#omni/impotence

[thetomorrowshow]

febuwhump 12 - used as practice

title: burying my whole life

fandom: traffic smp

part of my bad boys gang au!!

cw: blood, violence

~

Scott swallows, shifts his weight.

He lets himself, for a moment, wonder about Martyn. Is he in the same situation? Blindfolded, tied to an uncomfortable chair? A dirty gag pulled taut between his teeth?

Or is it worse?

Then he shakes himself. He’s not thinking about that. He’s not going to sit here and run himself ragged, panicking about what they might be doing to his friend. He’s fine, so he has to assume that Martyn’s the same way.

This was supposed to be an easy job. They only take easy jobs, after all—one of the perks of being independent contractors is that they get to pick and choose whatever jobs they want to work. But hiding bodies hasn’t been enough to cover rent as of late, and they really can’t afford to lose the junkyard.

They’ve worked for every respectable gang in the city, so Scott would have thought that there would be a bit more respect on the Mean Gills Hunk o’ Junk services. His and Martyn’s matching t-shirt uniforms are practically a Red Cross symbol around here. They aren’t to be touched.

The job had sounded pretty easy. Implicate this new gang, the Neighbors, in a murder that belonged to the Clockers. Scott didn’t feel too bad about it, seeing as the Neighbors hadn’t been so kind as to utilize their services yet. They seemed like a pretty small start-up, and the Clockers were probably trying to squash them out of the game before they really got their feet under themselves.

Well, they have their feet under them, that’s for sure.

The Neighbors aren’t actually a gang, that much is clear. They’re some sort of—private elite force, Scott thinks, with training that he’s never seen from the usual thugs. He and Martyn can hold their own in hand-to-hand combat, but a single man in a button-up shirt had taken them both down with a couple of lightning-fast sweeps of his legs. It had been almost like an art form, a fluid dance that only he knew the steps to.

Scott had woken up . . . wherever this is. Alone. Unable to move his arms more than to flex his wrists, his legs bound in three different places, the only movement allowed him the ability to twist his head around. Nothing to look at, not with his eyes covered.

How long was he out? How long has he been here, in this unknowable prison, waiting for whatever judgment is sure to come?

In all likelihood, Scott’s dead. There are very few scenarios here where he ends up alive. They’ll probably interrogate him about his past work, the many bodies that he’s thrown into the incinerator or buried beneath all the junk. Then they’ll kill him, his knowledge of whatever they’re doing too threatening to their work.

Why did he ever have to get involved in this business in the first place? He’d always dreamed of living an average-length life.

What had seemed like an easy way to get a lot of cash has backfired in an unfortunately foreseeable manner.

Scott sits in silence for far too long. Hours, if he had to guess—which is unpleasant, frankly, waiting for his own death for so long with restricted blood circulation. If they were polite about it, his captors would have come in right after he’d woken, done their quick little interrogation, and shot him in the head.

When someone finally joins him, they don’t ask the demanded questions he expects. They don’t take off the blindfold or the gag, but they release him from his other binds (which he can now tell aren’t ropes, but something like mini bungee cords, easier to loosen quickly) and pull him to his feet and into a brisk walk, all without a word.

Scott stumbles along with them, a person on either side, his wrists clicked into handcuffs before he can so much as lift his hands. That’s frustrating, and not because it restricts his chances of escape, but because he’s already struggling with walking as pins and needles fill his legs and he’d like to be capable of catching himself if he falls, thank you very much.

Somehow he keeps his feet, though he hasn’t got any sort of presence of mind to pay attention to where they’re going, especially when he can’t see. Probably to some other room to be interrogated.

But they stop suddenly after what he assumes is a bit of a hallway, and they don’t have him sit down or remove the blindfold or anything. They just stand there, fingernails digging into Scott’s arms, and wait.

Scott lets out a slow huff of breath through his nose, flexes his fingers. Is this some sort of intimidation thing? What are they waiting for?

This is going to be it. He’ll be standing here for ages, then some big scary man will come in and tear off his blindfold and gag. He’ll demand to know his purpose and press him for every bit of information he knows, then he’ll nod to one of his goons and they’ll shoot him in the head and his body will be dragged away (probably to be buried in his own junkyard).

He knows so many things, though—what if he keeps giving information that the big scary man doesn’t even want? He’s so overflowing with things that he knows he doesn’t even know what he knows! Great, now he’s going to get a bad grade in hostage, something that is normal to—

Shuffling footsteps.

Scott swallows as best he can behind the gag. It sounds like multiple people, kind of far away. Maybe two more men with Martyn in between them?

“Here,” a lilting, woman’s voice says. She sounds far away—like she’s at the other end of a long room. “There’s your target.”

What?

A beat passes.

“What?” a man (from that same distance) says incredulously, echoing Scott’s thought.

“You’re a marksman, aren’t you? Show us your skills.”

Is Scott in a shooting range? Why would they bring him here?

“What did he do?” the man asks.

“Doesn’t matter, does it? He’s an enemy to us.”

“But—but he’s helpless.”

“What does that matter?”

Oh.

Oh, no.

Scott can see it, in his mind’s eye. Him, bound and gagged, a faceless perpetrator, stood at the end of the shooting range. This anonymous man, perhaps facing a test of loyalty, placed at the other end with a gun in hand.

There’s still men on either side of him. A test of accuracy, too.

They aren’t even going to interrogate him?

Scott feels kind of offended, honestly, that they’re using him as nothing more than a prop in someone else’s test. He has knowledge of worth! He has dirt on every gang in the city, and despite what he always claims, it can absolutely be tortured out of him.

Maybe Martyn already gave up everything useful. Maybe Martyn traded his life for Scott’s. Sounds like something he would do—there’s never really been love lost between the two of them; circumstance brought them together and convenience kept them together and now convenience dictates their separation.

To be fair, Scott would have sold him out, too.

Ah, well. He lived a decent life—for the first sixteen years, or so. He was kind of a terrible person after that. To be frank, he probably deserves to die.

As someone else’s loyalty test, though? Really?

His ideal death is absolutely to sacrifice himself to save someone else for reasons that he’s not going to personally examine, but this is just embarrassing.

“I won’t.”

If Scott didn’t have a gag in his mouth, he would have groaned. Is he seriously going to drag this out? He’s seen movies, he knows what’s going to happen.

Sure enough, there’s a long pause, then a meaty thud followed by a pained grunt. After a moment, the woman speaks again.

“Shoot him.”

When the man speaks, his voice is notably strained. “No.”

Another thud. Then another, and a bit of a crack, and the man makes another sound of pain. After a moment of relative silence, he hears a sliding sound, as if something heavy is being dragged along the floor.

A door opens, then shuts.

Scott still has a gag in his mouth, but he makes his best attempt at a groan anyways.

-

That pattern repeats itself four times.

Scott is pulled from his chair and into what he has to assume is a target range. The anonymous man being tested is brought in, he refuses to shoot Scott, he gets beaten into submission, and then both of them are dragged away again.

The sixth time, as Scott stands in the target range with guards on either side, he wishes they would loosen the gag. Then he could at least try to make this interesting. It sounds fun to beg for help. Or maybe he could try to anger the man. Or he could stay silent by choice. That would be enigmatic.

The man sounds exhausted today, and Scott briefly wonders what he’s been going through when they’re not in the room together. Do they hurt him? Interrogate him? Train him? At least with Scott they give him food and water at fairly regular intervals. The man seems to get weaker and weaker by the day.

“Really?” the man says, his voice carrying thinly across the room. “Again? Same guy? Don’t you get tired of this?”

“Don’t you?”

There’s a long silence that follows that.

Scott waits with bated breath.

Is this going to be it, at last?

Even though he’s been prepared five times now, his unpreparedness strikes him like a staff to his knees. Did he ever thank his neighbors for the housewarming cookies they brought him? How long has his cat been alone at home? Why didn’t he ever reach out to his mom? Just a call would have sufficed. He could have even visited her.

The silence continues.

Then—a cry of pain—and relief drops through Scott’s chest.

It’s immediately chased by exhaustion, and a little bit of shame (it’s not like this putting-off of his death sentence will change anything that he has or hasn’t done, and all it’s doing is causing pain to this other man), but he only swallows and allows himself to be led away.

-

“Give me the gun.”

There it is again—that jump in his stomach, the weakness in his legs, because this is it, this time. No more trials. 

Seven is a meaningful number, Scott heard once. He doesn’t know what it means. He has to assume it means the end.

“Good. Shoot—”

BANG.

Scott can’t help it—he flinches (he curses himself in the moment for flinching)—

He . . . isn’t hit.

There’s sounds—sounds of a struggle, shouts and deafening gunshots and the men on either side of him split apart, leaving him standing alone—and Scott hasn’t properly walked or stood on his own in what feels like days, so he sways in place, but he can’t balance himself with bound hands—

Running footsteps come toward him, and someone (who smells like sweat and blood, gross) wraps an arm around him before he can fall.

“Run, run, run!” the man’s voice says, too loud in his ear.

And what’s Scott supposed to do but run?

He lets the man guide him, stays as close as he can without tripping over his legs. He runs blindly, desperately trying not to fall—which is harder than it looks, blindfolded and handcuffed and weak. He manages to follow the twists and turns fairly well until the man drags him on a sharp turn and he stumbles over his own feet, falling flat on his face.

“Oh, geez—sorry, one second—”

A door squeaks; hands grab at his face, and the gag is pulled and pulled (and with it, painfully, the corners of his lips) and then torn loose. Scott gratefully lets his mouth fall shut, then winces as the blindfold is forcefully ripped from his eyes.

He opens his eyes (which hurts, the light hurts, how long has he been here?) and looks up.

In the dim lighting, Scott blinks past watery eyes and sees the man who has held his death in his hands seven separate times.

He’s—

He’s actually kind of hot.

Like, yeah, there’s blood trickling down the stubbly side of his face, and he has a massive black eye, and his blond hair is clumpy and tangled and gross-looking, but . . . he’s got potential. He definitely isn’t the worst last thing to see.

Scott swallows, his mouth bone-dry and tongue swollen, and manages, “Hey, hot stuff. What’s a guy like—like you doing in a place like this?”

Adorably, the man blushes. “I—um—can you shoot?” he blusters.

Scott hopes he manages a devilish smirk with his numb lips. “Only if you buy me dinner first.”

“Holy moly.” The man actually gets up and walks away, though he returns after only a few seconds. “Look, I can get us out of here if I can get a phone. You wouldn’t happen to have one, would you?”

“I haven’t checked,” Scott grouses. “I think it was confiscated in the onboarding training.”

