. I really didn't know what to do, not when I knew what was going to happen if I didn't do something. Thirteen was on his back, he was protecting me, he was ignoring two psychopaths so he didn't have to deal with Hong Kong's bloodshot eyes. My chest rose so high that my heart began hammering inside my ear. Taking a rather exaggerated exhalation of air I placed myself in front of him with open palms.

"Don't do it! Are you really planning to take that out here when you have a camera pointed directly at the nape of your neck and another in front of us?" I whispered quite upset. I controlled my tone with concentration but if I could analyze the nuances of my babble I could Successfully deducing that I was truly terrified. The blonde remained impassive at my little hysteria and just then laughed at me. I felt small under his wicked gaze, I opened my mouth to cover an overly revealing gasp.

It was at that moment that Thirteen turned suddenly to make sure with a quick glance that he was fine. Afterward, I watch the blonde glaring at him with so much fury permeated by every detail of his pupils that I cut his laughter abruptly. Thirteen wrinkled his nose and grunted in his direction as he took two steps causing the blonde to back off at the same time colliding with his partner.

"Don't go near her, motherfucker."

    His roar was too aggressive. Her nostrils flared at the strong breaths. His brow furrowed together with his nose. But really, really it was the dilated vein in his neck that could really stand out from the whole scene.

“The wrong girl, huh?” Hong Kong cooed quietly. Thirteen seemed to lose track of the situation for a couple of seconds. He blinked nervously for a couple of seconds but knew how to compose himself skillfully. I didn't even need to look at him to know that he was controlling himself terribly. Her knuckles couldn't be whiter and I could swear her nails were digging deeper and deeper into her palms. When Hong Kong spoke again the air came back to me again. "Let's go, I already got the answer I wanted."

     True to his word, Hong Kong and the other two left when the Asian signaled for them to follow him. The tension returned to me when the blond collided his shoulder with Thirteen's when it passed by him. Thirteen smirked as he moved his leg to sneakily hit his stomach. The blond whimpered weakly intending to turn but his friend dragged him out of his reach.

    When I thought the scare was completely gone a loud scream made me jump in my place.

"What the hell do you think you're doing!"

    I opened my eyes with regret as my mouth closed uneasily. Thirteen was furious. Killing me back. Leaving me more nervous than I already was.

"I don't know," I stuttered. I buffeted, closing my eyes before swallowing hard. "What did you want me to do when I saw I had a screwdriver under my sleeve?" I have acted on impulse, sorry.

    But my attempts to get him to listen to me evaporated as fast as water in the summer. Thirteen remained royal. I knew that deep down it was nothing more than a reprimand for intervening in other people's conversations and also, that I really did not want to behave in this way but I assumed it was due to the constant accumulated tension.

"Damn it, Blair." Hong Kong really isn't a person you can screw with. ”I gasp, forcing myself to calm down before completely losing patience. He slid his palm across her face as he whispered a couple of curses.

"He didn't come to speak and both you and I knew perfectly well. Did you want me to stay on the sidelines when his friend wanted to stab you with that thing? ”I insisted with overwhelming urgency. The sharp point returned to my head causing a terrifying chill.

   Thirteen clicked his tongue and rolled his eyes contemptuously.

"I don't need anyone to defend me," he clarify loudly, rejecting the idea of ​​needing help from someone other than himself.

"Oh, believe me I know." I laughed wryly as I recreated inside my head the memory of him boxing.

"You are too impulsive."

"And you're too dependent." Furious, I let out an agitated sigh. Thirteen raised an eyebrow to declare how unimportant my view of him was. “I know you've probably always solved problems just because you've gotten used to not depending on anyone but this is different. You must tell your friends so that ...

"I'm not going to get you into this," he growled, completely opposing what he had said earlier, drawing out a weary sigh.

"Stop wanting to be alone! Because you don't think of all the people who love you, Lucy, Jimin, Taehyung even though I don't show it very often I think Suga does too. Accepting help from others does not make you a weak person, on the contrary, it only shows that you are strong enough to correct mistakes and find the right solutions”

"And you love me?"

    I was blank for a few seconds when I cut myself off with that question. I blinked uneasily at his direction trying to understand if my ears hadn't really played a shovel at me. Inevitably I began to ask myself, an immediate answer came out, one that, despite being totally confusing, was still secret to me. I mean, yes. I mean, yes. Thirteen mattered to me. He was a good friend and besides, he was always there when he needed it. But...

Those were really the reasons?

"649 report in the direction immediately." When the metallic voice of the intercom broke into gym Thirteen and I turn our eyes to the device hanging on the corner of the wall. Taking advantage of his oversight, I ran away. And I must admit that I felt like a complete coward at the time. But he didn't really blame me, I wasn't ready for that conversation.

"Hello." I greeted Brian cheerfully as I approached the principal's door. He smiled warmly sending me feelings of security and tenderness. My heart skipped a beat. It had been a few days since I saw him and I must admit that I missed those striking green eyes.

"Hello, Blair," I reply back when I finally get in front of him. Despite his smile and his good demeanor I couldn't ignore the tension that was building up on his shoulders. He turned on his side and opened the door. "Come in, they're waiting for you."

   Slightly tilt your head, getting lost in the situation.

"Who?"

   Brian intended to reply, but his mouth was immediately closed when a tall, stout, and dressed man took up my entire field of vision. She frowned in confusion. I briefly looked at Brain who nodded at me nervously.

"Miss London, have a seat please." The director's sudden voice distracted me for a few seconds. Not knowing how to deal with this situation, I decided to sit down and wait for things to clear up.

"What is all this?" Despite the fact that it was the director who had been in front of me, the question was thrown into the air so that both the man from before and the other, who had just seen when I entered the room more, they will take the initiative to speak. There was a brief pause that further condensed the oxygen in the office. The man in the suit took enough authority to stand next to the principal. The sockets of my eyes almost shot out when I managed to visualize the gold plaque hooked on his belt. However, it was different from the regulation in my country. I was much more confused, and worse still, much more scared.

Did they come to tell me about my father's dirty business?

Did they come to threaten me so that I will plead guilty at trial?

"My name is Kim Hyulin, I'm an inspector for the Seoul Police Station Homicide Squad. We came here because we have to ask you some questions." His foreign accent took me by surprise. The alterations that navigated his pronunciation were very similar to those of Thirteen and his friends. Suddenly Hyulin put her hands on the table. Watch the gesture suspiciously. There was something in its tonality that told me that it had not been entirely clear and that there were things to say. His expression was harsh, he frowns enthusiastically trying to scare me but his attempt was in vain. The unnatural wrinkles on the length of his skin gave him the image of a mature man in his forties. However, the other man dressed in a much cheaper suit was young and it was obvious that he was a novice.

"What kind of questions?"

"Limit yourself to answer and you have not asked," the rookie roared with an air of superiority. The contemptuous tone that I use accompanied by a look full of pride bothers me. He was looking at me like I was some trash he had to deal with.

“Answer what?” I breathes out nervously at her planned circumlocutions.

    Hyulin blew out a breath as her lips parted with a snap. I don't like his accusing look. Nor his ways of analyzing my gestures as if from them he will get the answer he so longed for. I glance quickly at his apprentice, who quickly straightened up. Then he spoke:

"Tell me Miss London, how much do you know about Jeon Jungkook?"

next

[blessuswithblogs]

The Best Games of the Decade, By My Estimations

With only a good month (ACTUALLY LIKE A GOOD 24 HOURS HA HA I WROTE THIS BACK IN NOVEMBER) or so left of the 2010s (we are regrettably not quite far along enough to really start giving them jaunty names like "the Roaring Twenties" yet, but soon we will be free of this chronological no man's land) I find my thoughts turning to my enduring hobby slash interest slash everlasting shame: video games. While a decade is ultimately a fairly arbitrary point of reference, in the business of video gamesdom, ten years is a small eternity and some very significant games have graced us since the clock struck midnight on January 1st, 2010.

 I might still be too young for this kind of nostalgia, granted, but I can't help but think about the game experiences I've had in the last ten years that have been altogether Important to Me. I am less interested in ranking these titles than I am in exploring why they made such an impact on me, and why, if we were to borrow the esteemed verbiage of one Sid Meyer, they stood the test of time. ...or less so, if they came out more recently. Sometimes on these lists I sort of scrimp and scrabble to actually fill it up with enough games and I have to sort of cheat and put things on there I haven't really played, but fortunately I am not so destitute that I have only been able to play one new game a year since this decade began. To that end, this is more of a personal list than usual, that will have less to do with "well the game was kind of a Big Deal........" and more to do with "well the game was kind of a Big Deal to ME."

Dark Souls The First:

This game will likely find its way onto many such lists in the coming days, because it is such a singular thing. Honestly, I would put Demon's Souls on here too, but that was actually like. 2009ish? At any rate, its spiritual successor was a marked improvement in most ways, expanding upon the core design tenets that made the unassuming FROM software ps3 title such an unexpected success: deliberate gameplay that demanded players go slow and respect both enemies and environment until they were sufficiently skilled and experienced, boss fights against extremely memorable monsters and also sometimes trees, strange asynchronous multiplayer that worked in spite of itself, and a meticulously designed world filled with oddities, grotesqueries, mysteries, and tragedies. Dark Souls was a phenomenon. "The Dark Souls of _____" is dig at gormless games journalists that endures and is relevant to this day. It created a whole subgenre that remains fairly untapped because of how much of a gamble it is to really go in on what made Dark Souls good in a game without that kind of name recognition and marketing blitz, and it changed the way the zeitgeist thought about video games in a lot of ways.

Inscrutability is an incredibly important part of the Souls experience. Abandon all hope of transparency, ye who enter here, because you're not getting it. The games were designed with the intent of being a sort of collaborative community puzzle, where players who stumbled on secrets and treasures in the game could leave down messages for others to alert them to hidden prizes - or just try to bait somebody to jump down a bottomless pit. Patches does that. A lot. It's kind of this thing. There is a very specific mood and atmosphere that Miyazaki and company were going for with these games that creates a sort of artistic catch-all for complaints I would level at basically anything else. "These weapons are poorly balanced." Yep. It's not really trying to be balanced. "Half of these systems are unexplained and nonsensical." Oh boy are they ever. "A giant man-sized baby just invaded my world and tried to kill me with a ladle." Yes, yes he did. The bizarre, fever dream ambiance of Dark Souls is enhanced by all of this. It will put a lot of people off and I can't really say "oh you just don't get it." because like no in any other game this would be bullshit nonsense for idiots. Souls just kind of makes it work by being compellingly baffling.

This murkiness also serves to highlight one of the core conceits of the game: the simple joy of greater mastery. Dark Souls starts you out with very little. You have nothing, know nothing, are nothing, and all the npcs you meet are pretty sure you're going to fuck off and die pretty much as soon as you break line of sight. On your first time through, that's probably true, too. The skeletons in the graveyard are infamous. As you claw your way through the game, as you learn more about it, you start to see measurable progress getting made. What was once a bunch of very tired men in armor giving you unsettlingly sinister laughs is now the outline of a story, vague but extant, with more waiting to be discovered. Where you used to flail around and die to random hollows in the undead burg, now you dance circles around them and paste them in one or two hits with your fancy weapons (or enormous wooden club, depending). A world that was once borderline impossible to actually traverse gradually opens up and becomes more familiar. In Dark Souls, death serves a purpose, and that purpose is not actually to block your progress. Its purpose is to get you to learn the game and get better at it. It's actually very player empowering in a way a lot of 'press F to pay respects' theme park rides are not. I'm probably treading a very thin line between thoughtful analysis (ha) and "you cheated not only the game, but yourself." here, but I'm going to stand firm in my belief that the way Souls games endeavor to make you improve yourself over time is a legitimate and meritorious way to design a game.

Of course, Dark Souls the First is very rough around the edges in spots. The second half of the game is somewhat infamous for being unpolished and kind of slapdash. The online was questionable, the PC port was laughable until the community went in and fixed it, Lost Izalith is a whole fucking thing, the works. The fact that it's so good in spite of the rough spots is, I think, what made it such a singular game. I'm one of those hopelessly sentimental idiot bitches who thinks that things that are imperfect are kind of charming and compelling in ways that very cookie cutter, by the book, technically competent but aesthetically bankrupt things are not. Miyazaki had a vision when he made this game, and that vision created an enduring legacy. That's worthy of respect in a way not many games are. It's messy and flawed but those flaws are just kind of endearing because they're proof that the developers were trying to push boundaries and be ambitious and make something new and interesting.

Dark Souls The Second:

Dark Souls 2 has a kind of weird reputation in the online net-o-sphere. There are as many opinions about this game as there are people who have played it. Sometimes more, honestly. I spent a lot of time kind of convinced it wasn't that good until some things clicked and I realized it was HELLA good. That you kind of need the DLC to get the whole picture is... unfortunate, but such is the age we live in. Going into this game, I thought that a second Dark Souls was unnecessary. The first had ended satisfactorily, and I had no desire to see FROM get tied down to the world of Lordran. The quote B Team unquote that developed 2 seemed to agree with me, and created what is one of the most metacognitive games I have ever played. Now, let's not get ahead of ourselves. When I say metacognitive, I do not mean it in the usual facile sense of, say, whatever Jonathan Blow has churned out recently that beats you over the head with the fact that you're playing a video game and you should probably feel bad about it or the way Doki Doki Literature Club does the Epic Subversions! of visual novels by trying to convince you that the game knows it is a game, but failing because it cannot overcome the limitations that it has as a static, unchanging lump of code. Dark Souls 2 aims higher. And you know me - I always try to aim high.

Dark Souls 2 deals with cycles. Most notably, cycles of futility. Cycles that are so enduring and perpetual that it matters not how you choose to resolve it, it will simply keep going no matter what you do. Drangleic is a hollow simulacrum of Lordran - and that is exactly the point. The familiarity and design consistencies between the two games is intentional. The curse of life is the curse of want. It took me a long time to really understand what Dark Souls 2 meant by that. The World of Dark Souls 2 is a sort of unending purgatory. Thousands upon thousands of undead have made the journey, linked the fire, perhaps chose to become the Dark Lord instead, only for some other undying fool to go and light it anyway. Each time, a new order is built upon the bones of the old, and in time, joins its forebears in the ashes of history. When I beat the game the first time and felt that the ending was unsatisfying, I failed to realize that was, again, the point. If the game had shipped with all endings in it, I think I would have been less miffed, but, well, the curse of life is the curse of downloadable content. If you choose to take the throne, link the fire, you have essentially accomplished nothing. Another age of Fire will begin, and then end, and so on and on into the ages, an unending litany of suffering and violence, because people cannot let go of what once was. They seek and scrabble to claim scraps of glory in a systemic nightmare of self-fulfilling prophecies and false dichotomies. When Aldia eventually arrives with the DLC packs, things really start to take shape.

