#the arguments end up sounding like 'historically it has meant x' 'so what

[esther-dot]

The debate about the appropriateness of Jonsa overshadows the political/feudal argument. Unless you can make a convincing case Sansa is going to run away and become a peasant with Sandor (didn't GRRM literally mock that...), or that she can singlehandedly Elizabeth the first it, then you need to be thinking about marriage. Marriage is just as important as war in GRRM's books, if not moreso, and it's a symbolic struggle at that.

Of course Stumpy has searched for Sansa's husband and applied this thinking, but it's one that's otherwise severely lacking. GRRM would go there. We know he'd go there, cousins or not. The question is, why?

Stumpy's Find Sansa's Husband is one of my favs!

No worries! Each of us has a fandom pet peeve we need to rant about. And you're right about Martin's criticism of the "running off with a stable boy trope," in fact, it sounds like the idea really annoys him (his quote below the cut)

And then there are some things that are just don’t square with history. In some sense I’m trying to respond to that. [For example] the arranged marriage, which you see constantly in the historical fiction and television show, almost always when there’s an arranged marriage, the girl doesn’t want it and rejects it and she runs off with the stable boy instead. This never fucking happened. It just didn’t. There were thousands, tens of thousand, perhaps hundreds of thousands of arranged marriages in the nobility through the thousand years of Middle Ages and people went through with them. That’s how you did it. It wasn’t questioned. Yeah, occasionally you would want someone else, but you wouldn’t run off with the stable boy. And that’s another of my pet peeves about fantasies. The bad authors adopt the class structures of the Middle Ages; where you had the royalty and then you had the nobility and you had the merchant class and then you have the peasants and so forth. But they don’t’ seem to realize what it actually meant. They have scenes where the spunky peasant girl tells off the pretty prince. The pretty prince would have raped the spunky peasant girl. He would have put her in the stocks and then had garbage thrown at her. You know. I mean, the class structures in places like this had teeth. They had consequences. And people were brought up from their childhood to know their place and to know that duties of their class and the privileges of their class. It was always a source of friction when someone got outside of that thing. And I tried to reflect that.

I think the issue is, S*nsans and people who shipped Sansa with LF were some of the first to write real meta on her (from what I've heard), so certain fans/perceptions got pretty firmly established, and then a new generation of Sansa fan came along who rejected the Sansa x adult man/molester ships, but it was pretty easy for them to assume that due to Sansa's age, Martin would leave her marriage to the future.

Also, a lot of people don't expect Sansa to be QitN, so the succession issue isn't putting pressure on the marriage timeline, and if you're someone who thinks Bran will actually be king over all Westeros or Rickon will be KitN etc etc, you can imagine Sansa's endgame is safety in Winterfell, not a romance or marriage.

Personally, I think Sansa's interactions with Cersei and LF indicate that she wants to be the right kind of queen (in defiance of Cersei's advice) and is being equipped with tools to achieve her own ends / play the game, for the right reasons, to good ends, but being handed tools nonetheless. She is so unfocused on her birthright and power, it seemed like she was meant to be contrasted with Cersei and Dany. The natural endpoint of that imo would be her becoming queen. And, if she is queen, I've argued that based on other queen's experiences, we must see her married as being a queen is a whole new set of risks, not a happy ending in and of itself.

Of course, some have speculated that the endgame will be indicated, not actually chronicled on the page, as in, Jon and Sansa fall in love, but Jon does get sent to the wall or goes into exile for a callback of what Sansa imagined she could do to save Ned, and we end kinda knowing, eventually they'll get back together, but the actual happy ending isn't on the page. Or the alternative scenario is that Jon is named KitN because of Robb's Will and marries Sansa to resolve all the chaos after parentage reveal. That's where your thoughts on the political aspect of marriage comes in because that would be very tidy. Actually, whoever is recognized by the Northern Lords, whether it’s my preference of Sansa or Jon, the heir issue was a big deal for Robb, so marriage / heirs will certainly come up and impact the plot.

As for Jonsa itself and it being icky to some, I've said before, I think Martin must have something he wants to do with incest beyond showcasing how toxic it is. As in, that is not a way to challenge the reader, by saying something we all know, and his whole shtick is to write complexity into every relationship, every hero, even many villains, so I don't for a minute believe that's he's introduced this topic without planning to ask the audience to think a little more deeply on it. To force us to look at it from a different angle. The way he does that is to give us heroes who are tempted and make us squirm until we get parentage reveal.

[hua-fei-hua]

the main reason i don’t take “i’m a native speaker of the source language” as the be-all, end-all for translation arguments in fandom specifically (as in, between fans who are not professional or even hobbyist translators) is bc, well. sometimes.......... native speakers............ are bad at their own language, too.

[cappymightwrite]

What draws you to incest ?

*sighs* Ok, here we go. I'm a real card carrying Jonsa now aren't I?

Anon, listen. I know this is an anti question that gets bandied about a lot, aimed at provoking, etc, when we all know no Jonsa is out here being all you know what, it really is the incest, and the incest alone, that draws me in. I mean, come on now. Grow up.

If I was "drawn" to incest I'd be a fan of Cersei x Jaime, Lucrezia x Cesare, hell Oedipus x Jocasta etc... but I haven't displayed any interest in them now, have I? So, huh, it can't be that.

Frankly, it's a derivitive question that is really missing the mark. I'm not "drawn" to it, though yeah, it is an unavoidable element of Jonsa. The real question you should be asking though, is what draws GRRM to it? Because he obviously is drawn to it, specifically what is termed the "incest motif" in academic and literary scholarship. That is a far more worthwhile avenue of thinking and questioning, compared with asking me. Luckily for you though anon, I sort of anticipated getting this kind of question so had something in my drafts on standby...

You really don't have to look far, or that deeply, to be hit over the head by the connection between GRRM's literary influences and the incest motif. I mean, let's start with the big cheese himself, Tolkein:

Tolkein + Quenta Silmarillion

We know for definite that GRRM has been influenced by Tolkein, and in The Silmarillion you notably have a case of unintentional incest in Quenta Silmarillion, where Túrin Turambar, under the power of a curse, unwittingly murders his friend, as well as marries and impregnates his sister, Nienor Níniel, who herself had lost her memory due to an enchantment.

Mr Tolkein, "what draws you to incest?"

Old Norse + Völsunga saga

Tolkein, as a professor of Anglo-Saxon, was hugely influenced by Old English and Old Norse literature. The story of the ring Andvaranaut, told in Völsunga saga, is strongly thought to have been a key influence behind The Lord of the Rings. Also featured within this legendary saga is the relationship between the twins Signy and Sigmund — at one point in the saga, Signy tricks her brother into sleeping with her, which produces a son, Sinfjotli, of pure Völsung blood, raised with the singular purpose of enacting vengence.

Anonymous Norse saga writer, "what draws you to incest?"

Medieval Literature as a whole

A lot is made of how "true" to the storied past ASOIAF is, how reflective it is of medieval society (and earlier), its power structures, its ideals and martial values etc. ASOIAF, however, is not attempting historical accuracy, and should not be read as such. Yet it is clearly drawing from a version of the past, as depicted in medieval romances and pre-Christian mythology for instance, as well as dusty tomes on warfare strategy. As noted by Elizabeth Archibald in her article Incest in Medieval Literature and Society (1989):

Of course the Middle Ages inherited and retold a number of incest stories from the classical world. Through Statius they knew Oedipus, through Ovid they knew the stories of Canace, Byblis, Myrrha and Phaedra. All these stories end more or less tragically: the main characters either die or suffer metamorphosis. Medieval readers also knew the classical tradition of incest as a polemical accusation,* for instance the charges against Caligula and Nero. – p. 2

The word "polemic" is connected to controversy, to debate and dispute, therefore these classical texts were exploring the incest motif in order to create discussion on a controversial topic. In a way, your question of "what draws you to incest?" has a whiff of polemical accusation to it, but as I stated, you're missing the bigger question.

Moving back to the Middle Ages, however, it is interesting that we do see a trend of more incest stories appearing within new narratives between the 11th and 13th centuries, according to Archibald:

The texts I am thinking of include the legend of Judas, which makes him commit patricide and then incest before betraying Christ; the legend of Gregorius, product of sibling incest who marries his own mother, but after years of rigorous penance finally becomes a much respected pope; the legend of St Albanus, product of father-daughter incest, who marries his mother, does penance with both his parents but kills them when they relapse into sin, and after further penance dies a holy man; the exemplary stories about women who sleep with their sons, and bear children (whom they sometimes kill), but refuse to confess until the Virgin intervenes to save them; the legends of the incestuous begetting of Roland by Charlemagne and of Mordred by Arthur; and finally the Incestuous Father romances about calumniated wives, which resemble Chaucer's Man of Law's Tale except that the heroine's adventures begin when she runs away from home to escape her father's unwelcome advances. – p. 2

I mean... that last bit sounds eerily quite close to what we have going on with Petyr Baelish and Sansa Stark. But I digress. What I'm trying to say is that from a medieval and classical standpoint... GRRM is not unique in his exploration of the incest motif, far from it.

Sophocles, Ovid, Hartmann von Aue, Thomas Malory, etc., "what draws you to incest?"

Faulkner + The Sound and the Fury, and more!

Moving on to more modern influences though, when talking about the writing ethos at the heart of his work, GRRM has famously quoted William Faulker:

His mantra has always been William Faulkner’s comment in his Nobel prize acceptance speech, that only the “human heart in conflict with itself… is worth writing about”. [source]

I’ve never read any Faulker, so I did just a quick search on “Faulkner and incest” and I pulled up this article on JSTOR, called Faulkner and the Politics of Incest (1998). Apparently, Faulkner explores the incest motif in at least five novels, therefore it was enough of a distinctive theme in his work to warrant academic analysis. In this journal article, Karl F. Zender notes that:

[...] incest for Faulkner always remains tragic [...] – p. 746

Ah, we can see a bit of running theme here, can't we? But obviously, GRRM (one would hope) doesn’t just appreciate Faulkner’s writing for his extensive exploration of incest. This quote possibly sums up the potential artistic crossover between the two:

Beyond each level of achieved empathy in Faulkner's fiction stands a further level of exclusion and marginalization. – pp. 759–60

To me, the above parallels somewhat GRRM’s own interest in outcasts, in personal struggle (which incest also fits into):

I am attracted to bastards, cripples and broken things as is reflected in the book. Outcasts, second-class citizens for whatever reason. There’s more drama in characters like that, more to struggle with. [source]

Interestingly, however, this essay on Faulkner also connects his interest in the incest motif with the romantic poets, such as Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord Byron:

As Peter Thorslev says in an important study of romantic representations of incest, " [p]arent-child incest is universally condemned in Romantic literature...; sibling incest, on the other hand, is invariably made sympathetic, is sometimes exonerated, and, in Byron's and Shelley's works, is definitely idealized.” – p. 741

Faulkner, "what draws you to incest?" ... I mean, that article gives some good explanations, actually.

Lord Byron, Manfred + The Bride of Abydos

Which brings us onto GRRM interest in the Romantics:

I was always intensely Romantic, even when I was too young to understand what that meant. But Romanticism has its dark side, as any Romantic soon discovers... which is where the melancholy comes in, I suppose. I don't know if this is a matter of artistic influences so much as it is of temperament. But there's always been something in a twilight that moves me, and a sunset speaks to me in a way that no sunrise ever has. [source]

I'm already in the process of writing a long meta about the influence of Lord Byron in ASOIAF, specifically examining this quote by GRRM:

The character I’m probably most like in real life is Samwell Tarly. Good old Sam. And the character I’d want to be? Well who wouldn’t want to be Jon Snow — the brooding, Byronic, romantic hero whom all the girls love. Theon [Greyjoy] is the one I’d fear becoming. Theon wants to be Jon Snow, but he can’t do it. He keeps making the wrong decisions. He keeps giving into his own selfish, worst impulses. [source]

Lord Byron, "what draws you to—", oh, um, right. Nevermind.

I'm not going to repeat myself here, but it's worth noting that there is a clear through line between GRRM and the Romantic writers, besides perhaps melancholic "temperament"... and it's incest.

But look, is choosing to explore the incest motif...well, a choice? Yeah, and an uncomfortable one at that, but it’s obvious that that is what GRRM is doing. I think it’s frankly a bit naive of some people to argue that GRRM would never do Jonsa because it’s pseudo-incest and therefore morally repugnant, no ifs, no buts. I’m sorry, as icky as it may be to our modern eyes, GRRM has set the president for it in his writing with the Targaryens and the Lannister twins.

The difference with them is that they knowingly commit incest, basing it in their own sense of exceptionalism, and there are/will be bad consequences — this arguably parallels the medieval narratives in which incest always ends badly, unless some kind of real penance is involved. For Jon and Sansa, however, the Jonsa argument is that they will choose not to commit incest, despite a confused attraction, and then will be rewarded in the narrative through the parentage reveal, a la Byron’s The Bride of Abydos. The Targaryens and Lannisters, in several ways excluding the incest (geez the amount of times I’ve written incest in this post), are foils for the Starks, and in particular, Jon and Sansa. Exploring the incest motif has been on the cards since the very beginning — just look at that infamous "original" outline — regardless of whether we personally consider that an interesting writing choice, or a morally inexcusable one.

Word of advice, or rather, warning... don't think you can catch me out with these kinds of questions. I have access to a university database, so if I feel like procrastinating my real academic work, I can and will pull out highly researched articles to school you, lmao.

But you know, thanks for the ask anyway, I guess.