“Yeah, same,” the man says absently.

Scott would check his pockets, but his hands happened to be bound with actual handcuffs, rather than the bungee cords that had bound him to the chair. He hasn’t noticed anything in his pockets as of yet—and who would leave a prisoner with their cell phone? It’s likely long been destroyed.

“Okay, well—I have these guns,” the man says, holding out two handguns. “Genuinely, can you shoot?”

“Not like this,” Scott says drily, jangling his handcuffs. The man hasn’t even offered to help him up. He’s just lying on the dusty carpet of this—it looks like a small meeting room, with a table in the center and a handful of chairs scattered about.

Come to think of it, it probably wouldn’t be too hard to hold a gun while handcuffed, but Scott isn’t exactly a marksman. He can hold his own in a fistfight, and he’s actually pretty decent with knives, but guns aren’t his specialty. Sure, they keep a handgun in the office in case of emergency, but he’s never really needed to use it.

“And I can only shoot one right now. . . .”

Scott scoffs, which quickly turns into a real coughing fit. When he can breathe, he chokes out, “You can only shoot one, period. Dual-wielding pistols doesn’t actually work, genius.”

The man shrugs. “I’ve been practicing, I can get decent cover fire. But they broke a few fingers, so. . . .” He holds up his left hand, which Scott can just barely tell in this lighting is shockingly swollen.

Despite his doubts on the gun matter, Scott grimaces. Broken fingers hurt, and he’s only ever broken one before (perks of accidentally slamming your hand in a door). He can’t imagine breaking multiple, then having to shoot with that hand.

“Okay. Here’s the plan,” the man says, checking out the open door. “First person to walk by, I shoot ‘em and take their phone. Then I call my friends and we get out of here.”

“That’ll be way too loud,” Scott points out. “They’d kill us before any of your supposed friends even showed up.”

“Well, it’s not like you’re throwing around any clever ideas,” the man says hotly.

Which is entirely unfair, seeing as Scott is literally lying on the floor, and until mere minutes ago was not only handcuffed, but blindfolded and gagged. Honestly, it’s shocking he can even function right now. It’s shocking he’s even alive right now.

They’re not actually going to escape, right? There’s no way, not when they’re in the depths of the Neighbors’ organization, when there are surely plenty of skilled fighters searching for them right now. They’ll probably kill Scott on the spot, then take the other guy back to continue whatever they’re doing with him.

“Search the room, would you?” the man says. “I’ll keep a look-out.”

Scott rolls his eyes, then shifts to his knees and pushes himself up, starts going through the room.

It’s just as small as he’d assumed, a table barely larger than a desk in the center with four chairs, two on either long side. There’s not any sort of tech in here, not even a projector, and the whiteboard on the wall only has a singular dried-out marker with it. 

He turns around to tell the guy that there’s really nothing here, but he already has a preemptive hand held out toward Scott, clearly signalling to be quiet.

Scott freezes. Listens.

He doesn’t hear anything until the footsteps are almost upon them, just outside the door of the meeting room, and quick as a flash his accomplice darts out the door, then back in, dragging a struggling man in a suit with him, hand with the broken fingers covering his mouth.

There’s a moment’s struggle in which Scott’s accomplice tries to drag the suit to the ground, and the suit tries to get his gun aimed behind himself to shoot him. Scott’s fairly certain he hasn’t been noticed yet—he hurries forward, ramming his head into the suit’s stomach—

The force of it bowls all three of them to the floor with a loud thud. Scott rolls over someone’s lumpy body—his new friend cries out—the Neighbor grunts—

It’s too dark, for goodness’ sakes, Scott can’t see and he’s all turned around, his hands held together by the stubborn cuffs, there’s no way he’s going to survive this—

BANG!

Blinding pain overcomes Scott’s entire system and he thinks he only doesn’t scream because he’s left without any air in his lungs. He doesn’t know where he’s been hit, but it hurts more than anything that’s ever happened and he can’t see, can’t feel his body, can’t do anything but gasp in agony.

Is he dying? He’s probably dying. He’s definitely dying, it—it hurts so—

What’s happening? Why is he dying? He’s dying—

Scott isn’t sure how long he spends hanging in the limbo of all-encompassing torture. At some point, though, the pain begins to centralize in his right arm, and he sucks in a deep breath, some of the red on the back of his eyelids fading. The ringing in his ears starts to recede, little by little, until he can hear someone muttering in his ear.

“—you’re all right, help is coming, just need you to stand up—”

An arm worms its way under his back and pulls him up slowly, Scott helpless to prevent it. His knees buckle when his bare feet find the floor, but whoever has him doesn’t let him fall. His right hand pulses angrily, far too hot for him to focus on much else.

“Come on, it’s not that bad. We need to get out of here so my buddies can get us away, right? Can you open your eyes?”

Scott tries. He really, really, does, but he can’t quite wrench them open, his eyelids soldered shut. He does manage, however, to stand, though his legs tremble weakly under the weight of his body.

“Let’s go, let’s go. Are you gonna pass out? You look white as a ghost. Stay awake, yeah? What’s your name?”

His name. Scott lets the person supporting him guide him forward. “Scott,” he rasps.

“Cool, nice to meet you. What do you do for work, Scott?”

“Junkyard. I—” Scott finally forces his eyes open, the world before him grey and tear-blurred. “I—”

“Junkyard, that’s cool. Got any family?”

They’re escaping. They’re getting out of here, Scott and this random man. What happened with the other guy, the one in the suit? Did they take him out?

“Scott? You good?”

“Yeah,” Scott breathes, and his hand pulses—

He looks down.

He can’t really tell what’s up through his tears, but there’s a dirty piece of fabric tied around his hand, soaked through with blood. Blood’s all up his arm, all over his leg, dripping lazily from his fingers. He blinks, blinks again.

“Can you walk yet?” the man asks, and Scott now notices how exhausted he sounds, almost entirely out of breath. “‘Cuz—dude, I can’t go on like this.”

Surely he can walk, right?

Scott decides to at least try.

He pushes off of the man—not completely, but enough that he’s mostly supporting his own weight. He’s still pretty much blindly following, but they really ought to move faster if they’re actually going to get out. Scott pushes past the jelly that his legs have become and increases the pace, swallowing back the instinct to vomit.

“What’s y’r name?” he forces out, more to keep himself conscious than out of actual curiosity. Which is probably why the man was asking him personal questions in the first place, come to think of it.

“Jimmy,” the man replies, after only a moment’s hesitation. “I think—I think that’s the door out. It looks like—here—”

They push together on metal, heavy heavy metal—

Scott breathes in fresh air—

Then his legs give out entirely.

He sinks to the ground in some sort of weird slow motion, and Jimmy manages to drag them both over the threshold before he’s falling too, and Scott feels all fuzzy in the back of his mouth and really, really sick. . . .

Then black.

-

“I can’t believe you passed out on the doorway.”

“Uh-huh, and who was it who basically dropped me?” Scott retorts, no heat in his words. Jimmy snorts.

“I’ll have you know, I had three broken fingers, four cracked ribs, and a broken collarbone,” Jimmy counts off. “Not to mention all the bruises. You just had a tiny gunshot wound.”

“A gunshot wound that blew off half my hand,” Scott says wryly, gesturing to his heavily-wrapped right hand, now bereft of a pinky finger and a decent chunk of his palm. “Those tend to bleed a lot.”

Jimmy winces. “Sorry—”

“No, you’d better not be apologizing again,” Scott interrupts. “Losing a finger is better than losing my life.”

“I should’ve been able to get the gun away from him, though,” Jimmy says awkwardly. “I know this stuff, I’ve been doing it for years.”

“Right, I totally expect you to be perfect after being tortured for a week.”

“Oh, come on, it wasn’t—”

“You’re both injured and you aren’t supposed to be out here,” a voice comes from behind them. Scott’s heart jolts, but only Grian comes up in front of them, arms folded over his zipped-up leather jacket. “Come on. In you get.”

Being out on the back porch had been fun while it lasted, Scott supposes. Back to the weird library-turned-hospital.

But Grian grabs Scott’s left arm, shoos Jimmy on when he pauses. “Go on, get your bandages changed. Scott and I need to talk.”

Jimmy hesitates a moment longer, eyes darting between Scott and Grian. Scott, despite his nerves, nods confidently.

“I won’t be long,” he says. “I’d never miss a chance to see you shirtless.”

The tips of Jimmy’s ears turn pink and he grumbles something, but heads on inside. Once the door to the patio closes, Grian lets go of Scott, leans back on the railing.

“You have to stay, now,” he says bluntly. “You’re too much of a risk.”

Scott grimaces. He doesn’t remember how they got here—he fainted as they left the building, then woke up in a bed in the heart of the Bad Boys’ base. Eight years he’s avoided swearing fealty to any gang, and somehow, he’s ended up with the Bad Boys. “I have a business,” he tries half-heartedly.

Grian snorts. “You think the Neighbors don’t know where it is? They’ll kill you before the day’s over.”

Okay, he really didn’t think that would work, anyways. New tactic. Become a Bad Boy?

He really doesn’t want to be a Bad Boy, but until he can find a way to flee the country, he’s probably stuck here. Good thing he’s hurt his hand so, he won’t be expected to be any sort of gunman.

He’s pretty good at making the most of situations, though.

“I think I have some talents that the Bad Boys would find useful,” he says. “As long as I’m compensated.”

“You’ll have to talk to someone a bit higher up the food chain to work that out.”

Scott nods. “The Baddest of Boys.”

“Please never say that again.”

“The Worst Boy, even.”

“Go back to bed.”

Scott chuckles and moves to head back inside, but once again, Grian catches his arm.

“Tim’s got a lot of people protecting him,” he says in a low voice. “If you’re just messing around, you’d better leave him alone.”

Which doesn’t make any sense, Scott thinks as he heads back to his library-hospital bed. He doesn’t even know a Tim.

[lizlives]

This is going to be a very different kind of thing than I usually do, but randomly I've been thinking about how much Dreadnought (from the Nemesis book series) would be a good opponent for a death battle style matchup against Homelander. Unlike Omni-Man or Superman, she's not clearly stronger while still having some things that could potentially be a boon for her such as her lattice ability. Anyways, I randomly decided that I would use their respective r/respect threads on reddit and try and construct evidence based research on who I think would win in a fight. Here is what I've put together! The opening introductions are sampled directly from the original respect threads so credit to them, the rest is written by me. Also, I'm going by the Amazon version of Homelander for this obviously.

“I see a world that is terrified of me. Terrified of someone who would reject manhood. Terrified of a girl who knows who she is and what she’s capable of. They are small, and they are weak, and they will not hurt me ever again. My name is Danielle Tozer. I am a girl. No one is strong enough to take that from me anymore.”

