#like arent you curious about what else the world can offer?

[mortimer]

i hate nerd and fandom culture so fucking much i hate how it took such interesting genres and forms of storytelling and turned them into slop generating machines to sell the most pin back buttons and funko pops and disney+ subscriptions

[iviarellereads]

The Eye of the World, Chapter 36 - Web of the Pattern

(THIS PROJECT IS SPOILER FREE! No spoilers past the chapter you click on. Curious what I'm doing here? Read this post! For the link index and a primer on The Wheel of Time, read this one! Like what you see? Send me a Ko-Fi.)

(Leaves and vine icon)(1) In which we make a new friend!

The plates Gill has a serving maid bring them are meager, and Rand wonders what will happen if a real growing season doesn't start soon. Gill asks what the real trouble is, and Rand tells a very simplified version of events, keeping Trollocs and Fades out of it. He knows there are holes in the story visible to anyone who thinks, but he doesn't want to endanger Gill.

Rand asks if Elaida Sedai, the advisor to Queen Morgase, would help them. Gill says it's unlikely, especially if she sniffed out the connection to Thom. She has a way of feeling things, knowing what's happened or what will happen. Before Rand can ask about something else, the cook calls Gill away to fix something, but first he tells them that Caemlyn is awash with rats suddenly, clogging things up and chewing through things. He mutters that he hopes it's not the drains again as he walks off.

Mat's stopped eating, and Rand says they've got to keep up their strength to get to Tar Valon. Mat snaps that all this time it's been they'll find their friends in Caemlyn, they'll be safe in Caemlyn, and now it's Tar Valon, as if Aes Sedai are any better than here. Rand reminds Mat that they're alive, and intend to stay that way and find out why they're so important. Mat gives in grudgingly and starts eating again.

They ask a serving girl to lead them up to their room, where she flirts with Rand, making him wish Perrin were here, he'd know what to do about her.(2) When she leaves, Mat collapses onto his bed, clothes and boots and all. He's grumpy and thinks everyone's dead, and Rand gives up and goes off to ask the rest of his questions alone. He asks the serving girl if there's a quiet room he can sit in, and she points him at the library. He asks her to tell Gill that he has a few more questions if he has the time, too. She chuckles and Rand thinks he's probably hiding from the cook.

He goes into the library and sees a book with a title that Tam had mentioned wanting to read many times, and the image of Tam holding the book makes him feel empty and lonely all through. Shortly, though, a throat clears behind him, and as he turns to apologize, he also has to turn his head up, and up further. A creature, almost ten feet tall, with a snouty wide nose, eyebrows that hang down like tails on the side of its face, and pale eyes the size of teacups, with tufted, pointy ears. He yells and tries to get his sword out, but his feet tangle in themselves and he falls down hard on the floor instead.(3)

“I wish you humans wouldn’t do that,” rumbled a voice as deep as a drum. The tufted ears twitched violently, and the voice became sad. “So few of you remember us. It’s our own fault, I suppose. Not many of us have gone out among men since the Shadow fell on the Ways. That’s . . . oh, six generations, now. Right after the War of the Hundred Years, it was.” The shaggy head shook and let out a sigh that would have done credit to a bull. “Too long, too long, and so few to travel and see, it might as well have been none.” Rand sat there for a minute with his mouth hanging open, staring up at the apparition in wide-toed, knee-high boots and a dark blue coat that buttoned from the neck to the waist, then flared out to his boot tops like a kilt over baggy trousers. In one hand was a book, seeming tiny by comparison, with a finger broad enough for three marking the place. “I thought you were—” he began, then caught himself. “What are—?” That was not any better. Getting to his feet, he gingerly offered his hand. “My name is Rand al’Thor.” A hand as big as a ham engulfed his; it was accompanied by a formal bow. “Loial, son of Arent son of Halan. Your name sings in my ears, Rand al’Thor.” That sounded like a ritual greeting to Rand. He returned the bow. “Your name sings in my ears, Loial, son of Arent . . . ah . . . son of Halan.”

Loial tells Rand that humans are very excitable, he had read some stories but he didn't realize how much more so they would be. His first day in the city all manner of people were throwing things at him and calling him a Trolloc. Only the guards saved him, and four days later he hasn't been able to so much as leave the inn, even discouraged from using the common room. The first night he was in there, everyone was shouting and screaming, all trying to get out of the door at the same time. They could have been hurt!

It's not until Loial says "It's not for this I left the stedding." that Rand realizes he's an Ogier!(4) How old is he? Rand knows the question is rude as soon as he blurts it out, but Loial answers, a little defensive. He's only ninety, still ten years from being allowed to address the Stump, so the Elders didn't even let him speak up for himself when he asked to leave. Rand is stunned at his age, and says at least they let him go.

Loial looked at the floor, wrinkling his nose and rubbing at it with one thick finger. “Well, as to that, now. You see, the Stump had not been meeting very long, not even a year, but I could tell from what I heard that by the time they reached a decision I would be old enough to go without their permission. I am afraid they’ll say I put a long handle on my axe, but I just . . . left. The Elders always said I was too hotheaded, and I fear I’ve proven them right. I wonder if they have realized I’m gone, yet? But I had to go.”

A village council meeting that lasted half a day left everyone jumping in frustration, Rand can't imagine a meeting that lasts years. He asks Loial why he had to leave, and Loial says that the more he read, the more he knew he had to see the Ogier-built places for himself, and the Groves. The Ogier have worked with stone, reluctantly, but they prefer to use the trees of a place to build beautiful places.

Loial mentions that working stone was something thrust on them by the Pattern, but the Groves are the work of their hearts. Rand says he didn't realize Ogier believe in the Pattern.

“Of course, we believe. The Wheel of Time weaves the Pattern of the Ages, and lives are the threads it weaves. No one can tell how the thread of his own life will be woven into the Pattern, or how the thread of a people will be woven. It gave us the Breaking of the World, and the Exile, and Stone, and the Longing, and eventually it gave us back the stedding before we all died. Sometimes I think the reason you humans are the way you are is because your threads are so short. They must jump around in the weaving. Oh, there, I’ve done it again. The Elders say you humans don’t like to be reminded of how short a time you live. I hope I didn’t hurt your feelings.”(5)

Rand's feelings aren't hurt at all, though he is curious what it would be like to live so long. Loial says human lives are short, but they have the whole world to live them in. Ogier are bound to their stedding, even if they leave, they must go back eventually, and things change so much outside the stedding anyway. Cairhien's proper name is Al’cair’rahienallen, Hill of the Golden Dawn in the Old Tongue, but they don't remember, and the Grove there hasn't been tended in a thousand years or more. Caemlyn's grove should be a quarter mile from where they sit, but not a tree to be found. The same in Tear and Illian, too. All the Groves gone, the memories and dreams dead.

“You can’t give up, Loial. You can’t ever give up. If you give up, you might as well be dead.” Rand sank back in his chair as far as he could go, his face turning red. He expected the Ogier to laugh at him, but Loial nodded gravely instead. “Yes, that’s the way of your kind, isn’t it?” The Ogier’s voice changed, as if he were quoting something. “Till shade is gone, till water is gone, into the Shadow with teeth bared, screaming defiance with the last breath, to spit in Sightblinder’s eye on the Last Day.” Loial cocked his shaggy head expectantly, but Rand had no idea what it was he expected. A minute went by with Loial waiting, then another, and his long eyebrows began to draw down in puzzlement. But he still waited, the silence growing uncomfortable for Rand. “The Great Trees,” Rand said finally, just for something to break that silence. “Are they like Avendesora?” Loial sat up sharply; his chair squealed and cracked so loudly Rand thought it was going to come apart. “You know better than that. You, of all people.” “Me? How would I know?” “Are you playing a joke on me? Sometimes you Aielmen(6) think the oddest things are funny.” “What? I’m not an Aielman! I’m from the Two Rivers. I never even saw an Aielman!” Loial shook his head, and the tufts on his ears drooped outward. “You see? Everything is changed, and half of what I know is useless. I hope I did not offend you. I’m sure your Two Rivers is a very fine place, wherever it is.” “Somebody told me,” Rand said, “that it was once called Manetheren. I’d never heard it, but maybe you. . . .” The Ogier’s ears had perked up happily. “Ah! Yes. Manetheren.” The tufts went down again. “There was a very fine grove there. Your pain sings in my heart, Rand al’Thor. We could not come in time.”

Loial looks pained, as if the destruction of Manetheren were new, and not two thousand years ago. But he moves the conversation on, asking Rand what brings him to Caemlyn if he's from the Two Rivers. Rand finds himself telling Loial the true story, all of it though he jumps back and forth in it, and he's somehow distant and horrified at his own actions as he does. When he starts talking about dreams, he bites his own tongue to stop talking, hoping that Loial will just think he's going mad.

Instead, Loial says just one word. "Ta'veren." Rand asks what it means, and Loial explains how the Pattern is woven just so, and small changes it can accept and work with, but it won't accept big ones so easily. Rand says sure, he could live on the farm or in Emond's Field, but if he wanted to be a king... they both laugh.

“Yes, that’s it. But sometimes the change chooses you, or the Wheel chooses it for you. And sometimes the Wheel bends a life-thread, or several threads, in such a way that all the surrounding threads are forced to swirl around it, and those force other threads, and those still others, and on and on. That first bending to make the Web, that is ta’veren, and there is nothing you can do to change it, not until the Pattern itself changes. The Web—ta’maral’ailen, it’s called—can last for weeks, or for years. It can take in a town, or even the whole Pattern. Artur Hawkwing was ta’veren. So was Lews Therin Kinslayer, for that matter, I suppose.”(7)

Rand isn't sure what this has to do with him, he's just a shepherd, not another Artur Hawkwing. Loial didn't say that, but he could almost feel the Pattern weaving around them as Rand told his story, and he's not even got a Talent in that area.(8)

He rubs the bridge of his nose, then nods decisively and says he wants to travel with Rand and his friends, when they leave Caemlyn. Rand is surprised. Didn't Loial hear all of who and what is chasing them? Yes, but there's a very fine Grove at Tar Valon, well tended, and he's sure Rand is ta'veren, and maybe his friends, too. He thinks he'll see more of the world shaping itself around them if he stays close, and even his Elder Haman would want to see that.

Rand says maybe that's not such a good idea. He's not even sure if his friends will find them. Loial touches his shoulder and says he's sure his friends are well. He asks if Rand will come and talk to him, while he's in Caemlyn, at least. Master Gill is busy running the inn, and almost nobody comes into the library. Rand promises to do just that, and to see the Grove with Loial if they meet again in Tar Valon. He thinks to himself that his friends have to be all right, please.

=====

(1) Previously seen for Tuatha'an, but this is a Rand in Caemlyn chapter and they don't go to the cities. Curious. Perhaps it means our new friend is very connected to nature. (2) Rand seems to consistently quote Perrin as being the one who can talk easily to women, if this and chapter 3 can be said to form a pattern. Meanwhile, Perrin a few chapters ago wished he was as good at it as Rand is. What goobers young men can be. (3) And how lucky they did, or else Rand might have skewered a perfectly decent friend-shaped being! (4) In fairness, how many creatures does Rand know from myth, and how many more might he not know of at all? Still, Ogier! Like Ents, but not at all like Ents. RJ started from the same place as a lot of his contemporaries did, with the Tolkien riff, but he's modulating it as he goes, making sure you know this is an original story perhaps building on the style Tolkien popularized but by no means playing out the same way. (5) He's such a sweetie. Just as impulsive in his way as any of the Emond's Field youths (or Nynaeve), but he's also just as kind and open and ignorant of the world. (6) And possibly the biggest, strangest, and easiest to ignore bomb dropped: Loial says Rand looks like an Aielman. This is the first we've heard of any of THAT! Isn't it? (7) We finally have our word for hero-convenience-itis, for the reason why Rand's feet tangle when he reaches for his sword at the wrong moment, for how he knows when to keep going and when to stop for the night, and for how much trouble he gets into when he goes the wrong way despite all the urging the Pattern can manage. Ta'veren. I have a re-meme of the "Aliens" guy but it's Loial's face from the show, saying "Ta'veren." I would link it near constantly if the way I was doing these posts allowed for it. You're welcome that it's not. LOL (8) Talent, with a capital letter. So, some people have special talents? Well, we've seen Min's, and she hasn't been shuttled off to the White Tower so we can probably assume a Talent isn't related to channeling.