Dark Souls 2 is a commentary on itself. An admission of the futility of trying to recapture the unique spark of the first game, and the necessity of doing something -different-. The playerbase hated it on release. It was both not enough like the first game and too much like the first game. It wasn't like, reviewbombing on metacritic hate, but the consensus rapidly became that 2 was just worse than the first game and kind of a bummer, a half-hearted cashgrab by a "B Team" while the really talented developers worked on Bloodborne. So, basically, they proved 2's central thesis completely correct. A hollow cycle of just repeating and iterating on what has come before serves nobody. In the words of Straid of Olaphis, "it is all a curse." That is the true curse in Dark Souls 2. An undead might link the fire to try and preserve their fading sense of self and memory, but it is but a temporary measure, a prolonging of greater suffering by bowing to an order designed to oppress. Before the Ringed City was ever a thing, Agdyne and Vendrick were here telling us about how Gwyn was so covetous of his own perceived right to rule that he cursed all of humankind into a twisted state of mutually exclusive ideas. Die as a mortal in the flame, or endure as an undead husk in the darkness, bereft of heart and soul. Or... does it even matter? All of this has happened before. It will all happen again.

Those who slave away eternally under this paradigm are doomed to never find peace or fulfillment, because it was not designed that way. Gwyn's fear was so great that he got entangled in his own karmic vortex, reincarnating over and over again with his other lord friends in slightly different forms and circumstances that would continue, eternally, to make the same mistakes in the pursuit of the same misguided goals. Aldia, the Scholar of the First Sin, is presented as one of the few beings in this entire misbegotten affair with an inkling of what is really going on. Both he and Vendrick knew that Drangleic was destined for the same dreg heap as every other civilization built upon the power of the soul, but all of their efforts to prevent this fall were for naught, because they were all confined by the same twisted system in which there can be no change or joy. It is only after Vendrick loses his nerve entirely and fades away into a mindless hollow and Aldia loses everything in his increasingly unhinged and ethically questionable experiments that he realizes that they were doing it all wrong.

I think I've probably gone on too long at this point so I'll try to be brief: the "true" ending of the game, made available after all 3 DLCs were released, involves gathering the power of truly mighty souls in a crown and using them as a sort of... loophole. The empowered crown does not cure the curse of undeath. What it does is prevent -hollowing-. The degradation of heart and mind. And after the final battle, you leave the throne behind. But there is a very important difference here from the Dark Lord ending of the first game. By finding this loophole, and rejecting Gwyn's order entirely, you and you alone have broken free from the endless cycle of suffering, and by doing so, perhaps gained the knowledge necessary to take the first steps into forging a new path entirely. Beyond the reach of Light, beyond the scope of Dark.

So yeah basically it's like Dark Souls the First, with some improvements and changes and what have you, so it's got the same fun to play deliberate explorey dark holey kind of thing going on, it just takes the concepts and runs with it to places I never would have expected a game to ever go. It is legitimately one of the only metanarratively aware games I have played (that I can remember, anyway) that sticks the landing, because it is not obnoxiously explicit about it. Undertale was fun and a worthwhile game by any reasonable metric, but it falls into the same trap as all the others: when you are acknowledged as the player of a game in anything more than a briefly comedic bit of 4th wall breaking, any hope of cleverness or thoughtfulness goes out the window, because it brings to light an ironclad truth of the medium: you, the player, are just as constrained in what you can do as the NPCs in the game, who are also fake. When they start haranguing you about about brotherkilling or being a cheating visual novel boyfriend or possibly girlfriend or what have you, it's just. Meaningless. It is a contrivance of the developer, specifically included in the game as a programmed possibility designed to be experienced.

Dark Souls 2 gets around this by not engaging with the player on that level of metanarrative. It deals much more in metaphor and allegory. It's not, like, especially subtle, but it is subtle enough to let your mind draw parallels without immediately blaring at you in comic sans "THIS IS A VIDEO GAME, KID" and taking you out of it entirely. It's a fine line to walk. A barrier between worlds has to be maintained for these stories to work. I'm the kind of player who will never do a renegade run of Mass Effect because I hate being mean and nasty for no reason, even to bits of code in a game, because I try to engage with it all in good faith and do my best to let myself buy into the illusion that these bits of code are characters with thoughts and feelings. When an angry flower man pops up and says "OOHOOHOO LOOKS LIKE YOU JUST RELOADED THE GAME BECAUSE YOU KILLED SOMEBODY" my first thought isn't "wow fucked up..." it's "oh well there goes my suspension of disbelief" because like. If you're going to call me out on that then fuck I can just go into the code and make you say "there is a frightful hobgoblin haunting europe, and its name is ligma" and like. Yep. Bow before my mastery. I guess. I don't want to get into a slapfight like that with Toby Fox. He seems like a nice person.

I don't know maybe this is just something unique to me, and other people can deal with these stories without immediately becoming depressed by the deeply artificial nature of it all. It's complicated. I will say that I like Undertale a lot, but the reasons that I like it come very much from the character interactions, spritework, and music, and not the time Flowey closed my game. It's just the same pony island bullshit as its always been. "OooOOoOOoh uninstall the game or you're actually just going back and messing with events for your own perverse satisfactionNNNnNNnN" fuck off dipshit it's all fake garbage for idiot children and I am not causing a cartoon skeleton existential agony by considering that maybe I could play this fun game that I liked and payed cash dollars for again. Now, all this considered, my next game on the list might be surprising...

Nier: Automata

Okay so let's just get this out of the way. Nier does a very famous thing at the end when you get the true ending where you are given the choice to forfeit your saved data in order to help another player get past the final boss, which is... the credits. So how is this different? Well, for one thing, it's not like the central narrative conceit of the game. The sexy android psychodrama functions perfectly well without it. It's kind of its own thing. It's... an expression of hope, kind of. An admission that you -care- about the fates of these characters, in spite of being bits of code, because their personalities and their world and the way they interact are all compelling and endearing, and you would give up something of tangible worth and importance to maybe give them a chance for a better outcome in somebody else's game, too. It's a very strange thing that I can think of no real equivalent for. You even get to put a little personalized message on the extra shmup ship you send over to help some other player get through to the end. It's an act that... kind of exists outside of the story, but also kind of in it. I think the important thing here is that the conceit is that you are making this sacrifice to help somebody else, not because a small goat child said something Foreboding. It's a confirmation that if a game makes you feel things, makes you think, maybe it wasn't just a waste of time.

So enough about that. What about like the other 99% of the game? A lot of people in my peer group are super sweet on the original Nier: Gestalt game. I played through it. It was... okay. Like it absolutely had very charming characters and story and all of that but it was just kind of a slog to play through and I kind of wished the entire game was just that segment where you're playing a text adventure. Automata continues to have very charming characters and story and all of that, but it also actually like. It's fun? To hit the buttons? Like, that Platinum pedigree isn't just for show. It's not the most technical game they've ever made, but it's fun and varied (shmups! shmups!) and there's some fun character customization and you even have a self-destruct switch which is always hilarious. The real attraction is the narrative, visuals, and gorgeous music, but it's also just a solid swordswingy dodgy robot smashy time irrespective of that. So like. Yeah.

The story and characters are very interesting and well done and goes to some very dark and uncomfortable places sometimes about the nature of memory, artificial intelligence, the often arbitrary labels we give ourselves, and the implications of sexy robot men with no junk. The nice thing about Nier Automata is that the events in game are fairly straightforward and relayed in a way that people who don't compulsively watch lore videos can understand without too much difficulty, so I don't really need to go into a detailed summary of why it's genius because of tHe AlLeGoRy. It kind of speaks for itself, for the most part. Does 9S want to fuck 2B or destroy 2B? Maybe some other verb entirely! We may never know. Well, I do know. He wants to fuck her. That is obvious. But it does not preclude the other, which is a salient and disconcerting point the game tries to make with that whole sequence. 9S has really had a rough time of it, you know? All that stuff in his own game and then he pops up on the First only to get his face caved in by the Warrior of Darkness. Rotten luck.

Basically, Yoko Taro sets out to say some things with his strange brainchild about androids with very big butts, but when you think about it, the attractiveness of the YorHa androids is also kind of a statement, too. If you're building something in your image, wouldn't you want to make it as sexy as possible? I would. Like, if you could make your machine children smoking hot, why wouldn't you? It's only polite. Nobody wants to be an ugly robot. Maybe the machine lifeforms would be having a better time of it all if they weren't put in categories like "short stubby." Anyway. Saying things. He says things. The game is thought provoking and evocative and at times very very sad. I love to cry. More on that later. I feel like I'm coming up a little short on this after my small dissertation on Dark Souls 2, but sometimes you need to fuckin. Get that kind of thing off your chest. Automata is challenging, but not Souls 2 challenging, where you kind of have to look in all the nooks and crannies and paid DLC packs to really get what it's trying to say. Though I think you fight the president of Square Enix in one of the Nier DLCs. That's pretty intellectually formidable.

Bloodborne:

It is no secret that I love the Bloodborne. It's very fun, very tight, usually works right most of the time, blood vials are shit but what can you do, and is one of the most visually arresting games like, ever. Ever ever. Behold! A Paleblood Sky! indeed. It's got the Souls pedigree to make combat fun and challenging, but its also very squishy and visceral and kind of grody in a good way because it ties in heavily to the themes of what really separates people from "beasts" and how more often than not we're just fooling ourselves. We're all rancid beasts. Hunger makes monsters of us all. It is this thematic strength, and the uncommon aplomb with which the game takes a hard left turn into "wait what the fuck???" town, that I regard it so highly. It's a game with a lot to say, especially about our narrow view of "intelligence" and the imagined "right" it grants us to subjugate and victimize those we deem inferior. The Victorian setting is no accident - a lot of the horror in the game draws heavily from classic colonialist sentiment and the erroneous conviction that all things are there for the benefit of Mankind (Glory to them, see previous) that commonly defines that era. Also that architecture is some spooky shit I tell you what. Even when there isn't a large spider man with a brain for a head hanging off of it. There are those, in this game, by the way. You thought you were gonna deal with werewolves? Bitch your eyes have yet to open, strap the fuck in.

Bloodborne is the coveted "what a twist!" game I so laboriously search for. A game that expertly leads you to believe some things, then gradually shows you that you are a fucking wrong idiot baby and now there are mushroom men from mars running around casting magic missile at you. It gets this right in part because the clues were there all along, if you bothered to search for them. The first part of the game is fairly expected of what the promo material was all about, save for some weirdness with dreams and cryptic mutterings of "Paleblood." Then, you know, some shit starts getting wacky. You start running into giantass monster men clad in the trappings of the church. The NPCs you talk to start becoming more and more unhinged. Sometimes you will be randomly lifted bodily into the air and die and it is fucking alarming the first time I tell you what. Strange men with bags start appearing in random spots, and if they kill you, they don't actually kill you - they put you in the bag and kidnap you, the only way to reach a certain area of the game early. This hidden area is filled with more bagmen and some very angry giant pigs, because those are in this game too. Then you finally enter the big cathedral at the center of town and its lined with really odd looking statues of aliens and you touch a weird skull and you get a vision from the Mothercrystal about how to progress, and you tell the password to the gatekeeper, and he's like "ok cool get in here" but actually he is a fucking dessicated corpse and this isn't Dark Souls there ain't no undead here. Maybe. Are there?

Then you get into the Forbidden Woods and there are like, the weird mushroom men, if you go looking for them, and snakes, and really BIG snakes, and men who are made out of snakes and kind of give you weird nostalgic memories of Resident Evil 4 and the las plagas sphagetti heads. And there are more statues and giant fucking gravestones? That are really unnerving? And also if you went poking around you might have also met Patches again, who is back, but also a spider, and he'll show you how to get into college, except the college is in a nightmare and full of slime people, which is actually pretty normal now that I think about it, and then you can go out into ANOTHER nightmare, which is just another obnoxious poison swamp but the winter lanterns live there and those things are a fucking trip. Anyway you get to Bergynwerth eventually and there are weird insect guys and weird disheveled looking fellas that literally eat your brains if they get close and this awful npc hunter (the real horror of the night i tell you what) who casts fucking megaflare and you FINALLY get to the center of it all and jump into the lake except it's not the lake, it's actually like a fucking pocket dimension and there's just a big spider chilling out. You have to kill it to progress. And then when you do things just REALLY go to hell. And this is to say nothing of the Old Hunters DLC. This game is a fucking nightmare and it's great. Easily one of the scariest games ever made, genuinely frightening and weird and it doesn't just lose its edge when you realize the monster is a big goofy man with a flappy jaw. You are the monster, and that monster is a tiny squid baby. You're a squid now! Because you ate umbilical cords! Why!? I DON'T KNOW! INSIGHT, MOTHERFUCKER!

So what I just described is probably sounding completely absurd, random, and borderline early 2000s era monkeycheese style humor, but you gotta believe me, it is only absurd. It's actually very deliberately absurd. A lot of people will say that Bloodborne is one of the only games to get Lovecraft right, but I have actually read some of that dreck and I will say Bloodborne really only shares some aesthetic DNA and nomenclature with the racist tentacle man who ate nothing but canned beans. The themes are actually very different. Lovecraft wrote of a paradoxical contradictory world where Unspeakable Elder Things lurked behind every shadow, ready to emerge and destroy everything, but they were also very apathetic and noncommital about the whole thing. They didn't actually care that much either way, but they were still Bad, because they were weird and alien and inimicable to human life because of that foreign aspect. Like Nyarlathotep was originally envisioned as a travelling black guy who would go from town to town and show people some awesome inventions and shit and that was supposed to be evil. The dude's neuroses about race permeated -everything- he wrote.