[do-y0u-have-to-let-it-linger]

EXT. The Roof (Winter) - Sunset

Not Just Attracted to Women!Peter Maximoff x Fem and Not Just Attracted to Men!Reader

Based off of a dream I recently had: Peter and Y/N have a conversation on the roof of Xavier's in mid-December. Peter accidentally lets it slip that he might not be straight, and he is afraid that Y/N will think less of him because of it because this is the 80s. Y/N reveals that she is also not straight, and is saddened by the fact that Peter could think that she could ever hate him- especially for that. She calls him wonderful. Feelings ensue. Also, a touch of Cherik at the end because I give the people what they want.

Warnings: Swearing, Peter cries, internalized homophobia (this is the 80s-ish and Peter uses the word 'queer' in a kind of incorrect and kind of offensive manner, but it was internalized homophobia and not actually intended to be mean to anyone but himself so I forgive him), a touch of angst but mostly fluff, Charles called you two "children" even though you are obviously not, Erik is happy that his son has someone that cares about him the way you do, Peter is insecure but not super blunt about it, Peter has been deprived of being adored his entire life, bad writing, I mention a serial killer twice, historical inaccuracy because the word queer was still a slur so yeah.

A/N: This is literally the first thing I have ever written so please be nice to me, I wrote this instead of an essay. I would love a comment of any kind, even if it's just a heart emoji or something, and constructive criticism would be highly appreciated. Also 'N/N' stands for nick-name.

(Ok, so, full discloser: the format is odd. The bullet points represent dialogue, and the only dialogue is between you two love birds. The first bullet point is Peter, the second is Y/N, the third is Peter, and so on.)

“I dunno, the whole ‘liking people’ thing has always been weird for me.”

“How do you mean?"

“Pppffftt- 'how do you mean,' what are you, Shakespeare or somethin’?”

“Yeah, because that’s the era when ‘how do you mean' would have been a popular term. Ok, what do you mean?”

“Just- when other people were liking people I never really was?”

He was gesturing wildly and avoiding eye contact, as always. He wasn't uncomfortable with eye contact, he just got bored easily in conversations, he needed to keep himself occupied. In this situation that meant staring at the red and green lights covering the rest of the roof, the snowy trees all over the yard, and a holly garland around the gate. Peter wasn't Christian, but man, did he love their Christmas decorations.

“Like… now? In school?”

“Well- yeah… but also when I was younger. And I never liked the right people? Or... liked them in the right way?”

“So you’ve never liked anyone.”

“No, no… I definitely have. It was just… weird! I don't-”

His hands dropped to his side in defeat.

“I don’t think it’s that out of the ordinary. I would tell you if it was. Also, if it was... 'weird', like you said, that wouldn’t mean it was necessarily bad.”

He hadn’t really heard what she said, he was too busy pondering what his next sentence would be. When she wasn't speaking, he was rambling.

"I had some of the normal crap… like in movies when they talk about the fluttery stomach junk. I've had that around a few girls I've been friends with, also that phase with the boy stuff, a-"

“Wait, what phase with the boy stuff?”

“Like- when you’re in middle school or whatever and you're gay for a second.”

His phrasing was a joke, but the statement as a whole was not.

“…‘Gay for a second’?”

“…Yeah?”

“Hmmm..."

"Is that- not-"

"I don't think that is... 'normal'... per-say..."

“Oh… Really?”

His heart sunk.

“…Yeah.”

“Huh.”

“…Mhm.”

“…Shit.”

He suddenly looked almost embarrassed. He shifted his posture, seemingly trying to shrink into himself.

“Do you... wanna chat about it?”

Panic started to slowly rise in him.

“Um- forget I said anything.”

“Why?”

Something in him said to go on the "defense". He did not appear as calm as he was intending to.

“I’m not- gay! or anything. I like girls! I do!”

She put her hand on his arm.

“Hey- look at me for a second. We are not in court, and I never 'accused' you of being gay. That would be a very funny reality TV show, but not what is happening right now. Listen, theoretically if you were gay that wouldn’t be bad! And I wouldn’t be… whatever you.. think that I would be? I mean- however you are afraid I would act in a negative reaction to it? I would try to be here for you, and be as supportive as possible.”

He didn’t believe her.

“Ok, sure.”

“Peter.”

“What? You’re going to tell me that you would honestly be friends with a queer person- be friends with me if I was... not... normal?”

She was taken aback by his tone, the word he had used, and the way he said it, felt like a weight dropping on her shoulders.

“Oh. would you… not?”

It was her turn to seem nervous.

“What?”

“Would you- stop being friends with someone for liking someone that they… I don’t know… shouldn’t... would be the word I guess?”

Why, in this situation, was she nervous? Oh. His fear was replaced with guilt.

“No.”

“Ok.”

“So… are you… do you… why were you scared?”

“... Why were you?”

She expected a joke from him, something along the lines of “touché".

“Are you… gay?”

“No.”

Yeah, he didn’t believe her.

“Uh-huh”

“Really, I’m not. I’ve liked boys, but also... I've had feelings for girls. I’m not… straight. So I just want to let you know that it’s okay if you aren’t too.”

“I never s-“

She smiled at him with a bit of pity, she had been there. The self-loathing, the feeling of walking on minefields with so many people in your life.

“You are…”

She paused.

“I am… what?”

“Give me a second I’m trying to find the perfect word.”

“… Okay?”

“Wonderful.”

That was not exactly the word he was expecting. Like, at all.

“Huh?”

“That’s the word. Wait- let me start over. You gotta look me in my eyes as I say it, because it’s gonna be really poetic.”

“Uh… should I be scared?”

“No. Maybe a little. No.”

“… Okay.”

He looked at her.

“You are… wonderful.”

“Oh... Thanks?“

He looked away again, to be honest, he was a bit uncomfortable. He rarely received compliments, especially ones that seem so... genuine.

“I’m not finished, look back at me, just for a second. You are so wonderful- and I will support you as whatever you are! I want you to know that I can- I can barely even think of something you could do that would make me genuinely hate you- like… maybe if you Dahmer-ed people or like chopped up a-“

He found this was amusing, yet disturbing.

“Y/N?”

“Sorry- I just- the fact that you thought, even for a second, that I could hate you… is just-“

“I’m sorry”

“No! Stop it. Don’t be sorry.”

She stared at him expectantly.

“What do you want me to-“

“Take it back! The sorry!”

“How?”

“Say you aren’t sorry”

“N/N-“

“Peter.”

“Ok. I’m, ya know, not sorry.”

“Good. You shouldn’t be”

“You’re weird.”

“Yuh-huh. Says the most likely, from the little information I've gathered, bisexual in denial who also happens to be the fastest boy on earth who had to slow down exponentially to interact with other people who also, also, happens sitting on a roof in the dead of winter with me.”

“What’s by smexual?”

Something about the way he attempted to repeat her words must have been hilarious, he thought, because here she was, sitting in front of him, in a fit of childish giggles. He would smile if he weren't so confused.

“No- that’s not- what I said- it’s… wait!”

“What?”

“You’re tryna get me off topic!”

“Am not!”

“Are too!”

“Am not!”

“Am not!”

“Are t- shit.”

“HAHA! Victory is a sweet dessert... wait is that even the saying? Still, I win you lose, nerd.”

“Ok, okay! go on.”

She was attempting to gather herself to give off a less jokey aura. It was half working, the "am not! are too!" argument a few moments ago made it hard for him to take her seriously, but he could tell it was important to her that he did, so he tried his best.

“You have to look at me again. just for a second.”

“I sw-”

“Just do it? Please?”

His attempt to put up a fight was thwarted by her small "please". He was pathetic.

“Okay.”

He looked at her.

“You…”

“Me… or- wait- I…”

“Are w-“

“Wonderful, yeah yeah. just get to the n-”

“No.”

“… No?”

“When you say it it doesn’t encapsulate it. It sounds silly.”

“Ok little miss ‘you art thou wonderful’, how would you have me say it?”

“I am you wonderful?”

“What?”

“You called me ‘little miss you are you wonderful’ what does that-“

“Ok! Would you just- shut up and call me wonderful one more time, please?”

She looked at him and blinked. That sentence surely came off as less ironic than intended.

“You are wonderful.”

She grabbed his face, in a half-joking manner. Her grab smushed his cheeks and she couldn't help but laugh a bit when she did it. Even though it was clearly a bit, he was still flustered.

“W-“

She shook him a bit.

"Shut up 'cause I'm about to say some beautiful and true shit. You are wonderful. You are wonderful. You are wonderful. You are absolutely, unchangingly, and irrevocably wonderful and there is absolutely nothing you can do about it, Maximoff.”

After saying what she would (in 40 years or so) recall as a painfully John Green-ish statement in her blunt and matter-of-fact manner, she let go of her semi-ironic hold on his pink cheeks. Were his cheeks pink because it was absolutely freezing, or because his heart was beating faster than he had ever (and would ever, mind you) run, you ask? No comment.

“Wow.”

“Wow what.”

“You do say it better than I do.”

“Did you like how I stressed different parts of the sentence each time? I thought that was a nice detail.”

“Wow.”

“So I’ve heard.”

“Wow.”

Did his voice just... break a little?

“Peter?”

“Uh- yeah?”

Was he a little... sniffle-y? She was now very concerned.

“Are you okay?!”

“Oh- um... yeah!”

No! No he was clearly not! He was sniffling!

“Really? 'Cause, you don't seem it.”

“It’s just- I just- wow.”

“Wow, what!?”

“That was just- uh-"

“Just what? It really wasn't that fancy, you seem much too impressed with me. Oh my God, was it terrible?”

“I mean it was really corny but w-“

“I swear to God if you say 'wow' one more time I may have to add ‘use of the word wow too much’ to the list of things that could make me hate you. Right next to the Dahmer stuff. That was a joke. Your use of the word wow is only mildly perturbing. Sorry."

She was panicking "just a bit".

“I’m sorry, I mean I’m not sorry. Sorry. Shit! sorry! I mean I’m not!”

And he was absolutely... full-on crying at this point.

“Peter.”

“Yeah?”

He was looking down at his mittens. Not that this is important, but they were very pretty mittens.

“Look at me, you klepto.”

He didn’t.

“You know- I’ve been hearing a lot of that 'look at me' stuff from you today. I mean- the klepto part is new-“

“Peter.”

“What?!”

He peaked up at her.

“Talk to me. Please, you're kinda scaring me, let me help.”

“I’m not sad!”

“You’re crying!”

“Yeah but not from the sads!”

“… The ‘sads’?”

“You know- when you get sad! It just means being sad! I don't- that’s what Wanda calls it, not me!"

He wiped his nose, tears still running down from his puffy eyes to his reddened cheeks.

“What are you crying from?”

“No one’s ever called me wonderful before.”

“I'm sorry! I did a few minutes ago and you didn’t cry!”

“No! You can't 'sorry' me if I can't 'sorry' you! And- yeah but that doesn’t count!”

“Why?”

“Because it only felt big when you said it the certain way!”

“What way!?”

“You look at me, you grab my cheeks-“

“I'm sorry about that by the way I was j-“

“No! It’s really ok! Do it whenever! I mean don’t do it whene- shut up!”

“I’m not even talking! You're the one talking!”

“You look at me, you grab my cheeks, and you go: you are wonderful.”

“Yeah???”

“No one ever called me that before!”

"Peter, I- well- they- they should! They should! More often! Then the amount that it happens now! I think. In my opinion."

"Or really looked at me like that!”

“Looked at you like what, Peter?”

“Like I was somethin’!”

“Well, you are… ‘somethin'! Whatever that means! And- I think you deserve to be looked at as such!”

“See?”

“What!?”

“You just-“

A strangled sob escaped from his throat. He didn't know how to explain.

“Pete.”

“Ew. I hate that nickname.”

He crossed his arms over his chest like a toddler, trying to completely ignore the fact that he was an emotional wreck.

“Peter.”

“Yeah?”

She opened her arms and gestured for him to come closer. He was hesitant at first- but gave up all the reasons he shouldn't move to be closer to her in exchange for the promise of comfort she was offering him. He crawled over to her and curled up in her arms. The way she held him made him want to cry more. Who does she think she is- holding him like he was worth holding? With her chin sitting on top of his hair? Letting him do that gross cry sob with the spit and the snot into her only winter coat? Rocking him, and shushing him, and petting his stupid, silver hair? She was warm, too! The audacity of this woman.

When Erik brought Charles into his office to grab a chess set, they saw the two in the window. For a moment Charles considered telling Peter and Y/N to get off of the high platform, seeing as the two were the reasons the "no sitting on the roof" rule was enacted in the first place (neither of them were coordinated whatsoever). Charles quickly dropped this notion when he saw the look on Erik's face, Charles could tell it made him so happy to see Peter be held like that, cared for like that. Erik's expression made Charles want to both tell Erik that he is the most precious thing in the world, and make fun of him (look at Mr. Metal, gone completely soft). Possibly he could do both at the same time. But for now, he is just going to pretend he didn't see the two outside of the window, and have Erik grab them their game, go to the living room, and pretend not to have read Erik's mind when he inevitably asks him how he always manages to pick the white chess piece at "random".