[conniespringerblkwife]

Betrayed... Again (Final)

(Eren Jaeger x Female Marleyan Reader | NSFW)

Part 1, Part 2, Series List

Series

A/N: This story will have slight season 4 anime spoilers, if you have not watched it. For the last time, I am not pro-Marleyan, just a story that came to mind. Also I want to thank the people who supported my story. It will be great if you guys could leave feedback.

Warnings: Slight Spoilers, Angst, Smut: Female oral (receiving), Fingering, Rough sex, Over stimulation

Summary: Nurse Y/N thinks the people of Paradis are growing on her. Is it because of their ignorance? Or is it because she is in love with one of them.

*3,305 words*

Songs I listened to while writing:

TiO (Take it Off) by Zayn

The commander would occasionally lift up their glasses as they read a book about Eldian history. They offered you tea but you declined because you didn't trust them; you didn't trust any of these people. You then wondered if there were others that were kidnapped just like you on this island. If you could find your people, you can probably come up with a plan to get out of here.

"How much do you know about Eldian history Nurse Y/n?" The commander asked you as they lifted their glasses for the nth time. You stayed silent. You didn't need to say anything to this devil. Also how come they didn't know anything about the Eldian history? Arent they technically Eldians?

The commander then spoke again, "Nurse Y/N, I think we can be friends and work together. Aren't you a nurse? Dont you want to help people?"

"Help my people, not you island devils." you scoffed and crossed your arms as your eyes traveled to the floor. "What do you want?"

"I'm curious to what kind of history you learned over in Marley to make you guys hate us so much." This made you look up.

"You seriously don't know." They stared at you blankly and that's when you knew they were telling the truth. "You're ancestors betrayed us Eldians in Marley." You said sternly, "We have been oppressed for thousands of years and you get to be hidden behind walls, unaware of the tragedies your ancestors have committed."

You were now looking at them and they splayed their hands across the table. "But that was a thousand years ago? What about the people now? The millions of people that lost their lives? Why did they have to die?" The way they innocently asked these questions made you sick to your stomach. You couldn't believe they were serious about everything coming out of their mouths.

Before you could say anything else, Levi walked in. "I'm taking Nurse Y/n back to her cell. Get some rest Ha-Commander." You heard him stuttered over his words, and you assumed he was trying not to say the commander's name.

Walking through the hallways with Levi back to your cell was silent, until you stopped and turned to him. "Levi, do your people really not know anything?" He continued walking and you rolled your eyes as you followed along.

You were now in your cell as you sat on the edge of the hard bed staring at the floor. "Even if what you know is true or not, it's not like that anymore. My comrades didn't sacrifice their life for this." Levi said and then left you with only the light from the candle flickering.

Your stared at the ceiling as you laid in bed, thinking about your childhood.

In Marley, once you turned a certain age, you need to start thinking about what you want to do with the rest of your life. Some thought about becoming a warrior or a teacher, but you decided to become a nurse.

The moment you chose that for yourself, that's all you were taught. You took history classes, but it taught you the same phrase that was pounded into you since you were brought into this world. "You must serve Marleyans if you want to end oppression" or "The Eldians on the island are devils."

You hated Marleyans, but you were taught that it was your ancestors fault so you had to serve them in order to atone for their sins. You always wondered if the traitors were the reason why Eldians on Marley suffered. Maybe if they all were dead, your people could be free.

You thought about how your mother would make sure you had your armband on before going out to the public. You have heard horrible stories about Eldians being punished for forgetting their armbands or wearing them wrong. You didn't know why you were crying, but you couldn't help the tears spill and run down the sides of your temples into your hair because you were laying on your back. You then heard someone whisper your name and your head quickly shot up. It was Eren.

Your heart leaped out of your chest as you stared at the man before you. He was wearing an olive shirt with black pants and his hair still in a bun. You threw your legs to the side of the bed and walked towards him. You wrapped your hands around the bars and pressed your face between the gap. "Eren what are you doing here?"

He walked closer to you, "I'm here to see you, now stand back." You noticed he had a key in his hand and wondered how he got it. He opened your cell and next thing you knew you were in his arms.

Your head smuggled in his chest as you involuntarily sniffed him and noticed he had an earthy scent.

"I'll be leaving in a few days," He whispered against the top of your head. You pulled away and looked into his emotionless eyes.

"Where are you going?" Your fists scrunched up the sides of his shirt.

"To finished what I started." You knew exactly what he meant, and before you could protest, he was kissing you. Then there you were again melting in his arms, as you pulled him to your chest.

Eren gently pushed you onto the bed and slid his hands under your shirt to circle his thumbs around your nipples, while squeezing the outside flesh. Your legs wrapped around his waist as you grounded against his clothed erection. "Eren," you said his name in a breathy tone when you felt him kiss and suck on your neck.

Your gown was now scrunched up to your waist as he kneaded your thighs with his huge calloused hands. His hands slowly maneuvering to your waist, teasing the band of your underwear. One of his hands slid over your clothed folds and rubbed it gently while his other hand played with your left breast. You started to squirm from his slow intimate touches. You just wanted him inside of you. "Eren please....I just want you."

"Just wait a little longer. I want to savor you." He took off his shirt and settled himself between your legs. He pulled your panties down your ankles and kissed your inner thigh. Eren brought his face to your heat and licked your slit up and down, then circling around your clit. You grabbed his hair and wrapped your legs around his shoulders.

He slowly entered two fingers inside of you, stretching you out slowy as you pulled at his hair. The man admired the way your pretty hole swallowed his fingers.

You felt his hair tickle the skin inside of your thigh as he continued thrusting his fingers in and out of you.

You pulled at his hair to let him know his fingers wasn't enough and that you wanted more of him. "Eren please...I want all of you."

He scissored your opening and met your pleading eyes. "Be specific" His voice slicked with lust, causing you to clench around his fingers.

"I want you inside of me." You whined.

"What do you want inside of you love." He wanted you to beg for him. He wanted to know if you submit yourself to him, all of yourself, no matter what.

"I want...I want your dick inside of me." As if a switch went off, Eren removed his fingers and pushed himself inside of you, giving you no time to adjust from his fingers to his girth. (Girth is such a funny word to me, I couldn't stop laughing)

You knew you were far gone as you watched Eren moved in and out of you at a rapid pace. Marley Y/n slowly crumbled at each of his thrusts. Your pride nearly faltered as he whispered dirty words in your ear and proceeded to kiss and suck your neck, marking his territory. You were his, you belonged to him. You were drunk off of Eren, and you didn't care.

Your brain was now fuzzy after having an intense orgasm that you didn't realize Eren came inside of you.

But he still didn't stop as pounded into you and rubbed your sensitive clit. You clawed at his back from the over stimulation and you could see the steam of him healing.

Eren collapsed on top of your body and slid his hands to your back. His ear rested on your chest as he listened to your rapid heartbeat; his breath fanning your exposed skin. "I love you." He said softly as you slowly drifted off to sleep.

You were startled awake as you felt cold water splash you. You were greeted by Levi holding a barrel that once had water. "Get up." He said coldly.

As you stood up, your legs almost gave out on you and last nights events came back to you and you felt your face heat up in response. You also noticed Eren was gone, he must've left after you fell asleep. "You've been asleep for half the day." He stated and you noticed he had clothes in his hands. "Put this on." He said and left the room.

It was another gown, you noticed, but this one was scratchy.

You and Levi were once again walking through a hallway in silence. But this time he was the one to speak up, "Eren's gone...Have any idea where he could be?" Your heart pounded against your chest at his words. He said he would be leaving in a couple days.

"No. I haven't seen him." You didn't know why you lied. Well it wasn't a whole lie you didn't know anything about Eren's plans.

"No need to lie if the evidence is all over your neck. " Your hand went to your neck instinctively and you knew it was because Eren marked it up. Before you could explain yourself, the blonde boy from earlier was running towards you two. "Levi!!" he rested his hands at his knees trying to catch his breath. "One of the rooms blew up and Chief Darius was there.." He paused and looked down, "He didn't make it." He then stood up, his breathing now calmed, "There were a few survivors but are wounded very badly and we need help." He then looked over at me, "Arent you a nurse?"

You nodded your head and he continued. "Can you please help?" You made contact with his blue eyes that threatened to spill with tears.

"I can try."

The man laid unconscious on the floor and you took note of the burnt patches that littered his arms, he was lucky there weren't any on his face, just a few scratches.

You kneeled down beside the man examining the intensity of his wounds. "He would heal soon." You looked around the room for any oils and noticed they didn't have any. "Do you have any oils or remedies?" The all looked at you in confusion as if you were speaking a foreign language. You realized that Paradis was not advanced in their society, the consequences of living secluded behind the walls.

"Do you have water and cloths." You had to resort to an older method that would probably take the healing process longer. After you received the items, you wrapped the man's arms with the wet cloths.

'Thank you," The blonde hair boy said to you. "I'm Armin." He held out his hand and you took it, you felt nothing hostile coming from the boy. Was perhaps these people were growing on you?

You sat out on a balcony alone (You didn't plan on running away after Levi threatened to slice your throat) staring out into the distance thinking. You thought about everything. You thought about if everything you learned in Marley was all a lie. The hatred that has been built into your brain to despised the people on Paradis. What if that was a reason to keep you all divided? You were just a nurse, you weren't a warrior, you wasn't capable of fighting. All you could do was help after the destruction not during.

You didn't realize Armin and another person walked in, until they sat in the open chairs on the side of you. On the right was a woman with black short hair and a scar on her face. She was so beautiful.

"Nurse Y/N this is Mikasa." Armin introduced her and you two greeted each other with a nod. "Have you heard anything from Eren?" Armin spoke and you looked away.

"No."

"Please, we know he was with you last." His eyes lingered to your neck and you both looked away blushing.

"He just told me he would be leaving in a couple days and that he had to finish what he started." You whispered, "And then we made love."

You noticed the the black haired woman clenched her fists after you said the last part. "Come with us Y/n." She then said.

As you three were leaving, you all heard a crash from one of the rooms, followed by shouting. Armin and the woman rushed towards it and you followed along. You were greeted by a blonde girl trying to stab another little girl with brown hair. Mikasa was quick to grab her arm while Armin snatched the knife from her hand.

On the side there was a little blonde boy laying unconscious, and you immediately recognized him. "Falco?" Tears threatened to spill as you rushed to his side. "What happened to him!" Half of his head was bleeding and you noticed he smelled like wine.

"I'm sorry, " You heard someone say from the corner. Why was there so many people from Marley here, you thought. You recognized the man that spoke, it was Niccolo. He would prepare dinner for the staff and patients in the hospital back in Marley. "Niccolo what did you do?" You said sternly. His head was now in his hands as he sobbed.

"He protected me." You heard the brown haired girl whisper.

"WHY!!! WHY DID YOU KILL HER!! SHE WAS NOTHING BUT KIND!!" The blonde girl screeched clawing at Mikasas tight hold.

As if the situation couldn't get worse, the devil himself, pranced in. Eren. It was as if time slowed down as you all watched him lift up his hand that was slit and had blood dripping from it. "Mikasa, Armin, Y/n, I have to tell you something."

"Eren." You breathed out his name.

You, Eren, Mikasa, and Armin sat at a round table with your hands on top because he threatened to kill you if you didn't.

"Eren what are you doing?" Armin spoke up first.

"I need to tell you guys something." Eren responded. You took this time to get a good look at his face. His eyes were cold as he stared at the blonde boy. He was slightly pale and looked like he haven't slept in days, but he looked fine yesterday you thought.

"What made you go attack Marley on your own Eren?" Armin spoke again and a lump caught in your throat as you remeber the tragedy that took place not that long ago. Eren stayed silent and his eyes now rested on the table. "Did Zeke and Yelena really trick you into joining them?"

"I am free." Eren finally said and me, Armin, and Mikasa looked at each other in confusion. "The choices I make are decided from my own free will."

"Eren don't listen to them, you're being manipulated." Mikasa spoke this time, her voice straining. "You killed kids and other innocent lives Eren!" Her deep black eyes flickered to yours. "And you even fell for one of them." You looked away tears threatening to fall. "I know you care about us more than anyone!" She was now out of her chair and pulled at her red scarf, "Eren you are kind! I know you're not like this! Remember when you gave me your scarf..."

"Hands on the table Mikasa." He interrupted her, "I had a brother to brother talk with Zeke and knows a lot more about titans than Marley."

-You furrowed your eyebrows, brother to brother? Zeke as in Zeke...Jaeger. Your mouth hanged slightly agape from this realization.

"Armin you still visit Annie don't you?" He focused his attention to Armin and you noticed how his jaw flexed. "Do you think that's your own free will?"

