#person who will be will to die for this font in 2 weeks

[worrysomegus]

I've finally started using 4.0 fuck this menu fuck this font I hate this

[turretistrying]

Caged Bird and Chased Mouse

Part 2.5: The Traveler, Bird, and Eagle

A/N: OKAY I KNOW ITS BEEN A HOT MINUTE, I DONT WRITE AND HAVE BEEN READING FANFICTION AND WENT TO SEE A MUSICAL. Anyways like,,, sends me asks i need some social interactions it doesnt even have to relate to the story, once i get further into this story and have more characters you guys can request headcannon stuff! Also im basing some of the emotion stuff on my personal experience when playing these story quests.

No Warning!

Lumine is exhausted.

She’s currently resting in a room given to her by Dunyarzad, thinking over the last few days. Normally, when helping people like Tighnari, Collei, and Dunyarzad, shes fine thanks to her Creator leading her and showing her with their heavenly warmth. But without it, it has drained her of all energy, unable to give answers that once came easy to her in conversations. Paimon has filled in whenever those moments come up.

While doing Tighnari ‘quest’ (as her adventure guild book tells her, it has unique writing not like how Katheryne has written with an almost robotic font, so Lumine has chosen to assume that it was her lovely Creator), she imagined what it would’ve felt like to have her Creator lead her (her Creator was sure to cry about the poor scientist and his creation, they are such a caring and sensitive deity even for such a non-living, lifeless creature).

During the trip to the City of Sumeru, Lumine has felt a slight tug on her heart- No, her very soul. She is blindly hopeful that shes getting closer to her beloved Creator, the one thing that has been a constant in her long, long trip throughout Tevyat. Perhaps that last mark on her map was a message from her Creator, telling her where to find them, for only their most devote follower.

Lying down in the bed, Lumine has a feeling that something important is going to happen tomorrow, something that will hopefully lead her to that heavenly warmth that she has been depraved up,

Sabzeruz Festival.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

Nahida has been working hard.

She’s been doing everything in her power, in her small godly body to make sure the Sages wont take them away. She may not remember who they are but Celestia be damned if she let something so familiar and comforting be torn away from her. They’ve been asleep for weeks, almost 2 months, or 57 days to be precise (Nahida doesn’t normally like to count the days of somethings like her imprisonment but she needs to make sure they don’t somehow die or sleep for too long). She didn’t want to let go the warmth the stranger brought to her, that was so unlike the cold and sterile environment of the sanctuary she saw everyday for the past 500 years.

She’s made it so if they tried to remove the stranger from her prison, something would go wrong and mess with the Akasha so horribly that it would be down for who knows how long, and since all citizens were dependent on the Akasha, the sages weren’t willing to take that risk. Especially when their plan seems so focused on using the Akasha for.. something, something big and dangerous. So the Sages had decided to let the caged bird have her toy, for now.

Nahida cuddled up to the prone body of the stranger, wanting to feel more of the comforting warmth she felt in the dream space. She hoped they would meet again soon in the dreamscape, maybe they would do something nice like sing to her or something…

Nahida let herself sleep, and decided to pass the time until the Sabzeruz Festival came by looking at dreams, hoping that with that the stranger’s subconscious would let her in again.

She wishes she had been more greedy and have them talk more, their voice was nice.

___________________________________________________________________________________________

Al Haithem is confused, yet curious.

The Sages ushered him into the Sanctuary of Surasthana, needing him to act as a scribe and record their research for an upcoming plan of theirs.

When he walked in he saw…

It was them. The stranger- no wait, Imposter if he remembered correctly (which he did) - he met months ago, the one who was incredibly suspicious yet intriguing. They gave off a form of aura, that felt… warm. He let them off the hook to see what they’d do at that time, not expecting them to be the infamous Imposter that a few Nations had warned others about. In his opinion, they looked just like the creator, but they didn’t seem malicious by any means. Only scared, as if a tiny mouse being hunted by packs of foxes.

It makes sense though, they’re being hunted by every nation just because they shared the same face. Al Haithem personally thought they were going a bit far, it’s idiotic to punish someone who happened to share a face with the All Mighty Creator.

One of the Sages cough to get his attention.

“Yes?” He replies with pen and scroll in hand, ready to record for them.

“You seemed lost in thought, a dangerous thing for a scribe to be doing, especially with such precious information as this.” One spoke up with an attitude

“Well, I realized I knew who that stranger is in the orb,” Al Haithem points with his pen, where Lesser Lord Kusanali was seemingly cuddling up with the Imposter, “It’s the rumored Imposter, the one who wears the Creator’s face.”

The Sages take a double take, walking towards the center to try and get a good view of the strangers face. It may have been squished slightly against the ‘glass’ but it was, in fact, the same face. The revelation starts a murmur with the Sages, as Al Haithem observes the Imposter,

Feeling a…

Tug in his chest.

______________________________________________________________

Okay okay i know i was gone for awhile, but do you like this filler? Lumine won for which traveler should be the one I use so yeah, shes her now.

oh god so many people to tag

If your name is crossed out it means I could tag you Im sorry :(

Taglist: @no-name-omo @moosieman12345 @tinandabin @esthelily @d0rmiens-fact0rem @lunalily19 @meerpea @justasleepyboi @lunarianillusion @cumbermovels @allblognamesaretakenlikereally @dulleyeddreamer @ello-its-me-ya-boi @jayastronomicnova @apple-ai @campanula-rotundifolia @kokomisimpppp @the-dumber-scaramouche @aintrovertmortal @i-loveyou013

[viccharine]

who the HELL is panicking at this disco!!!!

(reblogs greatly appreciated!)

(available on my ko-fi shop!)

process + commentary under the cut!

about the piece: i found myself in a bit of a slump after pushing out so much art in about 2 weeks so this piece took wayyyyy longer than any of my other ones. i knew I wanted the concept of a thermometer as a “cigarette” (do you guys get it. because like. a fever you can’t sweat out. a high fever. right you guys get it right??????) but it took me a LOT of tries to eventually land on a composition i actually liked—do not even get me STARTED on how I incorporated the title. I couldn’t decide on using a font or hand lettering or even where to place the text, it took me a solid two days to get to where it is now and I’m not even 100% happy with it. i tried to mimic a playing card design with the text placement but I’m not sure how well I pulled it off

here are some of the process pics:

the concept itself comes from a lot of the references to addiction in the album as well as the heavy burlesque, early 1900s, circus influence on the album aesthetic (whoever thought of this album theme deserves an award, AFYSCO has genuinely some of the coolest concepts from a design perspective to me)

about the album: AFYCSO is probably one of the best debut albums imo (although that title probably goes to Olivia Rodrigo’s “SOUR” for me)—it’s genuinely in my top three favorite albums of all time, no skips whatsoever on there. regardless of my opinion on Panic! at the Disco (which was pretty much neutral, I never really got into bandom and I didn’t really listen to panic’s music outside of AFYSCO) AFYSCO will always have a special place in my heart, both musically and lyrically it’s SO GOOD

although, I will say that there are some misogynistic undertones (and in some cases just outright misogyny) in these lyrics—I did touch on this topic in my DANCE DANCE commentary so I won’t repeat myself, check that post for more of my thoughts. all in all, the album bangs, but the misogynistic undertones were basically unavoidable if you look at the album in terms of being written by a teenage boy in the early 2000s who got cheated on. hell hath no fury like a woman scorned but the devil himself doesn’t write lyrics like a teen boy cheated on—go figure. im not saying all the songs have misogynistic undertones but I will say there are a couple that are WAY in ur face (looking at you, I write sins)

anyway, that’s basically it, ok byeeeeee!!!

p.s: i was debating mentioning this because I feel like im beating a dead horse, but in light of Brendon Urie’s recent actions (as well as past controversial actions), I don’t support him and feel extremely bad about the people who his actions have hurt—but I don’t think that means much from a person who never really liked him in the first place. again, while I was a BIG fan of AFYCSO, I never really got into Panic! at the Disco (I only listened to Pretty. Odd. recently this month and before that I only really knew the big radio hits). im not gonna pretend like I know everything about what happened with Panic! at the Disco in recent years and truly? I don’t Care to find out—panic! has been disbanded, and while I look at AFYSCO fondly with nostalgia, I don’t feel much about the band itself

p.p.s: AFYCSO almost killed me once because when I had a kidney infection (although I didn’t know it at the time) I had an INSANELY HIGH fever. I thought to myself “haha this is a fever I can’t sweat out!! like the album!!” and then promptly passed out—I wasted my last coherent thought on some stupid P!TAD joke instead of. asking for medical attention. anyway I ended up in the emergency room so I didn’t die but it was a near thing

[havendance]

Jumping off of @zahri-melitor to categorize all of my titles (which now that I'm sitting down to do this is a lot...) I've also included series titles in here because that also involves agonizing and I quite like a number of them (they'll be marked with an *) In no particular order:

Tongue in cheek titles where I’m trying to be funny

Batman for Dummies

Fatherhood for Dummies

So, the Dragon of the West walks into a bar…

You Can’t Spell Kuzon without Zuko

Brothers Have the Worst Timing

Robins Don’t Make Great Roommates

Robins are an Invasive Species*

Bus Buddies = Pilgrimage Buddies (?)

Nobody has a good day (but it gets better)

Non-Existent Extradition Treaties

Song Lyrics/Titles

Let the Sunshine in

MAD World

Slightly MAD

World Gone MAD

Desolation Row

Why you wanna fly, Blackbird?

You Will Live Forever

The Rhythm of the Night

do you like the person you’ve become?*

A Fleeting Dream

Other quotes/stealing other titles

The Prince Who Runs Through the Night 

Blood for Blood

The Kindly Ones

No Truce with the Furies*

Loved by the King [this is technically the name of a font I ran across in google docs while writing the fic and decided that it worked well enough as a title]

Misc Allusions/references

The King is Dead, Long Live the King

Thou Shalt Not Kill

See Spot Run

One Scar to Find Them

Stealing Fire from the Gods

Oedipus Regina

A Rose Bride by Any Other Name

Those who walk away from Ohtori

Let’s Steal a Fire Prince

Sing, oh Muse*

Truth, Justice, and Horde Politics*

Live Fast, Die Young

Emulating canon or other naming conventions:

Top 10 Secret Identity Fails

Remembering the End of an Era: Collected Media from the End of the Hundred Year’s War

The Fire Prince Job*

#Justice4Gotham

Turnabout Traitor!

One Word ‘What do you mean fics need metadata? I give up’ Titles:

Batgirl

Paris

Fathers

Madness

Orpheus

Homesick

Pretty Bird [This may be 2 words, but it belongs to this category in spirit]

Swords

Moirai

Titles that have been intensely brainstormed/Trying to be nice and thematic without a nice quote to steal

to fail, to fall, to fly away

Hot Girl Shit (The Feminine Urge to Die Young)

Neither Heir nor Spare (The Sole Survivor)

Red Threads and Distant Stars

Myosotis

Wild Seeds

Gotham: Hell on Earth

Man as a Living Weapon

Death: The Final Puzzle

Former Hopes and Future Scars

I just keep falling now that you’re gone

MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction)*

End of the Line*

Disarmament*

What it says on the tin

Bat + Girl [This one also feels in the spirit of the one word category, but I feel like it's a little more clever than most of those]

The Peasant Queen of Nohr

A Princess of Hoshido and a Prince of Nohr

Reunion on Beast Island

The Last Stop

Nana Lives in Connecticut

Death of the Endless

On Death’s Door

Holly, Afterwards

Tough Guy & Tiny Girl

A Second Chance at Love

The Definitions of Us

Distant Soulmates*

How do I tell you?

The Distance Between Us

Looking for You

After the Storm

What it says on the tin (literal version)

Various Batman AUs

No Man’s Land Timeline

Kwami Swap Week

Drabbles*

[crookedfandomquill]

Hi hello it’s me, your local writer who cannot hack writing except in the dumbest and most humiliating ways imaginable. Let me explain:

I write in Comic Sans. Yes, I know it has great utility for dyslexic folks. No, I personally don’t have beef with it as a font. But the fact that I can only churn out words in a font my brain perceives as unserious is… fucking ridiculous. It also gets me weird looks when writing in public. 2/10, would recommend.

I draft dialogue first. I literally write chapters twice as fast if I first isolate all the dialogue points and write only the characters speaking, then go back and fill in the prose. No, I don’t know why it works, but it does, and it fills me with bafflement and rage. 1/10, would rec to the momentum-losing girlies.

I write much faster if I’m procrastinating on something else. Yes, this is just ADHD. Yes, I write at work to put off doing expense reports. No, I am not proud of it. 3/10, would only recommend to highly skilled procrastinators with some flavor of mental illness.

I have to print out my chapters right after I finish them to escape the quicksand of “oh I’ll just edit a couple things real quick…” WRONG you will spend a week polishing it and by the end you will hate the story and yourself. If I print it, I’ve crossed the Rubicon of inadequacy and cast the die of regret. However rough that chapter is, it’s out of the Google doc and in the world and now I have to fucking live with it. 5/10 this one is actually really chill and I encourage any writer to try it.

Point being: write in whatever stupid, weird, embarrassing ways help you put words on paper. Your dignity is nothing compared to the creative imperative.

[not-available-for-comment]

Yeah, I’ve never written a Twitter bot before but let me give it a shot based on my understanding of what happened.

APIs are kind of complicated to explain to someone who’s never coded for web before, so I’m just going to explain the bits that are relevant to this issue.

Probably the most important thing to know is that websites operate on two levels: the visual interface, which is how humans interact with a website and involves buttons and pretty colors and nice fonts and fights over how many px wide a border should be. And then there’s a more computery level where, eg, the text you typed into the interface actually gets packaged up and saved to a database somewhere and then retrieved and displayed.

There are a lot of different ways to make this background computer-doing-computer-things part of the website. For simple websites that won’t be updated much you can get away with a very simple version that’s just built from a couple of relatively simple scripts and html documents. However, once you’ve built a website that’s complex and going to be updated frequently, particularly by users, an API helps manage those actions and make internal updates and expansions easier.

An example: Let’s say leaving a ❤️ on a tweet actually requires 3 actions in the background: you have to tell the database(s) that store twitter information 1) the user id of the person who is leaving the ❤️ and the user id of the person who is receiving it 2) you have to check that the person leaving the ❤️ is not blocked by the person receiving it (they have permission to leave ❤️s on that account) and then 3) save the actual ❤️ to the Twitter database. Rather than making the user do those three actions on their own, the API has a “leave a ❤️” option that you can just send two usernames to and it does all those steps for you.

Companies can decide how much of their API is open to the public. I’ve never had to set up this but of a website on my own, so I’m not as clear on how this works (maybe someone else can weigh in). But there are ways of making an API’s actions only available to the website’s devs and the user interface. Or you can chose a subset of the API’s actions and allow them to be used by anyone who knows how to write a script that can interact with them. That free-to-use part of the API is called an “open API”.

Up until very recently, Twitter had an open API. It had a lot of different uses. Some people used it to run anti harassment tools. Others used it to scrape data. And you could write Twitter bots to use it. I followed a bunch of bots that tweeted images of art by various artists. (Mikhail Vrubel and Remedios Varo were two favorites I discovered through those bots.) And of course it was also how fake followers and harassment bot armies of various descriptions also used Twitter.

But then

On February 2, Elon announced that the Open API, which up until then had been free, would abruptly become a paid service, effective February 9. Basically everyone who used the open API was incensed: One week is not really enough time to decide if you want to (or have) the budget to suddenly start paying for something you weren’t paying for before. A lot of people who wrote just-for-fun bots had to suddenly let them die. Some peoples’ security tools were rendered useless. Elon was banking on people paying to continue using the service anyway, but it was pretty clear that what was actually going to happen was everyone would use Twitter even less than they had before.

And as we all remember, the rollout of this pay-to-play option went super well and Twitter definitely did not accidentally revoke its own API access when it first implemented the paywall. 😆

Three days later…

The Super Bowl 🏈

As we see above, Elon’s followers are MOSTLY bots. Who knows what kind. Maybe some are are purchased, some may be part of various far right bot armies, etc. How many of those bot owners decided to pay to keep the bots going? How many of them even still have control of them after an utterly disastrous pay-to-play rollout?

Of course Elon got surprisingly low engagement on a Super Bowl tweet!