On the other hand, Bloodborne takes a different tack. One of the central theses of the game is that the Great Ones are -not- evil. In fact, they're rather sympathetic by nature and will do what they can to help, if asked. The horror of the game comes not from the actions of the alien monstrosities who are actually nicer than most of the humans, but from what the human characters do in the pursuit of knowledge and power. Atrocities are committed by the dozen in some vague pursuit of higher understanding, against both the citizens of Yharnam and the supposed cosmic horrors themselves. This point is driven home by the fact that a number of the more alien entities you encounter in the game aren't actually hostile at all. Rom, the Vacuous Spider, will just chill out with you indefinitely at the Moonside Lake if you don't strike the first blow, and doesn't even really begin to actively defend herself until you prove yourself to be a determined murder machine. Ebrietas, the Daughter of the Cosmos, is found minding her own business in an out of the way corner of the Upper Cathedral Ward, mourning Rom after you, you know, killed her in cold blood. Again, she is completely non-hostile until you start shit. In the Old Hunters, Kos (or some say Kosm) is actually benevolent sort of mother goddess to the people of a small fishing hamlet. ...until the "scholars" of Bergynwerth murder her in the name of science, too.

All of the evil and horror and stomach-turning cruelty in Bloodborne comes from corrupt systems of power run rampant, not something as facile as the supposedly intrinsic malice of beings different from us. The terrors of the cosmos are nothing before the vile, willful depravity of mankind itself. That's the idea at the heart of it all. The Great Ones, who exist on a higher plane of existence, seem to have largely left this cruelty behind. Even the Moon Presence, the principle cause of the Hunter's Dream, is trying to help Laurence and Gherman - it's just that it's so different from humans, its idea of helping is a bit. Strange. It's this really fresh and unique take on the genre, this byzantine tragedy of miscommunication, good intentions, and mortal greed, that creates one of the vanishingly few games at are actually frightening. It doesn't even have to sacrifice being a good game to do it! No hiding in closets from the scourge of screen blur and heavy breathing here. In terms of gameplay, it's probably the most refined of quintet. I'm unsure if I should count Sekiro with them or not. It's a much different thing. Trick weapons and hunter's garb are iconic, extremely stylish, original, and honestly just fucking dope as hell. You've got a hammer that explodes when it hits things, a giant pizza cutter, a katana you coat with your own blood to empower, a gunrapier and a gunspear, a giant... wagon wheel... because Miyazaki just really likes those I guess, a bow that is also a sword, a giant fucking ship's cannon you just carry around with you, a portable flamethrower, an... eyeball, that shoots space rocks, for some reason. Like the weapon design and selection alone is worthy of considerable accolade. Bloodborne is fantastic, play it if you can.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

I was a little bit kinda wishy washy on putting this on here, but I think overall that it deserves a spot. In terms of story and themes, it's honestly a bit whatever. It's Zelda. Don't be an asshole to your genius daughter who knows like ten times as much as you do about everything I guess. Prince Sidon is a nice fishman. Link is like, distressingly, "this is a kids game!!" hot when you put him in certain outfits. I'm pretty sure every configuration of sexuality interested in the act of boning probably at least went "hoo boy" when Link put on the gerudo outfit. That is, of course, not really enough to qualify for such a prestigious position as one of the best games of the decade. Where Breath of the Wild shines is its world design, music, and the masterful layer of melancholy it drapes everything in. The ruined land of Hyrule is beautiful and sad in equal measure, the vistas enhanced by a fantastic soundtrack with an incredibly rich personal voice. It takes a very certain kind of design philosophy, in my opinion, to create an open world that is actually meritorious and worthwhile and not just an excuse to spend a lot of time hoofing it through vast expanses of nothing interesting. There is enough raw Stuff in the land of Hyrule, from enemy encounters to happening upon NPCs to just finding something really weird and inexplicable that you feel compelled to check out, to justify the massive open world.

I think the enemy design in particular is worthy of some praise. The game gives you a whole lot of tools to tackle any given fight. Sometimes you can just whack something with your sword until either the enemy or the sword breaks and that will work fine. Other times, you can literally do the Tao Pai Pai thing from Dragonball and launch a treetrunk into the air, surf on it, and land it squarely in the face of some unsuspecting moblin. This is a very popular speedrun strat. The sheer amount of Weird Stuff you can do in the service of ultimately saving Hyrule is a lot of lot of LOT of fun, things not many other games would let you do. There's also something to be said for the moments where you're exploring, minding your own business, and find yourself face to face with something fearsome and big and dangerous, like a Lynel in the frozen north or one of the big cyclops guys. It's heartpounding and exciting and really hits that "oh hell yeah let's fuckin FIGHT" button. And fighting in Breath of the Wild is a hell of a lot of fun! Probably the most its been in any Zelda game. Skyward Sword please go away you're drunk this was never a good idea. To me, Breath of the Wild is kind of the platonic ideal of an open world fantasy fuck around game. That used to be Skyrim, but BotW sort of made me realize you can actually have a functional game on top of all the aforementioned Fucking Around, too, and that sort of enhances the experience.

This might be a little weird and personal and I apologize, but I think the one thing that really sealed this game as something very special and significant to me was the moment I entered the Rito village for the first time. I was greeted with an utterly gorgeous piano melody that gradually unfolded into a soulful, excruciatingly bittersweet arrangement of the Dragon Roost Isle theme from the Windwaker. I admit that I was not in a good place in my life when I was playing Breath of the Wild. I was still reeling from some bad brain stuff. Be that as it may, Breath of the Wild is the only game I have ever played - hell, the only piece of art I have experienced - that has brought me to tears with nothing more than a song. When I realized what I was listening to, when the memories of a time when I was still a child with hope and trust and innocence and any faith that life would ever be something more than cruelty and suffering came flooding back, I had to put down my switch, go lay down, and just ugly cry for a while. It's honestly making me a little misty-eyed just thinking about. It was such a personal, intimate, keening feeling of... I don't really know. Nostalgia? Longing? Melancholy? Now, believe me, I love to cry. I am a crybaby. Things make me cry all the time. But not like this. This was something else. Something I still don't really understand, or can explain. All I know is that if a game can do that to me with just a few notes, it deserves to be here.

Salt and Sanctuary:

This is probably the most niche game for me. Even people who share some of my more eclectic tastes and sensibilities didn't like this game that much, but there was just something about this Metroidvania mashed with a Soulslike that hit some very primal notes in my soul. The art style, a weird mix of cartoony and utterly deranged, the enemy design, the bizarre way the world is put together, some extremely creative boss battles, and above all, some masterfully done atmosphere dripping with poorly understood dread and a sense of complete disorientation combined to create an experience that seemed to be made for me, and possibly me alone. It's not a flawless game. The music is fine, but somewhat lacking in variety. The character progression system is a good deal more complicated than it needs to be by any stretch of the imagination, as is the weapon upgrade system. The difficulty curve is uneven, and the raw inscrutability of the whole enterprise can make progression difficult in ways that it never really was in Dark Souls and Demon's Souls, which at least had the courtesy to point you in the right direction from time to time. The ending is a bit on the weak side.

Even now it feels difficult to really like. Elucidate on why I like this game so much. Maybe it's because it was the heartfelt effort of an extremely small team with more passion than experience? Because it's so unique and bold in ways other games are not, even while being a self-admitted derivative of Souls games? I just don't know. It's just such a fun and plucky thing, even if parts of it are kind of bad. It's not like, Deadly Premonition or anything where the badness is also the primary attraction. It's like, overall a good game? I believe? It's just that if it wasn't also kind of weirdly flawed and broken in some ways I don't think I would like it as much. God, I don't know. Just. Play it if you get a chance and see if any of this makes sense. One of the weapons you can use is a giant ass ship anchor, which is just fantastic, and you can start out as a chef, complete with a goofy hat and an extra helping of salt. Salt is important. Gotta keep those electrolytes up. You can also put a pumpkin on your head, and there's a boss called the Tree of Men which is just this giant torture machine that hates you and everyone else. It's so weird! The lighting is so moody and unsettling! The Queen of Smiles doesn't have a jaw! You have to brand your ass with a metal iron to double jump! ...hand, not ass, to be fair. But ass would be pretty funny. And horrifying. If you join the Iron Ones religion your healing item is just bread. And that is a fucking mood.

Super Mario Galaxy 2:

This one barely makes the temporal cut, but it was 2010 when it came out, I'm pretty sure. As a Mario game that doesn't have paper in its name, it's also going to be a bit fluffier and lighter on actual substance than pretty much every other game here, and I don't have that much to say. It's just this gorgeously realized and scored platforming adventure that's so tightly tuned you could play Smoke on the Water on it. It is the still the best traditional jumpy wahoo boing boing Mario game I have ever played. It just makes you feel good about space, and going to space, and seeing all the wonderful things in space. Though there most likely are not charming little obstacle courses themed around bees and and toy trains in space, the various cosmic phenonmenon on display on the map screen and in the background of some galaxies are close enough to what you might expect to inspire a sense of wonder and awe. SMG2 is like the purest expression of Let's Just have a Good Time design in games I have ever seen. It induces good feelings. Not everything has to be deep and troubling and thought provoking. Like, I tend to prefer it when they are, but there's always rooms for exceptions like this. Just fantastic. And the music though holy shit. Honestly I think the only game on this list that doesn't have a fantastic OST is Salt and Sanctuary, but it's still like. Serviceable.

Darkest Dungeon:

Let me start off by saying that Darkest Dungeon doesn't always hit the mark with its central conceit of stress management and the importance of mental health in your small army of adventurers. Nobody is going to start screaming abuse at their comrades or start stabbing them to death in a fit of paranoia because a skeleton spilled some cheap champagne on them. That said, I think that it -tries- to address these things is admirable, even if it is fairly easily boiled down into a simple matter of resource management and cost/benefit analysis. The reason I like Darkest Dungeon so much is that it is a game that excels at emergent storytelling. In terms of actual plot progression and character development, there is very little. You can have a party of four Occultists, each with the exact same backstory and with the exact same pact to the exact same eldritch entity, killing the exact same boss several different times. If you want. The dungeon crawling primarily serves as a vehicle for two things: the first and most obvious, the primary gameplay experience where you command your brave or at least foolhardy group of heroes to engage the ancient horrors of Grandpa's Party House. By itself, this is compelling and demanding. A bit like Dark Souls, Darkest Dungeon is a game that is fairly exacting in what it expects out of you, and it will not let you make mistakes without slapping you on the wrist and saying "no, bad." Similarly, it is a game where mastery is rewarded, but both in somewhat lesser degrees because DD is much more random and capricious in nature. The difference between a new player and an old hand is obvious, but sometimes even veterans can get completely dicked over by things out of their control.

That leads us into the second purpose: having the Ancestor narrate your constant struggle against Murphy's Law while completely hilarious bullshit conspires to send all of your highly trained and well equipped adventurers to the grave. Let me tell you a tale. I was fighting the Countess, the extremely powerful and dangerous final boss of the Crimson Court DLC. Everybody was afflicted with some manner of madness, and things were looking grim. She had shuffled my party around into a formation wherein some of them couldn't act without switching places. I ordered my vestal to switch places with Dismas, my highwayman. Dismas, however, was currently under either "selfish" or "abusive" status and simply refused to move. This meant that my vestal could not actually act that turn, and simply doing nothing incurs a penalty of stress damage. This stress damage was enough to put her gauge to the maximum, give her a heart attack, and kill her. Dismas literally murdered the healer by being too much of an asshole. I was beside myself at the time, but make no mistake - it was fucking hysterical. I later fed him to the final boss as penance for his crimes.

Darkest Dungeon is a grindy game that takes time and effort to complete. This is one of the biggest complaints leveled at it, and it's a fair one. On normal mode, though, you are more than capable of going at it inch by bloody inch, throwing corpse after corpse at the eldritch monstrosities until they at last drown in the blood and give up. No matter how grievous the setback, you can come back from it, unless you're playing on stygian/blood moon mode, which adds a fairly strict time limit and a hard cap on how many hapless adventurers you can send into the meatgrinder before the Nameless Thing That Ends The World wakes up and gives you an auto-game over. It's designed to be a long, bloody slog where shit goes wrong. Hopefully, in the upcoming sequel which I am very much anticipating not being able to play because I am poor, Red Hook can perhaps find a better balance with this. I am, for my part, fairly forgiving of grindy games, and at times even enjoy them. They were going for something with the way they designed DD, and I respect that. If you have the proper mindset of "whatever will be, will be" and learn to embrace the senselessness of death, your adventures in the Darkplace Estate will be both rewarding and oftentimes absurdly funny because your Arbalest was too depressed to eat anything, took more stress damage from starving, and then died of a heart attack, which then further stressed out the rest of the party. If that sounds more "oh my god that's awful" than "hahahaha you fucking dipshits" to you, DD might not be up your alley. But if it is, it -really- is. It's sort of the Dwarf Fortress principle, though Darkest Dungeon is far more user friendly and nice to look at. ...you know if you payed him enough the narrator voice actor would probably do a dramatic reading of Boatmurdered. Just saying.

Stellaris:

Stellaris is kind of the odd spaceman out on this list for a variety of reasons, but it shares the same kind of compelling emergent storytelling that Darkest Dungeon has. It's just less likely to be about how your alcoholic bounty hunter missed every hit against a fishman and went insane, and more likely to be about how you found this really cool Orb in space but it was in another empire's territory so you basically fabricated Space World War 1 to take it for yourself. Maybe that was just me. Much like the many habitable planets in any given Stellaris game, Paradox's grand strategy space game falls in the Goldilocks Zone of "accessible for mortal minds" and "satisfyingly complex." I'm not a huge fan of most Paradox stuff because I don't really give much of a fuck about kings and their crusaders one way or the other, but I respect them for what they are. Stellaris was kind of a proof of concept for me for that - given subject matter I actually liked (space!!!!), the various nitty gritty systems of planetary management and fleet organization and robo-modding and gene templates became compelling rather than overwhelming. They were, granted, still pretty overwhelming at first. The game still receives robust free updates and DLC even as of this writing, sometimes drastically changing the way the game is played (alloys! consumer goods! aarrrggh!) and making my 500ish hours of playtime seem a little less nonsensical. Look, a lot of that time was idling on the galaxy map while I did something else.