The blonde boy's eyes were now blown wide while Eren continued, "If memories are what shaped people, part of you is Bertholdt...Within you is the enemy with feelings for another enemy."

"Eren." you croaked your vision blurry, but the tears wouldn't fall.

"You have been manipulated by the enemy Armin."

"Eren thats enough!"Mikasa shouted.

"You too, Mikasa!!!" He shouted back causing you to flinch. You gripped at your gown to calm yourself. "The moment I told you to fight your instincts were awakened...Your people were designed to protect Eldia's King."

"No, you're wrong...It was because of you Eren." Her mouth hanged agape as tears spilled from her eyes.

"Those who aren't free live like livestock." He paused, "I always hated you Mikasa. I hate you for living like a slave, willing to obey any orders I give. IT disgusts me. You disgust me."

"Eren!!!" The blonde pounced on top of the table with rage, but was then slammed to his stomach by Mikasa. The boy gasped as he looked up at her.

"Your entire life has been a waste because you didnt make your own choices." Eren spoke again but calmly and Mikasa let go of Armin as if she realized that what he has said so far may be true.

Armin took this oppurtunity to land a punch to his face. You quickly got out of your chair because the table flipped over. Before Armin could get another punch in, Eren hit him twice as hard and threw him against the case of wine. The whole shelf came tumbling down and you knew the blonde boy wasn't going to win. Eren continued punching his face with all of his strength and his face started to swell up rapidly. All you could do was watch. This wasn't Eren. "You know why we never fought before." Eren grabbed him by his shirt and kneed him in his stomach, "Because it wouldn't be a fair fight." He threw the boy to the ground. You could barely see his blue eyes anymore.

You don't know what compelled you to rush to the boy, but you found yourself checking his neck for a pulse. He was still breathing but was unconscious as you rested your hands on the side of his puffy face. "What is wrong with you?" you said, then looked up. Your tear filled eyes met with Eren's cold ones. "I thought you cared about us?" You rubbed the blonde boy's hair. "You're the real slave." You spit out and he scoffed.

"Who you calling a slave?" He clenched his fist, "You betrayed your home because you fell in love foolishly believing that I actually cared about you." Your heart dropped hearing his words. "Let's go." He said to a few people, assuming that they are on his side. "And bring the kid that killed Sasha." You forgot the kids were still here and you watched as the girl with brown hair was hauled away as she kicked her feet.

You watched as Eren left the room. The blonde boy head rested in your lap and all you felt was nothing. You weren't mad nor sad. You were just nothing. You wish you could feel one emotion, but you couldn't. "It was all a lie." The words fell from your lips as you replayed Eren's words in your mind.

You were betrayed...again.

*

*

*

Follow me on Instagram @//jungjaehoe127

[extravalgant]

okay last night i was ALSO looking at the descriptions for the magic were on the website and i came across this 

and it got me thinking about how i think the schools would sort of... function . thinkin deeper about how wizzies do their thing and summon creatures

inspired mainly by lightningbat’s post here and that-wizard-oki’s post here

more below ^_^ 

EDIT: forgot about myth . im sorry to all the myth stans out there who ive disappointed

— death wizards belonging to a more advanced part of the school is an interesting part of the story - even the reveal that they have to take multiple steps before they can summon their creature means that if they do steps in the wrong order or dont do them right, the spell the spell might fizzle. im more curious about what kind of steps that could be (burial rites, possibly??), and that i think death wizards are more likely to fall back on muscle memory and routine if it involves something physical to be done. however, i think theyre more in tune with their mortalities as humans (spiral or otherwise) and would probably be more careful about the choices that they make as wizards... some like to cater into the emo aesthetic and some see it more as a school identity more than anything. death might get a bad rep in arc one so maybe necromancers are more defensive about the use of its magic...

— ice wizards specifically use chants to bargain and plead with their creatures to help them - this makes me think that ice creatures r finicky and wish-washy with who gets to summon them, and that theyre possibly easily offended. i think ice wizards therefore a little more charming and persuasive compared to their non-ice peers - because they have to be if they want to summon their creatures. i think you also need to have a lot of patience as an ice wizard because battles can drag out so long in the face of prioritizing tanking over damage

— storm wizards use verses to charm or enthrall their creatures - which kinda makes me think that a lot of the creatures that they deal with could end up doing serious damage to the caster if they arent convincing enough. in this case i think storm wizards would be considerably more manipulative than the rest, convincing their creatures to attack their enemy. i think if you dont follow the tune or the words dont flow well enough then the spell might fizzle 

— fire wizards use incantations to dominate or convince their creatures to fight for them, which honestly kinda fits LMFAO the term hot headed might be perfect for this kind of summoning practice. part of being a fire wizard is knowing that if you cant control your flames (as well as your emotions) it will escape you and consume everything. i think fire wizards are more prone to being bossy and haughty in this case

— life magic is very different compared to the ones already talked about - it relies on nothing but a small part of the song of creation, which wove the spiral. i think the ability to create something from nothing is often looked over as an aspect of life magic, and it can get away from you and consume you entirely if you dont have a handle on it. it can bring someone back from the brink of death, or you can use it to drain someone of their life energy (although, im not sure if the last part is aligned with life ideals). it feels good to be full of life energy, but it can also be overwhelming and hard to deal with being responsible with someone elses life force. i think in this case life wizards can switch between being kind + generous to the mean healer trope LOL

— balance is described as a trasmutation to “blend the forces of other schools”. this could mean that for both elemental and spiritual spells they have to use a mixture of chants, incantations, verses, and being able to harness the small power of the song of creation for life - all while having to balance out these forces. in this case, i think, balance is an advanced school (possibly along with death) because of all the conflicting forces that come with having to deal with all seven main schools. although, i think the way that balance is characterized, balance students are more in tune with themselves and the world around them.

— myth wizards mainly have to rely on their creativity and their mind to drive their specific magic. i think if ravenwood offered more classes then myth classes would probably intertwine with creative writing classes or classes that required you to think beyond your imagination. naming, specifically calling out creatures true names, is a core part of what helps myth wizards summon their creatures. however seeing as the myth teacher is cyrus drake, it might explain why some of his students are... Like that. I think myth would discourage those who are easily afraid, because using a true name and not being confident is a recipe to get your spell reversed on you. however, it does encourage creativity, as well as teamwork and bonding with others. the way that myth wizards cast their spells and rely on one another in an environment -- i think myth wizards are more likely to be caculated, logical. but theyre also likely to be compassionate and kind.

HAVING SAID THAT..... i think the player character (the wizard, the savior) being from earth and not a part of the spiral means that their body doesnt have a natural “magical blocker”, which is meant to protect the body from taking in too much magic at once, from completely different sources

(personal headcanon: this means that when the wizard uses too much magic they may hit a “wizard fever” or “spiral flu” and gets sick as a result of using too much)

this fits in game mechanic wise too -- you can learn a multitude of spells, but you use more of your magic for schools that arent your primary focus - the amulets you can get may help make certain magic flow and cast better

i dont know if i can say that we are the only ones able to learn a bunch of schools at once but i think it may be possible for us because we dont have that “magic blocker” that keeps the body from being filled with too many conflicting magics too much . i think

[bisexualhobi]

i went to that blog other anon mentioned and goah theres SO much happening idk where to start lol. 

seriously where's this 'bts are uniquely oppressed by the collective music industry' came from lmao? this smells like someone whos been into bts for 3 months and never stepped outside the bubble. the industry treated everyone unfairly at some point, every fandom has their own anger and horror stories. personally i have onew being groped at national tv by its own host and 16yo (?) taemin being groped at music show by his own fucking sunbae sh*ndong (and fuck s*ju!) that jonghyun has to slap his arm away burned on the back of my eyeballs. also everything female idols has to endure. better yet, everything female idols from SMALL company has to endure. if they really want to make opression a competition their boys aint even gonna win lmao, those female idols will (also remember that one time one of gfriend girlie i think gets offered a water bottle and corndog by bts and that makes armys big mad they had the subtitles had to be changed from the gg member to staff to nothing. the disrespect). but ig armys love to see themselves as savior saving these seven poor little meow meows from the evil korean society and """elevate""" them from the realm of kpop bc of course anything outside the english speaking world is inferior isnt it? Hybes marketing ploy of victimization coupled with exceptionalism (we arent like the other kpop group we make our own songs our company is ethical /lmao/) + army savior complex + bts rags to riches/american dream narrative took off with the whites like insane im in awe of that i admit. "bts is not a boyband it's a cause" damn ok miss little missionaries what else u got? gold glory gospel maybe?

also another thing is u can see an ex larry from 200 miles away istg. i personally think its inevitable to wonder about a celebrity's sexuality esp bc the amount of queerbaiting present, but theres a difference between how queer asians (tho admittedly im only in east+southeast asian spaces) look at kibum for example and what the jikookers (for the love of God leave taemin tag i'm at my limit) or taekookers or whatever done. for the first one it's being gay as an identity that's important and it's all just determining it by vibes, but the latter it's about the relationship and compiling receipts, just the way it is with larries. someone should study this 1d to bts pipeline im actually curious. sorry for not making any sense im just woah, this pissed me off so much lmao

😭😭😭😭 this ask was a WILD RIDE you made me laugh a lot hdkdjkdkkd I don't agree with everything you said but I do understand where you're coming from and it really made me laugh lmfao jfkdjdkd

[zuffer-weird-girl]

Soulmate Au

Before you meet your soulmate you have to deal with a chibi version of them before actually meeting them. So can he handle it?

Dabi's point of view

Reader's view.

He grew up hearing that soulmates were a waste. Not everyone got together with the suppose love of your life, he was warned of that before his father discovered that... his quirk was almost perfect, almost... after this, he had to deal until the day he escaped from home a abusive and toxic family...

Reaching his 18 years old he was living on shelters and streets, during these times due to fighting for his own survival, his scars had marked half of his face and almost all of his body... damn the universe for giving him such a self destructive quirk...

During these times, he also saw many of people getting scared at the sudden appearance of the said chibis or carrying the little things around with eachother... their love was real? Could he really believe that?

His mother always encourage him and his younger sibling thhat they were getting their soulmates despite his father's harsh words.... But how coul someone like him have a soulmate? It was better this way... alone. He was better off alone and with no one with him.

Now, being part of the league of the villain came the said topic about chibis which always leaved him a little pissed off. Toga was rambling about that green haired kid from the USJ again, and he was so tired and annoyed that he got off from the couch and went to his quarters, merely flipping Spinner and Compress off when they asked him where he was going.

Closing the door, he let himself drop on what was suppose to be his bed with a sigh before he heard a sound. He tried to ignore it, but the constant squeaking was getting him crazy...

"Wanna play cat and mouse fucking rat? Let's make a barbecue then." He lighten his hand on fire before getting up with a gruff and looking at the corner of his small room to see a little person there, looking up at him.

"The hell?" He muttered as he tried to burn the thing but they squeaked and ran off to jump on his bed.

Looking at them with boredoom, he sighed and tried to aproach again, no more with his quirk activated in a attempt to not scare the poor thing again... Narrowing his eyes at its it only blinked at him before opening a open smile... Letting him know how much he was fucked and how those mom's stories were indeed true...

There in front of him was his chibi.

.

.

.

Despite trying to hidding it from everyone in the league, eventually they spotted him trying to get away from the chibi whose was trailing behind him. A sense of anger and jealousy burned inside him as Twice and Spinner talked and tried to at least poke at the chibi's cheeks, whose always squeaked in protest and ran towards him.

"Dammit Dabi! Your chibi is really clingy!" Spinner whined as Dabi only stared nonchantly at the chibi on his ankle.

"You can have it." He mumbled in annoyance before he walked out with the damn chibi on him.

The chibi suddenly squeaked and ran after something before coming back with a note of money... He hadn't notice it before and coincidentally he had complained to himself a bit yesterday that he was out of money... and there it was his chibi always glued to him with a smile offering it to him.

"Thanks.." he said with a smirk while kneeling down and grabbing as he widened his eyes at the kiss they blew at him... "Oh fucking god you're cute." He muttered whiel trying not to chuckle at it.

.

.

.

Weeks had passed and he tried to find his soulmate even on the day time as he walked with his chibi chilling on his shoulder... yet all in vain. It had been almost months already yet he hadn't found the actual version of doll.

"Neee Dabi???" Toga cooed behind him as he toon another gulp of his drink with his chibi swinging their legs up and down on his shoulder "Let me see that chibi of yours real quickly?"

"You psyco dont touch my doll." He muttered nonchantly as he finsihed his alcohol as Toga squealed.