[katribou]

Maybe its not supposed to be a racism allegory. It still works for the story and worldbuilding. Just like Beastars, where attempts to compare it to real life won't work since the problems the characters face are really specific to their own society and their own nature, so the story wouldn't make sense if you replaced them with humans. But if the allegory really was the author's intent, then you're right and it was poorly done.

alright. i want to give you the benefit of the doubt, but there is a bit of ignorance to what you say. so i’ll be as thorough as possible about my thoughts.

authorial intent is really powerless when it comes to what a piece of media says or does. if a piece of media harms, but the author did not mean it to harm, does that make the harm any more less? 

content creators and content consumers alike are likely familiar (and if not, should be) with the notion of ‘death of the author.’ from tvtropes’ summary of the concept:

Death of the Author is a concept from mid-20th Century literary criticism; it holds that an author's intentions and biographical facts (the author's politics, religion, etc) should hold no special weight in determining an interpretation of their writing. This is usually understood as meaning that a writer's views about their own work are no more or less valid than the interpretations of any given reader. Intentions are one thing. What was actually accomplished might be something very different. The logic behind the concept is fairly simple: Books are meant to be read, not written, so the ways readers interpret them are as important and "real" as the author's intention. [...]

Bottom line: A) when discussing a fictional work with others, don't expect "Author intended this to be X; therefore, it is X" to be the end of or your entire argument; it's universally expected that interpretations of fiction must at least be backed up with evidence from within the work itself and B) don't try to get out of analyzing a work by treating "ask the author what X means" as the only or even best way to find out what X means — you must search for an answer yourself, young seeker. Writing is the author's job; analyzing the work and drawing conclusions based on it is your job — if the author just gave away the answers every time, where would the fun be in that?

>interpretations of fiction must at least be backed up with evidence from within the work itself. okay, fine. so i argue brand new animal is a racism allegory. let’s look within the show to find evidence of this.

from episode 9: “But Nazuna wants to give a glimmer of hope and dreams to the beastmen who’ve been persecuted and suffered for so long.”

'the beastmen who have been persecuted.’ what exactly does that mean? persecution as defined in mac’s dictionary function (which cites new oxfords english dictionary): hostility and ill-treatment, especially because of race or political or religious beliefs. 

the beastmen are not oppressed because of who they believe in, so not of religious beliefs or political beliefs, with the exception of believing they deserve rights, which plays into... that they are persecuted for race.

i dont really think i need to back up that statement, but for the sake of a sound argument, this is from episode 1.

it’s clear that this human dude has a distaste for michiru here because of what she is, a beastman, which is essentially what she is, her race. hence racial persecution, or, racism.

in your own words, “attempts to compare it to real life won't work since the problems the characters face are really specific to their own society and their own nature, so the story wouldn't make sense if you replaced them with humans.”

is the above exchange really so displaced from real life? this kind of thing really does happen; being targeted and even beat up simply for existing as you are is not something that is so specific to only the world of bna. 

sure you may argue that replacing humans into the whole story would not make sense and well sure, yes. it is indeed a work of fiction so it won’t be a perfect replication of the human experience. but there is enough situations like the above to argue it mirrors racial prejudice in real life.

the evidence is there, so with the philosophy of “death of the author,” it is arguable this piece of media exists as a racial allegory, whether or not trigger wrote it to be that way. if they somehow did not have real race/minority relations in mind when writing this, which i would find very hard to believe, than it has still become bigger than them. because people who face racism will relate to scenarios such as beastmen being the target of hate crimes like the above, and nothing the authors meant to do really changes that feeling.

when such a scenario as above is set up in the very first episode to give you a picture of what this persecuted group experiences, while simultaneously likening itself to what minorities in real life experience, the treatment in following episodes of said group will reflect back as commentary on real life groups whether or not the authors intended that.

in bna’s case it’s rather damaging with implying this minority group is prone to rage and destruction because of their nature or dna:

episode 9: “Beastmen are easily influenced by their emotions. When their frustration builds up, the slightest thing sends them into a fury, causing confusion.”

episode 10: “The stress from multiple species invading your habitat accumulates subconsciously. In that situation if there is a powerful mental shock, the enrage switch in beast [dna] is set off, and their fight instincts take over.”

this is where you may argue in your own words “the story wouldn't make sense if you replaced them with humans.” which, yes that is true, but again this is fiction. the dynamic they establish in that first episode with beastmen being persecuted by humans is one founded in real race relations so the show at large becomes a vehicle to which it addresses race relations.

ep 10: “They’re [the drug vaccine that cures beastmen of being animals] made to subdue beastmen who have turned savage.”

goodness this almost becomes about eugenics! which is another movement founded on racism and other -isms!

the word “savage” generally refers to wild, violent unconfined animals, which, fine, i suppose, after all these ARE animal people in the show. but the show has established this animal people group as a targeted victim minority. historically in real life, the word “savage” has been a label used to describe many persecuted groups, like indigenous peoples or african americans, in a way to dehumanize them by comparing them to animals and force the idea that they are uncivilized while making the people in power feel more justified about their rough treatment of the targeted group.

i suppose arguably they are using the word “savage” to describe animals as the word originally was intended, but after establishing the framework of these animals as being persecuted peoples, do you understand the implications? are they basically saying yes, targeted minorites, are savage? admittedly i will say that that idea is a big jump, but even if you stick to the world of the show, basically this establishes that everyone is at the mercy of their genes turning them bad... not a great message.

i kind of went beyond the scope of what you addressed in your message, but wanted to show an example of how i think it is very important to consider how a piece of media can very easily become bigger than its creators, and that you cannot hide behind authorial intent saying otherwise when media expresses potentially damaging ideas. 

to reiterate the line from tvtropes: Intentions are one thing. What was actually accomplished might be something very different.

[ineloqueent]

Starstruck: Part 17

Brian May x Fem!Reader

This is Part 17 of a multi-part fic. Click the links below to read the Masterpost, the previous part, or the next part of the fic :)

Masterpost / Part 16 / Part 18

Summary: When studying at Imperial College in the 1970s, your path is crossed by a beautiful boy as much in love with the stars as you.  

Warnings: swearing, sentiments of sadness

Historical Inaccuracies:

SO. This is more of a disclaimer than an inaccuracy. But it’s very important...

I have written Mary’s character on basis of Lucy Boynton’s portrayal of her in Bohemian Rhapsody. I make no assumptions concerning the relationship between Freddie and Mary, and nor do I condone the things Mary has done in the wake of Freddie’s passing. 

Please remember that this is but a fictionalisation. But anyway. I’m not here to talk about that; I’m here to write fanfic. Let’s go! 

Word Count: 2.6k (can i get three cheers for the shortest chapter ever)

⁺˚*·༓☾ ☽༓･*˚⁺

You found her soon enough. She hadn’t even made it fully up the stairs.

A pitiful sight, she was, sitting with her knees pulled up as she wept quietly into the velvet of her trousers.

“Mary,” you began gently, and she lifted her head.

Her eyes were puffy, and tears had drawn angry red lines down her round cheeks. Her hair, which had previously been up, fell about her face in blonde wisps as her lower lip trembled and her eyes filled anew with tears.

You made your way over to the corner where she sat and she watched you raptly, like a frightened animal. You knelt beside her.

“Hey, what was that all about?”

Mary only shook her head, blinking rapidly in an attempt to stem her tears.

You offered her a hand up, and after a few moments of contemplation, she took it and stood.

She stared at you a moment before rivulets came running down her face again.

“Come on,” you said. “Let’s get some air.”

You led her up the final stairs and pulled open the door at the landing, guiding her outside onto the rooftop terrace.

The night air was cool, and from the heated rush of emotions that still seemed to cloud your mind to the giddiness that still occupied your stomach, the breeze on the roof was one you welcomed.

Mary seemed to relish the sudden cold as well, going as far as to lean out over the railing and close her eyes in the onslaught of the wind.

Thinking that you should probably not allow her to do any leaning given the mental state she was presently in, you came to stand by her side.

“Do you want to tell me about it?”

Anger flashed across her face, and she wiped her eyes with a frustrated air, only more infuriated by the fact that she was crying.

You were about to assure her that she needn’t say anything at all when she blurted,

“I found Freddie with another man.”

“Oh,” you said. You pressed your lips together, trying to gauge how it was you were to handle this.

“I just can’t believe that he’d lie to me.”

You were reminded of Deacy’s comment about Freddie being ‘nearly pathological’ with respect to lying, but that was hardly helpful right now, and you could only imagine the crushing betrayal Mary must have felt.

“I can believe that he would lie,” she elaborated, fingers curling around the railing, “but not to me. I just— oh, I suppose I thought I was different.” She gave a shudder. “I’d had the feeling that something wasn’t quite right, and I tried to talk to him, tried to tell him that he could tell me anything, and that even if I was mad about whatever it was when he told me, I wouldn’t stay that way.”

Mary turned to you, and the wind tossed her hair wildly, and with the way her eyes still ran with saltwater, she seemed a maiden from some sort of Greek tragedy.

“I love him,” she went on. “But I’ve always felt that I loved him more than he loved me. Now I understand why.”

She slumped to the ground again, her expression dark. “I’m not even angry that he didn’t come out to me. I understand that, because how the hell do you begin to tell your fiance that you want to break of the wedding because you’re gay?

“Freddie’s got this kindness, and sometimes, it’s like he’d lie to a court if it meant that he spared the feelings of those he loves. So I guess, in a way, he does love me. I only wish he’d have tried to break it off with me, instead of waiting until I walked in on him.”

She sighed, and you sat down across from her, folding your legs beneath you.

“So, what now?” you asked, because it seemed that Mary had thought a lot about this already.

But she dropped her head to her hands. “That’s the one thing I can’t work out. Where do I go from here?”

“Have you talked to Freddie, properly?”

She shook her head. “It’s going to take me a long time to forgive him. I just hope he knows why I’m angry, and that it’s not because he’s gay.”

There. That was it. That was where she had to go. “Maybe you should tell him that.”

Mary looked at you, her face wrought in scars of mascara and eyeliner. She lifted her chin and nodded. “You’re right.” She chewed her lip a moment. “But not tonight. I don’t think I can do that.”

You nodded in understanding, because with the way sobs had wracked her body, there would be no energy left for her to have a conversation with Freddie without it dissolving into a bitter argument, even with good intentions at heart.

“Y/N, would it be okay if I stayed in your room for the night?”

“So long as you promise me you’ll talk to Freddie tomorrow,” you said. “Don’t leave him wondering.”

“Yeah.”

You stood. “Let’s just go, then. It’s past midnight anyway.”

Later, when Mary was sound asleep on one of the beds, bundled in the various extra blankets you’d scavenged from cupboards, you lay with your eyes wide open. You’d been kept awake by the sounds of the dwindling party upstairs, which had carried on for long after the scene had been abandoned by its host.

You wondered where Freddie had got to.

And where Brian had.

You’d considered going to find him many times, and had even gone so far as to stick your feet out of bed and set them on the cold hardwood floor, but in the end, you’d made up your mind to do what you always did: nothing.

He’d left you standing in the dance hall, without so much as recognition in his eyes for evidence of having kissed you. And now he was going to tell you that he’d meant nothing of it, a rush of emotions in an exhilarated situation, and you couldn’t bear to hear that.

You’d rather be left wondering than have such a finality imposed upon your mind.

⁺˚*·༓☾ ☽༓･*˚⁺

It had been days, now. They’d been tiptoeing around each other for days.

It was ridiculous to the point where I began to feel the need to take matters into my own hands.

The situation was now ultimately worse than it had been before, because very obviously, something had changed. And I’d wager that something had happened on the first night of tour. They were different now, almost shyer, more fragile in their vulnerability to each other’s charms.

He had pined for her since the late sixties, she had been oblivious since day one, and I doubted that, despite their respectively vast vocabularies, either of them knew the meaning of the verb ‘to converse’. It was all longing looks and unuttered promises, a brush of a hand and staring pensively when the other was unawares.

I was almost offended that they couldn’t pull themselves together, when they were fortunate enough to have each other.

Veronica and Robert would get farther and farther from me as each day of tour escorted us more remotely from London. It hadn’t been an option to bring my wife and our tiny child with us on tour, so I could do nothing now but miss them.

But our two resident idiots, Y/N and Brian, did have each other. And they took it completely for granted.

The open road was quiet and dark, and seemed half-asleep, the trees that blurred past the window swaying to some secret song. A flock of birds streamlined the puffy clouds overhead as the moon greeted the sun in its eternal celestial shift, light yielding light to comfort the earthly beings who feared the darkness. Though I did not fear the dark as such, it was easy to imagine lurking figures between the lone houses by the roads, creeping souls amongst the woods by the road; there was something consuming about this early-morning quiet.

On a stop between Bristol and Cardiff, I left the loos to find Freddie smoking by a payphone, notably absent from the rest of our entourage.

The morning air was chilly, and I wound the scarf around my neck in its second loop, buttoning up my jacket with a shiver. No one was out here other than out of necessity, so I made my way over to Freddie and leaned against the wall beside him.

I turned to face him. “How are you?”

Freddie pursed his lips, tapping ash from his cigarette. “Not at my most fabulous, dear.”

I nodded understandingly, burying my face further into the scarf. “It’s okay, you know. You can’t always be.”

“But that’s why I became Freddie Mercury,” he said quietly, his words nearly carried away by the wind. “I became a legend so I wouldn’t feel like this.”

“Freddie,” I began, “I’m pretty sure being legendary means you have a lot more to feel than you would otherwise.”

He smiled a thin-lipped smile, tossing his spent cigarette into the ashtray mounted atop the rubbish bin. “You are of course right, darling, but right now I’d give anything to feel nothing at all.”

“You don’t mean that.”

Freddie sighed. “I don’t know what I want.”

It was despair in his voice; I recognised it. And I understood it. Because where do you start if you don’t know what you’re working toward?

I placed a hand on his shoulder and he turned his sad brown eyes on me.

“You’re a legend, Freddie,” I reminded him. “You’ve got forever to figure it out, okay?”