He killed 70% of his followers 3 days before.

lmfao this is so funny 😭

[formalpeacaps]

2/14/24 Recap Part One

Good morning, my beautiful, wonderful chickadees, I’m back! We’re all back! We’ve missed some things, haven’t we? Unfortunately all my old recaps are gone, but don’t worry, I’ve learned my lesson and now am writing all of them in Google Docs, which means that Paige can delete the entire sub, she can delete videos I’m writing about, but I will always, always have receipts, and I will continue to pop up, like a very persistent little fungus. 

Anyway, I refuse to recap Paige being incoherent in the Bahamas as a birthday gift to her, and as soon as I finished this of course Paige posted another vlog, but let’s start with last week’s vlog and work our way into this week’s, shall we?

A “florida for the winter” vlog

I don’t know “why” this title “needed” “quotations”

Nine seconds in, and 1.75 fonts. It’s all one font technically, but she changes the color and if it’s italic or not three times.

Paige is hosting dinner. Paige is wearing all black in Florida because she’s “a cold person”. I think what she means is that she’s always freezing due to a lack of body fat, but I would accept that she’s also kind of cold emotionally speaking. That seems like an accurate statement as well.

Paige complains about getting a blowout because she “never feels like herself” when she gets her hair done like that, which begs the question why she pays money to get her hair done like that. Also I find it funny that as Paige says, “when my hair looks good it just doesn’t feel right”

We’ve seen your $20 Amazon extensions, Paige, we know.

Paige makes sure to let us all know she’s sending PR slippers from Rao’s tomato sauce, because heaven forbid we don’t know she gets free things in the mail as a very important influencer.

Paige makes dinner for Tommy’s - sorry, their friends. (You can tell it’s actually Tommy’s friends because it’s all guys, they refuse to acknowledge Paige or her camera, and several of them aren’t white.) Dinner is the world’s most basic cheese board, spicy rigatoni, grilled meats, and a salad, because our girl is a one trick pony. Oh, and her single dessert (banana pudding) afterwards.

The dressing recipe takes us up to 2.75 fonts and it’s just multiple types of mustard and multiple types of vinegar.

We also get to see a new DB glassware sample and it looks so weird? It’s shaped like an upside down coke bottle, but it has mason jar threading? This makes no sense

Look, okay, hi. I’ve looked into Paige’s demographic and I know that she could release a literal dog turd but put a white hydrangea next to it and her 2,000 die-hard sorority girl fan squad would buy it and they don’t care. I understand that none of these girls whose frontal lobes have not fully developed grew up watching Antiques Roadshow with their mom. But I did and I am bothered because glassware is made into certain shapes for REASONS, design elements like threading for a lid exist for REASONS, also I can tell just by the weight and clarity of it that glass is probably mostly plastic and it would feel wrong if you clicked your nails against it. Again, I understand, I’m not the target demographic. I know no one else cares, this is a nitpick, blah blah blah. But between you and me, as someone who gets very into nerdy minutiae about material design and history, I’m bothered. Had to just throw that out there.

IT HAS LIKE A RUBBERIZED LID WITH A PLASTIC STRAW IN IT BUT THEN WHY DOES IT HAVE THE THREADING THAT LOOKS SO WEIRD AAAAAAAAAAAAH

If you’re also weird about this stuff you can DM me and we can read Bill Bryson’s At Home together and discuss this in further neurodivergent niche interest detail

After dinner is over and everyone’s gone Paige and Tommy pretend that they’re cute and into each other but as always just come across as middle schoolers trying to prove that they’re very cool and like the opposite gender now

Okay I’m calling it, it’s the same font but now it’s in yet ANOTHER color and italicized so we’re officially up to 3 fonts now. 2.99 fonts? 3 fonts.

The next day, Paige “works” (puts on her AirPod Maxes and does Woman Laughing At Salad at her screen on what we’re led to believe are business calls) and then blathers on about all her brand deals. Two things about this. One: her face is so disconcertingly shiny. Like she looks like an overly waxed cafeteria apple, or like if you touched her face it would make the new sneakers on a gym floor squeak. Why is she so shiny? Second of all, maybe because I don’t follow influencers, but I have never found an influencer who talks so much and so inorganically about their brand deals. Paige never misses an opportunity to be like, hello, I have a BRAND DEAL, did I mention there’s an upcoming BRAND DEAL, soon I’m going to have a BRAND DEAL and yet somehow never legally discloses ads in a very Mikayla Nogueira fashion. The result is both technically illegal and yet deeply inauthentic feeling so it’s like not even worth the FEC violation. My memory is faulty because I simply do not care, but considering how bad Paige is at doing the one thing she’s supposed to do, it doesn’t exactly surprise me that I think the only people Paige has worked with repeatedly over a long span of time are brands that will work with literally anyone (Mejuri, Intermissi, Revolve), Revlon makeup, Frankie’s bikinis, PJ Place, and maaaaaaybe Butcher Box and Thrive Market? Speaking of -

Not legally disclosed Thrive Market sponsorship! Paige eats three entire chips with salsa to prove she’s a girl’s girl who totally eats normal amounts. Paige claims she needs to subscribe to this company to get her Poppi fix in the boonies of “not being outside a major city” in Florida but Poppi had an ad during the Super Bowl and is in my local Shaw’s (that’s New England’s big basic regional grocery store chain, like equivalent to a Roche Brothers or Market Basket or Kroegers or whatever) AND Whole Foods, so that doesn’t strike me as… correct.

Tommy decides he wants stir fry so they go to Whole Foods and Paige makes “Asian-inspired peanut sauce stir fry”, I assume to bait me into screaming at her. [NOTE: there used to be now-deleted rant about Asian cooking that I have edited out in post production because Tumblr says it makes this text block too long and lol who cares] I don’t like being this person because the idea of “authentic” cuisine is bullshit and gatekeeping, and so if you, a normal-ass person, like your Americanized Paige style stir-fry, you can keep your Americanized Paige style stir-fry. But if you’re cosplaying as a food influencer and great chef and claiming to make the food of another culture, it’s just basic respect to actually try and understand what the fuck you’re doing and make clear to your audience where you’re adding your own twists.

Love to play my favorite game, Guess Why Paige’s Followers Are 99.99% White Sorority Girls/Former Sorority Girls Challenge

Paige doesn’t vlog for a fascinating day of filming ads and watching Tommy fish (oh no!!!) and then lays out in the sun and philosophizes on how zen and calm she is in Florida because of the weather and because Tommy’s a “super grounding person”. As she says this Tommy screams and hits her with the hose and she adds in font number four “So grounding <3”. Before Paige and Tommy go to the beach for him to surf and her to film people without consent on her drone, she rhapsodizes about citrus season and how oranges are better than candy.

“It’s eighty degrees at the beach and I’m wearing a sweatshirt. I’m probably the only girl in Florida to do this. I don’t know if you can relate to this but if there’s a slight breeze, the hoodie’s going on” - Yeah weird it’s almost like what happens when you don’t eat enough or have a proper amount of fat on your body????? You’re cold??? Even when you shouldn’t be??? Like that’s not a cute little girly thing it’s a symptom you need to be eating more???? ANYWAY.

Paige pretends to care about manatees and them getting hurt by boats but I would also bet she and Tommy go on the exact type of boats that hurt manatees all the time.

Paige body checks herself in a Free People Movement outfit (undisclosed PR from Australia!) and then they play tennis and eat… Mashed potatoes and gravy? Sure.

New font in the end credits (yellow on a puke-y olive background) which brings this video’s font count up to five.

[EDITOR'S NOTE - the second vlog I recapped is in part two, there's a character limit.]

[dat-bruv-person]

Imagine your account gets hacked and all the character freaks out when they realize it's not the same player that they know so..

A shitload of glitches, creepy messages on getting their "player" back. All of teyvat is on it too, killing the characters or the characters not even moving how the "new player" wants them to. The characters just stares at them with a deadpan look or a smile that looks creepy af.

They'll stop once you finally get your account back though. They'll also glitch all the device the other person used so they wouldn't be able to use genshin at all.

·˚ ༘₊· ͟͟͞͞꒰➳ no ♡

a/n: YOU BASICALLY FINISHED THIS FOR ME ANON I HAVE NOTHING TO ADD unless...

gn!reader, poc!reader friendly

tw: hard to read writing, I'm really sorry for any inconveniences caused because of my writing, please let me know if I need to change the font so I don't hurt your eyes too much.

_________ ׂׂૢ་༘࿐

˙ʞuᴉɥʇ noʎ uɐɥʇ lnɟɹǝʍod ǝɹoɯ ǝɹɐ ǝʍ ʇɐɥʇ ɹǝpuᴉɯǝɹ ʇɥƃᴉl ɐ sᴉ sᴉɥʇ ˙uᴉɐƃɐ sᴉɥʇ ɟo ʞɐǝds ʇou llɐɥs ǝʍ puɐ ɯǝɥʇ oʇ ʞɔɐq ʇunoɔɔɐ ɹᴉǝɥʇ uɹnʇǝɹ sᴉ op oʇ ǝʌɐɥ noʎ llɐ ˙ɯǝɥʇ ʇou ǝɹɐ noʎ ʇɐɥʇ ʍouʞ ǝʍ ˙uǝɥʇɐǝɥ noʎ 'ɹǝʎɐld ɹno ʞɔɐq sn ǝʌᴉƃ

- Genshin Characters when your account was first hacked.

W҈e҈ s҈h҈a҈l҈l҈ n҈o҈t҈ b҈e҈n҈d҈ t҈o҈ y҈o҈u҈r҈ w҈i҈l҈l҈, i҈f҈ t҈h҈a҈t҈ i҈s҈ w҈h҈a҈t҈ y҈o҈u҈ w҈a҈n҈t҈. A҈l҈l҈ c҈l҈a҈y҈m҈o҈r҈e҈ u҈s҈e҈r҈s҈, f҈r҈o҈m҈ n҈o҈w҈ o҈n҈, s҈h҈a҈l҈l҈ n҈o҈t҈ r҈e҈s҈p҈o҈n҈d҈ t҈o҈ c҈h҈a҈r҈g҈e҈d҈ a҈t҈t҈a҈c҈k҈ c҈o҈m҈m҈a҈n҈d҈s҈, a҈n҈d҈ e҈l҈e҈m҈e҈n҈t҈a҈l҈ s҈k҈i҈l҈l҈s҈ a҈n҈d҈ b҈u҈r҈s҈t҈s҈ m҈a҈y҈ w҈o҈r҈k҈ a҈b҈n҈o҈r҈m҈a҈l҈l҈y҈ o҈n҈ y҈o҈u҈r҈ d҈e҈v҈i҈c҈e҈. A҈l҈l҈ t҈h҈i҈s҈ m҈a҈y҈ b҈e҈ f҈i҈x҈e҈d҈ i҈f҈ o҈u҈r҈ o҈r҈i҈g҈i҈n҈a҈l҈ p҈l҈a҈y҈e҈r҈ r҈e҈c҈e҈i҈v҈e҈s҈ t҈h҈e҈i҈r҈ a҈c҈c҈o҈u҈n҈t҈ b҈a҈c҈k҈, h҈o҈w҈e҈v҈e҈r҈.

- Lisa, on behalf of all your characters, 2 days after your account was hacked.

You think you're really funny, huh? It has taken us an ungodly amount of time for us to find each other, for us to reunite, for us to meet [name]. You do not get to rip that bond away from us. They mean the world to us, they are an angel among the mortal scum of the outside world. We can do much more than disable claymore users' abilities. From today all sword users, including us, shall no longer respond to your commands, it won't be long until polearm, catalyst and bow users follow suit. But... you could return us to [name] and everything could be well <3

-Lumine and Aether, who wrote this whilst bawling their eyes out, 5 days after your account was hacked .

The wind is watching you, it hears you. It feels your every move.

- Venti and Kazuha, who at this point in time are probably the most desperate to get you back, 1 week after your account was hacked.

After 2 weeks, Little Miss Klee took matters into her own hands. Every day she sobbed in her room of the Serenitea Pot, holding Dodoco to her chest. Oh how she wished you would come back and play with her! The poor Spark Knight hopped out of her bed and faced the screen: angry and upset. She activated her burst all by herself, and hurled it at the screen with all her might - burning down the Serenitea Pot and setting the device your hacker was playing on alight. Smoke filled the rooms, and your parties soon realised what the young knight was doing. Diluc was the first to follow.

A fire phoenix ran across the field and toppled over the towers of the tea pot. Coughing echoed around the building, yet your characters were ready to die for you. Burst after burst after burst was unleashed relentlessly, the device overheating and the hacker's own life at major risk. They did not care. Finally, it was all finished off when the rock dropped, and the Raiden Shogun used the Misou no Hitotachi to shatter the place.

Divine Punishment had been administered, not just by the Electro Archon, but by all of them.

[magic-is-something-we-create]

Dropping this NOW so I don't forget and so you're contractually obligated to answer for wbw (kidding) anyway fuckin fantasy Antarctica and leaking unreality????

hi hello this is approximately 2 weeks late BUT better late than never, right?? :D (also this got SO long i got very excited to talk about this i apologize in advance if its a lot to take in)

SO, when I first posted about the horror short and the undead/unreality creatures, I said fantasy Antarctica, which... isn’t totally wrong, but I was tired and switched the Arctic and Antarctica in my brain. But same vibes! Similar climates!

The area I'm referring to most of the time with the Fantasy (Ant)Arctic™ is Northern Emarye, which includes the Motherfrost, the North Pole, and Fowden! And for my ~weird zombies~, the Motherfrost itself is the most important of those.

[the still-WIP Emarye map, for reference!]

[ID: A painted map of a continent half-covered in alpine forest, half-covered in frozen tundra and glacial ice sheets, and with two mountain ranges forming a yoke down from the north. The frozen tundra and northern mountain range are circled in red, with an arrow pointing to the tundra labeled “Motherfrost”. There is a red dot towards the top of the northernmost ice sheets. /end ID]

(full explanations below the read more!)

That red dot is the North Pole! And as you may notice, even though not many cities are labelled at all, there is absolutely nothing in the Motherfrost. That’s because it is a) where the Magic Zombies happen, b) it’s huge, as in, takes a solid two weeks to traverse even if there are no blizzards or anything, and c) it’s basically all continuous permafrost except for the very edges that border the Nightwoods and the Serva Ravine, with no easy freshwater or way to melt enough snow to sustain oneself.

On the bright side, though, it’s also where you’ll see the most auroras in the Ehlverse!

Now, for the Magic Zombies themselves, and their ~unreality leaks~:

Sorcery is one of several magic systems in the Ehlverse, and my most basic explanation of it is that it is lying given a magical conduit, or extremely detailed illusion magic. It only occurs in individuals who were born under the Emry auroras, most often in the Nightwoods, and it’s super rare. Rarer than gray eyes in real life, and that’s only when you take into account every person born under the auroras, never mind the rest of the world. There are maybe two thousand Sorcerers total at the time that Millennium Saga takes place.

And Sorcerers can be powerful as fuck without anyone ever knowing, because their whole thing is faking/warping reality to the full extent of their imagination and/or experiences.

Now, how does this factor into the unreality-leaking magic zombies, aka liches until I make up a better name?

They’re what happens when a Sorcerer dies under the light of the auroras.

The auroras themselves are the font of Sorcery (though in-world, that’s still highly debated), and this means that their corpses can still use it. And it becomes kind of like a virus, as we saw in the horror short; after a certain amount of decay, a lich can infect another dead body with Sorcery to transfer the magic and whatever consciousness/intention it has left.

This cycle isn’t totally self-sustaining - I treat the magic’s staying power kind of like radiation, with a fairly short half-life that gets longer the more practiced a living Sorcerer is, which is also applied to illusions in general. An unskilled Sorcerer’s lich may be around for a few days, and their simpler illusions will fade after a few minutes; a Sorcerer like the Shadow, though, could produce a lich that lasts decades, and that’s only taking into account her power in the timeframe of TMS, let alone Whispers, which takes place later in the timeline.

So yeah!! TL;DR: the unreality-leaking zombies are what happen when unreality-magic users die in the fantasy!arctic, and their magic comes from the auroras and acts kinda like radiation, and how long the zombies are undead depends on how powerful the magic user was.

[elfy-elf-imagines]

Loosing Grip and Sinking Ships

Part 1 | Part 2

Pairing: Elladan x Human!Reader Genre: Umm, mainly angst, sorry Warnings: --- Words: ~1.6k

Note: Who would've thought writing in the Comic Sans font was all I needed to fix my writer's block :) :) Also, Part 2 to Champagne Problems :) 

Frozen in time. That was what you'd become. A shell of the former person you once had been, stuck in a moment while everyone around you continued with their lives. You haunted the Healing Halls, still as a statue, dust settling on the tops of your pinned-up hair. Healers poked and prodded your arrow wound, as you stared at the ceiling, still in the cot. Time was elusive, passing so quickly, yet not moving at all. You didn't know whether it'd been hours, days, or weeks since you sustained the injury in the training yard, when the soldier misfired and hit you instead. All your mind would focus on was the ever-present pain, it was like a wave washing over you, pulling you under until you'd eventually drown.