"awww you call it doll! That's even cuter-" in one quick montion she snatched the chibi on his shoulder and aimed the knife to their little throat "I'm just curious about how it looks their blood after all!"

"Give them back right now you brat-" Dabi grunted while standing up before Shigaraki appeared out of no where and holded the chibi by their arm as they emmited a sound of pain.

"Such a bothering little thing. Tell me again why you're keeping this?" He showed the chibi with more emphasis as flames surrounded the indigo haired man's shoulders, arms and hands.

"Give. Them. Back." He growled the worlds as shigaraki only looked at Kurogiri before sighing at the way the golden orbs squinted abjt before throwing the chibi at Dabi.

"If you like playing with dolls whatever, as long as it doesn't bother us anymore." Dabi scowled at his boss before walking quickly to his room and placing the chibi carefully down.

"Fucking hell.. does it hurt?" The chibi only looked up at him with teary eyes but shocked their head while waving the arm.

"But does it hurt my soulmate?" He asked and felt a pain of guilt surround him as the chibi nodded sadly and hugged his scarred hand when he seemed down.

"... well." He smirked while cupping the chibi and already putting on his disguise "At least now I will finally know my real dollface." The chibi squeaked in glee before jumping out of his hand and grabbing his sunglasses and offering to him.

.

.

.

He walked carefully on the street and occasionally scoffed at some heroes doing patrols on the day light. The chibi grabbed on his ear suddenly and squeaked loudly as he groaned.

"What now?" He grunted while rubbing hjs now sore ear as the chibi squeaked more and more before he blinked and cursed out loud when they simply jumped away from him and ran towards teb entrance of the hospital.

"Shit shit shit shit shit shit shit-!" Just about when he went to call out for them, he accidentally bumped into someone, somehow hard enough to make both of him and the other person to fall straight to the floor.

He went to curse them out before he gasped at seeing his vision clear, he was without his sunglasses and went immediately to take them before he felt another warm touch on his hand to make joist of electricity roll over all his body from hand to head and toe.

The first thing he notice when he looked up was his own little shit of a chibi hugging a squirt version of himself... then he saw his soulmate... By God, no offense to the chibi version... hit you were way more prettier and beautiful than them.

He wished the moment could have last longer before he noticed a few people staring as he cursed under his breath, ignoring your attempts to apologize as he spoke:

"Here." He offered his hand to help you up, lifting your body up and trying not to wince and furrow his eyebrows at seing that you had actually an injury arm because of him not protecting your chibi enough "We wouldn't want any other person to see us."

"I-I sure." You nodded following him to a more secluded place, your chibis trailing after you both.

On a dark alley, he prepared himself mentally to show you his face... surely you weren't idiot enough to not know who he was and what he did... and he surely wasn't the best candidate to be someone's else soulmate... after all, he was a broken soul... not enough to anyone.

"You arent dumb. You know already who I am and what do I look like-" he turned to you, shoving his hood down to show you his face "Right? Dollface?"

He expected everything... you to flinch, scream or cringe at his appearance. Despite you seing how he was as a chibi, he knew that the real deal was horrible... yet, he felt your soft and gentle hands cup his face as while he could see the sincerity and love behind those beautiful (E/c) orbs.

"You're the most beautiful man I ever saw... You know how much I've been waiting to see you?"

Those words made him smile... right there, on the middle of alley that could hide you both, chibis on the ground staring up at you two... he knew. He knew that the person he was holding their wrist and looking lovingly at them...

Was his soulmate.

[someone-always-cares]

[image description: a q&a for the webcomic someone always cares. full desc under the cut because its long and wordy sorry]

post chapter 3 Q&A

first - previous - next

thanks for yalls questions!! it was fun to answer! if anyone still has questions feel free to ask whenever i am always 100% down to ramble. even if i did go slightly off topic in some answers

additional: went off topic with the hair question a bit. their bright hair is all part of the transformations. regular hair dye does exist though. best way to tell is that if the eyebrow matches the hair its probably not dyed. also, quartz’s hair is naturally ginger.

also for more on ages, check out the character bios here

also was gonna keep this in the tags but thought i might as well actually try to answer it: the question i found it hardest to answer was someone the song one. my taste in music is. a mess really. ive been listening to like the same 5 songs on repeat all day. more under the cut because i was rambling again and now its uhhh half 1am

if it helps at the time of answering that specific question i had home by cavetown on repeat, and that song reminds me of both rami and lewis. but that may be because i project onto those two a lot, and as a aro trans dude. who sucks with people skills, yeah of course i love that song.

specifically the vibes of like not knowing how to communicate (rami is fine with his friends but other people are different), the lines “ Turn off your porcelain face, I can't really think right now and this place, Has too many colors, enough to drive all of us insane” idk what the porcelain face line is supposed to mean but im picturing it as like. a mask. that you need to take off and stop hiding and rami does tend to hide when hes feeling upset, and the next two lines kinda could tie into that, like the feeling of when youre overwhelemed and just want the world to stop so you just hide somewhere. also the colours could go with chapter 3 with the chromatic abberation.

also the bit with “ my eyes went dark, I don't know where, my pupils are, But I'll figure out a way to get us out of here” just kinda sums up ramis whole hero thing with his powers and all. anyway this has turned into less what songs rami would like and why this particular song reminds me of him and lewis (lewis specifically has the hair cutting/chest hiding, [big transmasc mood], and also messy haired trainwreck who doesnt know who he is yet. also the ghosts bit)

i did end up picking upbeat songs because ramis a dude who like to try and be upbeat even if things arent. even if hes not really feeling it he will pretend to.

[full description: Anonymous said to someone-always-cares: “hi ily!!! do characters like quartz who have colored hair have that naturally or did they dye it?”

“its both natural and not! while most supers can do a magical girl ish transformation, including a change in hair colour, there are some exceptions.”

theres two small full body drawings of rami, one in civilian clothes, one fully transformed.

“if a superhero were to have a biological child, the child will inherit the powers of the parent(s). however, the child will not inherit the full transfromation. they do inherit any physical transformations, but not the outfit.”

theres a drawing of a woman in blue, quartz’s mother, fully transformed, holding her mask in her hand, smiling down at a much younger quartz as a child. hes smiling back up at her with the same blue eyes, pointy ears, and blue hair, but hes still in normal clothes.

“in the case of quartz, both of hisparents had superpowers, and he inherited those powers and the physical transformations.he can also pick and mix whatphysical traits to change.“

next is a headshot of adult quartz, his face split down the middle with one side having hair and eye like his mother, the other like his father. theres a list of traits from each parents, blue hair and eyes and pointy ears from his mum, and purple hair and eyes and pointy teeth from their dad.

 “Anonymous said to someone-always-cares:  Are all the characters the same age? If not, how old are they? Are they irl friends or just superhero friends?”

theres some headshots of rami and his team lined up with ages labelled: cam is 15, rami himself is 17, lin, mateo, and dante, are all 18, and cap is 20.

“rami and xandra were somewhat friends before she got superpowers, so when, after the incident with her old team, she found rami had developed powers, xandra stuck close to him. their other teamates started off as superhero friends but soon turned into irl friends too”

theres a headshot of lewis and jade. theyre both 17

“when lewis first decided to start being a vigilante,jade quickly found him and decided to help train himand offered to be a mentor of sorts, as they both have similar powers. that quickly derailed.”

“ cinder5555 said to someone-always-cares: How long does it usually take to make a comic page? I'm curious because they're so freaking good that they must take FOREVER”

theres a drawing of myself, a fluffy hair tired bastard in a hoodie, smiling

“Thanks! Ive been doing this shit since like 2017 and i still have no idea how long it takes me. i can get a page done in a day if i have nothing else to do or if its a simple page, but if i have work then maybe 2-3 days? i spend like, most of my free time doing this.“

another drawing of me, now looking frustrated muttering “how the FUCK does time work”

“but i can never do it all on one sitting.i will inevitably get distracted and zone out daydreaming mid drawing so its very hard to get an accurate read on how long it takes. so however long a piece of string is i guess“

the only qustion not from tumblr is a discord message from RuneStone Cabin:

“Q: Can you talk about the incidence of superpowers in this world? Like many people are supers, which powers are more or less common, how long they've been a thing for, stuff like that. Also does Omen know I'd die for them “

theres a drawing of omen pointing at a date circled on a calender marked “decembuary”, theyre saying “i know. i already wrote your death in my calender.”

then a giant wall of text reading: “Supers have only existed for a relativly short time, since the early 1940s. momento mori was the second person to have ever gained powers.

Only a small number of the population are supers! the chances are higher in more populated cities, but unusally london has oneof the higher percentages of supers. while nobody in universe has any idea of the origins of superpowers, it does seem that powers are more likely to occur in people who would actually use their powers.

as for what powers are most common, after making a badly catagorized spreadsheet of every superpowered character ive made for this world (70% of which will probably never even be seen), turns out that elemental powers are the most common. although not all elemental powers manifest as the straight up 'controling this element' as seen in characters like lin or tsunami. for example, iris's powers would fall under shadow elemntal powers, but theyre a lot more weird that just controlling shadows.there are some abilities that have never been seen before,such as ressurection or full on time travel (aka anything that could bring a character back to life), but powers are certainly allowed to toe the line eg healing, powers involving undeath, immortality, pausing or manipulating time.

aside from that, anything goes. you could get plain old superstrength, but you could also get the ability to create dogs with your mind. other not quite rules, more guidelines are that supers are immune to their own powers hurting them (unless they were pushing themselves too hard), although the way the imminuties occur may be inconvinient to the super.

while some powers may be 'more powerful' than others, powers dont really get to be way underpowered or overpowered in comparision to others. sure being able to talk to animals may feel a bit useless compared to someone who can lift 4 tanks at once, but nobodys going to end up with a power like 'can turn into a goose but only once' or 'can grow toenails twice as fast' or 'if i sneeze i can change my hair colour'. at the same time, youre not going to get someone with the power to snap their fingers and level a city, or instantly blow up the moon or whatever.

“Anonymous said to someone-always-cares: I love rami PLEASE tell me his favorite song(s) and why. I will die for you”

a drawing of rami saying out loud “i dont really have any specific favourite song, really? i just listen to whatever sounds catchy and then listen to that on repeat for hours until i hate it. i guess i do like upbeat songs? ones that make you feel happy even if the lyrics are sad”

“ un1c0rnhh said to someone-always-cares: tell me,,, please,, cam,,, are they a cat person or a dog person?? ily"

theres a drawing of cam a metre away from a cat lying down. she has her arm out and is making ‘psspsspss’ noises at it. end id]

FUCK i am so glad i didnt hand write all of that, it would have been a major pain in the ass to write it all and then have to transcribe all that next. but nope i could directly copy paste the asks and word answers. cheers if anyone made it this far down. if anyone wonders why this is uploaded late, you know now.

[sylph-feather]

shooting out ideas for supernatural!shinichi don’t mind me

i think ive settled on the idea that he is a fae, a changeling to be precise, placed in human society. and kaito is the replaced human raised (unknowingly) by fae. i mean kaito is just the DEFINITION of fae raised human

fae rules here are that far changelings are maleable, and grow simply according to their environments and persona (rather than their parents) so you can end up with different “types” entirely— hence how shinichi is some kind of ominous thing drawn to death, not something playful like the kurobas. if its not a changeling (which probs requires some ritual or. whatever) the fae is just the same “kind” as their parents

fae age normally in human realm, but have their own realm they can chill out in and not age. they can slow down aging with fae food called “ambrosia,” tho to humans it acts as poison/weakening thing (if eaten in real world) and acts as a thing that traps them if fed in the fae world (you know what they say about fae food). fae also just generally need it to live, tho in a pretty small amount (it esentially helps them process whatever “natural” feeding they do, which is normally abstract like on emotion or even in an action). the BO are after immortality/longevity. 3 guesses as to what their APTX was trying to be originally

concerned fae always offer shinichi ambrosia because theyre like “damn this boy is starving!!” bc hes never eaten any fae food and gotten that good magic!! this of course just ends up convincing shinichi its some underground drug, even tho him trying to trace the market has lead nowehere. he finds it odd that he encounters “dealers” frequently & obviously and yet nobody else knows anything about it.

in general thats how a lot of fae interactions go; fae will often allude to themselves and him being fae, shinichi will be confused, and then they often back off & say something about understanding that he’s maintaing cover or he fits in so well or whatever. it drives him CRAZY

anyways the APTX is some kind of fake ambrosia. it doesn’t kill him, just weakens his magic and sends him back to this childish state. Were he to have had strong magic (from, you know, eating) he’d probably be fine, and heck thats probably how the cure works for him (as in, haibara manages to get close enough to fae food to sorta work). because of this, haibara becoming a child is unrelated (more to do with the cell death stuff yadayada) and the cures don’t actually work on her...

as briefly mentioned in another post, she becomes fascinated in the genetics that would cause her and shinichi to have not died from the aptx (hoping it will help find a cure), and begins trying to find latent conditions regarding cell multiplication, stem cells, the like (aka isolating the subset of the population thats immune to the aptx). she finds evidence of anomolies in herself. she goes to shinichi to take dna & confirm. only to find his dna is uh. Its weird. She freaks, of course

from here it could spiral off in so many ways. does shinichi find someone whos like “haha very funny, you dont have to pretend to be human tho” and reveal him for what he is? does he accidentally stumble upon occult stuff working a case, triggering more weirdness? does haibara go digging through the more occult side of the BO and testing some of the “less scientific” stuff with shinichi, curious about his completely wack biology? all of that?

whatever way it goes, its really funny, because shinichi would be in denial for such a long time despite stacking evidence lmao, and ppl who knew about / are magic would just be slamming their heads into a brick repeatedly about it. and then there’d be the exhausting “ah i see ive lost it or im on drugs or something, might as well do anything” phase of nihilism of course

anyways id imagine this would eventually become a KID crossover as pandora (and general KID adventures) become very much in his wheelhouse given the blending. also i need the “hey we’re like kind of almost twins” realization and the “holy crap my parents arent people” realization from kaito (and the somewhat surprised “huh that means my parents ARE” from shinichi).