He nodded.

“And you can talk to me if you need to.”

“Thank you, Deacy,” he patted my hand. “I think I’ll keep a bit to myself for a while, though, at least until we reach the city.”

“Okay.”

“Now, let’s get out of this cold. I’m freezing my tits off!”

I laughed. “Okay, Freddie.”

And though the open road was quiet and dark and I missed my wife and son, I had my friends. The second half of my family.

⁺˚*·༓☾ ☽༓･*˚⁺

You ached to kiss Brian again. To wind your fingers through his hair. To hold him close, because with the worry that wove itself through his brow on behalf of Freddie, he looked so lost, so far away, as though he needed someone to bring his floating self to the ground where his thoughts could wander amongst the living, and not dwell up in the sky with that which he had lost.

Perhaps that was why he looked to the stars so often; he’d lost so much, and they were a constant.

He deserved to have something brought back to him. And if you could return to him some of the light in his eyes instead of stealing it away, then nothing in the world would make you happier.

The mornings on the bus were tense, to say the least.

Without discussion, it seemed that you and Brian had established an agreement to keep Mary and Freddie apart until they had the time and privacy in which to talk. But it was a difficult arrangement, given that the tour bus was not exactly spacious. And given that it meant you had to keep your distance from Brian.

Presently, though, you came second to the efforts of protecting Freddie and Mary from themselves, which meant that Brian did as well. So for now, all you could give to him were silent glances and small smiles.

But Brian seemed to have other ideas.

On the leg from Cardiff to Taunton, just as you were getting back on the bus, someone grabbed your hand and pulled you around the corner.

You tensed, whirling around with your other fist raised, your heart hammering.

But your defenses were instantly disarmed, because there was Brian with his mass of curls in disarray from the wind, his lips parted as though he had been about to say something.

“Are you trying to kill me?!” you cried, your heartbeat still in your throat.

“No,” Brian said, “I’m trying to kiss you.”

“You’re—”

He pulled you to him, melding himself against you, and kissed you soundly on the mouth, his arms winding around you. Your response was immediate, and you leaned so far into him that he stumbled. His laughter tickled your lips, a rush of breath over your skin as he clutched you to stop you from falling with him.

But you pushed him against the wall instead, and his hands rose to your cheeks to kiss you more deeply, devouring— senseless. Precisely as you had once wished for him to kiss you.

There were so many things you wanted to say, but it seemed the most of them were covered in how you moved with him, vulnerable and uninhibited, purely driven by the desire to hold him close, to make him understand with your proximity how much it was you cared for him. How much you would never be able to explain the gravity of your affections for him.

Brian reversed your positions and only the existence of the wall and his arms kept you on your feet; you were dizzy with the surge of excitement that withered you where he touched you.

And his touch was everywhere.

His lips moved from your mouth to your jaw, from your jaw to your cheek, to the shell of your ear, and then in a tender trail down your neck. His fingertips fluttered at your sides, warm on your skin, but you shivered, because no one had ever touched you with such a gentleness as this, such desire, such love.

Then abruptly, he pulled back, short of breath and flushed from head to toe, with swollen lips and loose curls sticking up where your fingers had interfered with their natural fall.

The world spun as his eyes flickered between yours.

“I’m sorry if I scared you,” he hummed.

“You did a bit,” you replied. “We’re on the open road. It is sort of scary out here.”

“I’m sorry,” he said again. “I just missed you. I miss you. I feel like we’re apart, you know?”

You nodded mutely.

He asked softly, “We’re not keeping this a secret, are we?”

You couldn’t believe that he was asking, after everything. But you supposed that was how he was, considerate to the point where he doubted himself if the circumstances favoured you.

“Brian,” you said, “I don’t think I could hide the way I look at you if I wanted to.”

A smile flickered across his face.

Then the rain began to pour.

“Come on, back inside,” you said, taking him by the hand.

“Hang on,” he pulled you back. He lingered a moment, gazing at you aimlessly, and he looked at you the way he looked at the stars.

“What?”

Brian cradled your face in his hands. Then he pressed a gentle kiss to your nose, brushed the pad of his thumb over your skin. “I just wanted to look at you.”

You couldn’t help but smile.

“My evening star,” he murmured.

You shook your head, finding it very hard to believe that this man, who spoke so beautifully, was yours. “You’re a poet, Brian.”

His response would have been enough to flood the coldest land with a wealth of warmth, as absolutely as that which blossomed in your chest.

“And you’re my muse.”

⁺˚*·༓☾ ☽༓･*˚⁺

A/N: two more parts and an epilogue m’dears :)

taglist: @melting-obelisks @retropetalss @hgmercury39​ @topsecretdeacon @joemazzmatazz @perriwiinkle @brianmays-hair @im-an-adult-ish @ilikebigstucks @doing-albri @killer-queen-87 @n0-self-c0ntro1 @archaicmusings @cloudyyspace @annina-96 @themarchoftherainbowqueen @annajolras​

Masterpost / Part 16 / Part 18

[the-ineffable-demon-crowley]

A Bargain Struck

Mesopotamia!AU. Trapped in an arranged marriage, you beseech the demon Crowley to find a way to release you from it. He offers you a simple bargain, one that is far too tempting to resist. 

↝Pairing: Anthony J. Crowley (ft. luscious long curls) x f reader

↝Length: 6.6k

↝Warnings: Oral (f receiving), virgin!reader, sex, dirty talk, praise kink, sacrilege lol - this is not meant to be set in any particular historical place or peoples 

Cross-posted to AO3 here

There was once a man with yellow eyes and curling red hair. He had a sharp smile, and a smooth voice. He was tall, lithe, and lean, and mostly kept to himself. He had a small home just beyond the border of the town, where it seemed only the darkest of clouds would hover above. Rumours flooded the town: sometimes people would talk to him, and then they would disappear. Others would look him in the eye, then days later fall dead quite suddenly. Otherwise devoted husbands and wives would catch a glimpse of him, fall besotted, and renounce their vows.

Livestock would die. Crops turned turned to ash. Water turned to dust. Any unlucky turn of the wind, no matter how explicable, they blamed on him. They said he was a demon, a man borne of hellfire with brimstone in his soul, and the village would see no blessing from the lord until they cast off his wicked presence. Trouble was, there was no evidence of any of it. Apart from always wearing his hood up and hardly being seen in public, thus becoming the inspiration for many a children’s tale, the man was never caught doing any sort of witchcraft. People had long been burned for less, but everybody was afraid of him.

Truth is, so were you. But God had ignored your prayers for too long now, and you had to take things into your own hands. If He could not help you, then you would seek out someone who could. Even if you ended up in a great stew for the demon to gobble up, it would be a better fate than the one awaiting you now. There was someone else you feared more than any demon, and it was for this reason that you chose to follow the stories.  He was said to be called Crowley, and it was in his alleged claws you put your hopes.

So once the day darkened to dusk and the village prepared for bedtime, you slipped out, quiet as a mouse, and made the journey to his home. Having never been there yourself, your path consisted solely of the details you’d heard in stories. You travelled through the trees, thickets, and even crossed a small stream you remembered one person mentioning, once they’d stopped screaming about having seen a demon in the woods. You could only imagine it was Crowley, and though fear gripped your heart, your feet kept moving until - finally - you spotted it. 

Amongst the trees, a squatting little hut built of stone and wood came into view, with sagging front steps, and windows that looked blackened as though from a fire. You didn’t know if he could already hear your racing heartbeat as you tentatively walked towards the door, or if you were going to be a surprise snack that showed up to your door, but either or... it was worth it. 

You raised your hand and gingerly knocked. Is that what one does when visiting a demon’s house? Do demons have a sense of social etiquette? You took a step back and regarded the threshold, all rotten wood and gnarled vines. The cottage looked one wistful sigh away from tumbling. You waited another moment, then another. Nothing.

“Hello?” You called, tilting your head to try and see inside the windows. “D-demon?” The windows reflected nothing but your face, the blackness of the inside making the image as clear as a mirror.

You felt mad. If the man were just a regular old bloke, you’d be the one awaiting the match. Still, if you were right, it was too late to turn around now. Perhaps he was a more formal demon, you thought. You straightened your back and lifted your chin, and spoke as commandingly as you could, as though you were speaking to the house itself. 

“I am here to beseech the demon Crowley.”

A pause. Then a soft creak. The door then swung open quite suddenly, revealing a hooded figure as it banged against the limits of the hinges. The person stepped forward. A few long curls of red hair betrayed the personage underneath. You stepped back with a quiet gasp.

“Go on then. Beseech me.” The tone was almost playful in nature, but there was an undercurrent of power in his words. You thought it best to not anger him.

You swiped your foot back and began to lower yourself onto your knees. Before your legs could touch the ground, his voice halted you.

“No, love. A woman as beautiful as you should never be on her knees. Not like this.”

You straightened your posture, confused and flushed from his words. His demonic charm seemed to already be taking its hold on you, despite having only shared a handful of words and no knowledge of what lay under the cloak.

“I... am here to beseech the lord Crowley to release me from the bonds of my fate.”

The hooded figure was so still, you thought he’d magicked himself into a statue. Then you heard the smile in his words.

“And what fate would that be?”

You let out a soft breath, eyes falling to his feet. “An arranged marriage.”

“Brilliant! Do come in.” The man drifted to the side to let you pass. You tried to peer inside before entering, careful not to allow your foot to cross the threshold for him to pull you in before you’d properly decided. But you could see nothing. Just darkness.

A hand appeared from underneath the cloak, skin smooth and soft, and offered itself to you. Seemingly harmless. You took it tentatively, stepped over the threshold and let the darkness consume you.

The dimness was warm, but not stifling. Then, a few feet away from you, a spark. And another. Then a flame burst to life within a stone pit, and the room was bathed in light. You twisted and turned to try and get an idea of your surroundings, but it looked nothing like what you’d supposed. It was... grand.

The home was lavish; handsomely carved furniture bedecked in thick furs, low tables covered in spreads of foods you’d never even seen before on shining plates. Books and and small statues and curious instruments dotted a few stone shelves jutting out from the walls, with plants and herbs claiming every spare surface you could spot. 

You blinked and he was there, standing over the fire, heating something in a pot. The stew, you thought shrewdly, you were the last ingredient.

“Now then,” he murmured, placing the pot onto a stone ledge nearby. He tipped it slowly and allowed the hot liquid to pour into two matching goblets. The smell was warm and spicy, the smoke of the fire bathing the room in a haze. He stood, goblets in hand, at which point his hood slowly fell back.

The man in front of you was devilish and beautiful. The rest of his curls tumbled forward, a fiery red shade with undercurrents of gold. The yellowness of his eyes was even more striking in the firelight, but they didn’t frighten you like the stories said they would. He was tall and lithe; you could tell from the way the cloaked draped over him.

“Here. A wine of my own creation.” He handed you one of the goblets, warm to the touch, and you cradled it between your fingers as the heat traveled up your arms. Though you hadn’t intended on eating or drinking anything the demon gave you, the smell was so divine it was nearly impossible to resist. You tipped the cup towards your mouth slowly, the sweetness of the berries and the richness of the cloves and ginger flooding your senses instantly. You lowered the cup from your mouth, careful to not overdo it, and found him looking at you intently. Placing the cup on a table nearby, you sighed, ready to make your plea.  

“Please, I need your help to release me from this betrothal.”

“You do not want this union?”

“No.”

“And why is that, love?”

You sat down on the furs with a huff. All of the arguments with your family went swirling through your head. It was hard to pick just one reason.

“I’ve been putting it off for years. Now they want me to marry a man who’s... cruel. I’ve seen it, he’s an evil man. I cannot belong to a man like that. I simply want to live freely without the bonds of marriage, to love freely... I’ve prayed to God asking why I must do this, and he has ignored me. They tell me it is his will, but what of my will?” Your eyes widened and you placed your hand against your mouth. “I- that was sacrilege.”

“And beautifully said, might I add. But what do you suppose I can do?”

“Well, you are a demon, aren’t you? Can’t you... kill him?”

He laughed then, a warm sound showing off two rows of beautiful teeth. You thought you’d seen two shaped like fangs, but when you blinked, his smile had already faded.

“I s’ppose I could, yes, but I made a promise to a... colleague of mine- er, not the point. What’s to stop them from finding another bloke if this one dies? And I certainly can’t kill off every eligible man in your village. You lot would have my head.”

“Then I’m trapped?” Despair filled your voice at the thought. The demon shook his head.

“No, love. We will simply have to think of a more eternal solution.”

You blinked. “And that would be?”

“Give yourself to me.”

You stuttered, the words dying in your throat. A red flush climbed up your throat to your cheeks like the tongue of a flame. “Wh-what?”

“Give yourself over to a higher temptation, and no man, no covenant will be able to pull you from it.” His voice adopted a low, velvety timbre, and your thoughts swam as the warmth and haziness of the room settled upon you like a thick blanket. However,  you still felt clear-headed, so it hadn’t the wine affecting you so; it was the weight of his words that rushed over you like a tidal wave. “With your soul in my possession, you could not offer it to be bound in the sanctity of matrimony. Along with your mind, your body... Of course, your reputation might suffer. Not to mention your status regarding more... eternal fates.” 

“My soul in the hands of a demon! I’d be ruined for eternity... but I’d be free.” You whispered, fingers aimlessly playing with the tassel of a cushion. You fixed him with a hard look, your human gaze unable to penetrate the attractive mask that his face presented. His words were tempting, his face desirable, but he was a demon after all, and you’d be an idiot to take his offer at face value.

“What’s in it for you?”