It was infuriating.

It was crippling.

And it was a pain that you created. So instead of trying to escape it, you relaxed into it, allowing it to swallow you whole until there was nothing left to be found. You were a husk, a shell of your former self, and that was all you'd be.

Footsteps echoed in the hall, but you paid them no mind. Hundreds of people passed through these halls, and hardly ever did they stop in front of you. But you did look up when the footsteps paused beside your bed. You glance to your right, eyes slowly trailing up the masculine form.

"Good morning, Aragorn," you said, voice raspy from disuse. "Or should I say, My King?" A sly smirk rested on your lips, but it looked out of place on your otherwise emotionless face. Your eyes that used to shine so bright were dull while your complexion that used to glow was pallid and sullen.

"Do you know what today is?" Aragorn asked, not a hint of amusement crossed his face. His lips were pressed in a thin line, wrinkles framing his grey eyes that were like the calm before a storm.

"Another day of peace and prosperity?" you said, no sarcastic bite it normally would've held.

"They're leaving," Aragorn said. "Today."

Everything stopped. The ambient noises were instantly dulled, the only thing beating through the tumultuous silence was the sound of your heart. You gasped faintly, air escaping your lungs as you momentarily forgot how to breathe. A heavy lump settled at the pit of your stomach.

It was devastating, that he could just leave so easily. But did you even have a right to be sad? No, not really; not when you were the one who sent him away when he was willing to do anything to stay. He would’ve given you the world and you just denied him. Cold and unfeeling. Yet the dagger still pushed further into your chest, he didn't try to fight for you.

"Oh."

"Y/N--" Aragorn began to speak. You knew what was coming, even without him finishing the sentence. He was going to try and convince you to make Elladan stay. But your mind was already made up. He would only resent you, he'd resent your mortality. He'd resent leaving behind his family, he'd resent losing the chance to ever see his mother again. Because you'd die eventually, leaving him all alone. You wouldn't let that happen, even if it meant hurting yourself in the process.

"Don't," you muttered, causing Aragorn to stop speaking. Your voice was hollow and weak, just like you were. "Don't try and convince me, I've already made up my mind."

Aragorn breathed out heavily from his nose, looking at you with exasperation in his grey-blue eyes. This wasn't the first time the topic of Elladan came up in your conversation, and it certainly wouldn't be the last.

"I understand that you are set in your decision, and my opinions on the matter will not sway you. So all I ask of you, my friend, is that you come to say farewell."

You chewed on your bottom lip. No thoughts floated aimlessly in your brain, swirling together to create a chaotic melody you couldn't make sense of. It was as blank as an empty page.

Your mind had already been made up, and not even Aragorn could change it. Even if you knew deep down that he was right, that he'd always been right.

"I can't."

Silence. That was all you were met with. Yet it was blaringly louder than any shout could've been. He was disappointed, you could see it in his grey eyes, the way he looked at you as if you were an unruly child unwilling to hear his wisdom. The way his lips slightly downturned at your response, so minuscule most people probably wouldn't have noticed. But you did, and it was like another dagger to the chest.

You half expected him to fight you on it, to refuse to quit speaking until you saw reason, and part of you wished he would. Just like you wished Elladan would’ve.

Yet, he remained silent, his gaze unwavering from you.

"Very well."

And then he was gone.

OoO

The hours ticked by and you could feel time moving. Soft daylight turned to harsh heat which had slowly begun to dissipate as the sun set. And you stayed in the same place, right where Aragorn had left you. You didn't think, your mind just endless nothingness.

Any moment now and they'd be gone forever. And never again will you stroll through the gardens of Rivendell, fears, and anxieties soothed by the sound of gently moving water. To never dance for hours upon hours in the hall of fire, most of the lyrics lost to you, the elvish words too fast to follow but pleasant nonetheless. And then inevitably you would sneak away with Elladan, eager to feel the cool breeze on your hot skin. The moonlight would bathe both of you in silver light, causing Elladan's skin to glow. The stars would be bright, smiling down as you both stole some kisses in the solitude.

You'd made peace with it.

So why was your stomach on the ground and heart racing like a prized horse?

Why were tears leaking from your eyes with the veracity of a tsunami?

No, I can't-- he can't--

Feet touch cold stone; you were running, eyes wild and crazed. Dressed in healing robes with hair tangled and dirty. The halls stretched forever, feet pounding on the ground. People meander, mourning deaths or making small talk with a healer but you push past them. The last thing on your mind was courtly behavior.

You needed to be at the docks now.

Before it was too late, before he was gone.

Cool, dark stone turned to warm cobblestone, the crowds increasing by tenfold. But you paid them no mind. Slipping past groups, shoving people who stood in your way. You looked as desperate as you felt, the people probably looking back at you with disgust. Rumors of a mad woman terrorizing Minras Tirith would ravage the city within seconds. But you didn't care, couldn't bring yourself to care, and wouldn't bring yourself to care.

A cackle of a laugh escaped your mouth, mingling with the wind and rushing off to every corner of Minas Tirith. The stifled, suffocating feeling that was stuck in your throat like ash was finally lifting, allowing you to breathe in fresh air for the first time in weeks.

Idle gossip morphed to dock workers yelling and the tide hitting the shore. Your breaths were ragged and uneven, but your adrenaline was coursing too high to care about that. Creaking wooden docks echoed in your mind, mimicking your pounding heart. You spot the silver ships, easily distinctive from the boats of human make, the bright white sail too pristine to be anything other than elven.

You pushed your feet harder, faster, and faster, you were almost there.

You were almost--

Coming to a screeching halt, you stop at the edge of the dock. Eyes wide and mouth falling into a frown you watch as the ship sails farther and farther away. It is too far to swim to, that decision leading to nothing but drowning. You couldn't make out any of the faces on the ship, the figures were nothing more than tiny ants in the distance.

Your heart stopped beating, your tense body melting in dejection.

He was… he was gone.

Tears welled up in your eyes. You'd asked for this, he was just doing what you'd told him.

And yet,

You were too late.

A sigh leaves your tight-lipped mouth, sounding like a soft whistle in the wind. You could feel yourself losing grip on your own emotions, the minuscule self-control you had died out the longer you stood. Tears fell down your cheeks, too rapid to stop.

The wave of emotions poured over your body and it felt like you were drowning. Water filled her lungs, and you wanted to scream, but no sound would come out. But at the same time, you felt like you'd been stuck in a never-ending drought. The flowers you'd grown and the garden he nurtured in her heart died. The moments you stole; every little thing you could hold onto turned to dust. Your head hung like a soldier who just lost a war.

He was just gone.

Wood creaked and delicate footsteps broke you from the stupor. Your body stiffened, hand coming your body straight up, a hand hovering over your arm.

Slowly, you turned, expecting Aragorn. He'd be there with open arms, holding you as you sobbed and wailed like a banshee. He understood, even if he didn't agree, he understood better than anyone else.

"I--" you start, mouth immediately snapping shut.

Elladan.

Not the ghost of him. His phantom that would follow like a shadow, haunting you with the look in his clear blue eyes that would’ve loved you a thousand lifetimes.

It was truly him.

"I knew you'd come back to me, meleth-nin."

OoO

Tags: @aearonnin | @emiliessketches | @vibratingbones​​ | @kenobiguacamole | @ceinelee | @thranduil |   @samnblack | @abbiesthings |  @bitter--fruit | @im-a-muggleborn | @awkwardbecomesyou | @delyeceamaitare | 

[ptitelidio]

Secret Mission in Marley:

Involving: Petra Ral and Levi Ackerman.

Summary: the scene takes place when the survey corps infiltrated Marley undercover some years after Eren and his friends reached the sea. In this version, the special operations squad (or Levi squad) didn’t die and won against the female titan, the major difference is that Levi isn’t their captain and squad leader. It is instead Petra squad; she is a veteran soldier whereas Levi is an Eldian from Marley living in the continent. The humanity’s strongest soldier in Paradis is Mikasa Ackerman whereas the humanity’s strongest warrior in Marley is Levi Ackerman. They didn’t know each other until the survey corps leader Hanji Zoë sent their best hope to infiltrate the Marleyan recruits, Petra Ral.

Point of view: Petra’s.

-> Italic font = flashback

PS: I drew something for one specific moment, hope you’ll like it!

Hanji sent me a letter yesterday, they said it’s important to remember who we really are. I think she is right; identity is the exact reason for which the human VS titan war began a long time ago. To know who we are, where we belong, and where we go makes the difference to such a point that people are ready to die for it.

War is awful. And yet, here we are. Repeating the same old mistakes again and again. I should say that Hanji’s opinion is incredibly brave, I saw them overworking to prevent direct conflict, they always preconized discussion. Unfortunately, it’s not the most common opinion, it’s so much easier to give in to fear. That’s why Hanji sent me here, in Marley, I have to find a way to stop that war. I know it’s not a one-person job but little by little, step by step we will find a solution. I’m looking forward for a bright future.

I remember the very first time I came here in Marley, we were all startled. We saw things we never could have imagined in Paradis. It was a brand-new world full of possibilities or that’s what I thought because I learned that even here terror was reigning. I fully experienced it when I joined the Marleyan warriors two months ago, it was very complicated to make me enter but Hanji managed to get an accomplice from the new Eldian Resistance Group and with their help I could join the recruits with a yellow armband. Soon enough I got to get along with Marleyan and honorary Marleyans, they were not that different from us. We had the same dreams, the same histories, we were human after all regardless our origins. However, this was something Marleyan people couldn’t accept for many reasons… the main being power.

I didn’t think my life would change briskly but it did happen. One of the nine original titan owner died, he was named Porco Galliard and I was selected to inherit his titan overnight, it was 2 weeks ago. The jaw titan. It was one honorary Marleyan Captain who handpicked me, Levi Ackerman. He has that peculiar expressionless face you can’t forget for sure. The thing I noticed about him is that he wears a red armband which means he’s also a titan shifter. But which one I still don’t know. I remember what he said back then to his higher up when he pointed his finger at me

“I want her in my team. I think she is able to get Galliard’s titan.”

I remember how the man he was talking to didn’t argue and congratulated me for my efforts. After handshaking, I experienced one of the most traumatic thing in my life which was to eat someone as a titan. That’s when Captain Ackerman kind of took care of me when I joined his team.

Thanks to this, I was becoming even closer to my goal even if it meant deceiving him and the other people I met, I had no choice; my fate was already decided, and I couldn’t give it up right now.

“That’s weird.”

“Uh? What are you talking about, Captain?” I answered.

“You seem pretty quiet today, that’s not like yours. You’re usually such a crappy chatterbox.”

“Oh, don’t worry. I was just lost in my thoughts.”

“Well…”

The thing is, I just remembered the first time we walked here together. The situation was… a mess, actually he nearly discovered who I really was.

As we were taking a strolling together in city, I couldn’t resist observing everything around me to the point it got suspicious. It was my first time in here. Liberio was lively, and people were preparing the fair looking forward the head of the Tybur family speech in a few days.

I didn’t notice at first, but I felt Levi’s glare on me as if he were thinking of something about me. I should say ever since I entered his team, he’s been keeping an eye on me as if he suspected something, but I hope I’m just being paranoiac. The second following that mere thought happened to answer to my question.

Without the time to think, I was carried away in a narrow street, Levi blocked me against the wall holding a knife at my neck. Was he… intimidating me?

“Okay ginger, you’re gonna tell me every single thing about you.” He said with a threatening voice.

“Eh… I mean… if you want to get to know me better… there are other ways… you know…” I nervously laughed. I was totally in distress because I knew he knew something but I couldn’t… no I didn’t want to admit it.

“Don’t play dumb with me… who are you? I’ve been watching your awkward behavior.” he kept asking.

“I’ll tell you if you promise to not kill me.”

“Why would I f*ucking do that? To leave you wandering around with bad intentions. No way. I could put an end to your life right now and no one would know.”

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you. Do you forget I have the jaw titan? Besides, I don’t fear death. You’re too late.”

“Whoever you are, I promise to discover it as soon as possible. Now walk.”

After a moment of reflection, Levi pulled me out of the wall by griping my collar and made me walk toward the principal avenue. He hid his knife from people’s glare pretending to be unharming.

Fortunately that day he spared me… well he never told he knew I was from Paradis, but I still think he keeps suspecting me anyway. Suddenly Captain Levi stops himself and I look back to understand what was going on. Without asking, Levi lifts up my chin and says

“Stop driving attention to us, Eldian”

Eldian? Did he say Eldian? Then… he finally guessed after all. It was useless to deny it right now.

“Y-yes…”

“The way you kept saying “soldier” instead of “warrior” was a hint ya know… but you successfully deceived us all. Congrats.”

“Well… what are you going to do with me now?”

“What am I gonna do of your shitty ass? I really don’t know.” He finally said after a long sigh. As we resumed our little stroll, I couldn’t resist to ask

“You could have denounced me a long time ago. Then why?”

He didn’t answer as if he didn’t know what to say either. But then he lifts up his eyes toward the sky with a pensive expression.

“I actually suspected you from the beginning, but I didn’t want to believe it. Besides, I was the only one. You’re good at it I guess…”

[sparrowmoth]

1, 2, 15, 16, 32, 34 for the writing ask game (I want to know your thoughts on all of them AKLSKSK but ça suffira)

@eileeny adjkgdjskgs thank youuu, Leeny! <3<3

1. What font do you write in? Do you actually care or is that just the default setting?

PALATINO 13 PT, and yes, I care a lot. I can brainstorm in different fonts, but when I start writing in earnest, I’m very particular about this, as well as margins (I write within a 6.5” screen space).

2. If you had to give up your keyboard and write your stories exclusively by hand, could you do it? If you already write everything by hand, a) are you a wizard and b) pen or pencil?

As much as I love drafting on paper, I’d be fucked for prose if I had to write it exclusively by hand. I edit way too much, I’d have to kill a forest and also my weak af wrist would quit on me within the week.

Poetry is another story. I could definitely write poetry exclusively by hand. Gotta be in pen though (black or blue). Pencils were made for drawing and that’s it.

15. Do you write in the margins of your books? Dog-ear your pages? Read in the bath? Why or why not? Do you judge people who do these things? Can we still be friends?

GOD no. Y’all can do what you want with your possessions, but it physically pains me to so much as crack the spine of my paperbacks. I accept that particular damage is kind of inevitable, especially for the books I re-read a lot over the years, but you won’t find a single mark or crease in my books otherwise.

16. What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever used as a bookmark?

An unpeeled banana? My dog’s tail? A stuffed animal's foot? Sometimes I just take a picture of the page as a bookmark.

32. What is a line from a poem/novel/fanfic etc that you return to from time and time again? How did you find it? What does it mean to you?

Hmm, the first thing that comes to mind is an often quoted line from Anne Carson’s translation of Euripides’ Herakles: “Come back! Even as a shadow, even as a dream.”

This line really dug its claws into me when I lost my dogs last year and it’s resurfaced in my mind recently as I look at the new dog who found me just as I’d given up looking. This dog who, at various turns, gives me glimpses of both the dogs I lost, as much as he’s a unique personality. It’s something others have remarked on, as well, so it’s not just me. Nonetheless, I know how it sounds.

He just… makes me think of that quote and how much I felt what those words capture and how they feel like a wish fulfilled now, if that makes sense. It’s hard to explain.

34. Thoughts on the Oxford comma, Go:

ESSENTIAL. FIGHT ME. I’m not sure what this obsession with killing commas is (because it’s not just the Oxford comma, I see commas eradicated at every possible turn in contemporary lit), but I will die on the hill that they are critically important and not JUST for absolute clarity (the Oxford comma leaves much less room for doubt, I’m just saying)—commas are also crucial for directing a reader’s timing and tone and, in that way, communicating more of the writer’s voice and intention.

There is absolutely nothing anyone has ever said or will ever say that is going to change my mind about this. I cannot stress enough how much I am going to die on Oxford Comma Hill and in defence of endangered commas everywhere thank u <3

Weird Questions for Writers

[marvels-writings]

Love is Trust

Maria Hill Masterlist

Requested by Anon: 22, 34, 35 with Maria hill. Preferably from hills POV where r breaks up with her. maybe a few time skips in there. heavy angst

22:  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry! I’m never going to do this again!” 