It's just really polished and technically competent and -enormous- and there's space dragons and sometimes you get to fuck a black hole. Stellaris doesn't really have a narrative, per se, save what you ascribe to any given game, but that doesn't mean the game doesn't have writing. A lot of very interesting, well written, and sometimes really funny flavor text can be found in the various anomalies and in-game events your science vessels will encounter as they uncover more of the galaxy, or sometimes a planet will have a mysterious portal to Hell on it, or maybe it's actually just a huge egg for a terrifying voidspawn. The game also navigates the usual 4X/strategy game dilemma of securing an early lead and just kind of chilling for the rest of the game by introducing midgame and lategames crises. It's not a perfect fix, but the ever-looming threat of a khanate space uprising, an AI uprising either from your empire or another, or ravenous space bugs from beyond the cosmos ensures that you have to keep at least a little bit on your toes. The presence of spaceborne aliens that range from "a nuisance" to "well gosh that thing is actually eating that sun this could be problematic" also ensures that you need to pay attention to both military and domestic aspects of governing. Stellaris happens in real time (though you can thank god pause whenever you want to issue orders) so there isn't really a Civilization equivalent of "oh the tiny pissant nations are declaring war, time to buy seven tanks with my enormous hoard of gold and run over their medieval knights" in Stellaris. Stuff always takes time to make, and it takes time to get in position, too. Space being exceedingly vast, and all that.

The lategame can get simultaneously get very overwhelming and very boring, but there are systems put in place to help automate the process of ruling a huge interstellar empire and one of the nice things about Stellaris is that you can kind of just. Stop whenever you want. There are technically win conditions, if you're into that sort of thing, but a lot of the time I will just play it through until I'm like "hmm okay im good" and then just either start a new game as an extremely different kind of empire or play something else for a while. It's kind of nice. The idea of "winning" in these games is always so weird to me anyway. I kind of like the framework where it's just kind of like. You tell a story, rather than try to win a game. Recent changes have made it much easier to actually achieve victory, however. Part of the thing that kind of encouraged my "eh i'll stop when i wanna" approach in the first place was how unreasonable some of the old victory requirements were. Occupy sixty percent of the galaxy? Excuse me???? Fuck off. Also, it's not like. A really salient part of the game like it is for most other games on the list, but Stellaris actually does have a pretty nice soundtrack. It's much more ambient in nature and there's not really enough of it for the amount of Game there is, but what's there is nice, even if you will probably end up turning it off and listening to your own music instead eventually.

============================= =Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers= =============================

Alright so if you've like actually looked at my twitter or talked to me or to someone about me for more than two minutes, it's probably pretty obvious that I really like FFXIV. An unhealthy amount.  I will cop to that. FFXIV is an MMORPG. Let's start with the basics. I enjoy the game's gameplay a lot. I would not have put 6 years of my life into playing it if I did not, I'm not a Dota 2 player, for Christ's sake. I like to raid, and have actively done it in every wing except for the Sigmascape. I even managed to beat the final encounter of the current Edengate raids! I'm currently sort of gathering my courage to try the latest Ultimate Raid, the Epic of Alexander. Ultimate Raids are fights that are absurdly difficult by any reasonable standard and further winnow the playerbase from "hit level 80->does endgame stuff->does savage raiding->clears savage raid tiers->does Ultimate Raids->.00000001% of the player base that clears ultimate raids". Ultimates are for a very specific kind of player. I'm just sort of mentioning it for context purposes, it doesn't really factor in to my overall evaluation.

Now, despite the fact that I personally enjoy the gameplay a great deal, it is not actually why I think this game is so good. This might puzzle you. What else is there to an MMO? Is the sense of community especially great? Well, I would say that I really enjoy the community of people I play with, but on the whole, XIV's community is about. Standard, really. Which is to say "a fucking dumpsterfire" by any human metric, but just par for the course for online video games. What keeps me coming back to the game is that in between all the endgame stuff and grinding and crafting and going to die in Eureka, there is a bafflingly compelling and superlative singleplayer experience. The game is actually like unironically the best mainline FF title since at least XII. I would personally say it's on par with IX as a narrative experience, which is no faint praise because i fuckin luv me some ffix. But how can an MMO have such a compelling story? It's kind of complicated.

History lesson for the ten people who still don't know: FFXIV actually launched way back in like. 2011 or some shit and it was -arrestingly- bad. "Embarrassment to the franchise name" bad. So bad that they decided to literally drop a meteor on the game world, bring in a new director, shut the whole thing down for a year or so, and then relaunch the game as A Realm Reborn in mid 2013. People really liked this version. It was nothing short of a miracle. It also layed the groundwork for something important: a real and genuine dedication to worldbuilding (and worldending, too). The destruction and rebirth of the realm of Eorzea is metanarratively (theres my favorite non-word word again) baked into the very DNA of the game as it is now. Learning about the people who lived after the Calamity and how they survived is a direct parallel to how the dev team had to survive and adapt to make this complete boondoggle of a game into something presentable. A lot of heart and soul went into the bones of the world the game takes place in, because it's an expression of that dogged determination to make it work. Yoshida and his team probably crunched like hell to get it all done, and that makes me really sad, but what's done is done. I wish it didn't have to be that way, but it is, and all I can do at this point is praise the team's hard work and vision and try to support them as best I can.

So there's this really weighty sense of reality to the game world, and all of 2.0 is basically spent just establishing Eorzea and how it works. If you were an early adopter of ARR, like I was (2.1 is early right. it's gotta be.) then you grew to genuinely care about the place you spent so much time in and looked so pretty and was kind of obnoxiously laid out but don't worry there will be flying in the expansion. The longrunning nature of the game sort of necessitated a sort of serialized story. It had much more in common with an episodic TV Show than a usual Final Fantasy story, which for better or for worse are usually self-contained little things until somebody decides its fuckin Nova Crystalis time. It created a really unique sense of anticipation and participation in an ongoing story and evolving world. I think this is where a lot of people find their attachments to MMO style games, why people are still faithfully playing World of Warcraft 15 years on.

So FFXIV gets two expansions, Heavensward and Stormblood, and they were very Good, and added lots of neat things to the game and advanced the story and introduced new and beloved characters and also Zenos yae Galvus I guess and the long-running nature of it all started forging a kind of personal narrative of necessity, if that makes sense? Like, your own protagonist, who is mostly silent, who you created and customized and further customized and maybe turned into a lalafell once just to see what it was like to be so short, has been an important part of this world for so long your brain kind of just fills in the gaps in spite of itself. What would my character think about this? What would she do? Why would she do it? That kind of thing. The Warrior of Light, as one is called, has had a leading role in the game's story since pretty much day one, but one of the things that compels me about the character is how much work it took to get where she is today. Like, it's not a Diablo 3 style "hmm well you killed those zombies really good so i guess you're basically stronger than god and also satan put together" affair. You start out as a newbie adventurer, you do newbie adventurer things, like helping orange pickers keep the orchard clear of bees or deliver packages for guilds or whatever sufficiently adventuresome task needs doing. You gain notoriety for doing things that are, well, worthy of notoriety. You really get noticed when you defeat the primal Ifrit in a pitched battle, get recruited by some organizations, and you keep steadily working your way up from there.

As of Shadowbringers, the warrior of Darkness is kind of stronger than god and satan combined, but it took a fucking -lot- to get there. One base game and two expansions worth of life or death battles against utterly intractable foes and also Zenos yae Galvus I guess. It is beyond the scope of this piece to just give you a full plot summary of six years worth of storytelling, so I will just cut to the chase and try to explain what I'm taking five million words to say. Shadowbringers did something I thought heretofore impossible: it made me care about my tabula rasa cipher avatar as a character in a story and not just as an expression of digital self that I had grown fond of. Don't get me wrong - Dazzlyn Reed the adventurer is absolutely an expression of digital self that I have grown -disproportionately- fond of. I figure I'm a few more patch cycles from becoming that girl in the Jack Chick tract about Dungeons and Dragons who had a psychotic break because her DnD character died. However, for the most part, that affection was more of... kind of taking pride in her appearance and the outfits I put together and the achievements I had accomplished with her and stuff like that. Shadowbringers made me care about her as a character in her own right, which seems borderline miraculous to me.

It's sort of hard to explain without totally spoiling everything. And even with spoiling everything. In vague terms, I'll try to express it this way: the game put Dazzlyn in a situation where she had failed. Like, spectacularly. Everything she had done in the course of the expansion had gone up in smoke, and her own life was in real and severe danger. When you play these kinds of games, your first instinct when things go wrong in the story is pretty much always to just flippantly say to yourself "okay okay just calm down and let me fix it i'm like level a billion it's fiiiiine". Shadowbringers turns that on its head. You went to fix things... and you couldn't. Despite good intentions, it's arguable that you only made things worse. Everything you worked for since arriving on the First was just utterly undone, and the game lets you see the toll that has taken on your character. It's weirdly heartwrenching in a really uncommon and compelling way. Dazzlyn had been on the outside looking in at this kind of situation plenty of times before, and she had always had a nice and encouraging thing to say as she helped shoulder the burden and get things back on track for Alphinaud or Lyse or Cid or whoever. The game has, since antiquity, given you much appreciated little dialogue choices that don't really matter much in the scheme of things but let you kind of carve out your own characterization, and the way Dazzlyn turned out was somebody who just really cared way too much about all of her dumb stupid impossible friends who kept fucking up.

One thing that longtime players of the game have complained about quite a bit over the years is that your NPC friends never seemed very. Like. Personally close to you, with a couple of exceptions like Alisae. Shadowbringers both fixes that by introducing the Trust system, which lets you take your Scion buddies into dungeons with you instead of other players, if you are so inclined, and sort of turns it back around to be a kind of poignant narrative point. After everything she had done for them, unconditionally and with a smile, none of the Scions could actually find a way to help Dazzlyn when she finally ended up being the one who needed it. And this -fucks them up-, emotionally. Like, bad. Alisae nearly has a crying fit over it in one of Shadowbringer's more affecting scenes. And just watching the whole thing unfold fucked me up, too. Like, I hadn't signed up for this. I was (relatively) safe in the knowledge that they would not have the gall to actually kill off the player character in an ongoing MMO, but it wasn't necessarily the fear of something happening to her that was getting to me. It was more just this feeling of "god, she deserves better. this isn't fair." The emotional pain that, well, everybody involved is going through is extremely real, even if the threat of genuine death is not. I know (mostly) (please god) that Dazzlyn is going to be okay, but she doesn't. Her friends certainly don't. And even when she does miraculously pull through, it's not like all of this grief and fear and anxiety is going to just vanish like it never happened.

I really have to stress how completely and catastrophically wrong this could have gone if the writers responsible weren't sufficiently skilled. I'm pretty sure if I idly suggested a BFA era World of Warcraft storyline like this to somebody who still plays they would have an apoplectic fit. It would have been so easy for this kind of exercise to ascribe character traits and emotions to a very personal interpretation of the Warrior of Light that they would never have, for any one person's vision of them. The FFXIV writing team avoided this issue entirely, probably because they knew if they didn't people would go ape, by focusing the brunt of the expressed distress on your friends and just leaving you yourself some time to take in the enormity of how badly things have gone wrong in customary silence. A subdued facial expression here, a dialogue option there. No more than strictly necessary. The game encourages you to draw your own conclusions about what your Warrior is feeling, how they're coping, if they even have any hope left, but it does not overstep its bounds and do it for you. It's just... really masterfully done. The overall arc of Shadowbringers can be described as "intriguing, well realized, and competently done." The overarching ideas presented aren't like, groundbreaking or anything. What is groundbreaking, at least to me, is this miraculous giving of life to a character that was originally intended as as simple player avatar.

At the end of the day, everybody rallies around you, as they usually do, but it is markedly different this time. It isn't some facile repetition of the idea that the Warrior of Light/Darkness/Pants-theft is this focal point of hope given form and life to everyone. Instead, it's this... oddly touching expression of friendship. Commitment. It's all probably going to end in tragedy. There's nothing anybody can really do. But they're going to stay with you until the bitter end anyway, because they care about you. If nothing else, they can't bear to think of you dying alone and in agony. Even the citizens of the Crystarium, with whom you do not share a bond that goes back literal years, show up to give you some words of encouragement. They show up to tell you that it's okay that you failed. It's okay that you got hurt, it's okay that you're in pain, that you're scared, that you're vulnerable, that you don't know what to do. After spending such a long time in the game's lore as being kind of invincible and infallible except for the occasional matter of pesky Imperial Viceroys and Old Kung-fu Men, it's just... affecting. It's not often done in games, at least that I have played and seen.

Does this one story moment justify making Shadowbringers the game of the decade? Honestly? Kind of. To me, art has always been about emotional reaction. This kind of reaction is something special, even for a crybaby idiot bitch like me. Moments like these are what make or break truly fantastic experiences. Finally finding Vendrick in the Tomb as that haunting, off-key melody starts playing. Realizing the true nature of the Upper Cathedral Ward. Hearing a beautiful piece of music in Rito Village and thinking about what that song means to you. Admitting that you care about your Warrior of Darkness more than you thought. They're all quite different, running the gamut from existential despair, stomach turning fear, a deep and abiding nostalgia and longing for what used to be, to a sincere, melancholy affection for a game world I've been a part of for almost six years. There's one unbroken thread: a cascade of genuine emotion. Something that goes beyond the simple pressing of buttons and jolts of serotonin as the numbers go up or the bad guys die.

Fortunately for my general credibility, Shadowbringers is also just really good in general. Soken's soundtrack is, as always, kind of spooky in how high quality it is. The presentation is top notch as usual. Encounter design is probably the best its ever been in terms of balancing accessibility and challenge and having mechanics that actually Work As Intended and not nightmarish garbage like Digititis and Black Hole Walking. Royal Pentacle! Server ticks! Server ticks! Uh. Sorry. Going slightly feral there. Anyway. Overall, I think Shadowbringers is the most polished expansion so far, in all respects, and its narrative quality in particular is kind of transcendent because of what it accomplishes in regards to how players see themselves in relation to an unfolding story. Also, it has an unfair advantage, because it's also a continuation of Nier Automata now! That's two games of the decade in one! Now, due to the serial nature of it all, I will allow that if something goes... like, inconceivably, catastrophically wrong with 5.2 - 5.5 I might be a little premature in my assessment. That said, 5.1 was just as fantastic as 5.0 and I don't see a reason to assume that the quality will so drastically drop in the coming months.

If you're somebody who really likes Rankings, here is a pretty noncommital list of them going from least good to best good but they're all special damn it.