Danielle "Danny" Tozer led a miserable life as a closeted transgender teenage girl in an abusive household. That is, until one day she witnessed the world-renowned hero Dreadnought suffer a fatal attack from a supervillain. With only moments to live and knowing that the world needed his powers, Dreadnought bestowed his powers unto Danielle, granting her not only his superhuman abilities and senses, but also, as a side effect, molding her body into it's ideal form. Reborn, Danielle must learn to accept the weight of the responsibility of not only being the fourth incarnation of Dreadnaught, the attention of being the most publicly visible transgender superhero, but also the challenges involving the presence of the Nemesis and its effect on the world.

"I don't make mistakes. I'm not "just like the rest of you." I'm stronger. I'm smarter. I'm better. I am better. I'm not some weak-kneed fucking crybaby that goes around fucking apologizing all the time. And why the fuck would you want me to be? All my life, people have tried to control me. My whole life. Rich people, powerful people have tried to muzzle me, cancel me, keep me impotent and obedient, like I'm a fucking puppet. You know what? It worked. Because I allowed it to work. And guess what. If they can control me, then you can bet your ass they can control you. They already do. You just don't realize it. I'm done. I am done apologizing. I am done being persecuted for my strength. You people should be thanking Christ that I am who and what I am, because you need me. You need me to save you. You do. I am the only one who possibly can. You're not the real heroes. I'm the real hero. I'm the real hero."

Homelander is the home grown All-American Hero represented by the Vought American Corporation. He is the leader of the Seven and considered the most powerful Supe on Earth. He's the result of a refined compound V fetus that became Vought's first successful superhero. He represents nothing more than deceit, profit and the Vought American Way!

Striking strength: Dreadnought has more control of her strength than Homelander it seems, able to move her strength up and down depending on how careful she wants to be. Homelander more frequently aims to disembowel his enemies with gut punches and does so with general ease, while Danny frequently aims to break bones and does so with relative ease. At near max power she's ripping into heavily armored war machines and flying through box cars strong enough to rip them completely apart. Most of Homelander's striking strength achievements amount to either trading blows with people of near power to him such as Soldier Boy, Black Noir and Butcher on temp-v, or immediately killing and disemboweling regular humans, usually killing them instantly. The only other notable strength achievement he has is listed as "damaging" a concrete wall, a metal fuel container, then a larger metal fuel container, but this doesn't seem like much compared to Danny's ability to rip into reinforced metal, albeit sometimes with some effort, and with much greater control and handling. For this, I give the win to Dreadnought.

Lifting/Throwing: Notably, Danny is able to save a plane with some effort only a few days after getting her powers, though the plane nearly falls apart in the process. The end result was minimal casualties. Homelander is faced with a near identical situation and doesn't even try to save it, likely due to fear of optics and damage to his brand from survivors, but potentially suggesting a lack of genuine ability. Danny has claimed she can bench press a school bus and Homelander seems to be able to escape after being crushed by one, making it kinda a draw in that particular case. Most of the rest of Homelander's achievements amount to being able to throw small objects long distances and being able to lift other people of a similar power level off of him. Meanwhile Danny is able to redirect and lift satellites, jets, train cars, and mechs with a great deal of effort depending. For this, I give the win to Dreadnought.

Blunt Force Durability: Most feats Homelander has shown show him able to withstand a great deal of damage from similar opponents. Danny has had her bones broken by opponents at least as strong as her if not stronger but not completely folded. She takes hits from Red Steel a super on par with her in strength. Sense we've already established she's at least a bit more strong than Homelander at least in terms of her striking ability, I'd say that gives her at least a slight edge in durability? It's a bit hard to say, Homelander rarely ever shows any sort of affect or damage from his fights, but Danny does, and yet she's still able to generally to take most of it to a seemingly greater degree than he does? It really comes down to which you think is better. A person facing smaller threats and barely flinching, or a person facing bigger threats and flinching but not completely folding. It's a bit weird, but my intuition is for Danny due to facing stronger opponents and more regularly.

Piercing Durability: Both seemingly can survive point blank bullets with minimal feeling. Homelander specifically seems to have no feeling at all when faced with bullet damage, while Danny mentions feeling some discomfort, albeit minimal. A person did attempt to slice her neck at but this effort failed, however her ability to withstand piercing is tied to her lattice ability, meaning she can switch it off. This could be a slight advantage to Homelander given he seems to be incapable of receiving any damage regardless. For both of these reasons, I give the edge to Homelander.

Heat Durability: Danny is able to withstand beam sabers with some blistering afterwards, ignores flamethrowers, and endures atmospheric re-entry with some admitted risk. Homelander has taken Butcher's heat blasts and gotten up, was early on able to survive putting his hand in fire, and also was caught in a gas explosion that he escaped unharmed. Dreadnought is able to withstand heat damage with minimal damage while Homelander seems to be unharmed by any heat. Homelander wins this one.

Speed: Lots of specific numbers, but just based on what we've seen them do, either based on the compared speed of known jets or based on directly stated speed, both are capable of breaking the speed of sound, but Danny seems to just have higher speed numbers in general. She's also theoretically able to fly faster in areas with less wind-resistance. Also worth noting, she has dodged multiple laser beams in the past, only getting tagged a few times in the process, meaning dodging Homelander's single heat blasts might not be much of a problem for her. For this, Danny gets the upper hand I think.

Other: The lattice ability possessed by Danny seems to be much more advanced than Homelander's x-ray vision, able to see down to molecules, not to mention able to influence them at that level.

Conclusion: Homelander's main advantage in this fight might be his laser vision. Danny has been shown to be impacted by concentrated heat and some mild impact from piercing. Besides that she takes blunt force trauma decently well given her opponents and seems much stronger and faster than him overall. I would say this would be one of the most difficult fights of her life, but I think she would make it out on top due to the edge her lattice ability gives her with healing and molecular manipulation. If cornered, and this would absolutely be a desperate move, it might be theoretically possible to give him brain damage, as she was able to untangle one consciousness in someone's mind from another. That suggest some sort of ability to manipulate minds, if only to unravel them.

Also worth noting, there's a small precedent for Compound V still leaving someone's interior weak to damage (i.e. Translucent) but at one point Danny drinks enough cesium and strychnine to “light her up like Chernobyl”, and remains unaffected by it, suggesting her body is more densely protected while technically having weaknessess Homelander's less dense defense doesn't.

Ultimately, I would also say just her attitude makes her a strong contender. She regularly deals with opponents who are similarly obsessive and intimidating much like Homelander and are at least as strong as her and she seems generally unphased by them, only responding with more energy alot of the time. Homelander is going to rely on intimidation to an extent, something Danny is familar with. Not to mention, once she realizes he doesn't measure up to her in some key ways, this intimidation will work even less, thus giving her a psychological edge. Her bravado has a decent chance of throwing him off, especially the longer the fight goes on. Homelander being emotionally volatile makes him, well, more volatile, but it also makes him unbalanced and sloppy, something Danny could theoretically take advantage of. She has demonstrated in the past being able to make smart calculative decisions even when under immense pressure. Able to muster up the mental fortitude to heal a golf ball sized hole through her whole torso despite not being able to breath and struggling to retain consciousness. The same could not be said for Homelander, who is extremely easy to undermine emotionally if faced with any sort of genuine threat, even partially. For me, I say the winner is Dreadnought.

Overall, I would just really love to see what kind of verbal sparring these two would have. Righteous anger vs childish rage. Spirited passion vs insecure posturing. It would be so interesting just to see them interact. Also, read the Nemesis books! They're really good!

[harpofcourage]

The Satanic Axioms – The Tredecalogue

i. There is no omni god. ii. There is no one god to be universally revered. iii. Idols and icons draw us closer to the earthly divine by creating a physical conduit. iv. Only the most impotent, insecure, and/or narcissistic gods and their followers that share such traits take offense from blasphemy. v. Rest when you need it, and work when you can; no entity can schedule your life for you. vi. Honor is earned, not an entitlement or inheritance, and it can be revoked. vii. Life is the right of all living, and to revoke it without consent is to surrender one’s own right. viii. Love between informed, consenting parties is never wrong. ix. Take what you need, and give to others in need. x. Be honest in all things, except when the consequences would be more dire than a certain lie. xi. Neither land nor intelligent and/or emotional animals are property. xii. There is no one savior of humanity, but many. You are not the savior, I am not the savior, but together we can build a better world. xiii. Never proselytize; discuss with open minds instead, and stay far from dogma.

[calcinator]

It's shocking to me how uncommon this position is.

Fortunately, if some powerful supernatural being did interact with ancient humans, the chances are it's not actually that level of powerful.

Ancient Europeans thought bears were so scary and magic that they intentionally forgot the word for 'bear'. And now we have to pass laws to keep bears from getting wiped out.

Anything substantially more potent than a normal human would be immediately mistaken for divine, and the threshold of 'all powerful' for people who thought goats fucking in front of striped poles would make striped offspring (despite this being easily disproven by, you know, trying it and paying attention.) is not what we would consider all-powerful.

The fact that all the religious texts of the world are rife with blatant mistakes and falsehoods about the natural world show that whatever 'god' is behind the observations is either a liar or a moron, and either kind of punctures holes in a few 'omnis'.

Taken in the context of feats performed in the mythology, I'm pretty confident we could wipe out the lion's share of the Olympian pantheon with a single mid-range nuclear device. Not that it would come to that. If the religion is 'reconstructed' than any extant god behind it is definitionally a loser too impotent to protect its charges from other humans.

And as for the monotheists, while Yahweh talks a big game the F-14 is one hell of an upgrade from an iron chariot.

Plus, if you look at the text his success rate for any task that isn't mass murder of helpless bronze-age civilians via plague or curse hovers around ziltch. If he's a god of anything, he's the god of failure.

He's so incompetent he made perfect minions to serve and praise him and 1/3rd of them managed to rebel despite not having free will. He's so bad at his job robots he designed to love and praise figured out what hate was just to hate him.

Heck, Jacob took ol' no-vowels in a wrasslin' match, and while few of us likely have the upper body strength of a bronze age shepherd, a Ford Focus going 60 MPH is quite the equalizer.

And this is what Tyre looks like:

You have nothing to worry about.

*or one-in-π, according to Yahweh's geometry.

I don't believe in God, but if I did, I would fear them, not because I feel like that's a healthy feeling to carry in one's every day life, but because an omnipotent creator deity existing - let alone one that canonically punishes people according to its whims - would be like being under a giant's thumb at all times. Even if I were told they were the most loving wonderful God that might be imagined I could not help but fear them to at least some extent, because if the most virtuous, moral man on the planet is holding a gun to your head, he's still holding a gun to your head.