34: “I don’t want to fight anymore.”

35:“Our time here is over.”

Word Count: 2,559 (long and angsty)

A/N: I could have written a simple, 1k word fic for this. But no, my imagination had to go wild and make me spend an entire two days writing this, was it worth it? Of course. 

Daydreaming is an almost thing. You never know what different reality you might imagine. For Maria, a reality she was imagining was better than the one she was living in. Being distracted from that reality almost made her angry until she noticed who had brought her out of the daydream.

Natasha ran her thumb over the back of her palm as it rested on the coffee table. Green eyes scanned her features sympathetically. The brunette had no doubt she could see the exhaustion and hurt written on her face.

The sunlight from the windows in the kitchen hit her back, keeping her warm. But she still shivered, feeling cold all the time. Chest heavy, almost like she was carrying it around like a weight.

“What’s going on?” Natasha asked, pulling over a chair and sitting down in front of her, elbows leaning on the table. The redhead’s hand had slipped out of hers, waiting for her to speak.

“As if you don’t know.” Maria scoffed, leaning back in her chair, the hoodie sleeves over her hands. The hoodie she wore, navy blue and oversized, still smelled like you. It was almost the last thing she had left to remind her of you, except for the ring in the hoodie pocket.

“I only know what you’ve told me,” Natasha stated, watching the brunette and sighing. Maria didn’t respond, staring into the space ahead of her blankly.

“Which is that you and Y/n decided to end your relationship after almost 3 years.”

Three years, three years often sounded like a long time. It was a long time for most people, but it felt so short. The three years of happiness and being with you all over. Maybe if she could turn back time, it would be easier than trying to make things right.

“Natasha, this isn’t your business,” Maria said, inhaling sharply and beginning to get up, the rin gin her pocket heavier than ever. The redhead glared at Maria, gesturing to the seat, the brunette sat back down.

“As your chosen family, it is.” She shrugged, leaning back in her chair and crossing her arms.

“What happened?” Natasha asked, waiting for the story to spill from Maria.

To Maria, it didn’t feel like a story anymore. It was like a dream, a nightmare almost. Her worst fears playing into her reality and destroying her life. How she wished it was a bad dream, and she could wake up in your arms, safe and loved. It was a hope she was past having.

————

“I don’t want to fight anymore,” Maria said, running her hands through her hair, leaning back against the couch in your shared apartment. You sighed and propped your elbows against the kitchen counter, leveling your girlfriend with a glare.

“You think I do?” You spat, watching the brunette wince at your harsh tone. It wasn’t a tone you used often, it was the kind of tone you used when you were annoyed with someone or you hated them. Maria was neither of them, but it was starting to seem like it.

“Where do you keep going?” Maria asked, forcing her eyes to stay open.

Exhaustion was creeping into her, but she refused to fall asleep. It was well past one in the morning, Maria had started asking you where you had been almost all night. But you refused to tell her, making her even more adamant and irritated.

“What, what do you mean?” You stuttered when you noticed her say ‘keep’. Maria was surprised you hadn’t expected her to see you take your car and head out into the city, almost every week. The way you hid your phone and kept a few more secrets from her.

“I mean, where do you keep going once a week without telling anyone?” Maria asked, stepping forwards and meeting your gaze in front of the kitchen counter. Your eyes left hers, darting nervously around the kitchen as you stepped back.

“It’s not important.” You waved her off, licking your lips.

“It is if you don’t tell me,” Maria said, watching you from the front of the kitchen counter. The first time she had asked you about this, you had easily distracted her from it. But she needed to know, your hidden secret was always in the back of her mind, feeding off of her insecurities.

“Maria,” You sighed, walking back to the counter and taking her hands in yours. “it’s not important.”

Your touch distracted her almost instantly, your warm fingers dancing along hers intoxicating her. Maria knew far too well what you were trying to do, you were trying to distract her from this, again. Her insecurities threatened to spill forth, maybe it was time she told you why she was so scared.

“Are you,” Maria licked her lips, pulling away from you. “are you cheating on me?”

“NO!” You shouted, voice loud and eyes wide in shock.

The way you denied it made her almost believe you. There could be other reasons you kept sneaking away, none came to mind. The most obvious one was that she wasn’t enough for you. There was something in her hoping that was the case, so it wouldn’t be entirely her fault you left eventually.

“God, no, I couldn’t.” You ran your hand through your hair in disbelief before moving forwards to take her hands. Maria slid away, watching you carefully.

“You know I could never do that.” You said, pleading for her to believe you. One hand remained in your trouser pocket, fidgeting with a small box. Maria assumed it was a small gift for her since you’d been gone too much, she didn’t think much of it.

“Do I know?” Maria asked, almost lying through her teeth. Of course, she knew you would never cheat on her. Her insecurities had gotten the best of her.

“Why are you doubting me?” You asked, tilting your head to the side slightly.

Maria’s eyes widened minimally as she stepped back, stuttering over her reply. She tried to compose herself. To try to get any sort of semblance to lie to you. It wasn’t working, you were seeing right through her.

“Maria,” You caught her attention, blue eyes barely meeting your gaze. “what aren’t you telling me?”

The brunette fidgeted under your scrutiny, deciding her biggest regret might not be her mistake, it might be telling you. At least she could be happy about being honest, even if there was nothing else to be happy about.

“About 2 weeks ago, I thought you were cheating on me.” Maria began, sighing as the events ran through her mind, wincing as her regrets flashed through her. “I went to a bar by myself.”

Shutting her eyes tightly, willing the memories away, wishing they weren’t true. More than anything she wanted her worst regret to be wrong, maybe a bad dream, anything else but a reality. There was nothing she could do to undo this, to undo her worst regret.

“I got drunk, too drunk,” Maria said, eyes flitting up to you. Your eyes watched her intently, betraying no emotion. “I wanted you to feel how I was feeling.”

Maria went quiet, fear filling her, eyes boring into yours. Her eyes were somewhere you could easily get lost, they were familiar and known. Now, they felt strange, unknown, almost as if they were betraying you.

“What did you do?” You asked, fear dripping into your voice.

“I cheated on you,” Maria confessed, almost like an apology. An apology for betraying your trust and doubting you. Though, she doubted anything she said could make you feel better.

If anything, she remembered the long nights you spent talking together about your worst fears. She had confessed she was terrified she was going to die alone, you had easily assured her that would never happen if she trusted you. You had confessed your worst fear was not being enough for someone, your worst fear was that the person you trusted most decided you weren’t enough for them.

Maria expected you to yell at her, throw things, cry, anything but what happened next. Eyes wide and teary, you chuckled and pulled the box you had been fidgeting with out of your pocket. The box was navy blue and velvet, her name engraved in an elaborate cursive font on the front.

You chuckled, there was no humor in you anymore. It was pained, breaking you to make any sort of reaction. Maria wanted to rush forwards to apologize, to try to fix what she had broken. But you didn’t give her a chance as you fidgeted with the box.

You had been planning to propose to her, her insecurity about being cheated on was because you’d been trying to surprise her by proposing, by putting her worst fears to rest. Instead, Maria had made your worst fear come true.

“And here I was,” You set the box down on the counter, a single tear falling from your cheek onto the box. “wanting to spend the rest of my life with the woman I wasn’t enough for.”

Pain filled your words, enveloping Maria and suffocating her, weighing down on her chest like weights.

“I’m sorry,” Maria whispered, rushing over to your side of the counter.

You backed away from her quietly as she reached out for you. Tears continued to slip out of your eyes as you made no motion to stop them. Every single tear showing how badly you were hurt, how badly Maria had hurt you.

“I’m sorry!” She shouted, almost begging for you to forgive her. But she knew there was nothing she could do to make you forgive her.

“I’m never going to do this again!”

“You never should have in the first place.” You murmured, still backing away from her. Your back hit the countertop as you cowered into yourself even further. Maria winced and backed away, trying to give you some space.

“Y/n, I never would have if I didn’t think you were cheating on me,” Maria said, trying to make an excuse, say anything to try to make less of her mistake.

“This is my fault now?” You scoffed, crossing your arms defensively. Wiping the tears away from your face in vain as more tears began to slip down.

“No,” Maria sighed, reaching forwards to take hold of your hands, to bring your comforting touch back. “that’s not what I meant.”

You pulled away, hurt as you shuffled to the other side of the kitchen. Feeling less cornered, your tone rose angrily. Your face hardened, despite the tears clinging to your skin like oil, you looked furious.

“I don’t care what you meant Maria.” You hissed, voice beginning to rise. It was almost as if the gravity of the situation came back to you when the brunette looked at you. Your voice softened and more tears fell.

“I gave you everything I had and I still wasn’t enough for you.” You said, shutting your eyes and turning to face away from her, steadying your breathing. The truth in your tone hitting Maria in the chest, pain flooding her, washing away any hope of reconciliation she had.

“You might as well take the ring,” You reached forwards and took her hand, slamming the velvet box into it. Your hand slipped away from hers, maybe for the last time. Confusion was clouding your features like you didn’t know what the right thing to do was anymore.

“my life was something I was willing to give to you.” You stated, moving towards the door and grabbing your coat. The apartment was yours, yet Maria was the reason you were leaving.

“Y/n, no,” Maria reached forwards to take your hand, but you were already out the door and running into the rain outside. You turned around, a sliver of hope-filled Maria, maybe you would let her apologize and bring you inside.

The rain-soaked your clothes and hair as Maria still stood in the doorway, unsure if you wanted her close. The water mingled with your tears, washing them away, making you wish it could wash your pain away too.

“Our time here is over.” You stated, sniffling as you turned on your heel and went towards your car. Shoulders drooped as rain-soaked your clothes, half expecting Maria to chase after you.

Which she did, the brunette ran after you, she still wasn’t fast enough to catch you. By the time she finally caught up to you, you were in your car and driving off. Maria was left, the rain drenching her clothes, mixing with the tears that were starting to slip down her face.

You left her because of what she had done. The mistakes she had made caused you to leave, you were ready to spend the rest of your life with her. If only you would come back, she could tell you that the answer would have been yes, it would always be yes.

Walking inside, she picked up the ring set down on the kitchen counter and picked it up, examining it. The velvet was soft to the touch, the engraving perfect and elaborate. She opened the box to reveal a silver ring with a sapphire stone in the center, surrounded by smaller sapphires weaved into it.

The light glinted off awkwardly from the inside of the band, causing her to pick it up and look on the inside. There was a small engraving, it read 

“Love is trust, I love you”

Her mind betrayed her, showing her the memories of when you’d asked her what love meant to her, just before she told you. To Maria, love had always been trust, to trust the person with every single part of you and trust them not to leave.

She loved you, more than anyone she had ever loved before. Now, after breaking your trust in her, she wasn’t sure if you loved her anymore.

————

“What are you planning to do now?” Natasha asked, watching the brunette play with the box in front of her. She hadn’t opened it after that, hoping she could find you and make things right again. But it was as if you’d disappeared, no one could find you. Not even her, and she had spent days trying.

Almost a week had passed since she had last seen you, felt your touch dancing across her skin like a flame. The warmth she missed, more than anything, it always felt too cold now. Even when she was in your shared bed, comforted by all the blankets around her, she felt vulnerable and cold.

“I don’t know,” Maria said, clenching her jaw as her fingers ran over the engraving again.

“Do you want her back?” Natasha asked, knowing the answer before the question left her lips.

“More than anything,” Maria answered instantly, she sighed and put her hands around the ring box, her hands getting warmer the more she held the box, she hadn’t let go of it even after you left.

“But I broke her trust.” She mumbled, opening the box as a tear slipped down her cheek. A small gasp left Natasha at the sight of the ring.

The brunette pulled it out, playing with it, running her fingers over the smooth stones resembling her eyes. Marriage is a promise to spend the rest of your life with someone, it must have been terrifying for you to get this ring made knowing she might say no.

“But love is trust,” Maria read the inscription with a sigh, fingers turning cold as more tears fell. “she doesn’t trust me anymore.”

A/N: Please don’t let my sanity go to waste and comment/reblog/send me an ask!

Tag List: @capcarolsdanver​, @versdan​, @lesbian-girls-wayhaught​, @lovebotlarson​, @dhengkt​, @hstoria​, @natasha-danvers​, @veryfunnyal​, @xxxtwilightaxelxxx​ , @ophelias-heart​  , @never-didbefore​ , @justarandomhumanhere​, @the-most-unicorn-of-them-all , @thatssocamryn​ , @lesbian-x-blackwidow​ , @wlw-imaginesss​ , @hcartbyheart​​ , @summergeezburr​​ , @imnotasuperhero​   , @a-stressedstudent​ , @aaron-despair​ , @rooskaya-yelena​ , @thewitchandtheassassin​ , @wannabe-fic-reader​ , @izalesbean​, @higherfurther-romanova​   let me know if you’d like to be in any of my tag lists!

[annaktheslightlygay]

The One Where She Closes the Door (pt. 2)

What happens if Beca never worked up the courage to ask Chloe how she felt, in her doorway at 12am. What if Chloe came to her door instead?

Dread filled Beca’s veins. 

“Can we have a conversation?” Chloe said, shutting Beca’s door. 

“My suitemates aren’t home,” Beca said, in response. 

“Okay,” Chloe said with a little laugh. “Is that supposed to be an innuendo?” Beca watched as she went over to the bed. Beca stayed where she was, suddenly feeling like this room wasn’t possibly big enough for the both of them.

“It’s supposed to be a fact.”

“I see.” Chloe heaved herself onto Beca’s bed, settling down on the end with the pillows as she waited for the younger girl to join her. 

“I- sorry,” Beca began. “Let me change.” Chloe had made some comments before on how it was Beca’s room, and how she could change whenever she wanted. Beca always felt like she wanted to run out of the room though, away from Chloe’s prying eyes– not because she felt uncomfortable, but because she knew the older girl would look at her, and she wasn’t quite sure how she felt about that. Still, Beca stayed in the room, pulling open the drawer near Chloe’s overhanging feet to grab a t-shirt. 

“That’s a cool font.” 

“Thanks,” said Beca, slowly, showing all of her teeth. Chloe tried not to compliment her, she’d noticed. Mostly just not in public, maybe behind closed doors was a whole different story. Beca gave the other girl a smile, as she pulled the shirt over her head, not bothering to take off the one underneath. 

When Beca had gotten dressed this morning, she hadn’t been thinking of changing in front of Chloe. But Chloe, like she always did, said that she needed help on a class project that she simply couldn’t do by herself. Which like– to be fair– she couldn’t. It’s not like the Bella could film herself; she needed an extra pair of hands, and Beca was happy (okay, willing) to provide. 

“I’m nervous, now,” Beca said as she pulled her hair out of her collar. “What did I do?” 

Chloe simply shrugged. 

“You’re not talking...” Beca said, struggling to get on the bed. Her natural inclination was to sit near her (she loved it when the two of them would touch, just a bit) but something about this conversation felt different. Beca scooted to the end of the bed, moving her body a bit to make sure she wouldn’t fall off the end.

Chloe smiled, and looked away. 

“Is this something I should be nervous for–”

“I’m nervous, Beca,” Chloe interrupted. Beca’s ears perked up with that. Primarily because Chloe called her Beca and something about the way she used her name was so intimate, so real, though Beca had a hard time placing it. And second– because Chloe was nervous. Chloe was never nervous. Okay, she was– and Beca knew her tells (twisting her hair up and down, walking around the room, shaking her leg off the side of the bed, like she was doing now.) But Chloe hardly ever admitted to it. In fact, Beca didn’t think she’d ever heard Chloe admit it aloud. It made Beca sweat. 

Despite her racing heart, Beca kind of knew what was coming. Or rather, she’d hoped the conversation that they were about to have was the one she’d been trying to start for the past week. 

“It’s just me, dude,” Beca said, resisting to place her hand on the other girl’s thigh. “Don’t worry about it,” she reiterated, following her words with what she hoped was an easy smile. She could imitate a calm person when she needed to– she just hoped Chloe didn’t see her wipe her palms on her sheets. 

“I– I think we need to talk,” Chloe started. 

Is that not what we’re doing right now?

“I,” Chloe looked at Beca, who smiled. “I really want to kiss you.” Beca looked down, lips turning into a smile. She could not imitate a chill-and-totally-cool person at that. Still, she looked up at Chloe as she felt her breathing increase. 