10. Super Mario Galaxy 2 9. Breath of the Wild 8. Stellaris 7. Darkest Dungeon 6. Salt and Sanctuary 5. Dark Souls 4. Nier Automata 3. Bloodborne 2. Dark Souls II 1. Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers

And here's a couple of Honorable Mentions just because!

Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice

To be honest, this easily could have taken the place of like. Breath of the Wild or SMG2 if I was just a little bit more into Sekiro's aesthetic. It's easily the most technical and best-playing game that Miyazaki's team has put out so far, with a very simple to learn, difficult to master system of fighting based more around swordfighting than "shove large axe into monster butt" its predcessors liked so much. It also has a well-told story about a fairly down to earth conflict between an independent fiefdom and Japan's internal ministry trying to conquer it, with a splash of supernatural weirdness to give it some spice. There are monkeys with guns. Sekiro is just fantastically put together, and I really did end up loving Wolf as a main character, despite my initial misgivings about one of these games without a character creator. Wolf is kind of a lovable chuuni dipshit who tries his best in completely unreasonable circumstances and having him as an anchor lets Sekiro's story be more personal and self-contained in nature than the heady cosmological epics of the Souls games, which was a nice change of pace. Ultimately, though, I just find ineffably weird nature of the earlier titles to be a bit more interesting than shinobi and samurai, which is why Sekiro gets an honorable menchie and not a top spot. Don't get me wrong though shinobi and samurai are dope and Sekiro is not a -worse- game for their inclusion. It's just a matter of personal preference, and I could easily see this game taking a top spot on somebody else's list.

Pokemon X and Y

I am a Pokemon bitch. I play all of them, except for black/white 2 and ultra sun/moon, which seemed too similar to their predecessors to really justify spending my precious, jealously guarded money on them. I feel that in general, X and Y has overall, the best mix of available pokemon, world design, music, Fun Little Things, and general game flow of all of them. Sword and Shield excepted I am still in the middle of that one. Pokemon is absolutely kind of video game comfort food, and its kind of just. There's not a lot to it emotionally, though it does have some fairly in depth mechanics and shit if you want to look into it. I don't know I just really liked X and Y. I felt like it deserved mentioning.

Blade and Soul

This game is awful I'm pretty sure but I have so many fond memories of playing it with people I love and creating a ridiculous titty oil monster and having adventures with her sorry i'm trash

So there you have it. A very personal (sometimes maybe probably too personal) look at the ten games that I found to be the best that came out in the last ten years. Now, I usually consider my opinions on these things to be fairly well reasoned, but in this case, I did rely a lot more on the touchy feely qualitative things that are really important to me over the necessary but lamentable "yes i suppose this game is technically competent and plays extremely well" considerations a more objective list of this kind would entail. So you're free to disagree and think I'm stupid and wrong. I would prefer it if you did not think I was stupid, though, but the fact of the matter is I cannot stop you. Here's to another ten years of wonderful games that make us feel things.

[madlymiho]

Oh my sweet god, this request pleases me SO MUCH! That's frankly an awesome idea, plus this is the first time I'm able to write about Whitebeard!

Double win for the WONDERFUL IDEA! 💖

Hope this will suit you, my darling <3!!

Words : 2195

Warning : Graphic Depictions of Violence

Special give away

Crocodile x Whitebeard : Youth (read after the cut)

Crocodile is 17 years old. He’s seated on the docks of an arbor in the New World, biting furiously in an apple he has just stolen. His lazy stare is focus on the waves made by the sea, gently licking the stones, digging holes in them because of the salt. He feels some curious eyes on him, probably because there’s a puddle of blood behind him, and a man lied down, already dead, apples and other fruits scattered on the ground. Well, he’s used to it now. He doesn’t really care about their concerned gazes and the numerous whispers he hears when he walks in town. Plus, there’s something, at the edge of his vision, sailing in the sea, which catches his curiosity. A massive ship he has once heard about, but never seen yet. As he takes another bite from his apple, he stands back up, removing the dirt from his clothes by a simple swipe of his hand.

“Sails!” A sailor suddenly yells from a pontoon. “Whitebeard flag!”

Crocodile raises an eyebrow, feeling a sort of excitement to witness Whitebeard and his crew for the first time in his life. He has heard many legends about this pirate, well known for his violence, his supremacy, but also his strength, capable of destroying his enemies by a simple movement of his halberd. A giant, feared by many men, to the point that no one would ever try to harm him.

For a young man who has never admired anyone in his entire life, Whitebeard feels like a salvation. Finally, someone is able to wear the crown of the Seas, and bends everyone to his will, respected and honored by the pirates of the world. It’s a beautiful dream, even for a murderous 17 years old teenager. A dream that slowly turns into an obsession; watch Whitebeard assumption… Until Crocodile would be strong enough to steal it from him, after a few years of reign he would allow.

***

He tears the newspaper inside his large hands, unable to focus on anything else than the big title of the today’s news. He has never been truly betrayed before, mostly because he has never trusted anyone. He’s wary. Always profoundly tormented by his dramatic childhood and his lack of tenderness back then. It doesn’t really bother him anyway; Crocodile, now twenty years old, appreciate his cold heart and his capacity to turn his feelings down, more able to protect himself from his enemies. He doesn’t care who he hurts on his assumption to the power; all he wants is to crush everyone on his way, no matter how strong they are. He will always be stronger.

When Crocodile crossed Whitebeard’s way, things have changed forever for the 17 years old man. Despite his ferocious will to destroy everything on his way, Whitebeard has been quite a shock for him. Taller, smarter, stronger; Whitebeard seemed to be the perfect candidate to reach the glorious title of the Pirate King. At least, that was what Crocodile believed for a long time. Whitebeard was the perfect pretender to the throne; ruthless, powerful, untamed. For a while, Crocodile has developed a sort of obsession for the man, searching for some information inside the newspapers, hoping secretly to see that man achieving his dream. Fact is, Crocodile doesn’t really appreciate Gold D. Roger, already back then, and even more today. Not because that he doesn’t think he’s not worthy, but perhaps because he has placed his hopes in Whitebeard assumption, and Roger felt only as a threat for his young cognac eyes.  

Yes Crocodile is a complicated man. He’s a loner; capable of handle his business on his own, detesting people’s presence in his life, to the point that he’s already well known among the pirates world as someone dangerous. Whitebeard’s crew has always been wary when Crocodile has erupted in their lives, his lazy stare looking at them with some sufficiency, while he has settled a few deals with the old pops, mostly because he wanted his business to thrive in the New World. Crocodile has only accepted Whitebeard’s presence in his life, because he trusted him. He trusted him enough to take the control of the world, and one day, offer him the crown of the pirate world as his legitimate legacy.

“Fucking Roger…,” Crocodile hisses, throwing the newspaper away, his eyes nothing but a fire of hatred. “Fucking Whitebeard!”

Crocodile, despite his good manners, can’t control his words at the moment. He has never been so angry with someone before. It feels like an awful burning inside his chest, something he can’t truly understand. Roger is the Pirate King. Roger dominates the New World. After all those everlasting battles between the two of them, Roger won, and it irritates the young man. Angrily, Crocodile throws the newspaper away, his eyes gazing at the smiling face of the new king of the world. His vision goes blurry, acid tears rolling on his cheeks, as he hates himself even more for reacting this way. Whitebeard will pay; and he will pay fully.

***

Revenge. Revenge. Revenge.

It turns in his head like a poisoning tune, unable to let him sleep at night while his eyes are focus on the ceiling of his room. How could he hurt him? How put a permanent scar on Whitebeard’s face. Face? No. Deeper. Something much deeper. Somewhere he has never been touched yet, in the depth of his chest, where his heart remains, only living because of the love of his sons. Crocodile suddenly freezes, his eyes gleaming in the darkness of the room, a devilish plan blooming inside his head. There’s only one way to hurt Whitebeard, to the point that he wouldn’t ever forget it. Only one way to mark his soul with his claws, while Whitebeard will suffer forever from his betrayal. A bestial grin grows on Crocodile, as he can’t remain lied in his bed, feeling the urge to stand back up and act. He needs to prepare himself, and to chase the good prey to settle his trap and eventually succeed in his evil plan.

Yes. Crocodile is young. Young, but also reckless. He has been able to manipulate many men until now, leading them to chaotic situations where he was the only one to have all the cards in his hands. He’s confident, perhaps a bit too much, surely because of his certain power, and his silent madness which tells him to destroy this old man.

***

“Let me go…,” the man growls, unable to speak, blood coming out of his many wounds.

“Certainly not.” Crocodile answers, cleaning his blade, a wicked grin plastered on his lips.

It’s dark and cold; there are no stars in the sky, only a long trail of dark clouds, sometimes enlightened by furious thunders. It has been many months since Gold D. Roger has been declared as the Pirate King. Many months were Crocodile’s anger has only grew bigger. He has tracked Whitebeard all around the world, sometimes crossing his way, his cognac eyes meeting the big pops dangerous stare, while he has been much more wary, calling off all of his business with the young reptile. Crocodile knows that he wasn’t really discreet; but that was a part of the plan. He wanted Whitebeard to know that he was after him; that someone is this world would dare to harm him. Being close from the Moby Dick has been the perfect opportunity to find his prey. He could have picked any of Whitebeard’s sons, but Crocodile wanted the weakest among them; too young to die or suffer in the eyes of the fallen pretender of the pirate crown.

“My fa… My father!” the young man desperately groans. “He’s… He’s Whitebeard…He’s going to kill you, bastard…”

Crocodile looks down, his stare impatient and emotionless.

“Shut up.” He only answers, while he squats down to catch the boy by his collar. “I know who’s your father, idiot. I’m not afraid of him.”

The Whitebeard’s apprentice laughs, but it only sounds like guttural gurgling.

“You’re even more stupid than you seem to be. At least I’m dying… But you…” The man coughs and spits more blood, his face blank and his forehead covered with sweat. “He’s going to make you suffer… you will beg him to stop...”

This last comment gets under Crocodile’s skin, to the point that he vividly gets his blade hung at his hip and sticks into the young man’s chest before he could speak anymore.

Instantly, Crocodile hears a burning paper sound coming from the man’s pocket, and before he can understand what’s happening, he senses a presence behind him. All his instincts tell him to move, but his body is paralyzed by a radiant fear he can’t control. There’s this impressive aura, someone truly furious, using a Haki he has never encountered before, at least, not that powerful. Crocodile pinches his lips together, finding an impossible mental strength to eventually spin his hips, and face the unknown person behind his back.

Taller than two men, bigger than a ship, Whitebeard overlooks him, his raging stare locked on Crocodile’s young features. In one of his hand, he holds a grey powder, the remainings of the ashes of the boy’s Vivre Card. In the other one, Whitebeard clenches his powerful fist around his halberd. Crocodile doesn’t need to speak to know what are his intentions; he can feel it in the air around him. And before Crocodile can jump and avoid it, he feels a soft breeze brushing his cheeks, a blade flashing in front of his eyes, right before he widens them, numbed by a monumental pain, his face burning, something hot and sticky leaking from his face. Crocodile falls on his knees, his brain almost hurting him, trapped by this awful sensation that he’s losing his face, his skin tears and hanging on his features. He pats his cheeks, with timid gestures, trying to pull himself together, but all he can see is the blood plastered on his hands.

Hands. No. Not anymore.

Crocodile can’t even scream, but the pain is here. He lowers his gaze, his eyes burning, tears coming down on his cheeks while he doesn’t know how to react. He blinks, several times, looking at his missing hand, all shriveled on the floor, drops of blood dripping on her pale and grey skin. His wrist is hurting him so much, his heart pumping hard through his missing veins, squirt of scarlet liquid soiling the floor, the sensation of his hand still present, even if there’s nothing but this emptiness now.

“Who do you think you are in this world, kiddo?” Whitebeard snarls, his voice echoing in the middle of the night, as if God itself is standing in front of him.

Crocodile shivers, barely able to keep his balance, his mind incoherent, full of pain and impatience, unable to know if it’s real or just a terrible nightmare. He looks up, fighting this intense nausea wrenching his stomach, his only hand circling his forearm with all his strength, trying his best to create a tourniquet.

“I’m…I’m…,” Crocodile, for once, can’t even finish his sentence.

Speaking feels very painful, the impressive wound crossing his face bleeding out, blood but also tears filling his mouth, soiling his clothes from his shirt to his pants. Crocodile closes his eyes for a moment; weak, and terribly defeated.

“Yes. You’re no one.” Whitebeard continues, his voice severe, full of anger, like a raging tempest threatening Crocodile’s head. “You’re not even a man anymore. You’re an animal. Nothing but an animal.”

Whitebeard uses the wooden bottom of his weapon to violently punch Crocodile in his stomach, making the man instantly vomit on the floor. He clicks his tongue, his gaze looking at that desperate little creature, all curled up on itself, afraid to the core. Crocodile has never been so pitiful.

“I’ll tell you what, kiddo. You better hurry and leave my ocean,” Whitebeard threats, spinning his halberd in his hand, so he can force Crocodile to lift his head up with the tip of his blade, putting it under his chin, looking at him in the eyes. “The New World. I rule it. And if I ever find you here, I won’t only take one of your hand this time, kiddo.” Whitebeard states, the tip of his blade opening another wound under Crocodile’s chin. “Now, anytime you will look at yourself in the mirror, you will remember that you can’t come here anymore. I have thousands of allies, dozens of islands. I will track you down if you ever cross Red Line again, and you’d wish to be dead at the second I’ll lay my hand on you. Mark my words, kiddo, and spread them wherever you go. I’m not killing you because stupid enemies like you need to understand a lesson. I might not be the king of the New World, but I’m your worst nightmare, Crocodile.”

Crocodile gulps, trudging in his own blood, feeling desperately so little under Whitebeard’s stare. He wanted to challenge the king. He wanted to gain the crowd.

But today, Crocodile is nothing but a crying handless child.

[diego-hargreeve2]

light in the dark

Part Four 

Fandom: The Umbrella Academy (Netflix)

Ship: Diego Hargreeves x Original Character

Warnings: Language, abuse (emotional and physical), mental illness, violence and, in later chapters, smut.

“How long have you lived here?”

It was Eve’s third visit to the basement boiler room Diego called a home, and she was helping – or attempting to help – him sharpen and clean the knives he wore. The conversation starter was primarily a way to distract herself from the fact that she was cleaning the steel of crusted blood that had once belonged to people and somehow, even knowing that they were criminals who had been out to cause pain, that felt weird. The only blood she had experience with was her own, which didn’t bother her in the slightest, and so she had assumed she was sufficiently strong stomached to cope – but whilst she certainly hadn’t fainted, Eve wasn’t exactly loving the blood aspect of the job.