[calucadu]

You’ll be the deaf of me

You’ll be the deaf of me, a Boku no Hero Academia/My Hero Academia One Shot.

Summary: “You’re going deaf, aren’t you, Bakugou?” Kirishima said very faintly, noticing how the blond had his eyes on his lips. He frowned slightly. He wasn’t denying it. And not denying it meant it was probably true. In Bakugou speech.

Pairings: Bakugou/Kirishima.

Characters: Bakugou Katsuki, Kirishima Eijirou.

Rating: Teen and up

Read on AO3

Or read below the cut

The first thing that Kirishima noticed was that Bakugou always went to the teacher’s room after classes. He wasn’t spying on his best friend. Of course not, he was just looking out for him and making sure everything was fine.

But now Eijirou was curious. What could his best friend be asking his teachers every day? Was it about extra material? Until Kirishima noticed Bakugou didn’t take notes in class. So maybe, instead of extra material, maybe he asked the teachers for what the lessons had been that day?

But then, why would the teachers comply?

Something smelt fishy, really fishy.

Kirishima didn’t think he was the smartest in class, no, far from it, but when he realised that he could do something for Bakugou if he understood what was going on, he decided to use all his brain power to figure it out.

And then, he started noticing small things about Katsuki. Like the way his eyes would always immediately drop to someone’s lips whenever that person started talking.

So, it finally dawned on Eijirou. And it made sense.

“So?” Bakugou asked, unimpressed. He’d seated himself on the redhead’s bed, crossing his legs patiently.

“You’re going deaf, aren’t you, Bakugou?” Kirishima said very faintly, noticing how the blond had his eyes on his lips. He frowned slightly.

“Huh? What did you say, Shitty Hair?”

And then something else clicked inside Eijirou’s brain. The nicknames.

“It’s your explosions, isn’t it?” Now the volume was normal, perhaps slightly elevated, to help his friend out.

“What about my explosions?”

“They’re making you lose your hearing.” Kirishima spoke. He was nervous, hoping in the very pit of his soul that he was wrong.

Bakugou was silent. The frowning persisted, and his lips just pursed some more, but he said nothing.

“You don’t take notes in class. You visit the teacher’s room when classes are over. You don’t call people by their name, you always have a nickname for them, like you didn’t catch their name and didn’t want to damage your pride by putting yourself in a situation where people could figure out what was wrong. Plus your quirk is hella loud, dude.”

“The left one is worse.” He just mumbled. He avoided the redhead’s gaze and squirmed in his seat.

He wasn’t denying it. And not denying it meant it was probably true. In Bakugou speech.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Kirishima asked, trying to hide the pain in his voice. Why couldn’t his friend count on him? He could take notes for him, help him out. Be extra loud and subtly encourage everyone around him to be it too so that Katsuki could have an easier life. But no, the sulky blond had to be extra prideful and just reject everything, especially help coming from his friend.

“Why didn’t I tell you!?” Bakugou snapped, his explosions erupting from his palms, but Eijirou wasn’t fazed. “Why would I tell you?”

“Because we’re friends! Because I can help!” Kirishima threw his head back, letting the wave of frustration roll over him.

“You can’t help!”

“Yes, I can!”

“No, you cannot fucking help! What are you going to do about it!? You don’t even know! The fucking nightmares made it worse! I exploded my hands against my ear for fuck’s sake! It’s not like my hearing was any good anyway after years and years of loud fucking explosions!”

Bakugou had said so much. Explosions. Nightmares. Exploding in his sleep.

“I could… tie your hands down or something!” Kirishima tried to come up with something.

“No, you cannot fucking tie me down.”

Eijirou had an idea why, an inkling of what it could be. But he needed Bakugou to voice his fears.

Katsuki didn’t seem like he was going to, though.

The blond sighed, looking almost defeated.

“I started losing my hearing a few years ago because of how much I use my quirk. And then I started getting nightmares and I accidentally let them off in my dreams, trying to fend off imaginary shit and one time I had my hand next to my left ear. It rang for days and after that it’s never been the same.”

“Are the nightmares… because you got kidnapped?” Kirishima’s brow wrinkled, pity and sympathy in his eyes as he watched his friend closely.

A flash of anger crossed the other’s face, and the redhead knew better than to keep looking at him like that.

“I’m learning how to lip read. It’s a pain in the arse but I have to deal with it.” Bakugou spoke again eventually, his brow still furrowed. “You happy now, Shitty Hair?”

The next day, when Katsuki was about to get ready for school, he found someone had left a piece of paper on the floor. When he picked it up and looked over it, he realised Kirishima must have slid it under the door, either the night before or sometime that morning.

Sign language classes.

And, in Eijirou’s bad handwriting, a note that said: “Come with me! :D”

Bakugou scrunched the paper into a ball in his fist, his brow furrowing.

The redhead was especially loud that day. Bakugou had an idea why, and it was irking him like nothing else that boy had ever done before.

Strangely enough, Kirishima’s plan seemed to be working. When he was louder, the people around him were unconsciously louder as well. So he smiled at Katsuki, hoping he would share his enthusiasm with him.

He was met with a grimace.

Eijirou’s smile almost faltered.

That afternoon Kirishima stormed into Bakugou’s room like always, but he was carrying a red folder the blond hadn’t seen previously.

“I took notes for you in class!” The redhead chirped happily, opening it up and showing his best friend all of his hard work. “I tried to make it as clean and organized as I could, and did my best with my sloppy handwriting.”

Katsuki went over the notes, his face displaying his annoyance.

“They’re riddled with spelling mistakes, idiot.” He mumbled lightly, going over a specifically hard to read paragraph.

“Oh… I tried my best…” Kirishima’s smile wavered and he looked dejected. Bakugou almost felt guilty at his words.

“Well, they’ll help you study.” The blond muttered, turning his head away in embarrassment. “So keep doing them or whatever.”

A week later the redheaded ball of energy barged into Bakugou’s room, rambling on about something that the blond didn’t quite catch.

“Look Bakugou!” Kirishima smiled at him, waving his hands in the air excitedly. “I watched some videos online and I can sign a bit, wanna see?”

“Not particularly.” Came Katsuki’s answer, even if he was a teeny bit curious. Just a little bit. This didn’t deter his friend however, who immediately started to sign, his lips mouthing the words as his fingers and hands did the speaking for him.

“I said I can hear! But I can teach you how to express that you’re hard of hearing!”

Bakugou huffed in mock annoyance. It was getting hard to find all the things the blundering idiot was doing as irritating as they had before. Now, it was mostly… cute.

He scoffed at the idea that whatever the redhead was doing could ever be classified as cute in his mind, but he was eagerly yapping on about how waving his hands this way meant something, and waving them around like that meant something else, his eyes shining eagerly, a happy puppy look to them that was nearly endearing.

“We can go to the classes together! It seems like sooo much fun! I’ve always wanted to learn more ways of expressing myself! And if your hearing gets any worse I could interpret for you! Wouldn’t that be fun?” Kirishima was nearly shouting, his hands returning to his sides as they’d finished with their conversation.

Bakugou didn’t miss that Eijirou had said ‘if his hearing got worse’ and not ‘when’. Maybe it’d been to spare his feelings but Katsuki did appreciate it.

“Alright.” He muttered, crossing his arms over his chest. “We can go to the classes.”

Kirishima threw himself on top of the other, crushing him into a hug the blond nearly responded to. He swore he heard the redhead say something along the lines of ‘I knew you’d come round to it!’.

They were outside the room and Bakugou was hesitant about entering. Going inside meant he would be accepting the fact that he was going deaf, and that was something he was having trouble coming to terms with.

But Kirishima was smiling at him by his side, eagerness emanating off of him, almost jumping up and down on the spot. He would be going with him, despite the fact that his hearing was mostly unaffected.

And, as Eijirou offered him his hand for moral support, Katsuki decided that if his friend could take the plunge, so could he. Grabbing the palm laid out for him, he entered the class, adamant on proving the world that there was no stopping him.

[eksbdan-blog]

New Post has been published on https://passingbynehushtan.com/2019/10/23/how-sacrifice-sins-of-the-world/

How Can a Person Atone in a Sacrifice for the Sins of the World? Only One Way. Part 1.

Hint about the title. If you are thinking the answer that is God is the person, so he is. But not “God,” only God. It’s really not confusing at all. Ideas like “God” are not our problem. It’s their meaning when it’s not something that we want to hear. Then the idea becomes a problem. Here is the real meaning for “God,” and is perfectly and conservatively Christian, but still not something that you may want to hear.

Sacrifice for the Sins of the World? Why can’t religion be simple?

Well, actually it’s very, very simple. It’s just that kind of simple we don’t want.

When I was growing up and attending church, I increasingly realized the central theological message of Christianity as the sacrifice of the Son of God for the sins of the world. How does belief in this act affect the redemption of the individual? As time went on and I could reflect on a proposition deeper, this seemed harder to accept than presented.

Now the forgiveness of sin comes from more than the belief in Christ’s work on the Cross for your sin. That is a belief about your work, too, namely, that your sin keeps you from God, and if there is not a solution to this, you will die in your sins. 

In penal substitutionary atonement, why you repent is that you realize that you can’t save yourself, that God has to do it for you, by offering Himself as your substitute, taking your sin on himself. John McArthur puts it this way:1

“The Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him. The Lord God Himself chose the sacrificial Lamb, the Servant, Messiah, the sacrificial Lamb. The Servant Messiah was voluntarily willing to submit Himself to become the vicarious substitute. God caused Him then to pick up all the guilt that belonged to us and take the full fury of divine wrath. Five different ways in Isaiah 53:4-6, five different ways it speaks of the vicarious, substitutionary provision of Jesus Christ, dying in our place. This is the heart of the gospel.”

Now, for those that affirm it, everyone seems very possessive and insistent on a certain formulation of atonement. Still, no one seems eager to explain how faith comes into this, thought essential for salvation no matter to what version you subscribe.

Are your sins the issue? Why, and what is to compel you to think Jesus’s solution is better than anyone else’s version of the operation of transcendence?

Well, obviously it’s about a better miraculous event proving his is a real operation. But not a real one, as I had come to believe, only because of inference from a stand-alone miracle that only God could perform such as the empty tomb. Not better because of the kind of miracle assumed to be manifest because this kind of sacrifice is unique. Real because something else happened that makes it true, but not that it makes more sense and appeals to reason on its own. My thought became that it was better, and perfect, and real, primarily because of a miracle in our mind, triggered by one that God performed in the world, of its description of something in the mind of God.

A miracle is God’s calling card. A miracle is an overt display of God’s existence, nature, and mind, which is so overpowering to the senses that it is accepted as such without meditation. But I think that if this miracle can happen in the outer world, it can also occur inferentially in the subjective world. This miraculous occasion has just as much power coming through spiritual senses and the physical senses. If that is true, then it is also a miracle that Christ hung on a cross for the forgiveness of sin. Although not a miracle in the objective sense, I expect it to be itself the wonder of a divine concept expected to change us once seen for what it is.