Crowley smiled then, his snakelike eyes glinting in the firelight; he looked as though he’d eat you whole right there and then. You shifted a bit on the bundle of furs, uncomfortable with so blatantly desirable a stare. You’d certainly never been on the receiving end of one before. He still did not reach out to touch you, but with one word, his wants were clear. 

“You.”

“So you wish to possess me- how is that any different than a marriage?”

“Anybody ever tell you that you ask too many questions, angel? You’ll simply have to see for yourself.” He grunted quietly, raising a hand with long and delicate fingers. He touched your wrist gingerly, turned it over, and traced his fingertips along the exposed skin. You felt goosebumps pebble your skin. and you let out a shaky breath.  His touch was light, delicate, but you felt his power thrumming inside of you. It almost felt as though the blood inside your veins was drawn towards him and his heat. 

If you gave yourself to him, he would possess you, own you, mind, body, and soul. He’d turn out all hope for glory in the eternal kingdom, ravish your lust and tarnish your soul irreversibly. It was not that you simply assumed these things; you saw them. Images flashed in front of your eyes of heat, darkness, pleasure, depravity, want, satiation, and... protection. Freedom. A bond that would keep you and yet set you free. An unstoppable force. 

The images slowly faded from your eyes, but his fingers did not release your wrist. His touch was feather-light as the firelight threw shadows over your skin. Your heart was racing, and it felt as though your skin was lit aflame from the moment he touched you. You felt the edges of your soul singe from the hellfire he imposed upon you. 

“Make your choice.”

You felt like a rabbit caught in the jaws of a wolf. Heart hammering, you closed your eyes and breathed in through your nose and out of your mouth to steady yourself. Your soul was rejecting this devilish influence, but your heart, your mind, wanted nothing more than to give in. Even your body had less than pure intentions, as you felt yourself grow hot between your thighs. Nothing else could make you feel like this again. Not for all of eternity, and it wasn’t worth letting slip away. 

“Yes.” You said, and the haze slowly began to clear. You found strength in that one word. 

“Yes, what? I need to hear you say it, love.”

“Yes, I give myself, body, mind, and soul, to the demon Crowley. I surrender myself to you.” 

The smile on his face was wicked, and his eyes fell to the smooth skin of your upturned wrist as his fingers made quick work of it. He traced a pattern along the visible veins, just for a few seconds, and you felt your blood answer the call, singing at his touch. Moments later, something began to appear. Rising from within your flesh came a mark on your skin; pink at first, then red, then you watched with bewilderment as the colour darkened to the deepest black. It was then that you recognized the shape - a coiling black snake. He released your wrist gently and you clutched it, cradling it in your other hand and staring as though it was someone else’s. You rubbed your thumb over the mark, but no ink stained it. No pain throbbed through your arm. No burning. It was just... there. As if it had always been.

You looked up at Crowley, understandably shocked, and his eyes gazed upon you, pleased. His features were so beautiful, yet chiseled with the intent to tempt unsuspecting prey. Like you. Even his hair acted as a temptation, soft curls tumbling forward from his hood. You fought the urge to reach out and touch them, run your fingers through them - maybe pull them, and instead watched as he raised a hand, finger tapping against his temple. The same black insignia marking his skin. 

“It’s... beautiful.” You surprised yourself, but honestly, it was. The detailing on the snake was unlike anything you’d ever seen before, and as you rolled your wrist between your fingers, you could’ve sworn the scales gleamed like a real snake. Suddenly, the tail twitched, and a slippery tongue lashed out, and you gaped at your own hand. 

“How-”

“Little bit of an illusion.” 

“Will other people see this? Will they know what I have done?” 

“No. The mark can disappear if you wish. But they will know, regardless if they see the mark or not.” 

“What does that mean, exactly?”

“It’s a mark of protection, angel. Those who would otherwise have ill intentions will be forewarned.”

“So they can’t force me to marry?”

“Not unless they’re ready to take on hell itself.” 

A feeling of relief suddenly flooded through you. You were beginning to understand what this bond meant; you’d given yourself to him, and yet you were still free to pursue your own will. If you had to be bonded with someone, you’d always choose the one where you’d given yourself willingly. 

You looked down at the mark emblazoned upon your wrist, a smudge of ink staining your skin. Like he used the ashes of hell itself to imprint his mark on you. You’d never felt safer in your life. Your eyes flickered up to Crowley’s, drunk with the feeling. 

“If my choices will now be wholly mine, I choose to take everything in my hands-” You straightened your back, fingers beginning to unlace the front corseted portion of your dress. It began to fall slack as you shifted your shoulders, revealing a white shift dress beneath it. “-including you.”  

Crowley’s eyes flickered darkly. He had never seen a human give themselves so willingly to the hands of hell, but you were something different. You were temptation incarnate, and it was time that you tapped into those strengths. With his help, of course.

“Not wasting any time, are you?”

The outer layer of your dress was now pooled around your waist, and Crowley wanted nothing more than to rip it off to avenge your hips for being so tragically hidden from him. He watched your trembling hands reach forward for him, as each deft finger unknotted the bindings that held his cloak together. You pushed it off his shoulders slowly, revealing a lean, lithe figure clad in only a tunic. 

“This will mark your downfall, angel.” He murmured, taking one of your hands by the wrist to stop your movements. The trembling stilled instantly at his touch. “There is still time to change your mind.”

“I said yes, Crowley. I want you. My choice.” 

“Then let it be damnation upon you.” 

His lips pressed against the mark on your wrist, then slowly moved up to your forearm, up to your shoulder. At this point, he had pulled you so close that you were nearly flush with his chest. His fingers were apt and skilled as they pulled off the wadded remnants of the dress, tossing it aside as though it offended him. You were left in a white undergarment, shivering, nipples pebbled from the cool air, though you felt like you were burning up inside. 

Crowley’s large hands cupped your breasts, and you let out a soft moan at the feeling. His thumb ran over one of your nipples. “So sensitive already, angel. I’m going to take my time with you.” 

You felt yourself grow wetter between your thighs, and an accompanying heat you had never felt before flared in your stomach. You felt an arm snake around your waist, and you were pulled to your feet. The outer layer of your dress fell from your hips, which pleased Crowley as he placed a searing kiss against your lips. Every touch made you feel feverish, which did not bode well for you once he’d had his way with you. The thought made you drunk with desire. 

He took you into the bedroom, a handsomely carved bed standing right in the centre. A few books and candles dotted the shelves, all of which came alight with a swing of his arm. You swore you would never get used to that. 

“Lie down for me.” Chills seemed to overtake your body at the sound of his low voice rattling deep inside your ribcage. Not wanting to remove yourself from the heat of his body, and yet wishing to comply, you stepped away from him and sat up onto the edge of the bed. You sank in the softness of the sheets, falling back with a soft sigh. 

“Enjoying yourself?” He asked with that same tone of playfulness. You smirked to yourself, allowing your eyes to close for a moment. 

“Isn’t that the point?”

The sudden feeling of his mouth on your inner thigh made you gasp. You moved to buck your hips at the sudden sensation, at which point he pressed his hand down against your lower stomach, holding you down. He kissed either thigh softly. “I realize this can be overwhelming for you humans, so if you tell me to stop, we stop. Yes?” You felt his teeth scrape against your sensitive skin, and your hips fought against his hand, seeking the heat of his mouth once more.

“Yes, Crowley.” You swore, eyes closing again. 

“There’s a love.” 

You didn’t know when he had bunched your underdress around your hips, but you had been far too distracted to even realize it was still adorning your body. Your thoughts were cloudy beyond the most instinctual drives: Crowley, touch, heat, pleasure. Luckily, he was eager to oblige. 

“Please, please, Crowley..” You whimpered, feeling his hot mouth draw closer and closer to your centre. You had no previous knowledge of carnal relations, but you’d heard so many stories of how stiff, pleasureless and lifeless it could be. So far, this was by far exceeding your expectations.

His large hands gripped your thighs and spread them further apart. You flushed, the heat from your traveling all the way up to your cheeks to colour them pink. He held them firmly, leaving all hope of preserving your dignity in the dust.

“Hm. Gave yourself over so easily, didn’t you, little one?” His voice was hot and smooth as velvet, just like the way his tongue licked a trail over your pussy. You couldn’t help the small yelp that escaped you, and you clapped your hand over your mouth. How embarrassing. Crowley chuckled wickedly, his tongue prodding against your folds, and lips coming to encircle your clit. Pleasure and heat spiked up within your blood, hips squirming from the overload of sensations. He held you fast, dipping his tongue in and out of you with practiced efficiency. You were beginning to quiver beneath him, fingers slipping into his flaming red hair. 

“Crowley, I-I-” A coil tightened inside of you, and tried as you might, you pushed your hips against him to chase the feeling. His grip prevented most movement, but he was determined to let you feel the extent of his prowess. His tongue encircled your clit, and it was then that you felt one of his long fingers slipping inside of you. You were soaked, you could feel it; he slipped another finger in without much issue, and he set a brutal pace almost instantly. 

Your back arched, fingers tugging on his hair. “Crowley!”

Your panting was the only sound in the room you could hear for a few seconds. You blinked in the darkness of the room, the candles flickering and throwing shadows over the walls. Crowley stood from his place at the foot of the bed, wiping his mouth with leisure. His smile was wicked. “Came so prettily, angel.”

You quickly sat up on the bed and tugged him closer by the tunic he was wearing, pressing your lips to his in a searing kiss. He matched the force and heat, overpowering you easily as your tongues battled. You could still nearly taste yourself on his tongue, and the depravity of such a thing nearly had you fainting. But his arms wrapped around you, strong and corded with lean muscle, and you remembered that you were safe here. He broke the kiss, his fingers slowly returning to worship your breast, fingers rolling against your pebbled nipple. 

“Do you still want this?” He lowered his mouth and enveloped the tip of your breast in it, and you shuddered at the feeling of his hot, wet mouth.

“Yes.”

He hummed. “You’re a virgin, little one.”

You couldn’t help but smirk a bit. “You know that, don’t you?”

“We-ell, I just can’t help but find it so... irresistible. Your tight little pink pussy, taking all of me in, right to the hilt.” You bit your lip at his dark words. “A virgin defiled mercilessly by a demon. You’d like that, wouldn’t you, love?”

“Yes!” You sighed, hips wiggling, eager to feel his weight on top of you again. He slowly began to crawl up over you, his arms caging you in as he hovered above you. 

“Yes, what? You know my policy. I need to hear you say it.”

“I want you to ruin me, Crowley. Defile me, ravish me until I’m screaming your name, praising you like a god.” 

Desperation began to flow through you, but you were too far gone to care at this point. Crowley seemed ready to give you what you wanted, and you couldn’t have been more eager. He kissed you again, his arms slowly slipping up the sides of your body until he reached your forearms. Gripping both arms, he raised them above your head and held them there. 

“Don’t move, little one. Or you won’t get anything.”

You swallowed, clutching the carvings of the headboard. One of his hands fell from holding your wrists to push your thigh down, and the other guided himself inside you. With one smooth thrust, you were full of him, hard and heavy and thick. Tears pricked your eyes as the sting pinched your most sensitive areas. He didn’t dare move, and his large hand came up to clutch your cheek, his thumb brushing away the crystal tears that hung from your lashes. 

His body covered yours, and he pressed his forehead against yours, absorbing your whimper with his kiss. “D’you feel alright?” 

You took a breath, the sting beginning to dissipate. Instead, tiny sparks of pleasure began to replace them, and your even softly bucked your hips to show your desperation hadn’t lessened in the least. 

“Take me.” 

“So ready to surrender your innocence to the likes of me.” He smiled, pressing another kiss to your lips. His mouth trailed down towards your jawline, towards your throat. You felt his teeth enclose around your skin, and you sighed at the feeling, fingers tightening around the carving headboard. It was then, when your guard had fallen, that he moved. Hips rolling against yours in a positively snakelike manner, you gasped quietly at the newfound pleasure that began to build inside of you. 

Your fingernails dug into the wood as he began to set a faster pace, his cock hitting you in the same delicious places as his fingers had. Crowley’s mouth found your breasts, and he enveloped his hot mouth around a nipple as your body shook from his thrusts. His long hair tickled your skin as he moved. 

“Crowley,” You groaned. “Can I touch you?” 

“Oh, yes. I think I’d much prefer your nails digging into my back anyway.” 

You smirked at his smugness, and your hands fell from the headboard to trail over his shoulder blades, angular bones underneath soft skin. He punctuated his next thrust as if to prove a point, and your fingernails dug into his skin. You heard him groan in pleasure, and his pace quickened still. You tried to roll your hips up to meet him, but it was impossible to keep up. He slowed down slightly to achieve the friction of his pubic bone rubbing against your clit, and you moaned at the feeling of it, still sensitive from his previous ministrations. 

“You’re so pretty like this. You belong with us sinners.” 

Your hands slipped up his back into his hair, the fiery curls feeling warm and soft between your fingers. You tugged experimentally as he pounded inside of you, and you heard him moan at the feeling. You grinned to yourself, finally having found a pleasure point in the grand demon. 

But judging just by the way he looked at you, you were his pleasure now. 

His thrusts were growing hard and uncontrolled, and you felt anticipation building inside of you, threatening to spill over at any moment. But something was missing. Crowley knew exactly what it was, and when his thumb pressed over your swollen clit, you keened into him, back arching to meet his chest. 