Moreover, the God or Gods of every extant religious tradition in the world today that I have any familiarity with are in my opinion morally bankrupt in their treatment of humanity, and so if I found out that any of them truly existed my response would be equal parts fear and loathing.

Murder the Gods and topple their thrones, and all that

[puphoods]

For this last one I’m gonna need Volunteers if you please Watch me closely as I turn something Back to nothing

[interretialia]

Nova Iuncta Verba Latina / New Latin Compounds

omnilimitenimpotens -entis “incapable of holding all the limes”   [omnis “all” + lima “lime” + to tenere “hold” + impotens “incapable”]   [omni- + lima- + tene- + impotent-] stems   [omni- + lima- + tene- + impotent-] with Connecting Vowel i   [omnilima- + tene- + impotent-] new stem and stems   [omnilima- + teni- + impotent-] e becomes Connecting Vowel i   [omnilima- + ten- + impotent-] i disappears before i   [omnilima- + tenimpotent-] stem and new stem   [omnilimi- + tenimpotent-] a becomes Connecting Vowel i   [omnilimitenimpotent-] new stem   [omnilimitenimpotens] nominative singular

(Fons Imaginis.)

[natsora]

@badthingshappenbingo prompt fill for: Serum Injection Fandom: Mass Effect

A two-part femshep/Liara T’Soni story

Summary: T’Soni is on the hunt for the Shadow Broker. She asks Shepard for a favour and Shepard can’t refuse. But it all goes wrong when Shepard and T’Soni are captured by the agents of the Shadow Broker. As they fight to stay alive, they question the true cost of life and death.

----

“Tell me!” 

Before Shepard could speak, pain flashed across her face. Her head whipped back so quickly, she could feel her brain smashing against the insides of her skull. Her vision white out as she bit back a cry. Try as she might, her biotics wouldn’t come. All she was left was a pent up impotence that went nowhere. Her wrists and ankles were lashed to a chair by omni-cuffs that buzzed angrily against her skin, dosed up to her neck with biotic inhibitors. She had been a guest of these thugs for the better part of the day. And this was all getting tiring. 

“Stop!” another voice sliced through the air. 

Shepard peeled her eyes open, one of them had swell enough to narrow her vision down to a slit. She sighed. The thugs weren’t going to stop, they were really just getting started. “Forget it, T’Soni,” she called out, her voice was hoarse. Working her tongue across her teeth to check for loose teeth, she would hate to lose one now that she had a full set again. Resurrection did wonders for one’s skin and teeth.

Read the rest on AO3

[thetomorrowshow]

oh geez all of them??

feb. febuwhump

love is such a drag

lark

omni/impotence

deaf jimmy

5 VARIOUS WRITINGS

yranac

ESHAU SEQUEL - PARTIALLY EDITED

deleted scenes

Untitled document

Untitled document

Untitled document

4 VARIOUS WRITINGS

DISTRUST WIP

oleander sequel

6 VARIOUS WRITINGS

these are really boring titles i'm sorry 😭😭 please ask me abt em

anyone can play pls reblog

tagged by @pixelfun20 hii pixel :D

Original Post Rules (from @\fallen-knight): "WIP Tag Game: Rules: In a new post, list the names of all the files in your WIP folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. Let people send you an ask with the title that most intrigues them and then post a little snippet of it or tell them something about it! And then tag as many people as you have WIPs."

uhh... gosh. i have many insightful wip titles, such as:

"idk yet"

"rewrite of metamorphosis one"

"in the night, we'll take a walk"

and "little mermaid au master doc"

(my funnier doc titles are already posted fics, sadly </3)

anyway, feel free to ask about any of them 👍 i should write more

tags: @thetomorrowshow @ilexdiapason @hollowwish aaand other writer mutuals i have + anyone who wants to jump in <3

[disgruntledcupid]

“Impotent maybe, but not the omni part.”

[darreinhardt]

Goddammit, Thanksgiving...

Man, today is Thanksgiving, And apart from the enforced gratitude this holiday has come to embody for me, there’s one major problem: I honestly have no idea what to be thankful for.

Just, from everything going on lately like the recent shootings in Colorado Springs and Chesapeake, to my own listless self-pitying ways.

And really, why shouldn’t I be? The two shootings, especially the one in Colorado Springs because it happened at a gay bar hosting a drag event FOR being a gay bar and hosting a drag event and I’m omni/pan, so forgive me for being upset. And all the right-wing bullshit that made the shooting happen because the people spouting this hate want me and others like me dead, so, yeah, mind my tears and rage.

And there’s the state I and other millennials are in: we’re in a tanked economy with increasing inflation and cost of living, low-paying jobs with career prospects not worth a damn, a minimum wage that doesn’t keep up with said inflation, and college debt that’s got us paying out what little disposable income we have left. And our own parents, who’ve already won and told us to go to college, have a snotty attitude towards all this that’s so “fuck you; got mine” they throw a temper tantrum every time they hear about debt relief. Because, in their hierarchical minds, any advantage for the downtrodden is to be disparaged if not dismantled. And this bootstrapping, trickle-down nonsense they picked up from some shithead actor makes them say “JuST G3T Uh SekUnd J0B!!!1!” even though getting the money to develop ourselves means we won’t have the time or energy. NEWSFLASH!, older generations: the 70’s and 80’s are over, and they took their version of the economy with them. And another one: if we shouldn’t have gone to college, then you shouldn’t have convinced us to go in the first place by pointing at all the jobs we can get with these degrees but so many of us like myself ended up not getting – you had a hand in the college debt crisis; stop acting blameless. Let us have these breadcrumbs that are debt relief and one job being able to pay the bills.

And there’s how we’re increasingly held hostage by the ultra-wealthy. Who never worked a day in their lives and never earned one penny of that wealth because it was all inherited and stolen from the people beneath them doing all the real work. And half our political leadership are content to hand out vapid platitudes and do nothing and pat themselves on the back, while the other gets off on making life miserable for anyone and everyone who isn’t rich, themselves, or like themselves in every single way.

So pardon me for being hopeless.

What, you me to be grateful for something? Oh, that I’m still alive? You mean the absolute minimum? Have fun spinning this into a positive to a pessimist and a cynic with depression and on/off ideas. Oh, that I have my health, a roof over my head, and food? I call all those things “things we’re all just supposed to have but that our institutions fail day in and day out to provide”. Thanks for the positivity, but keep your naivete to yourself, ingenue.

I just have no idea what to do right now but impotently lash out and wallow in misery and self-pity.

I’m going to therapy for all this and personal problems, but just…

I see nothing to be grateful or thankful for right now.

[thetomorrowshow]

the day i stop giving jimmy solidarity gaming ptsd is the day i have given up on life 😔😔😔🕊

[pamphletstoinspire]

MARY THE CHURCH AT THE SOURCE - PART 9

WRITTEN BY: JOSEPH CARDINAL RATZINGER AND HANS URS VON BALTHASAR

________

IV

THE CATHOLICITY OF THE CHURCH

“Whoever would boast, let him boast in the Lord.” Whoever would offer best wishes and congratulations, let him likewise do it in the Lord. He is the one who through his shepherds distributes his gifts to the Church as he wills. And, even in the Church’s hands, these gifts remain, thanks be to God, his. If they were ours, we would be crushed by the feeling of our impotence. He has called us and has built us up on the foundation of Peter, who denied him, and of Paul, who persecuted him, so that—amid tears and with contrite hearts, without which there is no priestly office—we may speak and act openly and in the joy of the Holy Spirit,

We are only stewards, and we are doubly dispossessed: for the sake of the Lord who sends us and for the sake of the Church to which he sends us and which we love because she is his bride. On this feast how could we not speak of this object of our love? Is it not the most delightful subject? The Church. Not, however, in her failure, her scandals, her inner conflicts, in the water that goes up to her neck. Rather, the Church insofar as she is proof against all this, in the unsurpassable breadth on account of which we hail her as the Catholica.

Our topic, then, is the catholicity of the church. The catholicity of the Church will always remain a paradox and, for very many people, a scandal. How could an entity that is as limited, even more, as fallible, as this empirical Church claim for herself a universality that does not leave out anything human or divine? How could she claim a universality of living truth, of true life?

The non-believer will object that universality could consist only in the sum of all of humanity’s genuine experiences, of all its cultures and historical epochs, whereas the Catholic Church is only an infinitesimal fraction of that sum! The believer will object that, if anyone, it would be the God-man who could lay claim to universality, since he cannot be convicted of any sin, the fullness of Godhead dwells bodily in him, and he recapitulates everything in heaven and on earth. Not, however, the Church, which blasphemes if she tries to identify herself with her Lord.

We may draw a twofold, a priori conclusion from what we have just said. A church that claims to be catholic would have to have a very special relationship to the universal experience of humanity and a very special relationship to the God-man. Only on the basis of this twofold relationship (whose possibility we do not yet see) could she legitimately be called the Catholica, and not a Christian sect.

We will briefly survey the first relation, which will by its inner logic bring us to a more thorough discussion of the second.

Anthropological Catholicity

Biblical faith is one: from Abraham to Jesus and Paul. There are not two ways of believing. Abraham is the archetype that Israel set as a seal over its history: departure from one’s own world, blind trust in the God who promises tremendous things but shows nothing of them, worse still, who starts things off, who gives the son of the promise, and then demands the gift back on Moriah. God so outweighs any other considerations that he can demand, not only faith, but blind faith, faith that does not waver if God seems to contradict himself openly. Later on, an entire people journeying through the wilderness will be trained in this kind of trust. And the desert journey continues even after the taking of the land, even in the exile and beyond: again and again the prophets train Israel in this letting go, this refusal to grasp, this trust and hope.

Jesus brings nothing other than this faith, but he does so as the “author and finisher of faith” who embodies it in person. He himself is pure trust that goes so far as the night of abandonment by the Father, without assurance, no longer understanding, in absolute preference of another’s will. What he does and lets be done he imparts with plenary authority. His preaching is nothing but training in this fundamental act, which he both demands from man and coaxes from him at the same time. “I believe, help my unbelief.” He entices man to make the leap and stretches out a hand to strengthen him for it. And so we realize: In him we can make the leap, he himself is the leap, from man to God—and, therefore, first from God to man. “In Deo meo transiliam murum” [in my God I will leap over the wall] (2 Sam 22:30). “Nihil cepimus; in verbo tuo autem laxabo rete” [we have caught nothing, but at your word I will lower the net] (Lk 5:5). The disciples do not really realize this until after the Resurrection. God himself stretched forth his hand to Jesus, indeed, Jesus himself is God’s hand stretched out to man.