Why is this an important consideration? Because no one thinks the Parable of the Sower is a miracle meant for our spiritual awakening and then our salvation, only that of things such as Jesus’s healing ministry and the resurrection. Then, few are as impressed with Isaiah 53 as a miracle to write sermons upon as they are with Jesus’ ethics in the calling the little children for a blessing, or his washing of the disciple’s feet. And then, we look at Jesus on the Cross and think that this represents only what he had to go through to secure our forgiveness, while never so much as having heard of Daniel 9:26. There is a working assumption in our theology and the human heart that what we have of evidence of transcendence that is clear is fake, because it’s too good to be true, and only fit for the naive religionist. What is not so clear, and looks more mundane, but while still being also a product of the agent of transcendence which produced that clear view, is also not worthy of the remarkable either, but only of an uncommon morality. Viola, religion!

What is left, on the one hand, is an evidential sideshow of curious and eyebrow-raising unsolved mysteries of Christian religious literature called apologetics. On the other side, a revival tent of swooning and sweating enthusiasts in which everything that we need to or happen to feel at a given moment is granted the most serious respect as sincere moments of truth-seeking. Still on the other side of the Christain compound is the dimly lit hall of writing and reading desks, over which hover the innumerable bald heads of the scholars, deep in the patristic fathers for the discovery of the 2nd-century kerygma. But with all that brainpower never divinely fired, they never do know how to use that knowledge to bring up a revelation about what really changed from the 1st century. Our Christian experience and expression of faith is a mosh-pit of brains and bodies thrown against each other and never against any other, which is not a body and not in a mosh-pit. We have the truth, but what we really love about it that it allows us to use it and feel good about having it while not having it at all.

What this comes down to in this mediation of Jesus and the Cross is if we are practicing His Christianity or some chimera of our own making. Then, by that, whether we are saved or damned. I think it a pretty important topic.

I think that the teaching of Jesus is supposed to be a transfer of knowledge from the otherwise impossible source of God’s mind. There is not supposed to be in Christ’s action of the raising of Lazarus a disconnection to any other truth that God communicated. Isn’t the acceptance of a greater truth and a greater miracle manifest to our spiritual senses not supposed to be its point? Is not the teaching of Jesus in his words and actions the inducement of such a miracle, to open us up to the understanding of spiritual, otherworldly truth? Arent we saved through the hearing of the Gospel, presumably, as we think of commonly it, not an overt miracle?

Ok then, we know that the function of these external displays of God’s glory is for stopping our selfish mouths and brains from thinking our thoughts and replacing them with God’s. I believe that the real miracle that we have to witness is a miracle of the content of God’s thoughts in ours: an exclusively miraculous content.

If the image of Christ on the Cross will not be one of these, is it no wonder why we think it’s possible, and normal, for a saved person never to have seen or understood it as anything more than and OT act of religion replaced by a universal one? That it does not have any other symbolic theological significance past “propitiatory atonement by sacrifice”? Not a wonder that Christ on the Cross becomes to the unbelieving world a mere creative religious notion intrinsically no more ingenious than those of any other religion? That the suspicion that it has a unique divine intrinsic power, far beyond its ability to inspire a common emotional response to any such scene, like pity and love for someone suffering in our place, is lost? Is it no wonder then if we were to denigrate and dismiss any inference from it that would suggest that its signification denotes a disclosure about a kind of crucial sin to which we are addicted? That we would sell our souls and re-crucify Christ again if its transformative power were to be thought possible of exposure and judgment of us?

Please go to the next page…

May I make a prediction? Before this article ends, you will for the first time in your life of faith become something of the mind of God new to you, if I can successfully convince you that the Cross means is nothing less than your death or your life in a way that is miraculous. You have not heard of this before, because it’s unconsciously a closely guarded secret of the Christian consciousness. In normal consciousness, and even in normal evangelism, its a truth not entertained and uttered openly as an article of faith. You are not supposed to be fed the answer to a question that God wants you to discover on your own, but only by the motivation of your love of truth. Nevertheless, how you handle this truth, whether aware or unaware,  whether by agreement in words or practice, will determine your end. How you respond will decide whether or not you are playing around in mundane world religion or a simple manifestation of divine Truth, because this is the very function of the theological significance of the scene of Christ dying on a Cross.

Its the one truth of the faith that you could say is universally hated and actively shunned, but also the one truth about he faith, and about the Bible,  that is the least deniable.

I do this because there will come a day, which I believe will come shortly when we will have nothing left to inform our faith than the recollection of this real miracle of theological formation of which I speak. After the withering assaults from more carnally seductive alternatives, we will want to go back to the real fundamentals of our faith, and it’s not what we think they are.

Restating the Obvious

Let me reiterate the preceding in a variety of ways.

Now, I’m jumping into my early twenties in my quest to solve something about Christianity and its message confusing to me. I was not capable of this kind of question early on.  Why is it that the act of dying on the Cross is a less powerful revelatory element to faith than the empty tomb when they are both supposed to be supremely revelatory? This question bears not on the initial place and route of the miraculous into the spirit, but the final one. Some of the considerations toward an answer to which I deal will seem pedantic, and I apologize for that. But go with it. It’s necessary because when this subject opens up, it touches upon so much of what and how we think by cultural Christianity that, as powerful as this truth is, that firewall is constructed as its sufficient counter at every turn.

Where do miracles occur? I mean miracles that are demonstrably and rationally exposable and examinable to all. Not only personal subjective experiences. Is there today a change in emphasis from the time of the 1st century? If Christ as a sacrifice for world sin is important, and supremely so, and is the most important miracle, this question we have to confront this hard and early.

Must our most essential and objective demonstration of God for which our spirits are responsible only be in an overt miracle, whether seen or reported? Is a miracle not also an alien knowledge? Do wonders that show an impossible exception to the laws of nature has a more important counterpart in those that only occur in the spirit as a response to divine knowledge? Can’t this abstract miracle, just as examinable and open to scrutiny as to its validity, which occurs in the spirit and processes in the spirit to the spirit, not carry the same epistemic weight as an objective miracle which occurs within the physical world, processed within the spirit and to the spirit?  Can you then call it a Christian belief which asks one to believe in a sacrifice for sins which is no more remarkable than any other religious concept? A belief thought not having a miraculous and intrinsically transformative signification for which any sincere seeker would be responsible? Finally, it is not a symbol, which appears not as a miracle but a common act or word, which is hidden by God as to its intended meaning, that which becomes a miraculous instance of God’s power and nature in the spirit after it we know the knowledge it carries? This symbol essentially becoming within that space every bit a theophany of God to the spirit as if God appeared to the eye, which secures a substantive relationship with God that we can profess but can never have otherwise?

Is this subjectivism?

It may seem like I’m saying that experience of faith within your heart and mind is just as valid a proof of God as a miracle within space/time, but this is far from what I’m saying. You will think this because we are trained to think, as I said, of faith as not necessarily grounded in facts and the “spirit” as emotion.

I ask again, must the Christian message not be that there must be an appearance of God to the mind and heart with as much epistemic weight as that which occurs to the five senses? A presentation, in the form of knowledge, which has just as much power to influence the people around you to God’s reality after being reported by you? It would seem that what happens in space/time, brought into the spirit for processing, which is a demonstration of the presence and power of God, will be powerless and puerile until this miracle of its meaning occurs.

I say that Jesus on the Cross is one of them and the greatest of them all. Not that it is a miracle in the material world. An exception to the laws of nature. But a miracle in the spiritual world, through thought, that is every bit as palpable there.

I think we have to keep in mind that if you repent of your sin, your sin first needs representation and a solution by the sacrifice of Jesus before forgiveness. Or else you are repenting for your sin for the same reason a person repents who knows nothing about or does not believe in Messiah’s work on the Cross.  And your sin is found, and its cure rendered, not by a creative religious idea for which you believe and repent, or by no spiritual knowledge at all. By a miracle within which is fundamentally a revelation of his Person. An indispensable miraculous predicate. One which all religious ideas are to sign and represent in an inferior but essential capacity, but in an unbreakable relationship. What you believe and the reason you believe it has to be the equal of God’s revelation, and that revelation of Messiah on the Cross should be every bit as much of one as your kind of understanding and belief in it.

Please go to the next page….

Faith and Practice: Words Mean Things

There seems to be a disconnection between Christian faith and practice, but in a way in which those words as defined culturally have lost their meaning in Christian theology. Is “faith” only faith, and is “practice” only practice, to be used thus in the same flattened way that other religions use them? I don’t believe Christian faith should not be “faith” in the world’s estimation, and “practice” should not either.

If Christianity is the religion of miracle and demonstration, and not merely of wish-casting, “faith” needs to be faith in and because of a divine phenomenon that occurs in the spirit and the epistemic equal to any divine phenomena that trigger it that occurs in the mundane. It needs to be a miraculous knowledge and radical. To the natural noetic senses crazy radical, and demonstrably so, to show all those not accepting it are crazy. Following as an effect, “practice” can then essentially only be a personal spiritual demonstration of that faith in reaction to the divine phenomena in which it shares space, which is equal to an outward movement of the body in which are the content of speech and the motivations for actions. If not, it is easy why you can think you can believe Christ atoned for your sins but need not think you must know, understand, or become inspired by a provable miraculous act in the Crucifixion, death, and resurrection. You believe in miraculous Christian conclusions, like talismans, not miraculous Christian predicates.

The one verse that always came back to haunt me, beside and above all these other concerns was

John 8:24: “I said therefore unto you, that ye shall die in your sins: for if ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins.”

Here is contained the essential religious faith and practice, but to natural sight, it sure does not look that way.

Again, How does Faith Work in Redemption?

Well, it’s a little too early for that. But I will tell you this.

This question was becoming a key, because the identity of Jesus, required for us to confess, is the identification of him as Messiah Savior through his apparent, miraculous acts that stand alone as products of the exclusive power of a God of transcendence.  But also those which he performed that are not so plain to see casually, but plain only through honestly, mentally, connecting the act to a prediction that only God could make. If the case, the Atonement must have a far deeper meaning regarding the operation of our salvation than it presents on the surface.

Whether we are speaking of how the atonement works with faith or how faith works with the Gospel, we have the same question: How does Christian faith work in redemption? We will get around to the Gospel. But since, in my view, the sacrifice of Christ on the Cross is such an integral and powerful symbol of what God did to secure our release from the penalty of sin, I could not get it out of my mind when thinking about this.

Now, when I was busy being bewildered over so many questions and with no answers forthcoming, my first thought was that there must be something wrong with me. Maybe I have a spiritual block about spiritual things. Perhaps the whole proposition was a sham, this atonement of a Man-God by sacrifice for the world’s sin. Maybe this Jesus and his followers just invented a novel way of explaining how God’s plan of redemption fulfilled the Law and ended by their chosen religious leader, through which all need to join through them. When the possibility that the Church might not be teaching this correctly came up, I interpreted the word “correctly” here according to one of the choices given by the church and not by the Bible. “Correct” or in “error” according to Protestantism, catholicism, secularism, philosophy. Perhaps its only my Church that is not correct, joining something like, by Catholic perspective, the Protestant heresy of “justification in a moment,” where the real answer lay in adding works to faith in a progressive redemption. Maybe I need to shut my mind up and accept the “Christian” version of the truth, placing my “heart” needs over my “head,” and the church defines them.

In retrospect, although all these alternatives were confronting me in my lack of understanding of the theological formula, and should have weakened my resolve to push through it, I became more determined. Unlike any other religion I knew, Christianity seemed in some strange way to invite this examination, this struggle, deep introspection, just because it did not appear in a hurry to proclaim any more truth than it asked the hearer to admit of himself. It seemed to ask a lot of questions instead of only telling the answer to spiritual matters. This seemed strangely honest. Maybe this Christianity was perhaps more than it appeared above both the pedestrian and scholarly elucidations, and perhaps we are fundamentally ignorant about it.

Sacrifice for the Sins of the World. Christ on the Cross.

Again, asked am I to believe the imputation of Christ’s righteousness defeats that sin that keeps me from God. This result is by the belief of Christ’s sacrifice in my place. How does this operation work?

Knowing Christ’s heavy symbolic strategy of communicating what seemed for the pedestrian senses hard things but also axiomatic truths to those looking for them, was not this symbol of the crucifixion intended to mean something more than “sacrifice” or “death?” Should not the symbol of the crucifixion, knowing Christ’s methods, designed by him as a mirror image of the theology of salvation that he taught? And should not each one, the image and the theology, be as something as unique and surprising as we would expect to have come from transcendence? But here’s the kicker.  Should not the kind of faith that he asks us to have then rendered as foreign and unwanted to the Street as his intended meaning of the Cross is known and becomes paramount in his religion?