“Much better, innit?” He teased you, thumb rubbing slow circles as his hips rolled against yours. You were becoming a mess of sweat and moans between the sheets, hair mussed and cheeks flushed. Of course, you had been warned about your wedding night since the day you were betrothed, and you’d heard stories from the other married women, but nothing could have prepared you for this. Submission and procreation were the only things a woman was capable of, but not you. Not with him.

“Are you going to cum for me, angel?” He lowered his mouth to the shell of your ear, his breath hot against your skin, and the growling, gravelly timbre of his voice sparking heat in your core. 

“Mm-hmm,” You whimpered, unable to form words at this point. He was pleased at what he’d done to you, a trembling, writhing, blushing mess in his bed. The picture of innocence corrupted. And you were his. “Please-”

“Say you’re mine.” His grip on your hips tightened, and you groaned. His thumb on your clit didn’t stop, and the overstimulation was beginning to sting, but you could feel his hips beginning to stutter against yours. He was close too.

“I-I’m yours. Mind, soul...” You gasped as his thrusts deepened, one of his hands pushing your thighs down. “- and body.”

“Cum.” In desperation, you thrusted your hips up as best you could under his grip, desperate to satisfy the ache that plagued you. Once the word hit your ear, the cord inside of you snapped, pleasure and warmth spreading through your nerves like a fire. Hellfire. Heat sizzled through your blood, burning up any last hope of salvation as you gave yourself over to the demon. You felt the mark on your arm singing - there was no other word for it. A triumphant pleasure that came from within your heart at the feeling of being so whole in his arms. The pact was fulfilled; you had done the unthinkable, the irreversible. And damn if it didn’t feel good.

Crowley pushed his hips against yours once, two, three more times, his thick cock thrusting up inside of you, propelling your release further. Then his rhythm stuttered, and you felt him fill you up with his hot seed. He pressed his hips against yours, allowing you to milk him for every drop, then he collapsed onto the bed beside you. 

Panting heavily, you stared up at the ceiling, and you smiled. 

You felt him shift in the bed, and suddenly felt a cloth wiping at your inner thighs, slightly dampened. You found that you weren’t even surprised at this little trick, and began to close your eyes. His arms encircled you in a band of warmth, and you pressed your cheek against his chest, feeling the gentle patter of his heartbeat underneath. You were a little surprised to find that he even had a heart, being a supernatural being, but of course, he was still flesh and blood. That much was clear. Your breathing was beginning to even out, and your eyes wanted so desperately to close now that you felt safe for the first time in months. But there was something in the back of your mind, a sobering thought that threatened your peace.

“Crowley?”

“Mm.” He grumbled, clearly having nearly fallen asleep. Your fingers traced over his skin, leaning your head back to look up at him, jaw and throat exposed to you.

“Did you mean it? When you said you’d protect me?” Your words were quiet, breath barely escaping to tickle across his skin. You saw his eyes pop open, dark jewels glinting in the night.

“Of course, angel. It’s an unbreakable bond, not to be taken bloody lightly.” You felt his chest shift as he chuckled. “Why do you ask?”

“No reason.” 

The next morning, Crowley was still slumbering away. You had been awake only for about ten minutes, and spent the entire time staring up at him, admiring his features. His skin was pale and smooth, his jaw and nose angular like they’d been carved from stone, with his flowing hair spread out among the pillows. He looked every bit the demon he was, and yet with his eyes closed, his snakelike gaze no longer visible, he was just a man. A man who’d saved you by damning you. 

You slipped out from his arms and picked up your underdress, then followed the trail of clothing out into the sitting area until you were fully dressed. In the daylight, you were able to see the details of his home a bit better, and the opulence of its treasures were not lost on you. All sorts of trinkets that shined like jewels and books in languages you’d never seen stared back at you, and you, yet another thing he’d collected along the way. You wanted to stay here and take your place among the pleasures that Crowley had amassed forever, and that was exactly what you had to leave. Just for a bit.

The daylight was even more intrusive when you’d stepped outside, the white sunlight shining even stronger on you as though it tried to wash you clean of the nights from the night before. But there was no saving you now. You looked down at the mark on your wrist, and tugging your sleeve over it, headed back towards your village.

As expected, whispers arose the moment you stepped foot in the boundary of your village, the rows of little huts coming alive with whispers of people staring through their windows, even some stopping work in the fields some distance away as they caught sight of you. Crowley said the mark wouldn’t be visible, but it was as though what you’d done was written all over you. You held your head high and continued walking towards your home, ready to face the consequences. The only thing keeping you strong was knowing that you could run back to Crowley’s arms as soon as it was over. 

It was a fool’s errand to think that you could slip in, grab some clothing and essentials, and disappear before anybody had a chance to question you. It was even more foolish of you to think that your betrothed wouldn’t be waiting for you outside your home, calmly whittling a spear. You silently hoped it was for a hunt and not meant for you.

He stood from his seat on a nearby boulder, eyes narrowed either from the sun or from suspicion, you weren’t certain. You tried to maintain your posture even with every step you took towards him, but a small part of you regretted not telling Crowley where you were going. 

“And where have you been?” He spat at you, tossing his handiwork aside. His hands were large, just like Crowley’s, but they were not kind. You lifted your eyes from him, his overpowering body and his cruel sneer that twisted his features. He was still a young man, yet evil had corrupted any innocence of youth within him, making him look more sinister than any demon. “Playing the role of a harlot, have you?”

“I sought the consolation of a friend. You will have no reason to worry about me again.”

“No? And why’s that?” He grunted, fingers flexing. From your peripheral, you saw that most of the townsfolk had returned to their duties, but you also knew they were paying attention, listening intently to every word. 

“Because I’m not staying. I only came for some things.” You made a move to go into your home, only to have him grasp your arm to stop you. His grip did not hurt you yet, but you felt the barely restrained anger thrumming beneath his touch. It would be well within his rights as a man to strike you, but he seemed to be waiting for the opportune moment. He was egotistical enough to want a dramatic performance; the noble husband betrayed by the evil wife. 

“Where the bloody hell do you think you’re going, hm? You’re to be my wife and I’m not about to let my property leave.” His grip then tightened and he pulled you towards him, and it was then that you felt fear. Real, cold fear exploding within your veins. Your eyes closed and your body tensed. 

But his strike never came. Instead, you heard the concerned and frightened shouts of the townsfollk, and the world darkened behind your eyelids. You opened your eyes and looked at your betrothed, entranced. The skies had blackened almost instantly, heavy thunderclouds rolling it with sharp zaps of lightening. Red flashed within the puffs of the clouds, like the heated core of a volcano underneath the earth. 

“What- what is this? Witchcraft!” He bellowed, hand releasing your arm. It was then that you felt another pair of hands seize you, hurriedly but gently. As the thunder and the lightened rolled over the town, the winds tore through the buildings, shaking everything that wasn’t tied down. It looked like the end of the world. You fell back into a cloaked figure, the strong, warm hands a comforting presence. Crowley.

“Hear this now!” A voice boomed from within the shadowy figure, one unlike anything you’d ever heard before. Even as you stood behind him, unable to appreciate the entirety of the terrifying figure he’d become, you trembled at its power. “This woman’s soul is forever bound to me. Any man or force that threatens her being shall come to face the wrath of hellfire!” The thunder clashed to punctuate his sentence. 

Your former betrothed fell to the ground, agape and horrified at the vision in front of him. You smirked a bit at the sight of him, a pitiful worm writing in the dust. Crowley’s power thrummed you, the mark on your wrist coming alight at its presence. 

A wicked laugh tore from the demon, and with another clash of thunder and lightening, a bombardment of drums and flashes, you blinked and all was quiet. A small fire crackled across the room, and something delicious turned on the spit above it. A goblet of wine stood on the carved table below you. You were back in Crowley’s home. 

You turned around to find him, and in doing so, immediately found yourself nestled in his arms. You pressed your cheek against his hard chest, feeling the warmth of that aforementioned hellfire licking against your heart. His arms were strong around you, and his long curls brushed against your cheek as he tucked you underneath his chin.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you where I was going.” You murmured into his robes. You felt him shrug against you. 

“Thought it might be a bit of a laugh.” He chuckled. “And I’d show you what that mark is capable of. What I’m capable of.”

“Well, I know what you’re capable of.” You replied knowingly. You pulled away from his arms and stared up into his green gaze. “Thank you.”

“We-ell, comes with the territory, doesn’t it? Now then, I’m making breakfast. Your things are in the bedroom exactly as you left them.” You nodded and removed yourself from his embrace to go and look through your things. 

“What happened? Did you kill him?”

“What? Me? Perish the thought!” You giggled at his outrage.

“We struck a bargain, you could say. He won’t be bothering you again, you can return to the village whenever you like.”

“Not a bargain like ours, I should hope.” You teased, folding one of your frocks. Crowley was quiet for a moment, but only for the second it took for him to appear behind you, arms wrapped around your waist and lips positioned just behind your ear. 

“Why, no. Ours is a sinner’s paradise. Reserved only for me,” He pressed a kiss to your neck. “And my angel.” 

[starfaring-princelotor]

Best Friends

Summary: Lotor and his best friend discover the beginning of something new.

Pairings: Lotor x F!Reader

★ Disclaimer: I do not ship Lotura and I kindly ask that this story to not be tagged as Lotura. This is a Lotor x Reader/Self-Insert OC story which is in no way related to Allura at all. Please be respectful of my chosen pairing. Thank you. ★

Warnings: Threats?

Future Sight___Historic Significance___No Time Like The Present___Thinking Ahead___Best Friends

Romelle’s eyes skimmed over the page, re-reading over the instructions carefully while she poured the rest of the contents of her cauldron down the drain. She let it sit out too long and now it was practically black, gooey sludge. Oh, the smell was unbearable, it nearly made her throw up dinner she had with Allura.

Speaking of, the Princess knocked on the bathroom door.

“Romie? Is everything okay?” bless her heart, she was concerned about her well-being.

Well, waking up a few hours before dawn to use the restroom would be a cause for worry. Romelle rinsed the cauldron with hot water, making sure to leave no evidence behind. Quickly, her wet hands closed the book then she shoved the pot in the corner, opting to let it dry for the rest of the day.

Once Romelle opened the door to see sleepy faced Allura, she couldn’t help but smile softly at her.

“Yes, I just had to clean that stinking cauldron,” with a gentle hand, she guided Allura back to bed, “And take care of a few...things.”

You weren’t doing too well.

Not at all. Grumpy wasn’t the right word to describe it. Sad? Maybe. Heartbroken? Yes. Yes, that was the feeling. Like you lost a close friend. It was hard not to think this way, think that your relationship with Lotor was coming to an abrupt end. He just needed time. That’s what he said, right? Time and space? But, damn it all, why did it hurt to be sitting on the sidelines like this?

Lotor never mentioned this before, how cold he can actually be. Maybe you really weren’t paying attention to him? Or maybe he was just too closed off to truly be comfortable with you? Maybe it was both of your faults? The turmoil of arguments in your head made you heavily sigh in defeat, an act that did not go unheard by the prefect sitting besides you.

“You know, food tastes better when you actually eat it,” Shiro bit off his own piece of bread, eyes watching you with slight mirth behind them, “And when it’s warm, too.”

You groaned and slumped in your seat, leaving the spoon under the smeared mashed potatoes, “I’m not hungry.”

Or at least, this meal wasn’t as enjoyable without your purple friend. The mindless conversation, critiquing each other’s eating habits, even sharing from the same bowl was fun. It seemed so...perfect, didn’t it? What changed? You wracked your brain for anything that could point you in the right direction, but alas, nothing popped up. Ah, there you go again, thinking too much.

“I miss Lotor.”

“The gremlin has to come out of his room sometime,” he tried to be lighthearted about it, but it didn’t even crack a smile from you, “There’s a potion for that, y’know. Changing into a gremlin. Interesting what you read ahead in the books.”

“There’s a potion for everything,” you counted off your fingers, “Toe fungus, pimples, that one where you can change your fingers into cat heads.”

“I heard there was one that can make you glow like a light bulb.”

Shiro would’ve said some cheesy punchline, something like “so you can brighten up his day,” but your despondent face told him that it would go in one ear and out the other. He rubbed his neck in uncertainty, not quite sure how to console a friend of a friend. There was an underlying reason he came to talk to you, though. Maybe one he thinks you might be able to help him with.

“Hey, mind if I...ask you something a bit personal?” he lowered his voice a bit.

A nod, a sad, sad look glazing over your eyes.

“Have you noticed anything...strange about Lotor? I mean, stranger than this. He usually isn’t this cold.”

You crossed your arms and buried your head in them, “I don’t think I really knew him at all.”

Shiro nodded solemnly, “If it’s any consolation, these past few months have been the most I’ve seen him smile.”

You peeked at him from underneath your hair, unsure if you heard him right. Yes, you, too, were happiest with him the last couple months, smiling and laughing and learning little bits about each other here and there. Like friends do. Like best friends do. Eyes bore into the now cold dinner in front of you as if it would somehow give you all the answers to your questions.

“I think that counts for something, don’t you?” Shiro laid a comforting hand on your shoulder.

Yes, you thought, it has to count for something.

Lotor’s fever was back, tenfold. To the public, it would look like he was just a little too warm with a light sheen of sweat on his forehead. Deep down, he was burning. It was barely tolerable as he knew this sickness will eventually pass. Just like his last one. The only odd thing about this was that fevers usually...do not come back so soon. He was on his way to the medical ward to get another potion from the nurse.

He needed more sleep. That was probably it, what with all his tossing and turning at night.

“Lotor?”

Oh no. Not who he wanted to talk to right now.

“Allura.”