When Paul lives henceforth “en Christo” and preaches accordingly, he is proclaiming, not some strange new doctrine, but, as he himself knows, the very consummation of Abraham’s faith in Jesus the Christ. He, Jesus, is, in fact two things: the Word of God and its fulfillment, hence, the new and eternal covenant between God and man.

Now this fulfillment is two things at once: first, it is the fulfillment of the fundamental act of the creature as such; second, it is the fulfillment of God’s promises.

The fundamental act of the creature is religio. Religio is the act of relating myself back to the Absolute, which I am not, winch I do not even know, and which above all I do not control, but to which I owe my being and which I prefer to everything that is not absolute. “Je préfere l’Absolu” [I prefer the absolute] (Claudel) is the origin of the wisdom of India, of China, ultimately, of the religion of every nation that has had the wisdom to understand that any defiance any questioning of God, who is always right, is sheer stupidity.

Religio is often clouded by magic, but even magic can have something touching about it, insofar as it expresses the surmise that, when man is in trouble, the Divinity cannot remain unmoved. Any world view that fails to go back to and unfold from, this fundamental act does not deserve to be called love of wisdom, philo-sophia. Biblical faith is not as one Christian sect believes, antithetical to this fundamental act of spiritual nature; rather, it is its unique fulfillment—though one awakened and empowered by God And because the Catholic Church acknowledges the rootedness of her faith in the catholicity of the religious mind, she has a prima facie claim to this title. But there is also a second element.

God does not so much lead Abraham back to the Alpha, the origin (re-ligio), as forward to the Omega, the future fulfillment. Israel is, today as always, the alternative to religio: hope in the God who is coming. This is the other side of mankind’s religious experience, and there is no third. Admittedly, a broad segment of contemporary Israel has given up the presence of divine guidance and has retained only prophetism, radical departure into the future, historical transcendence into Utopia.

Jesus Christ is called Alpha and Omega: he has not only bound us back to our lost beginning, the Father, but has also set us in motion toward his absolute future. He alone is the force that binds together the beginning and the end, the force that can reconcile in itself, as the higher third, the two divergent world views: past and future, Buddhism and Marxism. For only in him is God presence, and so he alone can be the way back to the origin and ahead toward the consummation. Buddha, in pure faith, prefers the lost, bygone origin to everything present, to all apparent being. Marx, in pure hope, prefers the absolute goal to everything present, to all that actually exists. Christ alone establishes absolute love. This love, looking out from the present being of the world, which is affirmed by God, embraces at one and the same time both the beginning and the end.

The catholicity of Christ’s message and of the Church he founded lies in this one-of-a-kind, absolutely inimitable synthesis. And this synthesis works only because the double leap—from man to God and from God to man—works. The angels ascend and descend above the Son of Man; heaven and earth are reconciled in the God-man. Believing in Christ, who was and who is to come, the Church not only secures the religio of the pagans, but also the Utopian hope of the Jews: the total, catholic horizon of human religious thought.

Christological Catholicity

But does this synthesis of the religious act automatically give the Church the right to call herself “catholic”? Is not the synthesis of Christ, Alpha and Omega, so unique that it rules out any participation in his catholicity a priori? Yet what is Christ; what is the New Covenant? Verbum Caro! We have moved beyond the old antithesis: “Omnis caro foenum. . . . Verbum autem Domini manet in aeternum” [all flesh is grass. . . . But the Word of the Lord abides for ever] (Is 42:6, 8), from the word that speaks at man to word-flesh. And so to faith-flesh. The flesh now has the word It is not the mind alone that makes every act of faith that prefers God and hopes in him, but the whole man, down to the foundation of matter.

I

There is no getting away from it: flesh means man and woman, spousal love, mother and child. Otherwise flesh is not really present. If we want to do justice to the incarnation [Fleischwerdung] of the Word of God, we have to be attentive to woman. The fundamental act can no longer be just faith in a word or hope in a promise. It now has to be love for the origin that descends in an act of love. It has to be consent of the whole man down to the deepest fibers of his flesh. If these fibers were not an echoing readiness, how could the Word become flesh? If it becomes flesh, it has to emerge from the deepest foundations of life. And this deepest depth has to receive the Word, not as an empty abyss in pure passivity, but with the active readiness with which a feminine womb receives the masculine seed.

The fundamental act—let us think back to it for a moment—was to prefer the Absolute. The Absolute is right no matter what; our part is to let it have its way (Zen!). Today there is a foolish controversy going on about the primacy of orthodoxy or orthopraxy. Which comes first, which is really decisive? The answer is easy: Neither of them. Neither doxy nor praxy, neither merely thinking something is true nor rushing headlong into action. In the beginning is God’s Word, who intends to become flesh. His is the praxis; my part is to let him have his way in me, to consent, to say Yes down to the deepest recesses of my flesh. True, this is an action, but it is an action that responds to what God does; true, it is faith, yet not in a proposition, but in God’s personal action in me. And if this Yes were not free, totally free, down to the unconscious layers of our being, it would not be human assent. But where could man get a Yes that was so free, without spot or wrinkle, without the slightest even unconscious restriction, if not as a gift from the hand of God?

But are we not talking about two different acts: God’s bestowal of this freedom (perhaps upon some pure passivity) and, then, our appropriation and active exercise of this freedom? Do these acts not differ in the way that Protestants, say, distinguish between justification and sanctification: in the former, God (in Christ) acts sovereignly on me, while in the latter his action (in the Holy Spirit) enters into me? Something like this two-step process may happen in the case of the sinner, but not in the case of the original Incarnation. In order to have his Word become flesh, God needs an a priori Yes that allows everything.

And it really is a someone who, with perfect creaturely freedom, becomes the womb and bride and Mother of the incarnating God. This someone’s fundamental act is neither a Buddhistic surrendered unfree self-being into the abyss of the absolute nor a Marxist self-endowment with freedom by which man becomes his own creator. Rather, it is the act of receiving from the God who gives himself unconditionally the gift of receiving him unconditionally.

The foundation of the Church’s catholicity is this fundamental act that takes place in the chamber of Nazareth—and in it alone. This catholicity is the unconditional openness of the ecce ancilla which, by giving God unlimited room beforehand, is the creaturely counterpart of God’s infinitely self giving love.

Those who think that the Church started later—with the vocation of the Twelve, for example, or with the bestowal of supreme authority on Peter—have already missed the heart of the matter. They can never go beyond an empirical or sociological reality that cannot be qualitatively different from the synagogue. Even the “infallibility” of office then hangs perilously in the air. It has nowhere else to put down roots than the fallibility of the human beings who exercise it.

Now, where does this bride “without spot or wrinkle” (Eph 5:27), this “pure virgin” who is to be betrothed to Christ (2 Cor 11:2) exist, if the universal, catholic Yes that we must expect her to give is not real somewhere, not simply an ideal, an approximation (like all our Yesses), or an eschatological hope (so that the Church would become genuinely catholic only in eternity)? How could the Catholica come into being anywhere if her inmost reality were not created at the very first instant of the New Covenant—as the Mother of the Child, the Mother who has to be a virgin in flesh and in spirit so that she can be the incarnate, catholic consent to the unconditional penetration of the divine Word into the flesh?

We can anticipate three conclusions from this.

1. The Marian or catholic fundamental act is so original that it is beyond contemplation and action. The Yes that founds the Church and all Christian existence in the Church is both prayer to God and cooperation with God’s engagement for man. Prayer in the Church should strive to give form to this Yes: as adoration, as thanks, as petition that works within and concretizes God’s gracious will, and at the same time as consent that goes along with everything that God is doing in the world, as readiness to be used, to be used up, in God’s work.

2. The Marian or catholic fundamental act is beyond childhood [Unmündigkeit] and adulthood [Mündigkeit]. At its origin it has to be childlike and dependent, since only the “childlike” are called blessed, whereas the mystery of the Father is concealed from the wise and the clever and the grownups. And precisely these children, who are overshadowed, not by their own spirit, but by the Holy Spirit, are the ones who are fruitful and adult in the Christian sense. They bear responsibility, but it is not theirs. It is God’s. They do not carry out a mission of their own, which must needs be limited, like a horse wearing blinders. No, they act within the unlimited, universal, catholic mission of Jesus Christ.

3. The Marian or catholic fundamental act is beyond understanding and not understanding. When you say Yes to God unconditionally, you have no idea how far this Yes is going to take you. Certainly farther than you can guess and calculate beforehand, certainly as far as participation in failure and derision, Cross and Godforsakenness—but just how far and in what form? At the same time, this Yes is the sole, nonnegotiable prerequisite of all Christian understanding, of all theology and ecclesial wisdom. You cannot understand a Lord in whom “all the promises of God find their Yes” (2 Cor 1:20) alongside of this Yes. Christian truth is esoteric in the sense that it can be discerned only from within, in being carried out in faith and action, not from outside, from a box seat in the theater. Nor by a partial identification (with the reservations that implies), but only out of a total, universal, and, therefore, catholic identification with God’s ways in the flesh.

II

The Catholic Church, whose qualitative foundation is laid in the house of Nazareth, takes on her outward, visible dimension in the course of the life, death, and Resurrection of Christ. Nazareth makes the idea of “becoming flesh” necessary for, and relevant to, the Church. A purely spiritual Church, an ideal Church, an invisible Church—all these are a priori uncatholic, because they do not take seriously the totality of man, who is both clay from below and breath breathed from above.

The distinctive substance of the New Testament came into being in Nazareth: enfleshed faith. And because a Church must come into being in order to guard Christ’s heritage and to guarantee his presence and relevance for all times, a nail, a stake, has to be driven into the flesh of the world’s history. It has to be palpably obvious, downright coarse, impossible to interpret away or to overlook. It has to be as painful as a nail of the Cross, handwriting on the wall warning all ages that God’s Word has become flesh, that it is not merely a word in individual consciences or merely paper you can purchase in a bookshop or merely an ethico-political plan of action that every generation is free to refashion to suit its needs. An awl in the flesh, an indelible reminder, a nail driven in so deeply that it can no longer be removed from the flesh of history Everything else can be hung on this nail. The nail is [ecclesiastical] office.