“Three years now” he answered, inspecting the knives she had finished, his movements almost reverent as he studied the steel and put them away. Contrary to what some people might have thought he was not so attached to the harness or his blades that he slept with them. At least, not with all of them – keeping a weapon close to your bed just in case is just good sense.

“Before that?”

“Before that I rented a place. You gonna ask before that too?”

“Sure” Eve said with a shrug. She knew Diego left home at seventeen, ten years ago. And she knew what he was doing now. The decade in between was a mystery. With a roll of his eyes he picked up the whetstone, the edge in his voice when he spoke again as sharp as the one on the knife.

“I left home to join the police academy – I’d apply for their programme before I moved out. Enrolled with them, had to do a few years of study first. Realised it was bullshit so dropped out when I was twenty. Found a job in security and rented a place for a few years but it still wasn’t doing enough to help.  I was already training here sometimes. Got talking to Al. I wanted to quit the job but needed the pay. We figured out a deal, I stay here and do maintenance and cleaning around the place. Gave me my nights back so I could help deal with shitheads. That’s the whole story – happy?”.

Leaning forward she held out the knife in her hand, handle first toward him, waiting till he lifted his gaze first to it and then to her face. She sat in the chair cross legged, whilst he was on the floor, and it was an odd feeling to be looking down at him for once.

“I figured it might give me some tips” Eve told him gently, watching the tension around his shoulders ease at the explanation. Handing over the knife so he could critique her work she sat back up straight and reached for another, but her gaze stayed on him for a moment longer, using the time that he was focused elsewhere to study him before he looked up to speak and she acted busy.

“You want to rent somewhere” he said, his tone calm again.

“You think I live in homeless shelters as a fun lifestyle choice?” she asked. The more comfortable she grew with Diego, the more she was learning the banter, the way he used humour and the way she could match it – and he chuckled, appreciating this developing wit. When he first met Eve, she seemed so shy, and he had figured out that she was ignorant in some ways of the world and prone to slipping back into feeling socially awkward but seeing there was more to her then that was a development he enjoyed. He no longer checked in on her as a begrudging act as pity, as it had been when he returned initially.

“Hey, say it like its crazy, but you’re the first volunteering to leave that place and be back outside” he pointed out, balancing the dagger she had given him on the palm of his hand before nodding, satisfied with the edge Eve had given it. “So c’mon – I shared. Your turn”. Reaching up he took the dagger she was working on to steal her distraction tool. With a sign, she looked down at her now empty hands before beginning – the bitter tone of her voice betraying the influence he was having on her already in their friendship.

“I just couldn’t take it anymore. Because of being born out of nowhere – my whole life they treated me…like they expected I would turn into Satan if anyone turned their back for a moment. I thought…I thought I could try and show them it wasn’t true. For years. I tried – so hard”. Her voice cracked on those words. She had truly tried. Eve had spent as much time as anyone praying, had done all she could to be a model child within the guidelines laid down within – and the Sanctified Brethren of the Special Emissary, as they were named by their ‘leader,’ kept strict rules – and it had never ever been enough.

“They call everyone other than themselves unclean. That’s why they avoid the outside world so much. But sometimes family members came to try and get members to leave. Sarah’s grandparents – she agreed to go with them.  I begged them to take me out of that place too and they agreed. Found me a place in a shelter for victims of domestic violence”. Eve was quiet, staring down at the bitten mess that was her fingernails, remembering that first place. The strangeness of being treated with kindness and patience.

“That was…seven years ago. I’ve been moving along the States. Boise. Salt Lake City. Boulder. So on and so on. I found out about the Umbrella Academy when I was in Omaha and then I deliberately started heading East. You’ve already made it clear that was a terrible plan – no need to rehash it”.

“Why didn’t you just stay out there? If they found you help and stuff”.

“Yeah, yeah, I know that would make more sense.  But I just - I didn’t want people getting close. I thought…I worry about this stuff. I’ve got better control now, but I used to start fires accidentally. Living on the streets felt safer – if I stayed there, I might hurt them when they were just trying to help”.

There was silence for a moment, Eve staring at her bitten fingernails, Diego looking at the knife he turned around and around in his fingers idly.

“I don’t buy it” he said abruptly, gripping the knife and stopping its circling as he looked up. “That’s not why you kept moving” he told her. Eve blinked, stunned to silence. “You don’t do it to protect everyone else. You do it to protect yourself, Evie. So nobody ever gets close. Putting down roots would make you vulnerable, so you avoid it”.

There was a beat of silence, then Eve tipped her head.

“If that’s true…you only know it because you do the same thing, Diego”.

“Yeah, well. Shitty childhoods will do that to you. You think you’d have come out the Academy normal if the old man found you?”

“You think you’d have turned out normal raised as an omen of the Apocalypse in a religious cult?” she pointed out, raising an eyebrow. Two could play at that game and Diego seemed to sense that was what it was about to come, shifting and putting away the last knife.

“Our Dad just numbered us. He didn’t give us names, he had our Mom do it after he built her when we were four – and he never used our names”.

“I was named by the Elder of the Church for the woman who caused original sin and the downfall of humanity”.

“I was sold at birth; me and my siblings were purchased like novelty items. In a house the size of a city block, he gave us bedrooms the size of prison cells”.

“They made me sleep on a metal bedstead, locked in a concrete shed, from the age of five”.

“We were forced to live to a regimented timetable that gave us only a weekly half hour for what was deemed ‘fun and games’” Diego said, a note of confidence in his voice that he could match anything she offered. Smiling slightly, despite the morbid subject matter, Eve pulled her knees up to her chest.

“So that the Brethren could remain self-sufficient, we were put to work on the farm and in the fields as soon as we could be. Child labour – three-year-old slaves” she emphasised.

“To hone our powers, we were treated as experiments, forced to train daily and subject to constant observation”.

“The only education we had was Bible verses and basic maths so we could count enough to help with planting”.

“He risked our lives, sent us into dangerous missions whenever other people wanted. I got this scar at sixteen, and he told me to try harder and be more careful next time”.

“We were made to fast regularly, prayed on our knees till we were bruised and fainted, with no medical attention for injuries or illnesses”.

“He threw Klaus into a mausoleum and left him there with corpses for hours when he was thirteen. My brother has never been sober since”.

“Oh, so we’re not just talking us two? Our Elder stated God told him to multiply his family, that was the excuse he gave for marrying all the teenage girls once they turned thirteen” Eve said, the words spitting out of her with rage. Even before she left, she had known that was wrong, had been uncomfortable with his revelation – and since living she only grew more convinced. For a moment Diego halted, looking more horrified by that disclosure then anything else she had offered so far.  

“Shit – bastard! You were married?”

“No…I wasn’t worthy of his attention. Fucked up as that sounds, it makes me the only girl in the place who wasn’t a teenage rape victim. Still think you can win this game?” Eve pointed out, bitter – not from the lack of attention, but from the world she had been raised to think was normal and suffered in for two decades. “Or do we admit that with these childhoods we’re both losers?”

“Shit” Diego said, slumped a little, his lips falling open and mouth ajar as he turned to look at the wall. “Gotta hand it to you there – this game doesn’t have a winner”.

She had known since she read Vanya’s book that her childhood wouldn’t have been less fucked up if she had been one of the Academy, whereas how bad her background had been was news to Diego. For a moment both just sat there, digesting the sorrow that was their own lives, before he leaned forward and caught her hand.

“We escaped though. They might be dicks, but they didn’t break us”. Eve smiled, the expression clearing all the shadows from her face and she squeezed his fingers.

“Yeah. We did”.  

“So fuck ‘em. Right?”

“Right”.

He winked at her, the expression so full of charm she couldn’t help but blush.

“Atta girl”.

@lovinglydiego @klausbutgayer @reblogserpent @me125 @fatbottomedcurls

[roaldseth]

Gale, and/or Angel!

NOTE: these answers are in relation to Digital Devil Saga.

WARNING: there are Digital Devil Saga spoilers throughout these answers.

____________________________________

GALE

[ NOTE: answers are in regards to AI Gale unless stated otherwise. David Gale will be referred to as “David.” ]

First impression:

Before I had even played the game, I had seen an image of the back of the box art. There was an instinctual moment where I was wanted to try to assess who my favorite would be solely off of first impressions through visual design choices. 

It was a tough decision because no one in particular had stood out in terms of my character design preference (which, in hindsight, makes sense because it wasn’t until I got to know them as characters to where I could invest into the Embryon). However, after an agonizing amount of time, my ultimate decision was “the guy with the hood and green hair would probably be who I like the most.” And the rest is history.

So, somehow, I was able to blindly pick out my favorite character of the time.

Impression now:

I am quite fond of him: relatable and hits many personally pleasing personality attributes. I would not have suffered and bleed over crafting a cosplay from nothing if I did not.

Favorite moment:

There’s something bitter-sweet to this scene because Gale’s character development stretches out for such a long period of the games. Gale confronting Angel in this way was a satisfying fruition of this developmental journey.

Idea for a story:

Pyriphlegethon’s (fanfiction) truest potential as a story about love. It was meant to be so much more than what the limitations inflicted upon it during the time caused it to manifest as. 

It needs to inherently explore theoretical consequences of linked and transferred data’s to get to that ultimate goal and message, so the main focus rests on Gale reconciling with David’s data, David’s feelings for Angel, as well as Lupa’s data (since Gale had gained a skill through him) on top of it all. Gale’s inquiries to Lupa creates a secondary focus with a Lupa-Greg-Roland tree, in which Lupa kind of has to rely on the “some things must be felt, not comprehended” approach because Lupa doesn’t have a good understanding of Greg, unlike Gale’s understanding of David.

So, the format of the story would be a back-and-forth banter between Gale and Lupa unraveling feelings of love that aren’t wholly theirs and love that is.

Unpopular opinion:

Last time I was asked for an unpopular opinion about Gale, I was unable to supply a sufficient answer. Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on how it is perceived, the stance has not changed. I really have no qualms with Gale. It doesn’t help that the general consensus is that everyone adores him either.

Favorite relationship:

Jenna Angel/Gale or Lupa/Gale; one doesn’t have precedence over the other.

Favorite A headcanon:

Gale was meticulous with his diet and consumed a sizable amount of calories prior to the mass exposure of Atma in the Junkyard. As much as this is said because he is noted for being muscular (and that mass needed to sustain itself), it is also said in regards for optimal functioning like with strategizing and sleeping (brain functions). His diet mainly consisted of carbohydrates—but he always eats a protein alongside with whatever he is eating to balance digestion and stabilize blood sugar levels—and foods/meals of high caloric content, meaning he doesn’t not necessarily have to eat a lot in terms of quantity.

____________________________________

JENNA ANGEL

First impression:

Neutral. I just kind of took her and her role as is, not really thinking about it too in-depth.

Impression now:

Pity and sorry in the sense that it’s unfortunate her character doesn’t get to know peace in life, distraught to the point she does not want to accept Gale as a part of David. The fact she state she feels at peace on the Surface of the Sun makes the point that she was only ever going to be happy/content again in death (with David). Hatred is a terrible force/stress, there are parts of myself that empathizes with that struggle, however I can not empathizes with how she deals/copes with it

Favorite moment:

Idea for a story:

Something exploring the dynamic of distaste between Angel and Roland.

13:4 (Mithrigil, fanfiction) has been an inspiration to me about what can be done with Angel and Roland’s relations; hoping to aspire to create and explore this aggressive divide between the two like this fit has done. There are aspects of 13:4 that have lost their initial appeal to me, but it’s still something revered and special.

I can only hope that one day I will be able to rectify a fic that is worthy to see this potential.

Unpopular opinion:

I can’t think of anything off of the top of my head.

Favorite relationship:

Jenna Angel/Gale.

Favorite A headcanon:

Angel’s field of study was biomedical engineering.

It causes a bit of a conundrum—that I don’t have much of an answer for—with her position as Chief Technical Director within the Karma Society, because that position has the implication for expertise of computer science fields, when her previous experience is with the International Environmental Stabilization Committee. Not to mention David believed she’d find a cure to Cuvier Syndrome.

[nomadddness]

Have you ever felt like giving up? It’s like no matter how hard you try to do things right, you’re inevitably falling back to the same trap. And you lose faith.

Sin, perhaps is the usual root and reason why there are people– Christians in particular–who shrink back. Because of our guilt, we feel ashamed and so we rationalize that there’s no sense at all, why repent? If we’ll only repeat the same mistakes. You see, repeating after repenting will never get you anywhere. We’ll never gonna move forward if we’re stuck in the same cycle. And repeating after repentance isn’t repentance after all. It has to be genuine that there would be a change of direction. Though sometimes we think, we don’t mean it. And I’ve been there too. But either intentional or unintentional, sin is still a sin. And we’re pressed down by the stress of knowing these plus our guilt, resulting to another and a lot of stress and we think, the best way to resolve it is to just shrink back.

But what else can we do?

Refusing to repent and return to Him is like saying, “I don’t need Your forgiveness, I can do it my way..”

Sometimes, we’re too focused on ourselves– our feelings, our guilt, the shame, our failures, but we have to understand that it’s not about us.

God knew what we’ve done, what we’re doing, even the things that we’ll do in the future. God knew that we are sinners, that man is futile, and because He knows this, He sent His only Son, Jesus Christ. God’s own hands achieved salvation for us. He’s offering us forgiveness and He’s asking us to repent and turn away from our sins.

For so long, I misunderstood His Grace. I cannot grasp the mystery so my mind rejected what I cannot understand.

But one day, I was amazed by how God helped me understand slowly the depth, width, the height of His Grace, through His Word.

“Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, His body, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hope unswervingly to the hope we profess, for He who promised is faithful.

–Hebrews 10: 19-23 (NIV)

So,

WHEN YOU FEEL LIKE GIVING UP..

Let us draw near to God with a sincere heart.

And allow God to cleanse us within.

We might think, how can we do this when we don’t feel anything anymore? I mean, I, too, have been in this stage, when the feeling is dry, it feels like no matter how hard I try to draw near to Him, no matter how long I pray, it’s just that, I can’t feel His presence, I can’t feel that I am forgiven.. I just can’t.