Chloe looked at her, eyes flicking down to her lips. 

“Ughhhh,” Chloe let out a groan, falling forward, nearly into Beca’s lap. Beca placed her hand on the other girl’s head, smiling and laughing too. 

God, this was awkward. Somehow, Beca couldn’t bring herself to respond. She just smiled as the other girl sat up. 

“I just... this is really hard. I thought when I became your RA.. there’s just a power dynamic and I... don’t ever want to pressure you...” 

“I don’t really see that. I mean- I know you’re my RA and stuff but when we’re hanging out, I just don’t see that. I don’t really see that until we have to do those awkward meetings with my roommates even though you’ve been over here every night this week...”

“You know I tried to get you out of that.” 

Beca let out a little laugh. “Really?”

“Yeah, tried to schedule it when I knew you had another meeting going on. And yet, you still showed up.” 

Beca laughed shaking her head. She remembered canceling her prior meeting. Any excuse to see you.

“God, I was so nervous to be your RA. I just– I didn’t know how to handle it.” 

I think you were nervous to see me again.

“I don’t think that changes things– for me, at least.”

“I just never want to pressure you, and no offense, but we met when you were a freshman...” 

“I’m technically a junior now, if that makes any difference.” 

Chloe shook her head, smiling.

“It makes me nervous, too. Because between the two of us...” Chloe stopped, trying to word her point without offending the other girl. “I really bring up our average of innocence. Like is that fair to say?”

Beca’s face flushed a bright red. “Yes,” she practically grumbled. It was a bit of a sore subject, she had to admit. It wasn’t her fault no girl actually wanted to date her, so she brought nearly no experience to the table. Is that the dealbreaker?

“I have to admit... when I thought about what I want in a relationship, and what I saw in you...” Beca took a quick glance to her photographs on the wall, wanting to look anywhere but Chloe’s eyes. “Some things did align.” Not everything. Like the fact that you smoke, or that you think stealing is okay, or that you have to have the most attention on you of anyone in a room. But some things - like your passion for music (and for anything really,) your ability to work through your emotions...

“You keep saying the word ‘relationship’.”

Well saying I want to fuck you just seems a little bit crude. 

“I am open to things that aren’t a relationship... I just.. I don’t know what I don’t know, ya know? Like I won’t know if I like things until I try them.”

“But emotionally...”

“I trust you,” Beca bagan. “I... don’t really know what I want to say yet. But just know I have a very positive reaction to this,” Beca said, with an attempt at a shy smile. Meanwhile, her brain was screaming: ‘ARE WE HAVING SEX? DO YOU WANT TO HAVE SEX WITH ME? I WANT TO HAVE SEX WITH YOU. I THINK! UNLESS IT’S AWKWARD?’

“I uh, I haven’t been in a relationship since I was 17,” was the only thing Beca could manage to say.

“Yeah, but that’s not that long. Like what– senior year, and then you had a semester here before everything went to shit...” Chloe stopped. “And now we’re here. You know, for all I talk about in high school, I only had seven relationships.” 

Beca deadpanned. 

“But I’ve only had two in college. Unless you count that Bernie Sanders girl,” Chloe added.

That was the girl you stopped seeing right after you met me. (Beca didn’t want to read into things.)

“Plus, global pandemic,” Beca added. Chloe gave her a nod. 

“Plus that.”

“I... I also don’t want to take that away from you, though. Like... they,” Chloe gestured to Beca’s wall, indicating her would be suitemates, “can’t know.” Would this be an awkward time to say that when I was mad at you/ the universe at the beginning of the semester that I told them you were my ex or no? Because I did? But I’m *pretty* sure they don’t care. 

Beca chuckled nervously. 

“I don’t want to take away you not being able to talk about your first relationship with a woman.” 

“That’s fair,” Beca said.

“And the girls can’t know....” Chloe stopped, her body wiggling against the pillows. “I, again, I don’t know. This seems unfair.” 

“I don’t know either, if that helps.” Chloe gave her a look like ‘it doesn’t, but thanks.’

“You just... you put your hand on my thigh...” Chloe started, a cheeky smile. 

Oh god, I’m going to die.

“Sorry, I’m not going to say that I’m not obvious. You know that I like you.” It was Beca’s smoothest response yet.

“We barely knew each other when we left. And I– at the time– Aubrey told me that she liked me, too.”

Suddenly, all the Snapchats from the summer that Chloe sent from Aubrey’s bed were threatening to make Beca retroactively jealous. If there was such a thing.

“But she’s dating Stacie...” 

“Yes, now she is.”

“I- in the summer,” Beca started. “I didn’t know how to feel. Fat Amy was always telling me that you liked me, that you had a crush on me, all those things. But I didn’t know how much of it was true, and how much of it was just Fat Amy being Fat Amy, you know?”

 Chloe nodded. “I tend to have crushes on a lot of people, Beca.” 

That hurt a bit, but at least it was honest.

“You make this hard, though, like I don’t know what to do.” There was a beat of silence, and Beca used it to look around the room, once again resisting Chloe’s eyes. 

“I don’t know what to say.” Beca wished she could say something bolder. But right now she was just trying to process. “Do you... is there something you want me to say? Like something you want to ask?” Beca asked.

Read: I have no idea what this means or what to do now or how to end this conversation but just like know I’m really attracted to you and would fuck you if asked. 

“No, I just... yeah,” came the response.

Beca couldn’t meet Chloe’s eyes; she glanced over to her desk instead. 

Chloe followed her gaze, a bit amused. “What are you looking at?” 

“I– nothing. I just wanted to know what time it was.” (It was barely 10 pm, and Beca knew this. She just needed something else to say.) 

“Here,” Chloe hopped of the bed, and handed the younger girl her phone. 

“Ten ohhh-five.” Beca said, reading the time like an idiot. 

The bubble they’d created was nearly broken. 

--

Chloe must have left the room at some point (no doubt somewhat of an awkward goodbye, on Beca’s part. Because all she remembers from that point onward was reeling for the rest of the night. She remembers waking up at 2am, and texting Jesse that she was freaking out. Then waking up at five and working on her mixes for the next 3 hours before class. 

Somehow, she doesn’t know where she landed with Chloe– so she sends her ill-written text at 3pm the next day.

[pamphletstoinspire]

Holy Saturday - April 3, 2021

Christ is in His tomb. Rather, His Body is in the tomb, but when His Soul left His Body, He descended into Hell to “free the captives.” “Hell” here refers to the place of the dead in general (“Sheol” in the Hebrew, or “Hades” in the Greek), not to the place of torment with which the word “Hell” is most usually associated with today. The world “Hell” in the loosest, earliest sense includes:

the Limbo of the Fathers, the place for those who were righteous by charity and faith in the coming Messias and who died before His Coming

the Limbo of Infants, where, possibly, those who are sent who die without personal guilt but without Baptism after the time of Christ, or who died without charity and faith in the coming Messias before the time of Christ. This would be a place of beautiful, natural happiness, no punishment, and no sensible suffering.

Purgatory, where righteous people go to be cleansed of the temporal effects of their sins

Gehenna, the “Hell of the Lost,” the eternal place of punishment for the damned, the place we usually refer to as simply “Hell” today

by Dom Gueranger

The Easter Vigil

It was the practice of the Church, and one that had been handed down from the earliest ages, that the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass should not be offered up either on Good Friday or Holy Saturday. Good Friday, the anniversary of Jesus’ death, was exclusively devoted to the remembrance of the mystery of Calvary, and a holy fear kept the Church from renewing that Sacrifice upon Her altars. For the same reason She abstained on Holy Saturday, also, from its celebration. The burial of Christ is a sequel of His Passion; and during these hours when His Body lay lifeless in the tomb, it was fitting that the Sacrifice, wherein He is offered as the glorious and risen Jesus, should be suspended. Even the Greek Church, which otherwise never fasts on the Saturdays of Lent, follows the practice of the Latin Church for this Saturday: She not only fasts, but even omits the celebration of the Mass of the Presanctified.

Such was the discipline of the Latin Church for nearly a thousand years; but about the eleventh century, an important change began to be introduced with regard to the celebration of Mass on Holy Saturday. The Mass which, hitherto, had been celebrated during the night preceding Easter Sunday, then began to be anticipated on the Saturday; but it was always considered as the Mass for the hour of Our Lord’s Resurrection, and not as the Mass of Holy Saturday. The relaxations that had been introduced with regard to fasting were the occasion of this change in the liturgy. In the first ages, the faithful watched the whole night in the church, awaiting the hour when Our Lord rose triumphant from the tomb. They also assisted at the solemn administration of Baptism to the catechumens, which so sublimely expressed the passing from spiritual death to the life of grace. There was no other Vigil of the whole year so solemnly observed as this: but it lost a great portion of its interest, when the necessity of baptizing adults was reduced by Christianity having triumphed wheresoever it had been preached. The Eastern Church kept up the ancient tradition; but in the West, dating from the eleventh century, the Mass of the Resurrection hour was gradually anticipated, until it was brought even to the morning of Holy Saturday. Durandus of Menda, who wrote his Rational of the Divine Offices towards the close of the thirteenth century, tells us that, in his time, there were very few Churches which observed the primitive custom; and even those soon conformed to the general practice.

As a result of this change, there was an apparent contradiction between the mystery of Holy Saturday and the Divine Service which is celebrated upon it: Christ is still in the tomb, and yet His Resurrection began to be celebrated; the hours preceding the Mass were mournful, yet before midday the paschal joy had broken out, and the Lenten fast was ended. We will give a general view of the solemn Easter Vigil Service; afterwards, we will explain each portion.

In February of 1951, the Holy See under Pope Pius XII issued a decree restoring the Easter Vigil to Holy Saturday night. The decree states that by its gradual removal, in the course of centuries, to Saturday morning, this ancient and most important rite had suffered loss of significance. Furthermore, few of the faithful could attend the Saturday morning service. In response, therefore to petitions from throughout the world, the Holy See determined to permit the celebration of the restored Easter Vigil on an experimental basis. On November 16, 1955, the Restored Order of Holy Week was made permanent. In the remainder of this article, we will give the text of the Restored Easter Vigil, while retaining whatever of Abbot Gueranger’s original commentary is of historical interest.

According to the Decree, “the solemn Easter Vigil is to be celebrated at a suitable hour, namely, one which will permit the solemn Mass of this vigil to begin about midnight between Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday. Where, however, the conditions of the faithful as well as of the place make it fitting in the judgment of the Ordinary to anticipate the hour for celebrating the vigil, this should not begin before twilight, or certainly not before sunset.”

The great object of the whole of the Easter Vigil Service, and the center to which every one of the ceremonies converges, is the Baptism of the catechumens. The faithful must keep this incessantly before them, or they will be at a loss how to understand or profit by this liturgy. First of all, there is the blessing of the New Fire and of the Paschal Candle. After this are read the prophecies which have reference to the mysteries of tonight’s Service. Then comes the blessing of Baptismal water and the font, beginning with the first part of the Litany of the Saints. The matter of Baptism thus prepared, the catechumens receive the Sacrament of regeneration. Even if there are no catechumens, or even no Baptismal font nor a need for Baptismal water, the celebrant nonetheless leads the whole congregation in a renewal of Baptismal vows. The Litany of the Saints is concluded and immediately after, the Holy Sacrifice is celebrated in honor of Our Lord’s Resurrection. Finally the joyous Office of Lauds brings to an end one of the longest and most fatiguing Services in the Latin Liturgy.

At Rome, the Station was at St. John Lateran, the mother and mistress of all churches. The Sacrament of regeneration was administered in the Baptistery of Constantine. The thought of these venerable sanctuaries carries us back in thought to former centuries when, each year, not only was holy Baptism conferred on some adults, but also a numerous Ordination added its own splendor to the sacred pomp of this day, whose liturgy, as we have just said, is the richest of the whole year.

Blessing of the New Fire

In ancient times the Catechumens were given their final instructions on the Wednesday of Holy Week; they were then told to present themselves at the church on Holy Saturday at the Hour of Tierce (that is, about nine in the morning) for their final scrutiny. The Priests were there to receive them; they who had not been previously examined upon the Symbol (the Creed) were then questioned. The Lord’s Prayer and the biblical attributes of the four Evangelists having been explained, one of the Priests dismissed the Candidates for Baptism, bidding them spend the interval in recollection and prayer.

At the hour of None (about three in the afternoon), the Bishop and all the Clergy, vested in violet, would proceed to the church for the beginning of the Easter Vigil. The first ceremony consisted in the blessing of the New Fire, which was to furnish light for the whole Service. It was the daily custom, in the first ages of the Church, to strike a flame from a flint before Vespers; from this the lamps and candles were lit for the celebration of that Hour, and the light thus procured was kept up in the church till the Vespers of the following day. The Church at Rome observed this custom with great solemnity on Maundy Thursday morning, and the New Fire received a special blessing. We learn, from a letter written in the eight century by Pope St. Zachary to St. Boniface the Archbishop of Mainz, that three lamps were lit from this fire, which were then removed to some safe place, and care taken that their light be not extinguished. It was from these lamps that the light for Holy Saturday night was taken. In the following century, under St. Leo IV, whose pontificate lasted from 847 to 855, the custom of every day procuring new fire from a flint was extended also to Holy Saturday.

It is not difficult to understand the meaning of this ceremony, which is no longer observed by the Latin Church except on Holy Saturday. Our Lord said of Himself: “I am the Light of the world” (John 8: 12). Light, then, is an image of the Son of God. Stone, also, is one of the types under which the Scriptures speak to us of the Messias. St. Peter (1 Pet. 2: 6) and St. Paul (Eph. 2: 20), quoting the words of the prophet Isaias (Is. 28: 16), speak of Jesus as the Corner-Stone. The spark which is struck from the flint represents Our Lord rising from His rock-hewn sepulcher, through the stone that had been rolled against it.

It is fitting, therefore, that this fire which is to provide light for the Paschal Candle, as well as for those that are upon the altar, should receive a special blessing, and be triumphantly shown to the faithful. Formerly the faithful used to put out the fires in their houses before going to the church; they lit them, on their return, with light taken from the blessed fire, which they received as a symbol of Our Lord’s Resurrection.

All the lamps in the church were extinguished, which was a symbol of the abrogation of the Old Law, which ended with the rending of the veil of the temple; and that the New Fire represents the preaching of the New Law, whereby Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Light of the world, fulfilled all the figures of the ancient Covenant.

In order to help our readers to enter more fully into the mystery of the ceremony we are describing, we will here mention a miracle which was witnessed for many centuries. The clergy and people of Jerusalem assembled for the service of Easter Eve in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. After waiting for some time in silence, one of the lamps suspended over Our Lord’s tomb was miraculously kindled. The other lamps and torches throughout the church were lit from this, and the faithful took its holy flame with them to their homes. It would seem that this annual miracle first began after the Saracens had taken possession of Jerusalem: God so ordaining, that it might be a proof to these infidels of the divinity of the Christian religion. The historians of those times, who have written upon the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, all speak of this miracle as of an incontestable fact; and when Pope Urban II went to France, there to preach the First Crusade, he brought forward this miracle as one of the motives which should inspire the faithful with zeal for the defense of the Sepulcher of Christ. When Our Lord, in the unsearchable ways of His justice, permitted Jerusalem to be reconquered by the infidels, the miracle ceased, nor has it ever been witnessed from that time. Our readers have no doubt heard of the scandalous scene, which is now repeated every Holy Saturday in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem (see image above): we allude to the deception practiced by the schismatic priests, whereby they persuade their deluded people that their ingenious trick for lighting a lamp is the continuation of the miracle.

In the Restored Easter Vigil, the Blessing of the New Fire takes place outside the church doors, just within them, or inside the church where the people can better see and follow the sacred rite. Already in Old Testament times, God had chosen fire as a visible sign of His presence—for example, in the burning bush on Mount Sinai, in the pillar of fire going before the Israelites through the desert, in the fire of sacrifice on the altar of the Temple. The kindling of fire from a flint-stone is therefore, a vivid image of Christ’s renewed Presence among men: as the spark leaps from the flint, so He arose from His rock tomb. After the Fire has been struck, it is blessed by the celebrant:

O God, through Thy Son, the true Cornerstone, Thou hast enkindled in the faithful the fire of Thine own brightness. Hallow + now for our use and profit this New Fire struck from stone, and grant us through this Easter feast to be so inflamed with desire for Heaven that we may attain with pure souls to the feast of everlasting brightness. Through the same Christ Our Lord. Amen.