Where was Madam…? Oh. Right. The one day she was out visiting family was the one day he needed help. Just his luck. No matter, things are in the past between them. At least, that’s how he saw it. Judging by the odd defensive look hidden behind her eyes, the Princess still felt a little suspicious around him. He wasn’t so sure if he liked that scrutinizing, almost acidic, gaze she gave him.

“What can I help you with?” she asked, straight to business, which he appreciated.

“It seems my fever has returned. I am in need of two more snowdrop potions.”

She opened a cabinet that had shelves with labeled vials, many of them varying in color, “Have you had any other symptoms? Headaches, soreness?”

“Migraines,” Lotor took a seat on a stool, suddenly feeling very dizzy, “Severe migraines.”

“I’ll grind some mandrake roots for you, they should help settle those - “

Was the room spinning? Why was it suddenly getting harder to breath? Lotor’s lungs were wheezing lightly and he tried blinking hard to get the blackness out of the corner of his eyes. No good, no good at all. He could feel his body start to lean forward against his will, hand reaching out to try and steady himself before he kissed the floor. All he managed to grab was the empty air as he collapsed in a weak heap at Allura’s feet, a groan of pain pushed out of his chest.

“Lotor!” she called out after hearing his body thump on the cold stone, kneeling down to help flip him onto his back, “Lotor, can you hear me? Lotor!”

The Princess pulled out her wand and lit the tip, hoping that it was bright enough for his pupils to follow. However, much to her horror, his gaze was stuck on the ceiling. Was he even conscious? Lotor was panting, trying so very hard to stay awake, but her voice was fading and so was the rest of the room. Stars, his head hurt like something fierce, like it was tearing itself apart in two.

“Father! Father, come quickly!”

The last thing he heard was the rushed footsteps clacking on the floor. The last thing he thought of was, well, suddenly his space felt very, very lonely without you besides him.

“Peppermint sprigs...porcupine quills...hm.”

What a strange list of ingredients for a potion, but who were you to argue on the weirdness that is magic? After Shiro’s cryptic question, you took it upon yourself to drown yourself in the good memories. Well, tried. The more you thought about the time you spent with Lotor, the happier parts, the lighter your heart felt. Yes, you still despised this…distance, but you had to keep to your word.

Give him space.

And if...when he returns, you were sure nothing would make him happier than a Happy potion. Right? Supposedly, it cures depression and, who knows, maybe you might take a little swig of it, too. Now, making it was another thing. Classes were over and there weren’t any potion professors on grounds, so you would have to play this by trial and error.

Doesn’t sound too hard. It’s just a Happy potion. Worst effect? You start singing too loudly or you end up tap dancing until midnight.

“What are you doing here?” came a voice from the opened door, making you turn to acknowledge the blonde staring directly at you.

“Um...making...potions?” you meant it to come out as a firm statement, but out of habit, you smiled guiltily like a caught thief, “You’re, uh, Rome...Romelle, right? Allura’s friend?”

She kept her gaze fixed for a few more seconds. It was a little unnerving, especially when her expression suddenly softened and she offered you a friendly, inviting smile. Romelle put the heavy cauldron in her arms off on one of the empty tables then plopped a seat besides you. She peered over to your book then hummed in thought.

“Happy potion, huh? What’s got you down?”

“Oh, no, not for me. Well, not ALL for me, anyways,” you turned the page, looking for the instructions and brewing time needed for it, “It’s for my friend. He hasn’t been...At least, I don’t think he’s been feeling too well the last couple weeks. Thought this might cheer him up.”

Romelle perched her elbow on the table, chin in her hand, “Well, aren’t you a good friend! I’m a bit of a potion master myself. Anything you need?”

Now, you returned a smile of your own, feeling proud of her compliments aimed to inflate your ego. You gave her a nod of thanks then shrugged sheepishly, finding her oddly over eager assistance a bit strange. If you needed help, you would ask. Ah. That’s...how it felt to say it out loud. A pang twitched in your chest, recalling back when those same words left Lotor’s mouth.

“Thank you, but I think I can handle it. Doesn’t seem too hard,” a soft way to tell her you weren’t as incompetent as you seemed.

That didn’t seem to be the answer she wanted to hear, though. Even if she was smiling and respectfully giving you your distance, there was a flicker of...annoyance behind her eyes. Oh no, did you come off too hard? Or...was it something you said? The anxieties started welling up in your mind again and just as you were about to close your book and pack up, figuring you could finish another day, Romelle gently slid her hand over yours.

You were sure this was supposed to be an act of kindness, of support, but it felt...wrong.

“If you need anything at all, do not be a stranger.”

As soon as she finished talking, she took a step back and left with a cheerful hum on her lips. You hand tingled. Not in a good way either. Not like when Lotor held your fingertips oh so gently while he led you in a dance. Not like when he helped you firmly grasp your wand correctly. Not like when his hand curled around yours to keep you warm in the chilly night.

You dearly missed your friend, your true friend. When you brought your hand to your chest, the plumpness of your palm accidentally skidded over the page. It turned, but not without leaving you with a thin paper cut from your careless attention. Immediately, you cradled your minor wound, not wanting to stain the pages, until your eyes landed on two words.

Hate Potion.

“How long?”

“Three days now. He can barely stomach soup without regurgitating it. I am not sure what seems to be causing his illness. This isn’t typical fever symptoms and my father is doing his own research to help.”

You needed to be alone with Lotor, but Shiro and Allura were right at his bedside. It felt weird, creeping like this, just outside the door and eavesdropping to see when they would leave. The book clutched to your chest and the vials in your pocket suddenly were too loud.

“Maybe there is something I can do to help,” Allura voiced with hope, “I will go aid my father in his research. Will you stay here and monitor him in the time being?”

“Sure, Allura. Thank you again for doing this. We’ll figure out what’s wrong with him. In the mean time, don’t push yourself too hard. He’s resilient. I should know.”

Yes, he was hinting at the strenuously long friendship he had, and will continue to have, with Lotor. The Princess’ heels clicked against the floor as she walked out, completely missing your body tucked behind the opened doors. Good. You weren’t sure if she would be too happy with what you found and...what your conclusions would insinuate.

“Shiro?” you peeked in, making sure it was just him, then your eyes landed on Lotor.

Your friend, he looked so pale with furrowed brows and eyes clenched shut, like he was having a bad string of dream. Standing besides the taller man, you silently asked him if he was okay, If he was going to BE okay. A fever wouldn't originally be a cause for too much concern, much like when you visited the purple prince in his rooms. But two?

It stung something deep to see him in such pain.

“Don’t worry, he’s come out from worse,” Shiro encouraged with a hand on your shoulder, “He’ll be fine. You don’t have to be here if you don’t want to.”

Underlying meaning? If you’re still...uncomfortable around him after that harsh spat from weeks ago, you aren’t obligated to stay. It’s funny what a little time can do to the heart. Its funny what you came to realize that even if he didn’t want to be friends any longer, you still wanted to at least get some defined closure. But first, Lotor had to be awake to tell you this, tell you why, because you at least deserved an explanation that made sense. Hopefully, he had enough time on his own to come to the same thoughts.

“No, no, I wanted to see him. I didn’t think he was this sick,” you took a seat on a stool besides the bed, “Is he, I mean, can he hear us? I bought a book I thought he’d like to read. Or, er, or I’d read to him.”

Shiro offered you a thankful smile hidden behind a short chuckle. He got the hint. He knows when to leave, when to give you privacy for the sake of comfort. Though, now that the thought about it, perhaps your voice would be the one to wake him up. He’d take that chance, he likes those odds for his friend’s health.

“I’ll head to the mess hall to grab a bite. Should I bring you some?”

“No, no, I’ll be alright. Don’t think they have my pie in menu today.”

He walked out, trusting you to watch Lotor for the time being. It wasn’t until you no longer heard his footsteps did you scoot closer to the head of the bed. Those freckles looked dimmer than usual and his hair was slicked with dried sweat. Time to put your plan into action. Carefully, you opened to a specific page of your text, the one you bookmarked with a folded corner.

“Lotor…?”

No response. This time, you placed a hand on his and ran your thumb over his knuckles, ushering him to hear your plead.

“Lotor...Lotor, can you hear me?”

“Mm…” thin slits of nebulous eyes barely opened, but they instantly honed in on your face, “...Huh…?”

Good. He was somewhat coherent, if not dazed and dizzy. Lotor licked his parched lips and you got the hint right away. Grabbing a cup of water from the side table, you held it up to his mouth gently then waited as he took gulp fulls of the cool liquid. With how much he was sweating, he was no doubt dehydrated beyond tolerable levels.

Lotor turned slightly, signaling he was done, and leaned back into his pillow, “What...what are you doing here?”

Not...exactly the first thing you wanted to hear from him after being apart for nearly a month, but again, you had to remember this wasn’t about you. This was about your friend, your very sick friend who must’ve had a smidge of trust in you somewhere deep in his ill mind.

“I think you were poisoned,” you paused when his gaze gave no emotion, “I can’t be...100% sure, though. But if you could - if I could ask you something…”

Poisoned? Well, that certainly wasn’t the first, but this would be the first where he didn’t recognize his own symptoms. These were sneaky, slow-acting with fevers and migraines and severe dehydration. But he couldn’t piece together what exactly can cause this so quickly.

Stars, that look on your face, the meek, unsure, hesitant one. Why were you never confident in yourself?

You took his silence as a yes, “Do you remember drinking anything that tasted strange?”

“No.”

“Did you have...er, did you have mood shifts this frequently?”

A sharp glare and you nearly cringed away from him, but he answered honestly, “...No.”

“When did you start not feeling well?”

“Three weeks ago.”

Your eyes going down the symptom list weren’t happy with the information you were getting from him. Not at all and the questions you had in mind would only get more personal here on out. Hopefully, he won’t shut you completely out again, or worse. Send you away with another argument.

“When you...sniffed the love potion - “ “So, that is what this is about.”

“Lotor, no, I promise, this isn’t - it isn’t about that. If someone was poisoned by a hate potion, they would feel nauseated because of the counter effects of different ingredients in the love potion - “ “It was you,” Lotor mumbled, and you swear your heart skipped a beat, “I could smell you and it made me sick to my stomach.”

If you weren’t thinking of his potential sickness, perhaps those words would’ve cut your heart into pieces. Instead, you remained silent, questioning over, and ruffled for one of the vials in your bag. The pinkish liquid swirled slowly between you two and Lotor instantly knew what it was. He was stuck between feeling disgusted and oddly hopeful.

“I know...I know it doesn’t sound solid, but the book here says a love potion can help nullify the effects of the poison,” you explained before putting the vial on the bedside drawer, “I know its illegal, I know I can get in trouble for this, but here. It’s your choice and I won’t - you know I won’t think any differently of us whatever you choose.”

There were words on his tongue, but none came out. Again, you were over caring again, going the distance when he told you to stop. Or perhaps, this isn't what it seems at all. Someone succeeded in poisoning him, messing with his damn emotions, and messing with the two of you. Now, he had to wonder what would happen if he drank it. Would he still push you away? Or would all these seething emotions cease to exist? Would he return to normal? What was normal?

Risk. Again, too much risk, and he didn’t like it. You left him alone to his thoughts.

Lotor drank the potion discreetly, not wanting Allura or even her father to know how he magically healed within a few days. It was a Christmas miracle, Professor Alfor said. The Prince would let him think that for now, at least, until he can safely secure both of your asses from getting in trouble.

The potion worked. Slowly. Gradually, his unreasonably pessimistic thoughts began clearing from his mind. No longer was just thinking about you giving him a headache. No longer did he catch himself constantly annoyed whenever he thought about the times you two spent together. No longer did he keep the shared journal stored away in his drawer.

“Allura, may I have a moment?”

And no longer was he going to stand aside when he knew damn well who poisoned him.

“Of course, do you need something?”

“No, no, not with you,” Lotor’s cold gaze drifted to the blonde standing besides her, “You. I wish to have a word with you, Romelle.”

He would applaud her on the brave mask she wore. It was no mystery to him who slipped a drop of hate potion in his drink when he wasn’t paying attention. He never liked black tea and now he had a new reason for it. Allura, sensing the tense situation, sought to stand between Lotor and her friend.

“Is there going to be a problem?” the Princess asked firmly, challenging Lotor’s stare.

“No, nothing of the sort. I simply wish to ask a few questions. Private questions.”

Private. Meaning without her around. Romelle placed a hand on Allura’s shoulder, a way to temper and silently reassure her that everything will be okay. The Princess always was the first to help in a confrontation when those she cared about were concerned. The hero type, always jumping head first without all the facts and Lotor wasn’t here to bother filling her in.

“You have my word, I am merely here for conversation.”

“Go. I’ll meet you in the library,” Romelle ushered and finally, Allura acquiesced.

However, Lotor’s piercing glare never left Romelle’s face. He was studying her, trying to find a crack in her facade, anything that would point to her being innocent. Jealousy was a powerful tool that can drive even the most soft, kind-hearted to do despicable, horrific things.

“Why did you do it?”

Romelle tilted her head to the side, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“In divination class, you slipped a hate potion in my tea,” he explained calmly, as if talking about fair weather and approaching cold front, “You let the bitterness cover the taste.”

“Hate potion? Lotor, I really have no clue - “

“You did not clean your cauldron as well as you thought, wench.”

Now, Romelle’s eye twitched at not only the insult, but the rightful anger laced in his tone. Impossible. She cleaned her cauldron spick and span. There was nothing left but water. Either way, she stood her ground in front of Lotor. He had no proof, he had to be bluffing. Yet, there was still part of her that was on edge. Teetering on the “What if…”

“Hate potion residue glows blue in the dark when dusted with moonstone dust,” he took a step forward, she took one back, “unless washed with beetroot juice, it is a permanent stain on whatever surface it touches. Did you forget that bit of information in your grand plan?”