But the success here isn’t based on emotions. It is based on the truth which is far more sufficient to stand regardless of our feelings about it. Our basis isn’t our point of view, but the promise of God. That if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. (1John 1:9)

He is willing to forgive, but of course, there’s a corresponding consequence for every act,

The question here is not “Will God forgive?”

The question here is “Am I ready for the consequences?”

To enter the Most Holy Place–or to approach the Throne of Grace– with confidence is not about being guilt-free because we are self-righteous, but by being guilt-free because of the blood of Christ that cleanse us, by claiming that truth with full assurance that faith brings.

But of course, Satan has the habit of condemning us. He’s trying to enter negative thoughts into our minds that God will no longer accept us.

And unfortunately, I became a victim of these.

But God never failed to remind me through His Word how delighting it is for Him when His children are returning to Him. In fact, He Himself tells our hearts to return to Him through His Holy Spirit. But the problem is, the voice is drowned out by our emotions, our pride.

And so we give up.

But,

When we feel like giving up..

Let us persevere all the more.

Hold unswervingly to the hope we profess. For He who promised is faithful. Persevere not to fall again to the same mistakes. God’s protection is already given, but we still need to exert effort. Why?

Because, if we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left. We are trampling the Son of God underfoot and insulting the Spirit of Grace.

God is willing to forgive us, and wants to overwhelm us by His Grace, not to give us a license to abuse it. Grace overwhelms us, to know Jesus more,

To love Him, not just for what He can offer and give, but for who He is, because He is naturally Gracious. And the effect of this overwhelming grace will lead us to love Him more, that will result in being sensitive to the things that might upset Him, and dread to do these things and be separated from Him.

When you feel like giving up..

“Remember those early days after you have received the Light, when you endured in a great conflict full of suffering.” –Hebrews 10:32

Sometimes,it is also a reason why we shrink back. We are discouraged.

All of a sudden, the fire was gone, our passion, our desire.. And we’ve lost the whys to continue. What for?

We may lose the whys. But we still have the who. And let that Who be your Why.

Remember His goodness. Remember He loves you. And how you love Him. Remember those days– those days were not in vain. Let’s not throw away our confidence, our faith for it will be richly rewarded.

So why persevere in faith? Why not give up and just leave everything behind?

“You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what He has promised.” –Hebrews 10:36

God wants us to receive it. God doesn’t want us to simply throw everything away just because of what we feel today. Just because we don’t feel worthy–or we don’t feel worthy anymore. But isn’t it amazing to know that God–loved the undeserving. And to realize how unworthy we are and how worthy God is, is where worship begins. We’re humbled by this truth. So why refuse to repent and return? If God’s purpose in sending Jesus Christ to us is to meet our deepest need– forgiveness and reconciliation. Why leave everything behind? If Jesus came to give us life and have it more abundantly and receive what He has promised?

Remember that when you feel like giving up. That is only a feeling 🙂

Let us discourage ourselves from being discouraged 🙂

[dalyunministry]

Sister. Savita Manwani

🍁

Praise the LORD! It’s time to receive the word of God. Greeting to all in Jesus name.

Let us pray: Heavenly Father, we thank you for this time. As we meditate on your word, you lead us to understand your word for your word is alive, active and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword that divides and pierces the soul and the spirit, the joint and the marrow. I pray today that let your word accomplish the purpose for which it is being sent and may our spirit be enlightened by your word. In Jesus name. Amen.

Topic - SPIRITUAL HOLINESS

No parents want their children to remain as babies though childhood is very exciting. So it is with our Heavenly father who desires that each one of his child grows in every area of his/her life because perpetual infancy is an embarrassment to Him.

The Bible repeatedly says: “do not be children….”

1 Corinthians 14:20 - Brethren, do not be children in understanding; however, in malice be babes, but in understanding be mature.

Ephesians 4:14a - that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting.

The writer of Hebrews lamented perpetual infancy.

Hebrews 5:12, 13 - For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God; and you have come to need milk and not solid food. For everyone who partakes only of milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe.

God’s will for us is not just growth but full growth.

Ephesians 4:13 - till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ;

The verse says “we all” that means every child of God.

But the tragedy in the Church today is that there are many spiritual dwarfs and the reason is that they are not taught the Biblical prescriptions for growth. The Stan has taken advantage of this situation and led people into stunted and twisted growth.

Spiritual growth is both our privilege and our responsibility. All that God has provided for our growth is our privilege and how we use them is our responsibility.

Remember, as God’s children, we grow into adulthood, as justified through faith we grow in sanctification; as saints we grow in saintliness.

Our spiritual growth has nothing to do with our acceptance before God, but it does increase our usefulness to Him.

Ephesians 4:15 says… but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ—

We are to grow in all aspects. A multidimensional growth is required. We must not neglect any area.

The Apostles challenged the believers to grow in all aspects neglecting nothing.

2 Corinthians 8:7 - But as you abound in everything—in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in all diligence, and in your love for us—see that you abound in this grace also.

When we give attention to all areas, Apostle Paul points out God’s promise.

2 Corinthians 9:8 - And God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, may have an abundance for every good work.

Note: All grace, all sufficiency, all things…every good work….always

WOW! What a promise….Hallelujah

This multidimensional growth is seen in the lives of several Bible characters. But we will take just 2 examples:

1. Boy Samuel – 1 Samuel 2:26 - And the child Samuel grew in stature, and in favor both with the LORD and men.

2. Boy Jesus – Luke 2:52 - And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men.

The word “stature” indicates physical growth

The word “wisdom” indicates intellectual growth

Favor with God indicates spiritual growth

Favor with men indicates social growth

Note the multidimensional growth of these two bible characters.

Here are few spiritual disciples and let us see what it means to grow in them.

1. Growing in Biblical understanding

The Bible is a book that contains law, history, prophecy, wisdom, doctrines, etc. in these there are promises, commandments, warnings, exhortations, etc.

It will be childishness if we only look for booklets listing “promises” of God. We need to look into the whole Bible for a better understanding.

“Wholesome growth is not possible without the “whole” Bible.

2. Growing in Prayer

It is not just asking God whatever we want but it is asking according to His will.

1 John 5:14 - Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.

1 John 3:22 - And whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do those things that are pleasing in His sight.

3. Growing in Worship

It is childishness to worship God for excitement and for just feeling good. It is not just giving thanks to God for what He has done for us but it is praising God for who He is! i.e. His worth.

Revelation 4:11 – “You are worthy, O Lord, To receive glory and honor and power; For You created all things, And by Your will they exist and were created.”

Revelation 5:9 – And they sang a new song, saying: “You are worthy to take the scroll, And to open its seals; For You were slain, And have redeemed us to God by Your blood Out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation,

Revelation 5:12, 13 – saying with a loud voice: “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain To receive power and riches and wisdom, And strength and honor and glory and blessing!” And every creature which is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, I heard saying: “Blessing and honor and glory and power Be to Him who sits on the throne, And to the Lamb, forever and ever!”

Revelation 7:12 - saying: “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom, Thanksgiving and honor and power and might, Be to our God forever and ever. Amen.”

4. Growing in Holiness

To start with we should confess our sins and as we mature we should compare with God’s Holiness.

First, we should leave the sins of the Flesh. All those that are mentioned in Galatians 5:19-21. Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

Filthiness of not only the “flesh” but also the “Spirit”and must be confessed and be cleansed.

2 Corinthians 7:1 -Therefore, having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.

Then, we should grow in the fruits of the Spirit. Those that are mentioned in Galatians 5:22.23 -love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

5. Growing in Obedience

It is said about Jesus that He “learnt” obedience.

Hebrews 5:8 - though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience by the things which He suffered.

He walked in obedience into the waters of baptism. He walked in obedience into the fire of suffering. He was always obedient and never yielded to temptations to disobey God. He was obedient even to the point of death.

As far as we are concerned the Bible says we are originally the children of disobedience.

Ephesians 2:1-3 - And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others.

Sometimes we are reluctant to obey, sometimes choosy to obey and sometimes we delay in obeying.

Friends, we need to grow into willing, wholehearted, delightsome, and instant obedience.

6. Growing in Forgiveness

Mathew 18:21, 22 - Then Peter came to Him and said, “Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Up to seven times?”

22 Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven.

First - seven times then, 70 x 7 times

7. Growing in Patience

Children are very impatient. They want everything instantly. But we need to grow in patience even when are prayers are delayed or God answers them differently.

8. Growing in Humility

Let us take the example of Apostle Paul

1 Timothy 1:15 -This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief.

As a sinner, he calls himself the “chief of all sinners”

Ephesians 3:8 - To me, who am less than the least of all the saints, this grace was given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ,

As a saint, he considers himself “Less than the least of saints”

1 Corinthians 15:9 - For I am the least of the apostles, who am not worthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.

As an apostle, Paul considers self to be the “Least of all apostles”.

As far as we are concerned, many of us think we are somebody, then we find out that we are nobody but when we begin to grow spiritually we understand that God is everything and without Him we are nothing,

Finally, I would like to capsulate multidimensional spiritual growth like this –

• Its’ climbing higher in Holiness

• It’s digging deeper into the Scriptures

• It’s drawing nearer to God in prayers.

• It’s walking softer in behavior

• It’s opening our hands wider in accepting people.

• It’s working harder in work and ministry.

May God bless you all and may you grow more and more spiritually, strengthening the weak areas in your life so that your growth may be wholesome.

[moranegative-blog]

Most of the time, when you have a sympathetic or anti-villain, they have a goal, and then their struggle is about what they do to achieve that goal. That’s part of where the sympathy comes in, the goal is something that’s understandable if not downright noble. And where the villainy comes in is that they’re willing to stoop to immoral methods to get the job done. Like take Killmonger, who wants to put an end to the suffering and mistreatment of Black people, but is willing to turn Wakanda into a conquering nation in order to do that. Or Magneto, who wants to prevent the extinction of mutants, but is willing to kill off the other humans instead. Their emotional conflict stems from the fact that they know these methods are not good things to do, but they also don’t see a better way of legitimately accomplishing their goals. So they do them anyway, at the expense of their conscience. 

It’s not that they aren’t fallible or selfish, and you can still make a case for characters like this not seeing better ways because of personal conceit or pessimism or an additional desire to get revenge or an ultimate lack of sufficient concern for the damage being done, or other obvious flaws. But the general idea is that they want to accomplish something that will ultimately be good. 

Kylo Ren, though, doesn’t really articulate anything like this. He doesn’t feel conflicted about the methods he’s had to use in order to accomplish an important goal he’s deemed worthy of the cost, or else presumably he’d try and use his reasoning to sway Rey over to his side at some point, and thereby illuminate a greater design to his actions. So, it seems his internal feelings of conflict are what is driving him to do terrible things. He kills his father because he thinks that will make him feel less conflicted, that it will let him just accept being on the Dark Side. But why is he on the Dark Side? Because he’s decided that’s where he has to be, after Luke’s rejection. What good, though, does he think he can accomplish on the Dark Side? Not much, going off of his admission to Rey that he thinks he’s a monster. The dude doesn’t misguidedly believe that the First Order is really doing the galaxy any good (which would be messed up and obviously incorrect, but at least put him on the same ground as Anakin). The FO’s just another means to his own personal ends. And his own ends are… murdering people until it resolves his internal conflict. 

In other words, he kills people because he hopes killing will make him feel better. It’s almost the opposite of the usual MO for this kind of villain, where he kills people despite knowing that it will make him feel awful.  

To my mind that really does put him more in the company of bad guys who aren’t suited to believable redemption arcs or compelling sympathy. He already vastly prioritizes himself over everyone else, or else, he wouldn’t be party to so much death in pursuit of personal equilibrium. It’s what people are referring to when they call him disturbingly entitled. Which is why I’m having such a hard time actually seeing him as anything much deeper than a tragedy. He doesn’t have a goal or drive I can sympathize with. Just a list of bad things that have happened to him, and then a list of crimes he’s committed because... being a victim makes you into a villain, I guess. Wow. What a hot take.

And the narrative doesn’t really seem to acknowledge that he’s been party to the actual deaths of people. Like, the tone of TLJ’s ending treats his conflict with Rey almost purely as a matter of ideological differences, even though Kylo Ren’s decision to murder everyone in the Resistance is what is creating the tension of the final act. But while it’s easy to view death as an abstract in the sense of this being fiction, in-universe, he has killed a ton of people and abetted the deaths of a whoooole lot more. And his conflict doesn’t even seem to stem from that. He hesitates to kill his own loving mother, but he still is also willing to just let her die so long as he doesn’t have to pull the trigger himself. And with everyone else, he’s a-okay with murder and expresses zero remorse. His conflict is discussed, but it seems like a totally personal thing, revolving around his concept of identity and his immediate relationships. Not something stemming from remorse or grief over being party to terrible acts. He doesn’t seem to regret being a monster, he seems to regret that monsters don’t get to have moms and girlfriends. 

I mean, on the one hand, if he was a character in a story with different stakes and collateral damage, then I feel like I would absolutely sympathize a lot more with his internal conflict and identity crisis. If he wasn’t killing other people over it, then yeah. Sure. Kylo Ren the radicalized victim of a cult would make for an interesting character in a lower-stakes television drama or something. Or maybe an episode of Law & Order about him killing his father. 

But that’s not the story he’s in. The story he’s in has shit like the destruction of the Hosnian System. He has committed war crimes, and he hasn’t even gone ‘I’m trying to destroy the Force to free the universe from endless cycles of conflict for once and for all’ or some shit like that. Nothing he’s trying to accomplish is of a scale even remotely equivalent to his crimes. It’s all because of his personal drama. 

This is a negative and critical post but I’m not actually trying to be spiteful, here. I was willing to give the character a chance because I like a good conflicted villain. But bad things happening to him is just one single component of that, and arguably less important than another, which is a visible streak of nobility or compassion or moral fortitude. A goal, a vision, a genuinely good intention even if it’s been warped somehow by trauma or has forced him to make difficult decisions. TLJ is basically trying to take a character with a backstory that’s like a less sad version of Harry Potter’s (he got creeped on by the obsessive magical bad guy but his parents didn’t even die before he started personally killing them), and trying to juxtapose it against a body count that would make The Joker blush. And Rey’s supposed to play Beauty and the Beast with this guy who literally tries to shoot her out of the sky when she refuses to let him kill all her friends?