That suggested that maybe, just maybe, the Street is not them, but it might be us, the professing Church. I had all these images running through my head of the Pope and his priests. A Billy Graham Crusade. My childhood Methodist church, and the vast ocean out there, the over one billion, taken for granted as “Christian” yet are almost to the man saying that God’s makes exceptions for them because of their handling of a faith symbol which need have nothing remarkable and unexpected as a transcendent signification, and which feeds, counterintuitively, what must only be called feelings of false humility and self-importance.

If you don’t like that statement, I think we can agree that if what is being communicated and received by man and not designed to be touchy-feely, especially that which is inherently foreign and only designed to illuminate the spirit’s desire for truth at any cost, is not going to be touchy-feely. If it is touchy-feely, but also miraculous for the benefit of Truth alone, there is something wrong with the way it is explained.

I wanted to give the Bible every opportunity to speak for itself. I knew that it was a very symbolic, parabolic kind of revelation that Christ presented.  Was the atonement idea represented there in any other sense than someone dying in our place who must be God? It just did not sit well with me that Christianity, on the one hand, claimed an exclusive and complete revelation of God of things kept secret from the foundation of the world and now known, while this revelation as explained to me seemed to be nothing more than what could come from the mind of a creative and ambitious spiritual man on his own.

Please go to the next page…

Not an inconsequential line of investigation, I hope you agree. Here is not some minor concern that only requires the tweaking of an error in an understanding that came from a Greek word or two.

What I found was that, yes, although I found the Atonement in the Bible, the way it was there I found different from the one they offered me in Church, and, as I said, for a long time, this brought complete terror to me before it became a challenge and a blessing. It changed my life, but not before it daily ground me to the pavement and whispered how miserably hopeless and weak I was, that this was not something that I could have thought up myself. I knew now for sure that my “sin” was not really about doing or not doing something, or about how genuinely I accepted and believed a religious idea, or how deeply I believed in God and willing to give up my life for him. These are, again, asking no more of us than the kinds of things any other religion would ask. The problem was that I knew that what stood between God and me was something supernatural, something alien to the world but a part of it. It represented the only spiritual thing that was most manifest, but also the one thing that we are least willing to accept and integrate into our lives.

Symbolic Preliminaries.

We have someone on a Cross in the process of being executed. There are two essential elements to this picture: the person and the method of torture and execution. In the method, there is this means of nailing, tying, and fixing to that which also raises that person from the ground. What does this mean?

In natural sight, this is a man, and in natural sight, this is a piece of wood and some nails. The man is slowly bled to death and asphyxiated. In that natural sight, that is all it has for you. You can see that this is not a public miracle of the supernatural, although miracles accompanied it. It was a very common sight in a 1st Century Roman province. And, also a natural thought, how easy it would have been for God to have sent an army of his angels from the sky, take him off and fly him to heaven in the sight of all the people. Boy, this would bring many people to examine the doctrine of Jesus, would it?

But, if the fundamental problem of humanity is not that he does not believe what he sees, but that he does not believe what he can spiritually see but does not, then such as act as this expectation of God to casual thought would not be respectful of our personhood, our free will, as a person like God. It would be a deletion of free will since such a supernatural act would remove the choice of whether this is the act itself is from God.

However, the supernatural is what man has a problem with and is what God wants for him to accept to be a spiritually righteous person, not just a physical one, which the fulfillment of Personhood and not only its imitation.  If this is not an overt supernatural display, how could it be supernatural in a way that is not the same as the prosaic image of a man dying on a cross to which his natural senses lead him? If this supernatural display supposed to be something like “this was a universal sacrifice for the sins of the world in fulfillment of the tribal one carried out in the Law of Moses,” isn’t that just as well a mere religious and creative mere idea?

A mere religious idea is not tracking with the fact that this Jesus is a man and God,  natural and supernatural, and together is something so unique and transcendent it/He should stand as the most unusual and earth-shattering event in human history. Not just a universal symbol, either Jesus or the Atonement, to replace/correct a Jewish Messiah or its old symbol. That would not be only God placing one thing for another, that would be the historical fulfillment of a Jewish symbol, a symbol designed by God to become miraculously fulfilled. A supernatural meaning in fulfillment of a supernatural symbol of a yet unfulfilled part of Jewish law. Yet as the realization of an Old Testament symbol in its meaning, the physical act and a unique theological message can’t be the meaning because this would say that symbols comprehensively carry and are determinative of meaning. That is precisely the opposite of divine revelation, where divine phenomena and appearances are first and our inferior but morally sufficient ideas about it second.

What kind of meaning are we talking about that aligns with the essential definition of meaning, one which is of knowledge impossible without special revelation by God?

Let us remember that a symbol or an idea is a representational device for the carrying of identification and operation of a thing in itself. It is not meaning itself, only a tool for it to appear in the world. Remember that this sacrificial act by someone who claims to be the Son of God is someone that uses miracles not to bind someone up in a decision but to help them. To point them to the gravity and importance of another one which, like the miracle, is not imminent, but spiritual and self-attesting. Jesus is then not just supposed to be the fulfillment of Elijah or Moses.  No matter how he satisfies them his mission, his mission is not only to bring their ultimate personal instances into the world. Its to deliver their final transcendent message into the world, which represents the end of a chain of symbolic assignation to render ultimate meaning, not another round of it.

Lets also not forget that a proposition is not Truth, its a symbol of truth. You can and must worship, give ultimate value to Truth, but you cant give it to a mere symbol (“mere” making it the pagan equivalent is the idol). To believe “Jesus saves” is a saving proposition, or that saying and believing the propositions “Jesus saves” or “God is sovereign,” will not save you ay more than bowing down to a carved image of Molech. These are conceptual symbols of a faith container, a placeholder for a Truth, not the God who is Truth. And so emotion does not save you, and reason does not save you, doctrinal propositions do not save you, no matter how important they are in the disgesting and understanding of revelation. Those are also only possible images of a Truth received, understood, and believed, not that truth itself or your moral acts themselves. Christ saves you, but not “Christ,” insofar as this is only a designated name and an idea for something of his which is his abstract equivalent and which is nowhere near a cultural formulation. Christ is an objective Person, and he is a revelation of knowledge. You get to use the symbol of faith “Christ” through his informational entity of miraculous knowledge. You don’t get to use the symbol effectively as if independently imbued with that divine power, which rubs off on you like an idol that you merely hold without your demonstrated spiritual connection to the declared truth it represents.

Continued here: How Can a Man Atone for the Sins of the World By His Own Sacrifice? Only one way. Part 2. The Messianic Secret

Schuurman W. Penal Substitutionary Atonement is the Heart of the Gospel: Who Agrees? | Trinity Bible Chapel. Trinity Bible Chapel. https://trinitybiblechapel.ca/penal-substitutionary-atonement-is-the-heart-of-the-gospel-who-agrees/. Published July 19, 2018. Accessed October 26, 2019. ↩

[harryisntstraight]

Medication anon is back- I was just wondering what made you want to take them (that you feel like death can't come soon enough is given but why that over anything else? assuming you don't do therapy too, idk?) and if you can feel any change at all? I'm terrified of giving it a go because I feel like I'm making up the shit in my head despite the fact that I would literally rather drill a hole through my brain than participate in society so I don't deserve to try but also, 1

I’m afraid that it’ll cause some weird ass reactions and take a while to settle which would impede my ability to take exams in a couple of months? (As though I’m in any state to take them now, lmao) Am I just crazy? So yeah, I feel like I’m making things up so maybe I should just suck it and make Lifestyle Changes but also… I’m glued to my bed so idk. I’m sorry I’m rambling, it doesn’t make much sense but I’m just a messy ball of hyper/ sad feelz and I want the world to stop so I can get off 

hiiii! tbh a lot of what youre saying i can really relate to. i spent a loooong time thinking i was faking or being overdramatic or just lazy and just trying to cope by myself and pretend that it wasnt really happening. as for deciding to take medication its kind of a long story, i first starting going to therapy when i was 18 because my mum kind of picked up that something wasnt right and that i needed help and booked me a doctors appointment where they offered me medication but i didnt want to take it basically for all the reasons you’ve explained in this ask. so eventually my mum decided to pay for me to get private therapy bc the waiting list to get it on the nhs was a year and a half long. so i went to therapy for like ?? 3 or 4 months before i moved to london for uni and then i stopped going bc i couldnt afford to pay for it anymore and i was like. u know what. i’m fine!!! i dont need therapy!! i’m an adult!! (spoiler: i was not fine) long story short a couple months ago i decided that i was really struggling and that i needed to see a doctor and get my shit together and i was honestly really up for taking medication seeing as therapy alone honestly just didn’t feel it had helped me at all. like to me my illness is so physical? so even though i had learnt all these coping mechanisms at therapy i just felt like my brain was physically incapable of performing them. like idk the only way i can explain it is that its like i had a broken leg and my therapist was telling me i needed to get from a to b but nobody had given me crutches or a wheelchair.

 but anyway YEAH this is such a ramble but i just felt like therapy alone wasnt enough and that i needed a physical aid, which i guess i saw as medication. my doctor has me on a waiting list to start therapy again and my first session is next week and i think pretty much any doctor will recommend that if ur going to take medication, that you do therapy as well so you can tackle ur symptoms from all angles. honestly i feel like theres such a stigma around taking medication for mental health issues that really shouldnt be there, in my experience its nowhere near as scary or life altering as people assume that it is. obviously it depends on what specific medication u take, but most antidepressants take 6 weeks minimum to have a proper affect, so its not like u take one and theres this huge reaction and u become a different person or an emotionless zombie, yknow? for me i did have some initial side effects, but they were pretty minor. stuff like feeling a bit sick, a bit jittery, and ironically having heightened anxiety. but that all went away after a week maximum. 

i think medication is different for everyone and although not everyone will benefit from it, i feel like if you think its a possibility for you, you should definitely ask your doctor about it and decide together whether its a good choice or not. they can start you out on a low dosage and if you have bad side effects or just change your mind about taking it then your doctor can help u to come off it safely. like, i have weekly doctors appointments to talk about my progress and my meds, its not like they just give u some tablets and throw you in at the deep end yknow? honestly, theres no shame in taking meds and mental health is just as important as physical health and everyone deserves a chance to get better and not suffer in silence and just ‘suck it up.’ meds are there to help you, theyre arent this yknow, super scary pill thats gonna turn u crazier than you already feel. from what youve said i’d really advise you to just make an appointment with ur doctor and tell them how ur feeling and that youve thought about medication and see where it goes from there. sorry this is so long and rambly omg but like.. i care a lot asjfhsdhf. i hope this helped a lil bit and feel free to ask if ur curious about anything else xxx 

[bloghappilymarriedthings-blog]

1 WEEK DONE :)

¡Hola! I'm district 13C if any of you want to send letters on dearelder.com they can go straight to me the same day and it is free!! Hint hint lol. 

Oh my flight.. that was a story...A mom and daughter sent next to me on the plane. They were from SLC and had never heard of the gospel. The daughter, age 13, asked me what I was doing with every single book I had pulled out (BOM, OMG, Our Heritage) asked me my first name (she was confused with the Sister Slack) and was so curious why I decided to leave my family for 18 months.Well the turbulence was crazy and I started to feel really sick. Well apparently I wasn't the only one and the mom informed us she was about to vomit as well as her eyes got huge and had no bag to throw up in.. so of course I freaked and got up and tried to get something but got yelled at by the flight attendant. Long story short- don't stand up while the seat buckle is on and she ended up holding it in so I was good. But when we got off I was questioned a lot by the other 11 missionaries on my flight "were you the one who almost got thrown up on?" YES, that was me. The hermanas in mi casa have found out I'm a trickster and it's so funny. At night there are flying cockroaches that come out. They are pretty gross. It's so funny we all run to our casa. Well one hermana was complaining about them so I told her calmly (she didn't know me well enough yet or she would have known I'd be freaking out as well) that there was one on her skirt. I laughed sooo hard as she did the funniest dance on one foot to try to shake this imaginary bug off. That was with Hermana Williams. The hermanas are all scared of spiders so I guess I'm the real champ aka spider killer in the casa. I was killing a spider by hermana Williams bed when I lost it.. now she doesn't sleep by the wall she sleeps at the bottom of her bed HAHAHA it's been like 5 days now too. I also think it's funny to hide behind corners and Hermana Blockston gets so scared and hits me with what's in her hands.  I got so lucky with the girls in my casa and the missionaries in my district!  I love them all and we are already all so close.