It would be so nice if we could dehistoricize the Gospel and put it on some humanistic common ground: “Christianity not Mysterious” (John Toland); “Christianity as Old as Creation” (Matthew Tindal); Christianity as an idealistic religion of reason (from Lessing to Hegel, from Strauß to Harnack). Unfortunately, we have learned two things since then: that we cannot detach Jesus from the culture of his time and its historical horizon—we have been warned against that, from Overbeck to Albert Schweitzer; and, simultaneously, that we know Jesus only through the testimonies of the primitive Church, that an abstraction from the records of the first Christians’ faith leads to a dark void. We know, in other words, that the game is up with idyllic, professorial, so-called “objective” portraits of Jesus.

But let us joyfully make the most of the (for scholarship sobering and depressing) insight that we cannot have Christ without his Church! That she alone preserves his legacy and his image, an image of which she, the bride, bears the imprint and which the Bridegroom’s Spirit has shaped out of her faith. The reciprocity of the Christ-Church relationship is as indissoluble as that of the relationship between mother and child.

Incarnate office is the ecclesial counterpart of Mary’s enfleshed Yes in the Church. Everything hangs, as if on a nail, on the election and empowerment of the Twelve, with Peter at their head. That this nail was hammered in by Jesus himself is beyond doubt. The Twelve, humiliated by betrayal, denial, and flight regroup in obedience after Easter, fill out their thinned ranks, and take over their assigned mission. Then the stupendous phenomenon of Paul appears on the scene, and his loving struggle with the Corinthian community establishes the archetype of a Church functioning according to the mind of Christ—in the divergence [Auseinandersetzung] and convergence [Ineinandersetzung] between office and community. Paul, who enters into an already formed tradition and explicitly hands it on—faith and morals—is certainly no innovator when it comes to exercising the authority of his office. The innovators are the Corinthian charismatics, and Paul calls them to order with all imaginable zeal, with his entire Christ-consecrated missionary existence.

The major Pauline letters have two foci: first, the order of redemption in Christ: the doctrine of justification and sanctification, above all in the Letter to the Galatians and the Letter to the Romans. Second, the order of the redeemed in the hierarchically [amtlich] constituted Church: the doctrine of the Church in the dramatic tension [Auseinandersetzung] between office and community, above all in First and Second Corinthians. The Reformers appropriated only the first half of Paulinism, whereas the Counter-Reformation unfortunately failed to exploit the full power of the second.

This second half is more dramatically relevant today than ever, yet there is nothing essential in contemporary assaults on the principle of hierarchical office, in the protests of the latest clerical and lay charismatics, that Paul’s ecclesiology (especially at the end of the Second Letter to the Corinthians) does not anticipate and correct. Paul orders and governs Church affairs, establishes ecclesiastical law, and lays down rules for the relationship between the strong and the weak. Above all, he shows that if the charismatic does not unceasingly transcend itself toward the Lord’s unity, it ceases to be catholic. And it is the function of the Church’s office to demand and enforce this transcendence. As a “ministry of Christ” [Dienstan Christus] in the Church, ecclesial office is the efficacious sign Christ himself has established to show that the body is alive only when it is governed and quickened from above itself, by the head.

The Church is a living body, and a body has a structure. Now, the Church’s structure is essentially her office, understood as a function for the sake of the organism. We totally miss the point when we disparage the structure of a living body with the term “institution”. The higher an organism is, the more developed and complex its organization. The rigid skeleton serves flexibility; the living flesh would be nothing but a shapeless mass without the body’s hard and tough parts.

The Church is primarily, not a sociological organization, but the living flesh of Christ that is fed by his Eucharist. It follows that the Church’s office and everything that goes with it—sacraments, tradition, the Bible, Church law and Church discipline, and so forth—is pneumatic. It goes without saying that in the New Testament pneuma is not the opposite of Incarnation; rather, it is its cause and, from another point of view, its enduring effect. The Christian should reflect for a moment: Are there any Christian goods he does not owe, directly or indirectly, to what he perhaps contemptuously dismisses as “institution” or the “establishment”? The real saints were all aware of this debt, and it is characteristic of them that they always remained in the organism of the Church, drew their life from her and added new organic tissue to her.

The objection that the Church structure depicted in Paul’s letters cannot serve as a model for the postapostolic period because later officeholders no longer possess the fullness of apostolic authority does not hold water. If this were the case, then a vital portion of the New Testament canon would have no more than antiquarian value for us. Paul makes a point of calling, not only himself, but also his collaborators and successors “servants of Christ”, “co-workers of God”, and he demands (in Corinth, no less) the very same reverent reception, the very same obedience for them as he does for himself Moreover, there is scarcely any interval of time between the pastoral letters, where we see these successors actively exercising their office, and the marvelous Letter of Clement, where Rome wields this same office with strength and delicate modesty by Rome in relation to Corinth.

Of course, the successors do not have the apostles’ Church-founding functions and the special powers belonging to them. Nor do they need them, for the structure has already been established and must only be kept alive. In the same way, the founder of an order receives special powers along with his unique mission. Yet this does not mean that abbots or other superiors will not succeed him.

Hierarchical office serves the charismatic dimension. It exists in order to awaken and foster personal and social life as well as to prune it for the sake of growth, indeed, to demand sacrifices from it, just like the vinedresser: “Every branch of mine that . . . bear[s] fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit” (Jn 15:2). Paul does this expressly when he calls for difficult sacrifices on the part of the so-called “strong”; they are not only to put up benevolently with the weak; they must set aside their own judgment when the welfare of the whole—to which these weak believers also belong—is at stake: “We who are strong ought. . . not to please ourselves. . . . For Christ did not please himself, but, as it is written, ‘the reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me.’ For whatever was written in former days was written for our [the strong’s] instruction” (Rom 15:14; emphasis added). And Paul is ready to face anyone, especially self-assured charismatics, with weapons that are powerful, not in an earthly sense, but genuinely (in other words, pneumatically) so. He will wield these weapons to destroy pseudo-theological “arguments and every proud obstacle to the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ” (2 Cor 10:5). He does so, though, in virtue of the “authority which the Lord has given me for building up and not for tearing down” (2 Cor 13:10). For when Paul takes “every thought captive” in order to lead it “to obey Christ”, he redirects a theology gone astray in a fancied freedom back to the Yes of perfect faith. This Yes gives the only true Christian freedom: incarnate pliancy to the incarnating Word of God.

Precisely at this point the catholicity of office comes into view. Hierarchical office is a permanently estabhshed principle in the Church whose essential function consists in preventing the inevitable particularity of a charism or an association of charisms from becoming self-enclosed. Indeed, office compels openness to something indefinitely greater than the charismatic club. It thus has the formal dimensions of the Marian Yes: everything, really everything, that God wills—however much it may transcend my horizon.

Once again let us draw three conclusions from what has been said. These will guide us along the way of further reflection.

1. Hierarchical office is, as has been said, the nail driven into history upon which the Church hangs. It is the guarantee of the Church’s fleshliness. As such, office is the ever new presence of the origin through all ages. It is more than a memory of the origin; it is its immediate presentation. More than a memoria, it is a real praesentia. It is this as pure service, as a self-effacement for the sake of one’s function, which is the necessary condition of acting and speaking with the authority of Christ. Just as Christ himself became the slave of God and of all men in order to act and speak in the authority of the Father, so too it is the task of hierarchical office to represent the unity of the head within the structure of the organism. Not to be this unity, but to embody it efficaciously in virtue of the will of the Founder. Now, without the unifying Petrine office, this representation would remain historically abstract and disincarnate. Solovyev understood this point perfectly. Individual groups and particular churches (each one with or without a leader) must come together in a common spirit.

One might make a virtue of ecumenical necessity and say that the point of convergence is Christ, who is enthroned above the whole history of the Church and her pluralism. Nevertheless, this would still leave the point of unity unincarnate within history, here and now, and the great words of institution in Matthew (16:18), Luke (22:32), and John (20:3-10; 21:1-19) would, needless to say, be unfulfilled. But another thing would remain unfulfilled as well: the sole historical guarantee that the necessary pluralism of theological schools, pastoral practices, and Spirit-kindled charisms can genuinely be integrated in a concrete unity and be understood as members of the one Lord. The office that is centrally unified in the pope is thus the guarantee and the decisive test that the unpredictable plurality of manifestations of Christian life is the fullness of a universal, Catholic unity.

2. Hierarchical office is, as was said, authority as pure service, hence, as an enduring sign that points away from itself to the Lord. It disappears, thus letting the Lord appear. For this reason, it is extremely misleading to call the priest alter Christus, for there is only one. In his sacramental and pastoral activity, the priest leaves the doing and the saying to the one Christ; but he has power to do precisely that. And even teaching, preaching, and the formulating of dogmas are always a pointer, a fragmentary explanation. Never a mastery of the full truth that is Christ. But precisely for this reason they can be an authentic guarding of the deposit of faith against usurpers who use theology to rationalize Christ’s living truth, as if they could master it like some philosophical system. What the Magisterium guards is, not a hoard of formulas, but the mystery to which all formulas can only point. On the other hand, it would not be the office it was instituted and founded to be if all it could do was point and were not, at crucial critical moments, a reliable, “infallible” marker in the fog.

3. Insofar as ministerial office is a representation that points to something else, it has to take its own bearings by what it points to. But it points both to Christ (and the triune God who appears in him) and to Christ’s immaculate bride, the pure vessel of the Holy Spirit: the Church that is integrally holy in Mary.

Peter and Mary are not identical. Thus, before Peter enters upon his office, he must be humiliated by the Lord in a way he will never forget, so that he will not mistake himself for the wrong person. So, too, Peter and all official ministers must always listen to the Spirit working and creating in the Marian Church and must also obey this Spirit, who speaks out of the saints and the authentic charismatics.

At the end of the fourth Gospel, even after Peter’s solemn installation in office, there remains a diastasis between him and the disciple whom Jesus loved, whose destiny is an un-revealable mystery that rests in the Lord’s hands alone. The Gospel of love ends with a great tribute to the Petrine office, but it subordinates this office to the service of a love that it,’ the office, can never fully oversee.

The duality of Mary and Peter, of the subjective holiness of the heart and the objective holiness of the structure, maintains the distance between body and head in the catholicity of the Church. And so in the empirical Church there are two critical organs: the office, which examines and criticizes the charisms to test their catholicity, and the sanctity that in the pure spirit of the Gospel, of Mary’s Yes, can and must criticize office.

~

We saw (in the first part) that there was an anthropological catholicity in the Church’s faith. The fundamental act of the New Testament—hoping, loving faith—retrieved in a unique synthesis all the basic religious attitudes possible to humanity: “binding oneself back” to the origin in self-surrender and the forward-driving quest for a promised future fulfillment. In the second part we saw a deeper, christological catholicity in the Church’s fife. In this context we also saw that the Marian-Petrine Church, by her pure readiness to receive and her pure representative service can genuinely become the fullness of him who fills all in all (Eph 1:23).