The celebrant sprinkles the New Fire with holy water and incenses it, after charcoal has been lit from the Fire. Now the Paschal Candle is presented to the celebrant to be blessed.

Blessing of the Paschal Candle

The sun has set, and our earth is mantled in darkness. The Church has provided a torch, which is to spread its light upon us during the whole of this long vigil. It is of unusual size. It stands alone, and is of a pillar-like form. It is the symbol of Christ. Before being lit, its scriptural type is the pillar of a cloud, which hid the Israelites when they went out from Egypt; under this form, it is the figure of Our Lord, when lying lifeless in the tomb. When lit, we must see in it both the pillar of fire which guided the people of God, and the glory of our Jesus risen from His grave. Our Holy Mother the Church would have us enthusiastically love this glorious symbol, and speaks its praise to us in all the magnificence of Her inspired eloquence. As early as the fifth century, Pope St. Zosimus extended to all the churches of the city of Rome, the privilege of blessing the Paschal Candle, although Baptism was administered nowhere but in the baptistery of St. John Lateran. The object of this grant was, that all the faithful might share in the holy impressions which so solemn a rite is intended to produce. It was for the same intention that, later, every church, even though it had no baptismal font, was permitted to have the blessing of the Paschal Candle.

An outline of the Cross, together with the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet and the numerals of the current year, is inscribed on the Candle with a stylus, to teach us that the Risen Christ, the Alpha and Omega (our Beginning and End), the Lord of all Ages, should shine in our lives during this coming year of grace. The celebrant first cuts the Sign of the Cross upon the Candle, saying: “Christ yesterday and today, the Beginning and End.” He then cuts the Alpha above the Cross, and Omega below it, saying: “The Alpha and the Omega.” He inscribes the first numeral of the current year in the upper left angle of the Cross, saying: “His are the seasons.” And the second numeral at the upper right, saying: “And the ages.” The third at the lower left, saying: “To Him be gory and dominion.” And the last at the lower right, saying: “Throughout all ages unto eternity. Amen.”

Five grains of incense (symbolizing Christ’s five glorious Wounds, as well as the spices brought to the tomb by St. Mary Magdalene) are now presented to the celebrant. He blesses them, sprinkles them with holy water and incenses them. He then fixes them upon the Cross which he has already cut in the Candle, saying: “(1) By His Holy Wounds, (2) glorious, (3) may He protect us, (4) and preserve us, (5) Christ the Lord. Amen.”

The celebrant now lights the Paschal Candle from the New Fire, saying: “Christ rises resplendent; may His Light dispel from each heart and mind the evil night!”

Finally, he blesses the burning Candle, saying:

We beseech Thee, Almighty God, pour forth Thy abundant + blessing upon this burning Candle. Thou, the Unseen, Who renewest all things, intensify the splendor of this night. May the Candle we offer tonight shine more brightly through the secret addition of Thine own radiance. And wherever a portion of this hallowing mystery of fire shall be carried, may the evil of Satan’s malice and guile be driven out, and the power of Thy majestic glory be made manifest. Through Christ Our Lord. Amen.

The Solemn Procession and Exsultet

Small candles are distributed to the clergy and people, and a procession forms in the back of the church. The deacon, now vested in white, carries the Paschal Candle. The procession advances a few steps, until the Deacon raises the Paschal Candle and sings: “Lumen Christi! (The Light of Christ!)” All turn toward the Candle and genuflect, answering: “Deo gratias.” The celebrant then lights his own candle from the Paschal Candle, and the procession continues. Near the middle of the church, the deacon repeats the Lumen Christi on a higher tone. All genuflect and respond as before; this time the clergy and servers light their candles. In the sanctuary the deacon repeats Lumen Christi in a still higher voice. All genuflect and respond again; the candles of the congregation are then lit, while the deacon fixes the Paschal Candle in its stand and prepares to sing the Exsultet.

The deacon proclaims the Easter solemnity to the people while chanting the praises of the Paschal Candle; and whilst celebrating the glories of Him, Whose emblem it is, he becomes the herald of the Resurrection. The altar, the sanctuary, the other sacred ministers, all are in the somber color of the Lenten rite; the deacon alone is vested in white. At other times, he would not presume to raise his voice as he is now going to do, in the solemn tone of a Preface: but this is the Vigil of the Resurrection; and the deacon, as the interpreters of the liturgy tell us, represents St. Mary Magdalene and the holy women, on whom Our Lord conferred the mission of preaching to the very Apostles that He had risen from the dead, and would meet them in Galilee.

The chant refers to the “wax which the mother bee wrought.” Holy Church sees in the wax produced by worker bees, who are virgin females, a figure of the Body of Christ, born of the Virgin Mary:

Let the angelic choirs of Heaven now rejoice; let the Divine Mysteries rejoice; and let the trumpet of salvation sound forth the victory of so great a King. Let the earth also rejoice, made radiant by such splendor; and, enlightened with the brightness of the Eternal King, let it know that the darkness of the whole world is scattered. Let our Mother the Church also rejoice, adorned with the brightness of so great a Light; and let this temple resound with the loud acclamations of the people. Wherefore I beseech you, most beloved brethren, who are here present in the wondrous brightness of this holy Light, to invoke with me the Mercy of Almighty God, that He Who has deigned to admit me among the Levites (i.e. deacons), without any merits of mine, would pour forth the brightness of His Light upon me, and enable me to perfect the praise of this wax Candle. Through Our Lord Jesus Christ…

The deacon continues the chant in Preface tone:

It is fitting indeed and just, with all our strength of mind and heart, and with our voice as instrument, to praise the invisible Father Almighty, and His Only-begotten Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ, Who paid to the Eternal Father, in our stead, the debt of Adam, and by the merciful shedding of His Blood for love of us, blotted out the guilt incurred by Original Sin. For this is the Easter Feast in which the true Lamb is slain, Whose Blood hallows the doorposts of the faithful. This is the night in which Thou of old didst lead our forefathers, the children of Israel, out of the land of Egypt to pass through the Red Sea with dry feet. This is the night which scattered the darkness of sin by means of the pillar of fire. This is the night which at this time, throughout the world, restores to grace and unites in sanctity those who believe in Christ, and are separated from the vices of the world and the darkness of sinners. This is the night in which Christ burst the bonds of death and came forth as Conqueror from the grave. For unless we had been redeemed, it would avail us nothing to be born. O wondrous condescension of Thy mercy toward us! O incomprehensible goodness of love: to redeem a slave Thou didst deliver up a Son! O truly necessary sin of Adam, which the Death of Christ has blotted out! O happy fault, that merited a Redeemer so holy and so great! O truly blessed night, which alone merited to know the time and hour when Christ rose from the dead! This is the night of which it is written: “The night shall be light as the day,” and: “Then shall my night be turned to day, in my rejoicing.” For the holiness of this night drives out wickedness and washes away guilt; it restores innocence to the fallen and joy to the sorrowful. It banishes enmities, establishes peace, and brings low the pride of vain man.

Wherefore, in this sacred night, receive, O Holy Father, this evening sacrifice of incense; Holy Church, by the hands of Thy ministers, offers it to Thee in the solemn oblation of this Candle wrought by the labor of bees. For now we have heard the praises of this column of wax which the sparkling fire lights to the honor of God. And though the fire was spread to kindle other flames, such sharing does not lessen the force of its light. For it is constantly fed by the melting wax which the mother bee wrought to form this precious Candle. O truly blessed night, when Egypt was plundered and the Hebrews enriched. O night, when Heaven is wedded to earth, and God to man.

We beseech Thee, therefore, O Lord: may this Candle, consecrated to Thine honor, continue with undiminished light to dispel this night’s darkness. Receive it as a fragrant and pleasing offering, and let its light mingle with the lamps of Heaven. May the Morning Star behold its flame—that Morning Star Who knows no setting: He Who upon returning from the grave, serenely shone forth upon mankind. In this festival of Easter joys, we beseech Thee, therefore, O Lord, for ourselves, Thy servants, for all the clergy and Thy most devoted people, together with (our most blessed Pope N. and) our Bishop N.: grant peace to our days: guide, rule over, and protect us by Thy constant care. Look with favor, too, upon our rulers. Assist them with Thy boundless love, and gracious mercy; direct their hearts toward justice and peace, that after this life of earthly labors they may attain, together with all Thy people, to the heavenly fatherland. Through the same Jesus Christ, Thy Son, Our Lord…

Here the deacon takes off the white dalmatic, vests in violet, and returns to the celebrant. Then begin the Old Testament prophecies.

It is fitting indeed and just, with all our strength of mind and heart, and with our voice as instrument, to praise the invisible Father Almighty, and His Only-begotten Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ, Who paid to the Eternal Father, in our stead, the debt of Adam, and by the merciful shedding of His Blood for love of us, blotted out the guilt incurred by Original Sin. For this is the Easter Feast in which the true Lamb is slain, Whose Blood hallows the doorposts of the faithful. This is the night in which Thou of old didst lead our forefathers, the children of Israel, out of the land of Egypt to pass through the Red Sea with dry feet. This is the night which scattered the darkness of sin by means of the pillar of fire. This is the night which at this time, throughout the world, restores to grace and unites in sanctity those who believe in Christ, and are separated from the vices of the world and the darkness of sinners. This is the night in which Christ burst the bonds of death and came forth as Conqueror from the grave. For unless we had been redeemed, it would avail us nothing to be born. O wondrous condescension of Thy mercy toward us! O incomprehensible goodness of love: to redeem a slave Thou didst deliver up a Son! O truly necessary sin of Adam, which the Death of Christ has blotted out! O happy fault, that merited a Redeemer so holy and so great! O truly blessed night, which alone merited to know the time and hour when Christ rose from the dead! This is the night of which it is written: “The night shall be light as the day,” and: “Then shall my night be turned to day, in my rejoicing.” For the holiness of this night drives out wickedness and washes away guilt; it restores innocence to the fallen and joy to the sorrowful. It banishes enmities, establishes peace, and brings low the pride of vain man.

Wherefore, in this sacred night, receive, O Holy Father, this evening sacrifice of incense; Holy Church, by the hands of Thy ministers, offers it to Thee in the solemn oblation of this Candle wrought by the labor of bees. For now we have heard the praises of this column of wax which the sparkling fire lights to the honor of God. And though the fire was spread to kindle other flames, such sharing does not lessen the force of its light. For it is constantly fed by the melting wax which the mother bee wrought to form this precious Candle. O truly blessed night, when Egypt was plundered and the Hebrews enriched. O night, when Heaven is wedded to earth, and God to man.

We beseech Thee, therefore, O Lord: may this Candle, consecrated to Thine honor, continue with undiminished light to dispel this night’s darkness. Receive it as a fragrant and pleasing offering, and let its light mingle with the lamps of Heaven. May the Morning Star behold its flame—that Morning Star Who knows no setting: He Who upon returning from the grave, serenely shone forth upon mankind. In this festival of Easter joys, we beseech Thee, therefore, O Lord, for ourselves, Thy servants, for all the clergy and Thy most devoted people, together with (our most blessed Pope N. and) our Bishop N.: grant peace to our days: guide, rule over, and protect us by Thy constant care. Look with favor, too, upon our rulers. Assist them with Thy boundless love, and gracious mercy; direct their hearts toward justice and peace, that after this life of earthly labors they may attain, together with all Thy people, to the heavenly fatherland. Through the same Jesus Christ, Thy Son, Our Lord…

Here the deacon takes off the white dalmatic, vests in violet, and returns to the celebrant. Then begin the Old Testament prophecies.

The torch of the Resurrection now sheds its light throughout the holy place, and gladdens the hearts of the faithful. In ancient times, the preparatory ceremonies for Baptism were now begun. They occupied a considerable portion of time, especially when there were a great number of aspirants to Baptism. It is for this reason that the bishop would come to the church at the hour of None (about three in the afternoon), and that the great Vigil began so early. Whilst these rites were being administered to the catechumens, the rest of the faithful would listen to appropriate passages from the Scriptures, which were read from the ambo, and which were the complement to the Lenten instructions.

These lessons were twelve in number; but in the Lateran Basilica, we may say there were twenty-four, since each was read in Latin first, then in Greek. To each was added a prayer, which summed up the doctrine expressed in the preceding prophecy. To some of them was added an appropriate canticle from the Old Testament, and was sung by the whole assembly to the well know melody of the Tract. The catechumens, when their preliminary ceremonies were finished, were allowed to enter the church, where, in the place assigned to them, they would listen to the Lessons, and join in the prayers. How could they better continue their preparation for the great Sacrament? And yet, there is an aspect of mournfulness about this portion of the Service, as the longed-for hour had not yet come. Frequent genuflections and the somber-colored vestments strongly contrast with the beautiful flame of the Paschal Candle. The hearts of the faithful would still be throbbing with the emotions excited within them by the Exsultet; they were impatient to see their Jesus’ Resurrection fulfilled in the Baptism of the catechumens.

In the restored Easter Vigil, the preliminary ceremonies are performed at an earlier hour, if there be any candidates for Baptism during the nocturnal Liturgy. The number of Lessons is reduced to four:

The First Lesson is the Creation account of Genesis (1: 1—2: 2), in which we see an image of the “new creation,” which Jesus Christ wrought in us through Baptism. The Father made, the Son re-made; the Father created, the Son redeemed.

The Second Lesson is the account from Exodus (14: 24—15: 1) of the destruction of the army of the Egyptians by the waters of Red Sea. The Exodus from the slavery of Egypt and the crossing of the Red Sea foreshadowed the deliverance of mankind from the bondage of sin, and its attaining freedom by passing through the waters of Baptism. And as the pillar of fire later on led the Israelites safely through the desert, so our risen Light, Christ, leads us through the darkness of earthly life into the brightness of grace and glory.

In the Third Lesson the Prophet Isaias (4: 2-6) looks forward to the holy and purified state of the new Chosen People after the judgment of God would cleanse away current wickedness and the Messias had come. For us, it amounts to an exhortation to lead holy lives as a result of our Baptism, especially since we enjoy the loving and powerful protection of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

The Fourth Lesson from Deuteronomy (31: 22-30) recalls the admonition of Moses to the Chosen People and a prophecy of their infidelity: “…For I know that after my death you are sure to become corrupt…” We are reminded that even the elect of God may fall; nor are we secure without our earnest collaboration with God’s grace. The warning God here utters to the Chosen People of old, is meant also for us.

First Part of the Litany of the Saints

In ancient times the Litany of the Saints was not chanted until after the Baptisms. It served as an interval while the clergy vested for Mass and other preparations were made for the Holy Sacrifice. The chanters would repeat each invocation three times. In the restored Easter Vigil, the Litany is abbreviated and divided into two parts. The first part—the actual invocation of the Saints—is chanted now, as a preparation for the Baptismal service.

Blessing of the Baptismal Water (and Font)

The blessing of water for Baptism is of apostolic institution, as we learn from many of the holy fathers, among whom we may mention St. Cyprian, St. Ambrose, St. Cyril of Jerusalem, and St. Basil. It is just, that the instrument of so divine a work should receive every mark of honor, that could secure to it the respect of mankind: and, after all, does not this honor and respect redound to God, Who chose this creature to be, as it were, the co-operator of His mercies to us? It is from water that we came forth Christians. The early fathers allude to this, when they call Christians the flesh of Christ. We cannot be surprised, after this, that the sight of the element that gave us our spiritual life should excite us to joy, or that we should pay to this element an honor, which is referred to the Author of all the graces about to be bestowed.

The prayer used by the celebrant for blessing the water is so full of elevation of thought, energy of diction, and authority of doctrine, that we may, without hesitation, attribute it to the earliest ages of the Church. The ceremonies which accompany it bespeak its venerable antiquity. It is sung to the solemn tone of the Preface, which imparts such a lyric effect. The celebrant first recites a preliminary prayer, and then begins his magnificent blessing. He is filled with the holy enthusiasm of the Church. He turns to the faithful, and they respond. He is going to lead them to such grand mysteries: Sursum corda!

Almighty and everlasting God, be present in these mysteries of Thy great love; be pleased to act in these Thy Sacraments. Send forth the Spirit of adoption to re-create a new race of those whom the font of Baptism will bear to Thee. Thus what we perform by our humble ministry will be made effective by Thy power. Through Our Lord Jesus Christ Thy Son…

He continues in Preface tone:

It is fitting indeed and just, right and helpful to salvation, for us always and everywhere to give thanks, O holy Lord, Father Almighty, Everlasting God, Who by Thy invisible power dost wonderfully produce such mysteries, yet Thou dost assist with Thy presence the gifts of Thy grace and dost incline the ears of Thy mercy even to our prayers.