My companion is Hermana Jones. She looks so much Kenzie Moon it is sooo crazy! She is from Gilbert, Arizona. She went to BYUI. She is the best companion and I'm so grateful have her. The first week was a bit rough and I don't think I could make it without Hermana Jones. She's seriously the best.Do you guys remember the Hermana we saw as we were saying goodbye at security? She is in mi casa! Hermana Williams. (She is the one with glasses)  She is from South Jordan and went to Herriman High School. Her companion is Hermana Blockston who is from Layton! We all flew to Mexico together. We are all so close already. Funny thing-we all have boyfriends haha! Really couldn't ask for a better companion or girls to share a room with. My companion and I arent ever really alone. We really travel in a quad lol. 

Apparently 90% of missionaries that come to the COM stay in Mexico! We are all part of that 10%! Hermana Jones is serving in Little Rock, Arkansas and Hermana Blockston and Hermana Williams are serving in Houston Texas. (No not east or west just Houston haha)I have found a few more GREAT reasons why I'm excited to serve in states which we have all become more excited for. 1) WE CAN STILL USE OUR ENGLISH 2)realizing what we dont have but can buy back in the states 3)spoiled from our parents with packages and letters 4) WE CAN STILL USE OUR ENGLISH lol 

There are only about 200 missionaries at the CCM right now and will soon be 1200 by the time I get out of here. So crazy! It really is like a ghost town here tho at times. Sometimes we are the only ones walking in the streets. But not for long! There are new missionaries here and it's so nice not being the newbies haha!

Saturday, 26 Mayo I woke up to a sick companera. She had woken up at 1AM and was throwing up until 6AM.. we later found out that HALF of the CCM had gotten sick, all throwing up and completely pale. We were sure it was food poisoning.... But now they said it was a virus. They believe we brought it from SLC but I never got it and no one else on my flight.. So glad I did not! But classes were crazy as there were only about 4 in each class. I didn't make it to my first class but we later paired up all the sick people to be companions so all the healthy ones could make it to our classes because we all know i need all the help I can get lol.. 

Everyone here is so nice. We always speak Spanish in the comedor,  or lunch room haha.

Its kind of crazy to think there is a world outside of these barbed wire fences haha. But we hear continuous honking in the streets because the driving is CRAZYYYY here. its like they play a game how close can you get to the other cars lol. And 80% of the time there are sirens, probably because of the crazy driving. Airplanes that fly overhead play music hahha!

Now my espanol... oh man lol. No bueno. So if you didn't know, I took 3 years of ASL in high school. Was pretty good At ASL and no spanish at all. Well I'm definitely the only one in my class with no experience. The first day of class was insane. We were given so much material and everyone was so right- my brain is FRIED. Told to study and memorize 500 things by two days lol.But I've got almost everything memorized we've needed to! It's so true that we have help from the Lord. I cant remember who said it but they said in the mission field we can learn something in ten minutes that someone cant learn in a lifetime. Days are forever long. 10AM feels like 2PM and 2PM feels like 8PM. Days feel like weeks and weeks feel like days. 

There is an elder here in my district going to the same mission as me! Elder Lemmon, from Las Vegas! He said Brian Denise is in his ward and told him a family member was also called there, well he found me! Small world haha!

We are supposed to give talks every week to be ready to be called on to speak in sacrament. That's awful haha. Memorize 300 spanish words in 3 days. We heard from elder rasband and soon Renlund! 

Food is eh... some days good some days I just eat the fruit.Tuesday's all you can eat pizza. Some think thats what got everyone sick but that's a lie haha. We get French toast pancakes waffles a lot for breakfast. One day was crepes that looked yummy but turned out to be with black beans.. YUCK.we had hamburgers one night and the best French fries! I've only been gone a week but feel like I haven't had fries in years lol. Yes I did eat the burger haha! 

Sorry my email is all over the place. Soon I'll get better lol

Our district correspond out outfits one day haha it was so funny, we all wore blue. 

Okay ending with the funniest thing that happend!!The second night I was writing in my journal when my companion asked "Hermana Slack? .... what color is your tooth brush?" I said blue.... She said "I totally used it thinking it was mine...." HAHAHAHAH I laughed so hard and replied "that's one way to get real close with your companion!!" It was so funny. She was so embarrassed and offered me a new toothbrush but hey we are just THAT close. Lololol 

I love you all so much! I think about each and every one of you a lot of the time. I pray for each of you and want to hear all about everything going on! I love you guys. I also love letters and photos can also be sent if you have some I can keep ... ;) Have a great week!! Hermana Slack :)

[gymviralscom]

Women Hit the Gym Before Trump Gets In

Since the election of Donald Trump, martial-arts and defense-training classes are reporting unprecedented spikes in business from women, minorities, and LGBT clients. “>

If the election of Donald Trump has inspired you to take a self-defense class, youre far from alone. In fact people who are thinking exactly like you are already stretching the limits of New York Citys self-defense instruction facilities. In Americas cultural capital, fighting is the new crying.

Gabrielle Rubin has been practicing martial arts for 29 years. For the last nine, shes run a womens self-defense school in Manhattan called Female Awareness Self Defense. My class for this Monday was packed, she says. I usually have packed classes, but between Wednesday and Sunday is the most packed Ive seen in nine years.

Its unbelievable, she adds. Ive never seen anything like this.

After the long, quiet subway ride home from the place people expected to be when they witnessed Hillary Clinton win the presidency Nov. 8, after the days of tears and sleepless nights of speculation over just how difficult a Trump administration could make life for people who arent white and straight and men, a curious trend has emerged among some dejected liberal voters. They have decided to fight. Literally.

In New York and beyond, people concerned that in Donald Trumps America the government and law enforcement wont stand with marginalized groups are flocking to facilities that teach self-defense and fighting techniques. In many cases, demand for training for hand-to-hand combat vastly outpaces facilities ability to provide it.  

New Yorker Lena Afridi, moved by Election Night, attempted to put together a self-defense workshop for people who thought learning self-defense might be a good idea, in light of recent events. The workshop she organized was met with so much demand, she says, that they had to change the workshop into a series. More than a thousand people RSVPd.

At the Center for Anti-Violence Education in Brooklyns Park Slope, Executive Director Tracy Hobson says what shes seen in the last week is the biggest spike in interest in classes since her martial arts-meets-advocacy organizations founding 42 years ago. We saw another uptick in interest after 9/11 We do think its more now than then. The size, the number of calls that were getting.

Hobson says her organization has fielded requests from upstate New York, from North Carolina, from Pennsylvania. In one case, a Muslim-American group requested self-defense training for 7,000 people. Hobson says 300 people RSVPd to a multiweek self-defense and violence de-escalation workshop the organizational periodically offers. Their facility can accommodate 25 at a time.

For the next one, Hobson says, were getting a bigger space.

Patrick Lockton, the director of the Krav Maga Institute in New York, is a bit mystified by the sudden rush at facilities in the city. Traditionally, just before Thanksgiving, its a quiet time of year, he says. Its been the busiest November, especially in the last week. Its been unbelievably busy.

KMI, with branches spread over New York plus an affiliate school in London, is the largest self-defense school in the U.S. He tells The Daily Beast that two days after the election, the number of attendees at an introductory session to learn Krav Maga, a fighting technique originally developed by the Israeli Defense Force, was double what one would normally expect around this time of year. One week later, the introductory session had swelled to triple its normal size. And the demographics of those introductory classes had changed, too. Normally, about 55-60 percent of entering students are men. Since the election, the gender balance has flipped. Lockton cant declare conclusively that current events caused the surge, but he cant think of anything else that might have done it.

Fighting techniques that rely more on aggression and less on defense are seeing an increase in interest as well. Usually each week I get about five or 10 inquiries, says Ren Dreifuss, head coach and head instructor at Radical MMA in New York. And just yesterday, I got 15.

Its huge, he adds. Huge.

Many martial-arts and self-defense schools contacted by The Daily Beast say that women, Muslim Americans, and LGBTQ individuals account for an uncharacteristic portion of the latest barrage. This could be due to increased instances of hate crimes targeting specific groups that happen to typically align with the other side of the aisle than President-elect Trump and his supporters. The FBI recently released statistics that showed a 6 percent increase in hate crimes last year, mostly due to an escalation in incidents against Muslims. Its definitely the level ofI wouldnt say paranoia, but I would say cautiousness, says Dreifuss.

Radical MMA is in the planning stages of putting together a special seminar for members of groups that could be targeted by hate crimes in a cultural climate where the mainstream has deemed the attitude behind them more acceptable. In hate crimes, the patterns of attack can be very different [than non-hate crime attacks], says Dreifuss. If youre a member of the LGBTQ community, youre probably going to be approached by more than one person, its usually two on one or three on one. They triangulate you. They back you into some sort of corner and they bum rush you. They trap you first, they corner you first.

Get The Beast In Your Inbox!

Daily DigestStart and finish your day with the top stories from The Daily Beast.

Cheat SheetA speedy, smart summary of all the news you need to know (and nothing you don't).

By clicking "Subscribe," you agree to have read the TermsofUse and PrivacyPolicy

Subscribe

Thank You!

You are now subscribed to the Daily Digest and Cheat Sheet. We will not share your email with anyone for any reason

The number of Muslim-American, LGBTQ, and womens groups that has contacted Brooklyns Center for Anti-Violence Education has far surpassed the facilitys capabilities. Executive Director Tracy Hobson notes theres a desperation in some of their requests. They need self-defense training, and they need it now. The organization has called on per-diem employees to help address their increased needs, but those can only go so far.

In other parts of the country, the cause-effect relationship between President-elect Trumps #MAGA nation and a flocking to self-defense instruction is less cut and dry. For example, in Southfield, Michigan, a middle-class suburb of Detroit, more people than usual have filled classes at Dallo Martial Arts. But Nick Cavellino, who holds the title of Sihing (which loosely translated means big brother in the art) at the facility, says people arent heading his way because theyre worried Donald Trumps minions are going to personally victimize them. Some people are interested in self-defense because of all the riots and stuff, he says.

And in Chicago, Jeff Horvitzs Krav Academy Inc. has seen an increase in membership due to local crimeassaults, robberies, and sexual assaults in gentrified neighborhoods like Wicker Park. Im getting a lot more interesting calls from more women. Im getting more calls from people from India, which is unusual. Im getting calls from women who are joggers and women who work late at night, he says.

Panic over what a Donald Trump administration would actually do to already-marginalized groups isnt confined to New York City, where it seems the masses are unwittingly fashioning themselves into an army of hand-to-hand combat experts.

Amelia Dorn, director of IMPACT Personal Safety of Colorado in Denver, has also noticed a marked acceleration in people interested in enrolling in self-defense classes. Were getting this week as many as wed get in a month or two, she says.

Dorn believes that the elections outcome indicated to many of her students that they cant trust the government to look out for their needs. I think that there is the sense that while the judicial and legal system were less than helpful [to sexual-abuse survivors] a couple weeks ago, now it feels so permissive, it seems to excuse the behavior of misogynists These women feel now that trusting the people in power is not even a choice. Reporting it to the police is not even a choice. If something happens to them, they feel like half the world is going to think that theyre ridiculous and blame them.

For those concerned about Donald Trump, the real battle over the next four years will be fought in the Supreme Court confirmation process, in local and state governments, in Washington backrooms that would be filled with smoke 20 years ago but now are filled with the ghosts of bygone senators flatulence. And a real revolution, if it were to come to that, wouldnt be fought through grappling. So why engage in physical training in the wake of existential trauma?

Southfield, Michigans Nick Cavallino believes theres catharsis in the art of physical engagement. Chicagos Jeff Horvitz says Krav Maga teaches practitioners not to hesitate in responding to violence. Brooklyns Tracy Hobson believes that while self-defense cant defend anybody against the dismantling of the Voting Rights Act, it can encourage people to remain engaged in society as human beings, to leave their houses, to be a part of a world that suddenly feels hostile.

I do think it helps people build their confidence right now, she says. We see this with survivors. Self-defense helps them get their confidence, helps them move in the world with their whole selves. And I think thats not to be underplayed.

Read more: http://www.thedailybeast.com

The post Women Hit the Gym Before Trump Gets In appeared first on GymVirals.com - The Latest Gym Virals.

from GymVirals.com – The Latest Gym Virals http://www.gymvirals.com/women-hit-the-gym-before-trump-gets-in-2/