Nope. Nooope. I don’t care how much ‘light’ she senses in him, I sincerely do not. I need to see it, from the audience, in some way that makes me think this guy is not going to be perpetually at risk of murdering everyone the next time things go south for him. Without that, then even the saddest backstory is just tragedy, not grounds for any kind of turn-around or redemption arc.

[frankmwilliams25]

What to Expect from a DUI Attorney

Getting arrested for a DUI case may not feel like a big thing once it happens to anyone. People tend to take traffic rules lightly many times, thinking that they can get away with petty crimes easily. Also, once drunk, a person can lose consciousness to drive appropriately and create unrepairable damages to people or property. The consequences of such mistakes are mostly far more damaging than a simple arrest and court hearing. A DUI can be of different degrees, and if convicted more than one time, a person can suffer more extensive sentences each time. 

A DUI can be a nuisance to deal with once arrested for. After the arrest, you may be placed in jail for the time you aren’t bailed or presented before a preliminary hearing or trial. A trial is what takes place after you’re charged with a DUI or a preliminary hearing where the jury can decide whether the case is trial worthy or not depending on the evidence against you. DUI penalties can also vary from case to case, but most of them can include a fine, jail time, license eviction or suspension, community service, and more. 

After you test negative for being under the influence, you’re taken by the police and brought to a cell. You may also be interrogated for your actions and go through more tests to confirm the doubt. However, to avoid these sessions, you have a right to an attorney but the law and can have a lawyer answer questions for you and make critical decisions while also informing you of the intensity of your crimes. 

But just any or a family lawyer won’t do with a specific DUI case; you need an attorney who can support you through all complications with the best of their expertise. This is why you need to look at the guide below on DUI lawyers to hire the best for your case and get what you require in them:

Do You Need an Attorney?

A DUI attorney can be a big help in your case, especially if it’s a confirmed one and includes complications. If your charge is a confirmed DUI by field sobriety tests, you will need a lawyer to help you get through turning the case void. It would be best if you never went alone at gaining innocence for a crime you’re responsible for as a slight slip up can end your chances or create further complications. You may also not have the expertise of a good DUI lawyer to create strategic moves in the court and present defenses to eliminate or reduce your case charges. 

But not all cases can be that intense when it comes to driving under the influence. You won’t have to look for an expensive DUI attorney for a crime you did not commit and was wrongfully convicted of; you will be proved not guilty due to insufficient proof in court anyway. 

Why You Need to Hire a Lawyer

Legal representation is important for any person convicted of a crime as soon as they are arrested and fear the possibility of a sentence. After an arrest, you’re not only convicted for your crimes and fined for them, but your life could change entirely, and you can be seen as a bad influence in society. Your future can depend on how you’re evicted in the court trials and what judgment you receive. This can be one fairly fundamental reason for hiring a DUI lawyer for your case, and the rest are below:

Opinion

A lawyer’s opinion of your case can be the golden advice to save you from the dire setbacks a DUI can have. The laws around all offenses keep changing and evolving, making it challenging to keep up. For this reason, the best advice you can get is from your lawyer, who has complete knowledge of present and past laws and can advise the best outcome for a simple to a complicated case. 

Help in Trial

Inexperience is never appreciated everywhere. The same can happen when you are to represent yourself in the court in front of a serious and committed jury and judge. These people strictly need answers and definite evidence to end a case with a ruling rapidly. As they have other more severe cases to deal with, the people of a court can try and get rid of you soon if they don’t see an attorney or sufficient information with you to fight with. This is why a lawyer is needed to help you get through a trial without complications and conclude the hearing by pleading not guilty.

After Judgement

You can never know what the outcomes of a not so simple DUI crime turn out to be and if you get to remove the charge entirely or not. Many times the penalty is only reduced to a minimum, and that can also include license eviction. Hiring a lawyer can be of help even after the case has ended with a conviction. They can work towards gathering information to reduce your sentence and help you through some education programs that advantage you acquire insurance and your driver’s license back quickly along with several other duties.

Qualities of a Good Lawyer

Even though you need an attorney urgently after being convicted of a DUI offense, anyone you land on will not ‘THE’ lawyer for your case. A good lawyer may or may not be located in a well-established office and have plenty of years of experience. There are some aspects that separate good lawyers from corrupt ones. And if you have just a little bit of experience in hiring a lawyer, you will know the difference. 

A reliable lawyer should always be humble to talk to and communicate clearly. Moreover, the professional should also not demand extra charges from you. It can be the first sign of a corrupt lawyer when they start a session by asking for a deposit than an explanation for your case. An inexperienced lawyer may always end a claim too soon without throwing in several defenses and previously preparing for your case. 

How to Hire the Best DUI Lawyer

Anybody charged with a crime that they did or did not commit would want salvation above anything else. And to attain it, they can do anything it takes than living a life of misery ahead. This includes hiring a proficient lawyer. Searching for a good lawyer should be one of your main headaches and objectives. 

Since a lawyer can literally handle everything on your case by themselves and do the work for you while you get peace of mind, you cannot be without one. Here are a few things that you need to do in order to catch the best fish in the ocean of DUI lawyers and win your case easily:

Ask Around

Hiring a lawyer for the first time is a big responsibility and needs special care and measures to meet the right person. This is necessary for your unique case. Hence, make sure to hire a lawyer you can trust and one who has experience. 

Choose sites that help you find reliable people and local directories for a well-known Los Angeles criminal attorney. You can also ask your friends and family for help since the DUI crime is a commonly committed and condemned crime, and someone you know may have gone through it to appoint the professional. 

Questions

Right now, there would be several questions running your mind related to the charge implanted on you, its repercussions in the future, and how the current situation can be turned into a better one. You must also have questions related to the lawyer’s experience and ask about their proficiency in these cases with backup. 

Once you step into a lawyer’s office, never hesitate to ask them the required questions all for your case. This may be the only chance you have not to let the criminal record stain your image, so make sure to make the most of it. 

Costs

Determining and providing the lawyer fees can be a headache if not decided on the initial interview. These costs can come unwarned at you if not inquired about at the beginning of the case. Make the validation to ask your lawyer for all the costs upfront and leave none to be paid later. Informing you about the expenses is necessary for your lawyer at the start than revealing the price of trial or a pre-hearing after they have been announced. 

Information

Communication with an ethical lawyer is the key to any fruitful criminal arrest elimination. When looking for a lawyer, it’s essential to find one who you can clique with and someone who reports all the crucial updates on your case to you. You will have to make the judgment yourself, see the lawyer’s attitude, and ask how they handle phone calls from clients and the quality of their response rate. There will be several instances where you will have to make crucial decisions with your lawyer, and he/she must be up to the task and communicate the terms well with you to make informed decisions.

Get Several Quotes

When getting a service for a task as crucial as evading a criminal conviction, it won’t be harmful to be extra careful and explore all your options. Whichever state you live in, you will find several lawyers working in DUI and all with different expertise and behaviors. For this reason, you can get several quotes from altered places to get a good enough price and meet the lawyer of your needs. 

Read More

[kingdomofthelogos]

God Cares “Why”

Read Nehemiah 12

There is a great distinction to be made between motivations and intentions. Intentions are what we plan on doing and would like to do, but motivations are why we do them. Therefore, motivations are much deeper than our intentions, for they guide us by a more rigid principle than do our daily intentions. Intentions are what we would like to do, but motivations are why we do the things we do. As we consider Nehemiah 12, I want us to consider the importance of our motivations and how they shape our service to God.

It is quite common for people to be good at starting projects but bad at finishing them. The reason for this is quite simple. It is much easier to intend on finishing a project than it is to be motivated to do so. Real motivation will push us to learn new skills, to persevere, and to invest in our work far more than will mere intentions.

Jules Verne is one of my favorite authors, and his novel Michael Strogoff: The Courier of the Czar exemplifies the importance of motivations over mere intentions. Michael Strogoff had been charged by the Emperor of Russia to smuggle a sealed letter from one side of Russia to the other, including across the challenging geographies of Siberia. His mission was to deliver information necessary to stop a revolution and save Russia. He was a stout and rugged man, one of the most capable in the Czar’s service. His journey would take about 3,200 miles, which is wider than across the entire continental United States. He had every skill needed, being a native of Siberia, but a terrible insurrection had broken out threatening to split Russia in half. At the height of his journey, and I hate to spoil a novel from 1876, he found that spies and traitors had learned of his mission, and captured his mother with the purpose of torturing her to get him to reveal himself.

Michal Strogoff, being at this point trapped among his enemies, found himself unable to bear the sight of his mother’s torturous execution. Revealing himself to save his mother, the traitors resolved to give him a fate worse than death. Feofar Khan, the villain attempting to destroy Russia, had Michael Strogoff’s eyes put out with a hot sword and his sealed letter taken from him to be handed over to the Russian traitors that would use it further their cause of destruction. Every aspect of Michael Strogoff’s intended plan fell apart; moreover, it would seem impossible, after such a horrifying calamity, for a blind man to achieve his goal as courier now that he was both maimed and separated from his letter, with its secret unknown to him.

Yet, He was not merely intending to serve his emperor, for he was motivated to do so. Therefore, through an act of unwavering courage and allegiance to both God and country, Michael Strogoff continued towards his destination with the help of a young lady. A young lady that he had once helped, would now guide him forwards on a seemingly impossible mission. Jules Verne teaches us in this novel, as with many of his others, the truth that service to God is not something reduced to our thoughts and person, but how we navigate life with honor before God. 

Similar to the story of this novel, St Angela Merici, who in the 15th century was known for her work in building schools and orphanages, once took a journey from where she lived in Italy to see the Holy Land, to see the places where Jesus walked. While still in the early stages of her journey, she found that she had become blind. Many of us would think her journey now pointless, since it would no longer be possible for her to see the places she intended to see. However, she was not simply a woman led by intentions. Her journey was not defined by mere intentions of seeing where Jesus walked; rather, she was led by motivations to come near to God. Thus, she kept on with her journey.

She made it to the Holy Land, and walked where Jesus walked, even though she was unable to see with her eyes. Her pilgrimage was true and her goal realized, even though her eyesight was gone. This is what real motivation looks like, it is the drive to continue in service to God despite the shortcomings of our intentions.

If we are simply relying on intentions and intentionality, we will often find ourselves losing energy when our plans fall apart. However, if we are motivated to the higher matters of God, we will find ourselves doing things we might never expect. Motivations will take us much further than will intentions, and motivations are much better predictors of our actions than are our intentions.

This is one of the reasons why motivations are much more important than intentions. The reason why we do things will have a larger impact on what we ultimately do than will our thoughts on what we would like to happen. In government, we regularly find people pushing for policies to solve a problem that actually make the problem worse. When this happens, people will often refer to their good intentions, and will then continue down a destructive pathway by shifting focus to the “good intentions” rather than changing course. This is why God commands us to have no other gods before Him, meaning we have no other moral authorities, motivations, or obligations that exceed our service to Him. God Himself is truth, and just as His laws of physics and mathematics bind together creation, so will His wisdom keep us on the straight and narrow; even, and especially, when His wisdom is in conflict with our desires of what we would like to happen. 

Motivations will have us correct our course if things go awry, whereas, intentions do not. If people fail to satisfy the goal of their motivations by means of a certain route, they will modify their actions accordingly. However, intentions do not require this. Even in the face of failure, if people are only serving intentions, they will feel no need to change course because they consider that they have already been sufficiently good. Since they consider their intentions good, they feel as if they have satisfied the virtue of good, and therefore have absolutely no need to modify their behavior. 

Nehemiah is motivated to serve God; moreover, just as God is holy and excellent Nehemiah must be holy and excellent. Just as God put in the work to speak creation into existence, Nehemiah is reflecting his creator by restoring the symbols of God’s covenant.  As a result, God’s people find themselves in joyous celebration as they hold a ceremony dedicating the city wall. This is not one of the routine holidays that one might observe annually and without the once-in-a-lifetime expressions found in a moment of unique achievement. This is a pinnacle moment of recognizing the truth, goodness, and beauty of living in God’s Kingdom. It requires endurance and willingness to overcome. It requires fear of God and God alone, recognizing that there is more to the world than what is immediately before our eyes. 

This chapter reminds us that it is good to achieve. Moreover, it is good to celebrate achievements and recognize that as creatures made in the Image of God we were designed to realize great and noble achievements. It is a work of the darkness to fool us into a false humility where we degrade ourselves for the purpose of degradation and do nothing but ebb away in pits of despair. 

Throughout the course of Scripture we find that our God is motivated towards achievement. Christ did not submit Himself to human existence for any small motivation; no, He died in order that He would conqueror death in an eternal victory for life. Jesus does not approach the woman at the well so that He may meet her in her sin and they remain there together, but that she might rise with Him above her own faults. Jesus did not eat with sinners and tax collectors that they might go on sinning and tax collecting, but that they might rise up from the pits of society to be righteous role models who heal the sick, raise the dead, cast out the demons and proclaim the Good News that can liberate all. God is a God of excellence, and we must never forget it. 

Our nation is possessed by a spirit with which people are motivated to tear everything down and refashion society according to their designs. This is basic idolatry; meaning, it is the simple exercise of exerting one’s person as the ultimate moral authority. This is not even a complex idolatry, if such a thing could exist, but the same self indulgent processes simply recurring in our modern time.

Paul states his motivations in Philippians 3:10-12, saying 10 I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, 11 if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead. 12 Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own.  Paul’s motivation is true service to Christ Jesus, who is, quite literally and mysteriously, the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Paul’s motivations are neither secret nor to remain his own, for he desires that all might walk with him on the Way of Life. 

If we go to Philippians 4:4-8, Paul then elaborates on what this motivation looks like in real life by saying, 4 Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. 5 Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. 6 Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. 7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. 8 Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Paul is not giving them details on how they might organize a church service, but how they should structure their entire lives. When you are making dye, doing carpentry work, laboring in a field, or whatever it may be, you must excel with noble conduct, for your God is one of noble conduct.

In Nehemiah 12 we see a pinnacle moment of dedication along with the fruits of long labor. This moment was not achieved by mere intentions or intentionality, but by motivation towards what is true and noble. It required ingenuity and a willingness to rise to the occasion of doing things one had never before done. It required creativity and a willingness to get dirty in both battle and labor, while firmly saying “no” to those that are motivated by destruction. Let us consider our motivations, and how we might better serve God by focusing on why we do things and not merely what we would like to do.