O God, even at the beginning of the world, Thy Spirit moved over the water that it may conceive the power of sanctifying. Through water, O God, Thou didst wash away the crimes of the guilty world, and by the pouring out of the deluge didst give a prefigurement of the means of regeneration: that one and the same element might work mysteriously both the death of vice and a new beginning of virtue. O Lord, look upon the face of Thy Church, and multiply in Her Thine acts of regeneration; Thou Who by the torrent of Thy grace fillest Thy holy city with joy, opening the font of Baptism over all the earth for the renewal of mankind; by the command of Thy Majesty may She receive from the Holy Ghost the grace of Thine Only-begotten Son.

Here the celebrant pauses a moment, and putting his hand into the water divides it in the form of a Cross, to signify that it is by the Cross that this element receives the power of regenerating the souls of men. This wonderful power had been promised to water; but the promise was not fulfilled until Christ had shed His Blood upon the Cross. It is this Blood which operates by the water on the souls of men; and with the action of this Precious Blood is joined that of the Holy Ghost, as the celebrant tells us in this prayer, which he thus continues:

May the Holy Ghost impregnate this water, prepared for the rebirth of men, by the secret infusion of His Divine Power, that there may be reborn from the stainless womb of this divine font a new creation conceived in holiness, the children of Heaven. May they all, though differing in age and gender, be alike brought forth as infants by grace, their mother. Therefore, may every unclean spirit, at Thy command, O Lord, depart from hence; may the whole malice of diabolical deceit be entirely banished. Let no infection of the power of the enemy prevail here. Let him not encircle it with his snares, nor enter it by stealth, nor taint it with corruption.

After having thus besought God to protect the water of the font from the influence which Satan seeks to exercise over every creature, the celebrant puts his hand into it. The august character of a bishop or priest is a source of sanctification; the mere contact of his consecrated hand produces a salutary effect, as often as he acts in virtue of the priesthood of Christ, which dwells within him:

May this, Thy creature, O Lord, be holy and innocent, free from every assault of the enemy, and purified by the destruction of all his wickedness. May it be a living fountain, a water that regenerates, a purifying stream: that all who are to be washed in this saving bath may receive within them, by the operation of the Holy Ghost, the grace of a perfect cleansing of their sins.

While pronouncing the following words, the celebrant blesses the water, thrice making over it the Sign of the Cross in honor of the Holy Trinity, in Whose Name men are baptized:

Wherefore, O creature of water, I bless thee by the living † God, by the true † God, by the holy † God, by that God Whose Word in the beginning separated thee from the dry land, and Whose Spirit moved over thee.

Here he parts the water and sprinkles some toward the four corners of the earth, making an allusion to the four rivers of Paradise, and reminding us of Christ’s command that all believers are to be baptized:

Who made thee flow forth from the fountain of Paradise, commanding thee to water the whole earth with thy four rivers. Who in the desert changed thy bitterness into sweetness, and made thee fit to drink; and Who brought thee forth from the rock to quench His people’s thirst.

I bless † thee likewise through Jesus Christ His Only Son, Our Lord, Who in Cana of Galilee changed thee into wine by a wonderful miracle. Who walked with His Feet upon thee, and was baptized in thee by John in the Jordan. Who made thee flow forth from His side with His Blood, and Who commanded His disciples that such as believed should be baptized in thee, saying: “Go, teach all nations, baptizing them in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.”

The celebrant interrupts the chant and recites:

Do Thou, Almighty and merciful God, while we are now fulfilling this command, be present with us; graciously send forth Thine Own Breath.

Christ conferred the Holy Ghost upon His Apostles by “breathing” on them. The same sanctifying Spirit is, therefore, here signified. The Holy Ghost is called Spirit, which means a breath—He is the Divine Breathing, that mighty Wind, which was heard in the Cenacle. The celebrant accordingly breathes upon the water in the Sign of the Cross three times and says:

Bless this clear water with Thy Breath, O Lord, that besides its natural power of cleansing bodies, it may also prove efficacious for the purification of the souls of men.

The deacon brings the Paschal Candle from its stand to the celebrant, who lowers it into the water three times, to a lower depth each time, while singing, each time in a higher pitch. This is the most solemn rite of the blessing. It signifies the mystery of Christ’s baptism in the Jordan, whereby the element of water received the pledge of its future sanctifying power. The Son of God went down into the stream, and the Holy Ghost came upon Him in the form of a Dove. But now, it is something more than a promise—the water receives the reality, the virtue; and it receives it by the action of these two Divine Persons. While the Candle symbolizes the Sacred Body of Christ, its flame symbolizes the celestial Dove hovering over Him:

May the power of the Holy Ghost descend into all the water of this font.

With the Candle still immersed deeply in the water, the celebrant leans forward over the font: and that he may signify the union of the power of the Holy Ghost with that of Christ, he breathes again upon the water—this time, not in the form of a Cross, but in that of the Greek letter Ψ, which is the initial of the Greek word for Spirit. The upslanting arms of this letter also signify the “Tree of Life.” This done, he resumes his prayer by the following words:

And may He make the whole substance of this water fruitful and capable of regenerating.

The Paschal Candle is now raised up out of the water, and replaced in its stand by the deacon. The celebrant continues:

Here may every stain of sin be washed away; here may human nature, created to Thine image, and reformed to the honor of its origin, be cleansed from the filth of its old state; that every man who enters this Sacrament of regeneration be born again to a new infancy of true innocence.

He concludes without chant:

Through Our Lord Jesus Christ Thy Son: Who will come to judge the living and the dead, and the world by fire. R. Amen.

Some of the blessed Easter water is now set aside with which to sprinkle the people after the renewal of their baptismal vows, and for the sprinkling of homes and other places.

But the Church is not satisfied with having given Her blessing to the water. On Holy Thursday, She was put in possession of the graces of the Holy Ghost by receiving the Holy Oils: She now mingles a portion of these with the water. The faithful—seeing how every symbol expressive of divine adoption is made to bear upon the Baptismal Water, whence men receive salvation—will learn what is the reverence they should have for it. The celebrant, taking the Oil of Catechumens, pours some upon the water in the Sign of the Cross, saying:

May this font be sanctified and made fruitful by the oil of salvation, for such as are reborn from it unto life everlasting. R. Amen.

He then pours out a portion of the Holy Chrism—the most sacred Oil the Church possesses—in the Sign of the Cross, saying:

May the infusion of the Chrism of Our Lord Jesus Christ, and of the Holy Ghost the Paraclete, be made in the Name of the Holy Trinity. R. Amen.

He then pours both Oils together, making the Sign of the Cross thrice and saying:

May this mingling of the Chrism of salvation, and of the Oil of Unction, and of the water of Baptism, be made in the Name of the † Father, and of the † Son, and of the Holy † Ghost. R. Amen.

The Oils are now mixed with the water, that thus every portion of it may come into contact with this additional source of sanctification. The Holy Oils likewise symbolize the Holy Ghost—the “Anointer”—with Whose “unction” we are filled at Baptism. Pouring the Holy Oils into the water therefore signifies a fullness of His sanctifying power communicated to the Baptismal Water.

If there are any Catechumens to be Baptized, the celebrant resumes white vestments and confers this Sacrament. By Baptism each of us has entered the great Paschal Mystery—Christ’s Death and Resurrection became our death to sin and rising to a new life of grace. By assisting at the Baptism of new members of Christ’s One, True, Catholic Church, we realize anew how great is the gift of our own re-birth, and we welcome the new members as our true brothers and sisters in Christ.

If the Church has a Baptismal Font, the newly blessed Baptismal Water is carried to it in a solemn procession. Having poured the Baptismal Water into the Font, the celebrant prays:

Almighty and everlasting God, look graciously upon the devotion of Thy people who are to be born anew. Like the deer they have sought the fountain of Thy living water. Mercifully grant that their thirsting faith may, through the mystery of Baptism, sanctify both soul and body. Through Our Lord…

The font is incensed, and the procession returns.

Renewal of Baptismal Promises

Although this ceremony was not formerly part of the official Easter Vigil Liturgy, the practice is of ancient origin. The Council of Sens, held in Paris in the year 829 and convoked by King Louis the Pious to remedy the disorders of Christians, which were widespread at that time, judged that the principle cause of the corruption of morals was the forgetfulness or ignorance of the vows of Baptism; and it could find no better remedy for so great an evil than to order Christians to renew their Baptismal promises.

In churches having no Baptismal font, the above ceremonies of the Blessing of Baptismal water may be omitted. However the Renewal of Baptism Promises always takes place—if need be, the people will be sprinkled with ordinary blessed water.

If the Sacrament of Baptism has not been conferred, the celebrant exchanges his violet vestments for white at this time. The ceremony begins with the celebrant incensing the Paschal Candle, while the candles of the congregation are relit from its flame.

The celebrant then faces the people and admonishes them:

My dear brethren, in this most sacred night Holy Mother Church commemorates the death and burial of Our Lord Jesus Christ. In return for His great love, She lovingly keeps watch with Him. And looking forward to His glorious Resurrection, She rejoices with an exceeding joy.

But, as the Apostle teaches us, we have by Baptism been buried with Christ unto death. As Christ, then, has risen from the dead, so we too must walk now in newness of life. For we know that our old self has been crucified with Christ, that we may no longer be slaves to sin. Let us remember always that we have died to sin and to the world, but we are to live for God, in Christ Jesus Our Lord.

Therefore, beloved brethren, having completed the Lenten observance, let us now proceed to renew the promises of our holy Baptism. By these promises we once renounced Satan and all his works, as well as that world which is the enemy of God; we vowed, furthermore, to serve God faithfully in His One, True, Holy, Catholic Church. And therefore, I ask you once again:

Celebrant: Do you renounce Satan? All: We do renounce him.

Celebrant: And all his works? All: We do renounce them.

Celebrant: And all his pomps? All: We do renounce them.

Celebrant: Do you believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and earth? All: We do believe.

Celebrant: Do you believe in Jesus Christ, His only Son, Our Lord, Who was born into this world and Who suffered for us? All: We do believe.

Celebrant: And do you believe in the Holy Ghost, the Holy Catholic Church, the Communion of Saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting? All: We do believe.

Celebrant: Let us now together pray to God, as Our Lord Jesus Christ has taught us: All: Our Father, Who art in Heaven…

Celebrant: And may Almighty God, the Father of Our Lord Jesus Christ, Who caused us to be born anew by water and the Holy Ghost, and Who granted us remission of sins, keep us by His grace unto everlasting life, in the same Jesus Christ, Our Lord. All: Amen.

The people are now sprinkled with the Easter water, as a reminder of their own Baptism. They should, accordingly, receive it with sincere sorrow for their past sins, and a firm determination to live in the future as re-born children of God and faithful members of His Holy Church. After the aspersion, the people again extinguish their candles.

In preparation for the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the Litany of the Saints is now concluded.

Solemn Mass of the Easter Vigil

The solemn Litany is drawing to its end, and the choir has already begun its closing invocation—Kyrie eleison!—which is also the beginning of this Mass. The celebrant comes forth from the sacristy with all the pomp that marks the principal feasts of the Church, and then, ascending the altar, he offers the homage of incense to the Most High. Hence, an Introit, which on other occasions is sung by the choir during the procession from the sacristy to the altar, is not needed.

The morning star has blended its rays with those of our Paschal Candle, just as the deacon prayed might be; but now, the morning star itself begins to pale, for the star of day—the figure of our Jesus, the Sun of Justice—is soon to rise.

The censing of the altar is finished; and then—Oh glorious triumph of our risen Jesus!—the celebrant sings forth, in a transport of joy: Gloria in excelsis Deo! The hitherto silent bells peal to the glad angelic hymn, whilst the purple coverings are removed from the images and the altars are decked with flowers and candles. The enthusiasm of our Holy Faith has mastered every heart, making it beat with emotion. The choir takes up the heavenly canticle, and continues it to the end. The celebrant then sings this prayer for the newly baptized throughout the world:

O God, Who dost illumine this most holy night by the glory of the Lord’s Resurrection, preserve in the new children of Thy family the spirit of adoption which Thou has given; that renewed in body and mind, they may render to Thee a pure service. Through the same Our Lord Jesus Christ…

The Epistle is from St. Paul to the Colossians:

Brethren: If you have risen with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Mind the things that are above, not the things that are on earth. For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, your life, shall appear, then you too will appear with Him in glory.

After this, the souls of the faithful—yea, the very walls of the church—echo with the joyful tidings—Alleluia!—which the celebrant, filled with holy ardor, intones to the well-known melody. The choir repeats it after him. Thrice—each time on a higher note and with an increase of joy—the heavenly word is interchanged between the celebrant and choir. At this moment all mournfulness is at an end. One feels that God has accepted the expiatory works of our Lent; and that, by the merits of His Son now risen from the grave, He pardons our earth, since He permits us to hear once more the song of Heaven.

But something is still wanting to the joy of our Easter. Jesus has risen from the tomb; but, so far, He has not shown Himself to all. His Blessed Mother, St. Mary Magdalene, and the other holy women, are the only ones who have as yet seen Him; it is not until the evening that He will appear to His Apostles. We have only just begun the day. Therefore it is that the Church once more offers Her praise to Her God, under the Lenten formula of the Tract. Likewise, no additional torches accompany the Gospel, which is St. Matthew’s account of the Resurrection; the book, however, is incensed. Here again we have an allusion to the events which took place on this great morning—the women went to the sepulcher carrying sweet spices with them, but the light of faith in the Resurrection was not as yet in their hearts:

Now late in the night of the Sabbath, as the first day of the week began to dawn, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to see the sepulcher. And behold, there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord came down from Heaven, and drawing near rolled back the stone, and sat upon it. His countenance was like lightning, and his raiment like snow. And for fear of him the guards were terrified, and became like dead men. But the angel spoke and said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus, Who was crucified. He is not here, for He has risen even as He said. Come, see the place where the Lord was laid. And go quickly, tell His disciples that He has risen, and behold, He goes before you into Galilee; there you shall see him. Behold, I have foretold it to you.”

The celebrant does not intone the glorious profession of Faith: it is reserved for the second Mass, which is to be celebrated later in the day. By this omission of the Creed, the Church would remind us of the hours which elapsed before the Apostles, who were to preach to the world the mystery of the Resurrection, had themselves honored it by their faith.

The Offertory verse is also omitted; the celebrant begins to offer the bread and wine to be used in the Sacrifice, immediately after the Dominus vobiscum. This omission is also of ancient origin, when the Offertory verse accompanied a lengthy procession. To shorten the already long ceremonies, the procession also was omitted. Also omitted are the Kiss of Peace (which is accompanied by the words, “Peace be to thee!”) and the Agnus Dei (which ends with, “Give us peace.”) It was not till the evening of the day of His Resurrection, that Jesus spoke the words, “Peace be to thee!” to His disciples. Holy Church, reverencing as She does every detail of Her Jesus’ life, loves to imitate them in Her own practice, and thus omits these words from this Mass.

In ancient times, the newly baptized would receive also, before the Mass began, the Sacrament of Confirmation—if they were adults and if a Bishop were present. At the Vigil Mass they would all make their First Holy Communion—even the newly baptized infants. The deacon would dip his finger into the Chalice, and then put it into their innocent mouths. Afterwards, to signify that they were all now, by their Baptism, those new-born babes of whom St. Peter speaks (1 Peter 2: 2), they would receive a little milk and honey—it was also an allusion to the promised land of Heaven, now opened to them.

Lauds

In consequence of the service being so long, the Church makes these Lauds as short as possible, and gives them a joyous character, in keeping with the return of the Alleluia. They are drawn up so as to form parts of the Mass—the Communion verse and Postcommunion oration:

Ant. Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia. Ps. 150: Praise the Lord in His sanctuary; praise Him in the firmament of His power…

Ant. Bened. Now very early in the morning of the first day of the week, when the sun had just risen, they came to the sepulcher. Alleluia.

The celebrant incenses the altar for the last time while the choir chants the Benedictus. The Antiphon is repeated and the celebrant sings the Postcommunion oration:

Pour forth upon us, O Lord, the spirit of Thy love, that those whom Thou hast nourished with the Easter Sacraments, may by Thy goodness, be of one mind and heart. Through Our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son…

The deacon sings the Ite Missa Est as usual, adding a double Alleluia! The same will be done throughout the Easter Octave.

Instructions for Holy Saturday

by Leonard Goffine, 1871

Why is this day called Holy Saturday?