However, the two principles of the Church’s catholicity interpenetrate and complement each other. After all, the Marian “handmaid” lives a life of pure service and thus has the same fundamental gestalt as the Petrine office. In the same way, office is to be a pure pointer to the Lord, just like Mary’s whole existence. Both services are supernaturally fruitful. And Christ’s Cross-oriented life is the inner form of both, albeit only by the grace of the Resurrection. But one thing, at least, should be clear: Mariology and the doctrine of office are not side chapels of Catholic dogmatics; rather, they are central, integrating aspects of ecclesial catholicity.

Seen from the outside, the Church is a society of individual persons having the same or similar belief who submit themselves to certain sociological requirements and rules of the game. Seen from the inside, the Church is the communio sanctorum. This communion is based on the Eucharist, which makes the Church one body and one spirit, even as the Eucharist is based on the trinitarian communio and circumincessio of the Divine Persons in the one nature. This ultimate ground of the Church’s being enfolds—without jeopardizing or sublating the person—the pure juxtaposition of individuals characteristic of peoples or states. It thus enables instead an osmosis of destinies and activities, which become more catholic and universal the closer they are to the destiny of Christ. The whole body is thus ultimately drawn to follow the destiny of the head. And in this body there is nothing abstract, no “principles”, “structures”, “institutions”, that lead an ideal, destinyless existence outside of the persons in whom they are realized.

Mary is the principle of all Yes-saying, of all fruitful obedience as a person, and as such she is the Mother whose heart is pierced by a sword, who cries out in travail between heaven and earth. She really stands at the foot of the Cross—where she is joined to the Petrine Church through John.

Peter receives office after his bitter tears and is afterward (the bitterness remains) honored with crucifixion. He is allowed to suffer a reverse image of his master’s death. Precisely for this reason office attracts abuse like a magnet, so much so that it becomes a sewer for every man: “peripsema heos arti” (1 Cor 4:13). The hate, not only of the world, but also of the charismatics in the Church, pursues it; just as the slogan in Corinth was once “freedom from Paul” [Los von Paul], so always, and once again today, it is “freedom from Rome” [Los von Rom]. “The death of Jesus in our body”. And this absolutely in substitution: “So death is at work in us, but life in you” (2 Cor 4:10-12).

The principle of office is always incarnate in the officeholders: in them life inclines toward death and ruin, but without the gates of hell being able to overcome it. Paul’s ship founders, and yet all are brought safely to land on planks. It is good that office is spat upon today, that Judas is betraying it again in every possible way, and that many ostensibly faithful people flee the specter of the “establishment”. The more recognizably the head full of blood and wounds shines through the face of office, the more inwardly genuine official existence will be and the more credible it will again become for its time.

The Church can understand herself only in her Lord. There is no self-understanding of the Church. Mary understands herself in her child. Paul understands himself en Christo. However, today’s world seeks its self-understanding by giving itself its own meaning.’ The Church will never be able to do that. She will always let the Lord give her her own meaning and will penetrate it ever more deeply in a humble love that says Yes to service: “Respexit humilitatem ancillae suae” [he has regarded the lowliness of his handmaiden].

________

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger

I. “Mein Wort kehrt nicht erfolglos zu mir zurück!” Homily preached at the opening liturgy of the spring plenum of the German Bishops’ Conference in Stapelfeld, Germany, March 6, 1979. In Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger and Hans Urs von Balthasar, Maria: Kirche im Ursprung (Freiburg, Basel, and Vienna: Herder, 1980), 7-14. First publication of the pieces in this volume in the appendix to German Bishops’ Conference, ed., Maria, die Mutter des Herrn (Bonn); vol. 18 in the series Pastoral Letters of the German Bishops.

II. “Erwägungen zur Stellung von Mariologie und Marienfrömmigkeit”, ibid., 15-40.

III. “Die Zeichen der Frau: Versuch einer Hinführung zur Enzyklika ‘Redemptoris Mater’ von Papst Johannes Paul II”, in Maria: Gottes Ja zum Menschen (Freiburg, Basel, and Vienna: Herder, 1987), 105-28.

IV. “ ‘Du bist voll der Gnade’: Elemente biblischer Marienfrömmigkeit”, in Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger and Peter Henrici, ed. Credo: Bin theologisches Lesebuch (Cologne: Communio, 1992), 103-16.

V. “Et incarnatus est de Spiritu Sancto ex Maria Virgine. . .”, The text was written to open the Marian congress held on the seven-hundredth-year anniversary of the Holy House of Loreto, 1995.

Hans Urs von Balthasar

I. “Maria in der kirchlichen Lehre und Frömmigkeit”, in Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger and Hans Urs von Balthasar, Maria: Kirche im Ursprung (Freiburg, Basel, and Vienna: Herder, 1980), 64-79.

II. “Die marianische Prägung der Kirche”, in Wolfgang Beinert, ed., Maria heute ehren: Eine theologisch-pastorale Handreichung (Freiburg, Basel, Vienna: Herder, 1977), 263-79.

III. “Empfangen durch den heiligen Geist, geboren von der Jungfrau Maria”, in Wilhelm Sandfuchs, ed., Ichglaube: Vierzehn Betrachtungen zum Apostolischen Glaubensbekenntnis (Würzburg: Echter Verlag), 39-49. Also in Brückenbau im Glauben: Vierzehn Betrachtungen zum Apostolischen Glaubensbekenntnis (Leipzig: St. Benno Verlag, 1981), 44-45.

IV. “Das Katholische an der Kirche”. Lecture given on September 13, 1972, for the Vocations Week of the Archdiocese of Cologne and on the occasion of the thirtieth anniversary of the episcopacy of former Archbishop Josef Cardinal Frings and of the tenth anniversary of the episcopacy of Joseph Cardinal Höffner and Auxiliary Bishop Augustinus Frotz, edited by the Archdiocesan Press Office; Kölner Beitrage, 10. (Cologne: Wienend Verlag, 1972), 19 pages.

________

THE END

[renwritesstuff]

Samantha Traynor Appreciation Day 1

Day 1- Colonist Upbringing:  I chose the Skyllian Blitz as a focus on Samantha Traynor’s colonist upbringing. With a 26-year-old Sam, the Blitz would have occurred when she was around 16. I imagine the Skyllian Blitz as a September 11-type of event, especially for other human colonies: something to watch unfold while hugging your family tight.

Shouting, Samantha Traynor burst through the front door. “Mum! Dad! Are you watching?!”

A 16-year-old Sam was clad in a burnt orange school uniform, a shield embroidered on the front left pocket. The black slacks were dusty around the ankle cuffs from her abrupt exit out her friend Nicole’s skycar at the end of the cul-de-sac. Her short—normally neat—bob of black hair was tousled from the impromptu run.

Running was highly out of the ordinary for Sam (and not just because she was an asthmatic). As was Sam home at noon on a school day (she wasn’t known to bunk off school. Ever.)

Sam’s schoolbag was already half-slung over her shoulder before she abandoned it by the coat rack. Black (dusty) shoes were kicked off next to the door as the girl tore down the hallway of the prefab.

“No running in the house!” Priya Suresh-Traynor barked back, more strain in her voice than usual.

Then again, it also wasn’t usual for Sam’s mother to be home this early in the day.

Nothing about today was usual.

Geoffrey Traynor called over from the wide living room at the end of the hall. “In here, sprog!”

Sam came skidding to a halt, already breathless from running up the stairs of the unit of prefabs. Wheezing in ragged breaths, she fumbled around in her pockets for her inhaler. A few deep puffs soothed the burn in her chest as she fell into the open spot on the sofa next to her dad.

On the screen covering the wall, a news program was already in progress. The Alliance News Network reporter on the screen was an older gentleman in a crisp black suit. His handsome face was lined with seriousness as he continued his broadcast.

[“—ports are still scattered at the moment, but the Human Systems Alliance has confirmed an attack was repelled from Elysium early this morning, around 05:21 GST. Again: the human colony in the Skyllian Verge, Elysium, has been under communications blackout for the past seven hours after a large-scale attack. Estimates of the dead are upwards of 10,000 and may be as high as a tenth of the colony, humanity’s oldest in the system.”]

“Oh shit fucking hell. It’s true.” Sam sighed as she tucked her knees up under her chin. She coughed slightly as the burning in her chest cleared.

I was hoping—hoping—the other kids had just gotten it wrong. Some fake news chaining its way around the colonies like some sick, shitty joke.

And knocking off school early? Was the entire school, or all of Horizon, in on it?

Just—uhhh—shut up. Let me have my denial.

An arm wrapped around her shoulder gently shook Sam as Geoffrey admonished, “Don’t swear. Especially like that. …Good lord, what are they teaching you in that high school?”

“All the essentials, clearly,” Sam quipped back, her eyes still trained on the screen.

A small crawl feed trailed in the corner of the screen. [“Targeted bombings reported at key locations around Illyria. Wall breaches in five sectors. Coordinated attack leaves colony in chaos and stock futures for Baria Frontiers and ExoGeni Corporation remain in freefall.”]

Thousands of people are dead, probably by pirates, and these arseholes are worried about their bloody stocks? Samantha scowled into her knees. God, I hate arseholes. I hope I never become one.

Gotta get rich first. Then become an arsehole.

Priya’s voice was faint in the other room, clearly on a call with the hospital. “—re we taking in any of the survivors? …then what about volunteers? …when we will know when it’s clear to offer assistance? …Look, Mark, I know we’re all overworked as it is… But this could have been us… I disagree, who are we to know if they’d ‘do the same for us?’ …This isn’t about what-if, this is about—“

A feeling of pride swelled in Samantha’s chest as she listened to the ferocity in her mum’s voice.

“I see the uni got dismissed before the high school,” Sam observed to her father out of the corner of her mouth, eyes still glued to the screen.

“I was still in office hours before the announcement went out. Didn’t even make it to my first class,” Geoffrey returned with a sip of his tea before placing it back on the side table.

“That’s such bollocks.” Sam scowled. “Everyone knew by first period and they didn’t dismiss finally til third. …what’s the time differential?”

A smile curled under Geoffrey’s beard. “Don’t be lazy. You know the time dilation formula. Three relay jumps. Galactic standard time adjustment. Horizon operates on a 37-hour day, Elysium on a 27-hour day. What is the time differential? Tell me my tax dollars haven’t been an utter waste.” The professor’s eyes sparkled in challenge.

Closing her eyes, a series of math formulas popped into Sam’s head. Her fingers drummed on her shin as she worked through the equation. “Ugh, this is such bollocks. Time is utterly absurd on a galactic scale… Because technically they’re like seven months in the future. But—carry the four—the attack occurred around like… lunchtime? Noonish?”

Geoffrey checked his Omni-tool. “Correct.” A hand stroked his chin in pride while his other arm squeezed Sam’s shoulders. “Batarians are already taking credit for it.”

An irrational stab of hatred flashed in Sam’s eyes, her nostrils flaring. “What do those nasty four-eyed buggers have against us?? Bloody slavers who wouldn’t—“

That arm rocked Sam’s shoulders again. “You forget we weren’t here first, Sam. And you forget your human history. Israel and Palestine ring any bells? Land promised to one civilization then given to another? Years of conflict as a result?”

Ughhhh…

This is what happens when your dad is a professor. Everything is a bloody learning experience.

…Can’t I just be upset?

“…can’t I just be upset, dad? This could have been us.”

“You’re right. It could have been. And this was symbolic and they knew it.” There was a hardness to her father’s words, an edge he was trying to keep dulled.

The reporter on the news chimed back in after a few stock videos of past Alliance skirmishes.

[“The Alliance has just confirmed one initial rumor: the communication blackout was broken by a team of heroic off-duty soldiers led by an N7 marine. This team stormed a bunker and managed to activate the emergency beacon system. The SSV Agincourt war frigate is already credited with an unconfirmed 42 ships brought down around Illyria of pirate bands attempting to hold the colony. That number is still climbing as other Alliance Navy ships have arrived.”]

“This is like a movie. I didn’t think this happened in real life,” Samantha remarked. Since she’d heard the news this morning, there had been this heaviness in her chest. A sense of smallness and disbelief.

It seemed so absurd. An entire colony going dark? All communications offline?

Communication is all we bloody have out here. Without it, we’re not the Human Systems Alliance. We’re just Another Backwoods Colony Trying to Make It On Our Own.

And lambs to the slaughter, apparently.

The rumor mill at school had been unstoppable for hours. A few upset parents had swooped in to pick up their kids before any formal announcement had been made. Sam had been hunkered down in the hallway with a pair of friends, Omni-tools out and combing through reports. A few clever custom filters had screened out some of the more ludicrous claims (“Third Contact War with turians nigh (Citadel Council does nothing)!” or “Geth returned from quarian space to conquer galaxy!” or, Sam’s personal favorite, “Civil War breaks out in Elysium over Illyria’s loss in the bioti-ball play-offs!”) all seemed to agree on one thing: a human colony had been attacked.

Nicole had chewed her lip, a number of relatives from (or stationed on) Illyria.

Victoria next to Nicole had tried to be reassuring. The brunette had put a hand on her girlfriend’s wrist. “It’s probably some training exercise gone awry.”

Nodding, Sam tried to feel optimistic. “Or they’re blowing it out of proportion. You know how those gits love their ratings.” She’d snapped her mouth shut at Victoria’s withering glare.

Only when Ms. Steinhold had released them from Applied Statistics had the news started to feel real to Samantha. But the epiphany wasn’t immediate. It was deadened by numb disbelief even as she hitched a ride home from Nicole and Victoria. Even as the car radio repeated the claims back. Even as Sam gasped for breath across the brown dirt of her street and saw other families home, their own wall screens tuned to the news in rapt attention.

Everyone on Horizon—maybe even every human on every colony—had gone home to hold their breath.

It was some analyst who came on later who coined it the “Skyllian Blitz.”

A blitzkrieg. “Lightning war.”

Geoffrey Traynor had nodded at the aptness of the phrasing. “Not a movie, sprog. History repeating itself.”

“I don’t see turians or asari dealing with this sort of ‘history,’” Sam retorted, indignant. It was all she could to keep the smallness at bay, the hopeless misery of feeling hated by the entire galaxy.

Are they really that much more advanced than the lowly humans? No one picks on them? No one tries to wipe out their colonies?

“Maybe it will bring the galactic community closer together,” Geoffrey suggested, his tone neutral.

It took all of Sam’s energy not to scoff. She was filled with childish indignation at this point, an impotent rage that mirrored the latest fire-and-brimstone retired Admiral calling for swift and immediate action against the batarian hegemony. Definitely a better feeling than despair, but without any outlet: what could Sam do?

Mum is organizing off-world volunteers to take care of the wounded. Dad will probably counsel his students and fellow faculty.

And I’m 16 and all I do is go to school and play chess. I can’t enlist for two years, and even then I’d be too bloody terrified to pick up a weapon. Does the galaxy really need someone like me on the front lines?

God, I hope not. Because humanity is fucked.

A fresh face interrupted the latest speculation, much to Sam’s relief. She felt herself getting wound up by all the aimless rage. Some calm heads and facts would be a welcome respite.

[“This is Artermis Kingston, reporting live from Arcturus Station. We have acquired ground footage from Elysium in this firsthand report from a survivor in Illyria. This footage made be disturbing to some viewers due to its violent subject matter. Discretion is advised.”]

A jerky Omni-tool video proceeded to play. It followed a heavily breathing camera operant, a young Black man with terrified eyes. His uniform bore the logo of the monorail corporation of Illyria.

The view swung dizzily back below him, his frantic breathing a constant background sound. A smoldering train could be seen down the line as the man crawled around the raised platform. Occasionally, his frantic breathing formed words of prayer under his breath.

Popping gunfire could be heard in the distance along with the crackle of fires. The noonday sun was oddly cheery in the background as dozens of smoke lines drifted lazily to the sky.

Just below the man, an explosion drew his attention and the camera jerked. The sound decayed to static from just sheer overwhelming noise. It died down though the crackling persisted. The camera ducked for cover for a moment before peeking back up to look.

The central ring of the inner wall of Illyria had just caved in as a swarm of pirates fired into the colony. A dozen Alliance soldiers crouched behind blockade walls below the camera and attempted to repel the invaders. One by one they were picked off.

It sickened Samantha to see their bodies fall limp. She leaned into her father’s side, occasionally burying her face into his sleeve when the camera lurched forward for a close-up of a soldier’s lifeless face.

Zooming back out, one lone soldier with a red stripe on the arm shouted for backup. But when they realized the man next to them was dead, the person clenched their fists in anguish. Pinned down by at least 15 pirates, the last soldier standing should have been dead.

Sam felt fear catch in her throat. This wasn’t a movie. This was really happening. She was watching people die.

Oh God, please be okay. Why would the ANN show this??

…I can’t watch.

Suddenly there was a flash of blue and the soldier wasn’t there anymore. The camera was just as confused as Sam was, the screen panning around trying to find the subject again. Another flash of blue as the camera found and zoomed in on the fray of pirates being torn to shreds by a flashing Omni-blade and surging biotics.

What should have been a massacre was quickly turned against the advancing pirates. They were torn to pieces by a lone combatant who was faster, fiercer and better trained than them. Every moment of hesitation from a pirate or a missed shot was an open opportunity for the soldier to strike and move on.

Sam squinted at the footage.

Is that… red hair? Is that… a woman?

A total badass woman, that’s for bloody sure.

The camera/man sighed with relief as the soldier rummaged through the bodies and found whatever they were looking forward. A moment later, charges were set and a large billboard jutting up next to the hole collapsed into the space, blocking at further incursion.

The video paused as the soldier stood overlooking the rubble, a shotgun primed over one shoulder. Just like at the end of a movie.

Except real life. This woman, this soldier: she was real.

[“The Alliance confirmed the hero in this footage was off-duty N7 marine Lieutenant Annelise Shepard, 22. The Alliance has also confirmed the team that activated the emergency beacon system was also led by Lieutenant Shepard.”]

22… 22??

I’ll be 22 if—when I graduate university… and she—she fought off an army of pirates??

Bloody hell.

How—what could I ever do that would even come close to that? Win the Kepesh-Yakshi Grand Tourney on Illium?

Ms. Kingston winked at the camera before quickly regaining her serious composure. [“The ANN will have an exclusive interview with Lieutenant Shepard—and the other heroes of the Skyllian Blitz—as this story unfolds.”]

The male newscaster returned to the screen with a sober smile. [“Thank you, Artemis. The Citadel Council has condemned this horrific attack on human soil and has dispatched goodwill ambassadors—along with aid ships—to the Skyllian Verge to assist in the recovery effort. The Human Systems Alliance has opened up comm lines for charity and volunteer organizations as well. There is a—“]

Geoffrey patted his daughter’s head, ruffling her hair affectionately, before joining his wife in the kitchen. The Traynor parents quietly discussed the Elysium attack.

Sam feigned interest in the news while also attempting to eavesdrop. Her father was muted with worry, fearing for Horizon in the wake of the attack. Priya was more fiery in her resentment. They’d been through hell to move out to this colony and no one was going to take their home from them.

Something nagged at Samantha that started her down a rabbit hole of extranet articles. It kindled something within Sam that was different from outrage or despair.

It was curiosity.

How could a coordinated attack bring down an entire colony’s communications network?

What sort of comms don’t need a buoy network to function? A buoy network that can be assaulted and brought down so easily?

Sam came across a stub of an article in the research section of the Alliance R&D tab.

“Quantum Entanglement Communication: Practical Applications.”

And started to read.

[tsunderrated]

new supervillain whos superpower is that he’s omni-impotent

[lilianding3910-blog]

Going To Family Counselling Might Curtail The Divorce

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[automatismoateo]

This Argument from Christians when debating god's moral compass pisses me off. via /r/atheism

Submitted August 05, 2018 at 07:13AM by space_lapis (Via reddit https://ift.tt/2naUL2p) This Argument from Christians when debating god's moral compass pisses me off.

We see this free pass handed out on a daily basis: Avoiding the entire free will argument altogether, think of any natural disaster. We'll use a tsunami. Pick a tsunami that killed hundreds (if not thousands) of men, women, and children and you will see Christians thanking god for saving the survivors. However, god gets a free pass when it comes to the tsunami, itself. An omni being who allows a tsunami to happen is either impotent to stop it, unaware that it happened, or doesn't care that it kills infants and innocents. But Christians have been taught not to hold god to this standard and only think of him as a savior rather than looking at the situation honestly: god could have not had a tsunami but chose to anyway.

Often in these examples, the free pass will take the form of god being evaluated with human attributes. Christians will offer up such things as, "Well, a Tsunami is just how things are." As though god were human and not an omni being capable of anything logically possible (like not having a tsunami). You'll also hear "But people grow from suffering so god is just trying to teach us things!" As though an omni being would have to stoop to suffering as a tool for learning. As though learning makes up for suffering.