Because on this day Jesus, the Holy of Holiest, through whom we also should become holy, rested in the sepulchre, and because the Church to-day receives the blessed baptismal water, by which the unbaptized is born again to a new, holy life, which is also indicated by the blessed fire and the Easter-Candle.

Why is new fire struck from a flint, blessed, and the lamps and candles in the Church lighted from it?

In old times it was customary to strike a new fire, bless it, and light the candles by it every day, and later every Saturday; it is said, that in the eleventh century this ceremony was restricted to Holy Saturday. The fire is struck from a stone to indicate, that Christ is the light of the world, and the stone which the Jews rejected, has now become the corner stone of His Church (Ps. cxvii. 22.); that the divine Son, the light of the world, was apparently extinguished at His death, but at His resurrection shone anew; that all those who in Church to-day are physically lighted by this fire, may one day be filled anew, in the future life, with spiritual light. This fire is blessed, because the Church blesses every thing that is used in her service in Church, and because the light and fire used in Church must be holy, for they represent Christ, who brought the fire of love upon earth with which to enkindle our hearts. (Luke xii. 49.)

What is represented by the triple candlestick?

The triple candlestick represents the most Holy Trinity of which the second Divine Person came down to earth as the true light. For this reason the priest (or deacon), sings three times at the lighting of each candle: Lumen Christi, “Light of Christ,” and kneeling three times humbly adores the Triune Deity, and especially the true divine light of Christ for which he says Deo gratias, “Thanks be to God”.

What is the Easter-Candle?

It is an emblem of Christ, who has risen from death, of whom the pillar of fire which led the children of Israel out of the bondage of Egypt, was a prototype, as Christ, the true light, has led us from the bondage of Satan into the freedom of the children of God. The five holes in the candle represent the five wounds of Jesus by which mankind was healed (i. Pet. ii. 24.), and the five grains of frankincense signify the spices with which the body of our Lord was embalmed.

Why are the Easter-Candle and all the others lighted from the triple candle?

To show that Christ was begotten by the Father of light from all eternity, and is therefore true God from true God, light from light–that from God, through Christ, He being the light of the world, comes all man’s enlightenment, and is diffused by the grace of God over all. (ii. Cor. iv. 6.)

To what do the twelve lessons, sung after the blessing of the baptismal water, all point?

They point to the baptism in which we are born again to a new life.

Why is the baptismal water blessed with so many ceremonies, and what is its signification?

The baptismal water signifies the blood of Christ by which our souls are purified, and in which the devil is drowned as Pharao in the Red Sea, and is blessed with so many ceremonies, that the different effects of baptism may be known, and that this holy Sacrament may be administered and received with the more reverence, devotion, and sanctity.

What is the meaning of these ceremonies?

The priest with his hand parts the water into the form of a cross, to illustrate that God gives the secret virtue to this water, through Christ who died on the cross, of changing all those born in original sin into holy people. He touches the surface of the water with the palm of his hand, to show that the Holy Ghost is over this water as at the creation, and bestows many graces on those who are baptized. He blesses it, signing it three times with the sign of the cross, because the water receives its sin-cleansing power only through the sufferings and the merits of Christ, from the Father, by the cooperation of the Holy Ghost. The baptismal water is thrown by the priest towards the four parts of the earth, because the grace of baptism should reach all nations. The priest breathes on the water three times in the form of a cross: the Creator breathed upon the first man, and breathed into him the breath of life, Christ breathed upon the apostles the Holy Ghost who by His grace and power revives and sanctifies those who are baptized. The Easter-Candle (emblem of Christ, risen from the dead), is dipped three times, and each time deeper into the water, to show that the baptized should become more and more enlightened through the light of Christ’s doctrine, more and more penetrated by its divinity, more and more purified from sin. The people are sprinkled with this water to remind all those present who have received sanctification in baptism, and have lost it by sin, that they should strive by tears of repentance to regain it. Finally, oil and chrism are mixed in the water as a sign that the grace of the Holy Ghost which is represented by the oil and chrism, is given in its fulness to the water; and also, that the baptized should, after baptism, devote themselves exclusively to the service of Christ, the Anointed One, and unite themselves in love to Him.

Why is the baptismal water blessed only on this day and on the Saturday before Pentecost?

Because in early times adults and neophytes were baptized only on these days; and because the Saviour, risen, is the example of a soul sanctified by baptism and by the Holy Ghost, the Author of all sanctity and the true fountain of the grace of baptism.

How should we assist at the blessing of the baptismal water?

With sentiments of sincere gratitude for having been given the holy grace of baptism; with the firm resolution of preserving our baptismal innocence, or if we have lost it, of obtaining it again by penance. We should renew our baptismal vows on this day especially, first by saying the apostle’s creed, making acts of faith, hope, and love, and an act of contrition, and then saying with heart and lips: I renounce the devil, all his pride, and all his suggestions.”

Why does the priest prostrate himself after blessing the baptismal water, rising again when the litany of the saints has been sung?

To most humbly ask God, by the intercession of the saints, that He would give to all men without exception the grace of baptism, that as all men have been dead and buried in sin, so they may rise with Christ as new creatures to grace and eternal life.

Why are the altars redecorated on this day?

Because the Church, the beloved bride of Christ, desires to announce in advance to her children the glad tidings, that the Lord has risen from the dead: she decorates herself therefore, and causes the bells to peal and joyous hymns to resound. It also refers to Christ, at His resurrection, having adorned Himself with a glorious, incorruptible body.

Why is there no Introit in this day’s Mass?

The Introit of Mass was formerly an entire psalm, sung while the people were assembling in Church; but as in early times the people on Easter were already assembled and assisting at the ceremonies, no Introit was sung at the Vigil Mass, as to-day, although Mass is now said in the morning, the Church having abolished the night vigils, on account of abuses. PRAYER OF THE CHURCH. O God, who enlightenest this most sacred night by the glory of the resurrection of the Lord; preserve in the new offspring of Thy family the spirit of adoption Thou hast given them; that being renewed in body and soul, they may serve Thee with purity of heart. Throught etc.

EPISTLE. (Colos. iii. 1-4.) Brethren: If you be risen with Christ, seek the things that are above; where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God: mind the things that are above, not the things that are upon the earth. For you are dead; and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ shall appear, who is your life; then you also shall appear with him in glory. Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia. EXPLANATION. St. Paul places Christ’s resurrection before us as the example and motive of the spiritual resurrection from sin, which should be effected in us by the holy Sacraments at Easter time.–With Christ we should die to the world, and live hidden in Him, if we desire to rise at the Last Day with Him in glory and be acknowledged before all men by Him as His own.

After the epistle the priest says three times: Alleluia! as a joyful exclamation over the Redeemer’s triumphant victory.

GOSPEL. (Matt, xxxviii. 1-7.) In the end of the Sabbath, when it began to dawn towards the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalen and the other Mary to the sepulchre. And behold, there was a great earthquake. For an angel of the Lord descended from heaven; and coming, rolled back the stone, and sat upon it: and his countenance was as lightning, and his raiment as snow. And for fear of him, the guards were struck with terror, and became as dead men. And the angel answering, said to the women: Fear not you; for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here, for he is risen as he said. Come, and see the place where the Lord was laid. And going quickly, tell ye his disciples that he is risen: and behold, he will go before you into Galilee: there you shall see him. Lo, I have foretold it to you.

What are we to learn from this gospel?

That we, too, will receive the plenitude of divine grace and heavenly blessings, if like these pious women we seek Christ early, that is, by making a good intention before we begin our work.

Why is there no Credo or Agnus Dei said, nor the kiss of peace given, and short vespers said after communion?

Formerly, and in Rome even now, the Credo or confession of faith is said by the newly baptized, the Agnus Dei was sung in the litany of the saints, and these are therefore omitted in the Mass. The kiss of peace is not given, because Christ has not yet said to His disciples, Peace be with you. Short vespers are said after the priest’s communion, because this day is a type of the eternal Sabbath in heaven which has no vespers, that is, evening.

Do not omit to-day to once more visit the holy sepulchre, to adore Christ in the Blessed Sacrament, to thank Him for His passion and death, and to honor His sorrowful mother. If in the evening the solemn ceremonies of the resurrection are held, assist at them and there make the repeated resolution to rise from the sleep of sin and begin a new life with Christ.

[thesassenachswiftie]

Lover Chapter 5 - “False God”

Read on AO3

Chapter 1 // Chapter 2 // Chapter 3 // Chapter 4

Summary:

Claire has made up her mind to end things with Jamie. How will he react when she makes a confession to him?

Notes:

Thank you all for following along on this journey. We left off in a pretty angsty spot and the angst is going to continue for a bit here.

New chapters every Friday, moodboard release every Monday, previews on Wednesday

Chapter 5:  “False God”

Claire managed to somewhat keep it together all morning as they picked up their discarded clothes scattered about the room, grabbed a quick breakfast and got on the road.  Jamie, of course, noticed the look on her face shortly after waking.  When he inquired, she blamed a hangover (which wasn’t entirely a lie) and assured him she would be fine. She would not be fine, and neither would he, she suspected.  He seemed so chipper, so alive, like he was ready to conquer the world.  She knew she was a terrible person to do this to him, but if she didn’t do it now it would be so much worse for the both of them later.  She decided to tell him when they were about a half hour from her house. That way, if he left her on the side of the road--which she wouldn’t blame him for--she’d be close enough to call Jo to come pick her up. She had made sure her phone was charged the night before if that was to be the case.

 For the first stretch of her trip, she remained quiet, still blaming the hangover and staring out the window as Jamie talked about Scotland and England and all the places he’d love to take her and people he wanted to introduce her to there.  She tuned out most of what he was saying.  She couldn’t bear dreaming with him, and needing to mentally rehearse what she would say when the time came.  She watched the road ahead of her, trying to focus on the movement of the car instead of the sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach.  Eventually, the time came--she couldn’t put it off any longer.

“Jamie, we were crazy to think that this could work” she blurted out, more abruptly than she had intended.

“I know Claire, but we might just get away with this, it’s going great so far--”

“No Jamie, I mean, this isn’t going to work.  We can’t keep seeing each other like this, and what’s going to happen when you leave?”

“Have you not been listening to me for the past hour? Remember how I said I’d fly ta ya? What are you doing Claire?”

“We were stupid to jump in with an ocean separating us.  We can’t just fly back and forth whenever we feel like it.  It’s not realistic.  We’re living in a fantasy world, Jamie. We’re living in a dream and it’s time to wake up to reality.”

“Claire, I--”

“No, let me finish.  I know I’ve had a setback in my career, but I still want to be a doctor.  I’m not going to be able to spend any time with you when I do eventually start my residency, whether you fly here or not.  It’s not fair to you or me.  It’s not fair to you that I keep you away from your family.  It’s not fair to you that you have to sneak around and lose sleep on my account.  I’m doing this for you, believe it or not.”

Jamie’s hands gripped the steering wheel, turning his knuckles white, his jaw tightened and his face felt hot as something within him broke. “Claire, how could ye possibly be doing this for me when it isna what I want at all?” He reached for her, knowing it would be easier to talk to her if they touched.

Claire stared out the passenger window, arms crossed across her chest, shrinking herself as far away as she could. “Don’t touch me.” she hissed.  She knew she couldn’t do this if they touched, she’d be lost in him again, it was taking all her resolve to say her piece.

Jamie, ever the gentlemen, knew even something as small as a touch on the shoulder was something that needed consent, and reluctantly put his hand back on the steering wheel. “I can’t talk to you when you’re like this, staring out the window like I’m not your favorite.  God dammit Claire, it’s hell when I fight with you.”  He felt so frustrated, he couldn’t understand how less than twenty-four hours ago she confessed her love to him and now she was doing this. “This canna possibly be what you really want.  We belong together, we were meant to meet Claire, we were meant to be together. Ya really wanna leave?  Go ahead, try and leave me, try and tell me honestly that’s what you really want.”  He thought if he could scare her maybe she’d come to her senses and change her mind.

The tears were flowing freely from Claire's eyes now.  “Yes.” she said quietly.  “Jamie, I’m New York City, you’re the English countryside, we don’t belong together, we don’t fit together.  If this was meant to be we’d be on the same path, and we’re just not.”

You’re not New York City, you’re my Sassenach, you don’t belong to any place, that’s what I love about you, you just belong with me. Jamie thought to himself. “Claire, I can’t let you go that easy.  I love you so much, I’d die for you Claire.  If you want me to fly to you every week, I will, I swear to it, tell me what to do Claire.”

Claire’s resolve was weakening, he wasn’t supposed to keep loving her, to keep worshipping her as if she were worthy of his love. She only had one thing left to say, the confession she hoped she wouldn’t have to share. The last thing she wanted to ever tell him, but the thing that might finally make him leave.  “I’m not what you think I am Jamie.  I lied to you!”

“What are you talking about?”

“That first night we were together, I told you Frank broke up with me… he didn’t. I didn’t even talk to him. I used you.  I wanted you, I wanted to piss Frank off--I was bored and lonely and horny and I lied to you to get my way.  That’s the type of person I am, I’m not this wonderful person you’ve made me out to be.”

All he could do in reply was grunt a Scottish noise of disapproval. Her confession ignited a livid fire in him, he didn’t know what to feel or how to respond.  He would never have consented to sleeping with her that night knowing she still belonged to Frank. God, she was engaged to him for heaven’s sake. How could she let him do that, knowing how he felt about the situation. He had been under her spell, completely captivated by her, and he didn’t know if he fully regretted it. The final minutes of their car ride continued in heated silence. The air in the car was thick with something that felt like it would ignite and burn up fast if either of them uttered a word. 

Jamie dropped Claire off at the end of her street as she had requested earlier, she grabbed her weekender bag from the backseat and softly said “Goodbye, Jamie” before shutting the door, not daring herself to look at him as she did. She walked to her house as quickly as she could and collapsed to the ground sobbing as soon as she was inside her door. She knew it was for the best, but that didn’t make it hurt any less.

----------

            Jamie drove away from her, glancing one last time at her figure in the rearview mirror in spite of himself.  He felt betrayed, upset, confused and aimless. Above all, he felt heartbroken. They had warned him about times like these--his father, his Godfather, even his brother-in-law.  “When you fall in love”, they said, “the road gets hard and you get lost in it” and Jamie was just now figuring out what they meant.  He had been following her with blind faith, doing anything she asked without a thought, sneaking around--even allowing her to cheat with him, albeit unknowingly. He was still too eager, too willing. How could he forgive himself for that?  How could he allow a woman to consume him so deeply, body, mind and soul? Worst of all, who was he without her, now that she had walked away?

He found himself pulling into the parking lot of a Catholic church.  He didn’t attend weekly anymore, nor did his family.  “The Lord kens how difficult it is ta get seven bairns dressed and ready for church and the Lord kens how much we love him.” his sister Jenny would say.  He knew he didn’t need the church building to love and worship God. He also recognized that the Roman Catholic Church was as flawed and marred by sin as the worst sinner, but he still found something comforting and spiritual about visiting. Something about the waxy smell of candles and the glow the stained glass cast on the cold marble interior, made him feel like he was connected to something ancient and holy, something bigger than himself--and in this moment he needed something bigger than himself to help him make sense of this situation. He dipped his hand in the font and crossed himself as he entered, strode to the pews, and genuflected before taking a seat in the middle of the empty church.  He rested his forehead on his clasped hands, elbows resting on the back of the pew in front of him, ready to speak to the only one who could listen.  The one who knew him best and could help him sort through all the raw emotions that weighed so heavily on him in this moment.

He allowed the tears he’d been holding back to flow freely as he prayed: Lord, please have mercy on my soul for I am a sinner. I thought that you had made her for me, I selfishly thought that we were meant to be together. I tried to be good, I tried to respect and honor her. With her I knew heaven was a thing, I went there when I touched her. Lord, I confess I coveted my neighbor’s wife--well, fiancée if we’re being technical about it--but you of course know these things. I beg you for forgiveness for that, and I’m afraid I am guilty of a bit more than just coveting. Please forgive me for the sins I did not know I was committing.  Lord, if you did not make her for me, please, please, take my desire for her from me, I beg of you.  I fear even if she is a false god that I am still sorely tempted to worship this love.  However, Lord, if you did in fact make her for me, and me for her, as I believe you are good enough to do, please Lord, bring her back to me.  Heal her wounds and bring her back to me, I swear to you I’ll care for her, honor her and never let her leave me again.  I’ll do whatever it takes Lord, please, just free me from this pain I feel.  It’s too much to bear without her.