“I did what I had to,” she admitted, no shame, no guilt.

“I will ask this only once more: why did you do it?”

There it was. That burning, eternal flame of rage glossing in her soul. She would burn him, burn everyone around her, burn those she loves, burn Allura, just to seek revenge on him. He only wondered how long until that fire consumes her very being. Lotor narrowed his lids, daring her to speak the truth.

“You don’t deserve to be happy.”

The Prince raised his chin, judging her glowering face ready to bite into him like a rabid, furious animal.

“You don’t deserve to be happy after what you did to Allura. You broke her heart. You tricked her.”

“I know what kind of person she is. I know how gullible her heart is. I know she trusts you to be kind just because you two are close friends,” Lotor had what he needed, he had the evidence tucked neatly in the back of his mind, “I know I broke her heart. And now, you will break hers, too.”

Romelle’s back hit against the stone wall, suddenly aware he was towering over her with venom seething from his every word. She wanted to punch him. Fight him, here and now, make him feel how painful it was to pick Allura back up when she was at her lowest. Listen to all the regret and sorrow the Princess would whisper in her deep sleep.

“Either you tell Allura what you did or I will,” Lotor leaned back, his menacing aura giving her room to breath, “Consider this a fair trade for hurting my best friend.”

Either way, the truth would be her downfall.

As much as he wanted to report her, get her expelled for poisoning him directly, Lotor knew seeking revenge would only waste his time. Right now, he had to see you, talk to you, explain himself in hopes you would understand. You didn’t deserve to be attacked by the mistakes of his past relationships.

Sleep barely came to you that night. A full moon was supposed to be the most peaceful of them all, yet your mind was anything but peaceful right now. You wondered if Lotor drank it. You wondered if he did and if he felt better. You wondered if anything could help him where you could not. You wondered if he still wanted his space. Sighing, you turned on the other side of your bed only to be met with a glowing, blue journal.

Lotor? Lotor was...he was talking to you? Immediately, you reached over and opened the book where you last finished writing to him. His familiar handwriting began scribbling three little words.

Black Lake. Tonight.

You didn’t need to be told twice. It was a blur, slipping on warm clothes, pocketing your trusty thermal stone, tucking the thick scarf around your neck, then rushing down the halls as quietly as you can. Maybe you should consider yourself lucky for not getting caught with how loud your boots echoed on the floor. By the time you arrived, you could already see his tall physique standing in the distance, back towards you.

“L...Lo - huff...Lotor?” you were panting slightly from running in the cold and all your friend did to acknowledge you was raise a silver brow, “I - huff, huff - give me a sec…”

He placed a hand on your shoulder, the familiar touch warming you instantly, “You need not over exert yourself for my sake.”

“I know, I know, I just...I have no excuse, really,” you wanted to add that you missed him, but you were surprised by the next words that came out of his mouth.

“I understand. I missed you, too.”

Now, you stood awkwardly, eyes looking everywhere but his face. The time apart, it didn’t deter your feelings for him, but it felt...weird. Changed, but for the better? You weren’t so sure. Lotor sensed this and took a deep breath. Come clean. She is your friend. Your best friend. Tell her this or you will lose her forever.

“I...I lied to you.”

“...Huh?”

He looked up to the stars, please, help me, then back down at you. Gentle hands reached for yours and he upturned your palm, seeing the scar embedded there in the center. He had the same mirroring his own hand and, faintly, he thought destiny must have a funny way of showing him how friends are made.

“Allow me to explain. Do you remember when I told you what I saw in the mirror? About how I saw myself with someone I deeply cared about?” he stroked the jagged skin with his thumb, reminiscing that fateful day long ago, “I saw you in the reflection. We were both so happy and I...hesitated telling you this because…”

Because? He had his reason, none of them seeming valid right now.

“I have no reason why I did not tell you. Maybe I was scared about what I saw. Maybe I did not want my future to be set in stone.”

“Lotor, c’mon, that was ages ago. I don’t care about what that dumb mirror showed you. Why would I get mad about that? You have your secrets, that’s fine, and - “

“Please,” he ushered, the bravery to speak so openly about how one mistake led to another starting to make him clam up, “You must understand. After the mirror showed me what could be, how happy I could be with you, I began questioning myself. Questioning you, questioning us. I do not regret all those times we spent together. Not one bit. But, I do regret that...I did not know what this was truly telling me.”

This? This being his heart, the one he placed your hand to cover on his chest. Now, you were blushing and a little speechless.

“Say something,” Lotor’s eyes searched yours, hoping against hope that you didn’t hate his guts for isolating himself away from you, “Anything.”

But what COULD you say? A whole months worth of thoughts suddenly became quiet, abandoning you when you needed them most.

“When we finished those love potions, I had a feeling it would be you. I just...wasn’t aware of myself. I didn’t know what to do when I realized I like - I love spending time with you, Lotor. I feel like a better me.”

You dug your mouth under your scarf, a nervous habit hoping it would hide you completely.

“You were right. About before. If I paid more attention to you, I would’ve seen you were sick much earlier on and - and I could’ve helped sooner. I know you wanted space and I’ll give you as much as you want. Just - I want you to feel better, too. A better you. Does that make sense?”

“Yes. Yes, I believe I do undersatnd,” a shadow of darkness covered his eyes, “Even now, I still feel unsure about what this means. We are...best friends, still, yes? And yet, I am wondering if these feelings I have are honest. Ever since the mirror lured me with a future of love and happiness, I doubt myself, and I would never, ever, want to have these uncertainties come between us.” 

Lotor was a man who loved with all his being or none at all.

He reached one hand within his coat and pulled out a rose. A black rose. Of course, your gaze landed on the flower, eyes glazed in fascination of the dark plant, before he openly offered it to you. At first, you took it to examine its qualities. The thorns were gone and the gentle bud was barely starting to open into a bloom. Your fingers traced over the petals, the soft, smooth petals, and you let out a curious hum.

“This is for you. I wish to give this to you. As a sign of my…”

Affections? Appreciation? Infatuation?

“My attraction to you.”

Oh, where was his silver tongue now?

“Ah...I - erm…” your cheeks were tinted in a lovely hue of pink as you realized he was still cupping your hands in his, “Lotor, if this is about, y’know, the other night - I mean, it’s, you don’t have to feel obligated to...you know that, right? I did it to help you and all, but you don’t have to - mmf, how do I say this? I’m not...I don’t know where to go from here.”

Wait. Were you rejecting him?

“I, hold on -no - I know how that sounds,” you let out a frustrated sigh, having a difficult time finding your words, just like he was, “I guess...why are you offering this to me?”

“Dear, I am giving this to you in hopes that you would allow me to learn about you. And, in the process, I hope we can become something...more than what that mirror promised me. Something real, something I can experience in the present.”

Lotor wanted to break away from the deep, obsessive infatuation, rooting in his mind and instead explore what was hidden underneath. He knows he felt it, before the hate potion, before the dance, before he even took you stargazing. It was there, he just needed to reach far and feel it grow in his hand.

“Are you, uh...you sure you want to do that?”

“With some exasperation, yes. Yes, I am sure.”

The Prince leaned down, pressing his forehead against yours in a soft plea. You, too, were gazing into his eyes with a smidge of love buried somewhere in your soul. This felt...calm. Peaceful, much different than the times you two cuddled under a blanket or riding his broom at night. It felt...freeing. No bars held back. No bricks blocking each other. No mirror telling him where his heart should lie.

“If I am to be with you, have a future with you, I wish it to be on my own terms, dear. Our own terms,” he slowly slid his eyes closed, mind only thinking about the potential, the work, the love he knew was in store, “If you will have me, that is.”

Tucking your head under his chin, you gladly nestled your face on his chest, only slightly aware that your eyes were wet.

“Of course, Lotor. What are best friends for?”

[qqueenofhades]

I have a somewhat historical question I guess that I was wondering if you knew anything about. A common trope I see in any media taking place in any time period before early to mid 20th century is the mother dying in childbirth thing? And I was just wondering (even just in regards to the time period of your expertise) what we're the mortality rates for women in childbirth?

Heh. Well. (This is probably going to be way more than you wanted to know, but I believe in being thorough.)

First, childbirth has always been risky (women still die from it in modern countries in modern hospitals with all of 21st century medicine behind them, and it’s still a major health concern for countries in the developing world – Sierra Leone in Africa has the worst maternal mortality rate in the world, with up to 1,360 deaths per 100,000 births, or a 1 in 17 chance). So childbirth in the pre-modern era, without possibility of surgical intervention (unless to save the baby and kill the mother), painkillers, modern hygiene, X-ray/ultrasound equipment, and sterilized hospital settings, was dangerous. Ignaz Semmelweis and Alexander Gordon, two 18th/19th-century obstetricians who investigated the causes of puerperal fever or childbed fever, and concluded that it could often be prevented by the doctor just vigorously washing his hands between deliveries (and not, you know, performing an autopsy on a dead body and going straight to deliver a baby) were treated with complete ridicule by the scientific establishment and branded as charlatans. (This, as you may notice, will become a theme.) Modern germ theory and sterile instruments weren’t established until the late 19th century. So yes, the risk was very real, and noble and common women alike died in childbirth. We obviously don’t have anything resembling detailed demographic information, but we can conclude the rate would be similar to a developing country today.

However, this is very far from saying that no kind of maternal or prenatal care or practice existed. This is once again where we discover how terrible the late medieval/Renaissance era was for women’s rights/education/professional liberty/basically everything (seriously, Renaissance, your art is nice, but otherwise you can fuck off). In the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the famed medical university at Salerno, in Italy, fairly freely accepted female students and professors, and their most famous professor and scholar on women’s health was Trota of Salerno, who gave her name and a good deal of her own experience to the three texts known as the “Trotula.” These were each written by a different author under Trota’s supervision and authority, and the first two books, “Book on the Conditions of Women” and “On Treatment of Women” represent a detailed gynecological handbook with advice on all kinds of pregnancy/childbirth-related ailments – uterine prolapse, perineum tears, medicines, and other solutions from a practitioner who, unlike her male counterparts, could actually touch and study her patients’ bodies. Trota is referred to as a “magistra” (the female form of Latin magistro or master) and her work was widely circulated and read in England and Normandy as well as Sicily (which was under Norman rule itself from about the mid-eleventh century). So she was a famous doctor and scholar in her own day (until, of course, she was obscured/changed to male/ignored/nearly forgotten until the twentieth century). Another “magistra”, Hersend of France, accompanied Louis IX on crusade in the thirteenth century and treated both the king himself and the female members of the crusade contingent. 

Of course, ordinary women would not have had access to these highly trained female physicians, and most midwives had no special or formal training aside from their own practical experience. As well, almost everyone writing medical texts was (shockingly!) a man, making it nearly impossible to know much about these actual practitioners. Since pregnancy was, of course, a result of sex, the church had plenty of opinions on it as well. The suffering of childbirth was supposed to be the proper punishment for original sin, so anything that dulled the pain was frowned on, and when actual training of midwives was instituted in the later medieval era, the concern was mostly on whether they knew how to perform an emergency baptism for the child’s sake, rather than any care of the mother. (Wow…. this sounds… awfully familiar, doesn’t it?) Nonetheless, there are literally dozens of texts from antiquity to the Renaissance, representing folk/informal recipes and methods for contraception and abortion. We don’t know how well any of these worked, if at all, and they were usually (again) written by men trying to tell women what to avoid (but having the effect of also giving them the information if they wanted it). But there was a vast and probably at least somewhat effective corpus of traditions/medicines/rudimentary contraceptive methods available and transmitted through female practitioners.

None of this was ever taught to men, naturally, and the universities, as they became more established, did their damndest to stamp out “unlicensed” practitioners, which really meant women. The 1322 trial of Jacoba Felicie, a female doctor in Paris, is basically representative of the later medieval pushback against women practitioners. Jacoba’s patients, both male and female, testified that she was a highly skilled doctor and they had gotten better after visiting her – but the court’s judgment was that since she was a woman, she couldn’t possibly be as good a doctor as a man, and she was barred from practice. (If this post was Misogyny, Take a Shot, I think we would all be hammered by now.) That decision also led to legislation to keep women out of universities/medical school in France (in 1421, Henry V also banned them in England). So once again: You Suck, Renaissance!

This also involves questions of medieval sexuality, religion, and general hygiene/attitudes toward cleanliness and medical care. First, aside from the texts mentioned above that discuss folk remedies for contraception, a medieval woman had various strategies to space her children that didn’t just rely on hoping her husband didn’t rape her too much (as I have ranted about before). Also, it’s worth pointing out that children were a natural and expected part of medieval marriage, and most couples would be more interested in ensuring they had children, rather than preventing them – limiting family size to the average 2.5 children is a modern conceit once more linked to capitalism and the de-coupling of marriage/family/household from its function as a unit of economic production, as I wrote about here. Children were valuable as heirs to noble families or working members of a lower-class family, and with likewise high infant/child mortality, you could sometimes have a number of children and hope that one or two of them made it to adulthood. 

However, that didn’t mean that all medieval women just pumped out babies until they couldn’t have any more. The third-century Roman physician Galen’s theory of female orgasm being necessary to conceive was considerably well-known in the medieval era. While this backfired on rape victims, as it was figured they couldn’t have gotten pregnant if they didn’t enjoy it (paging Todd Akin… wow, this is depressing, isn’t it?), it also meant that your average medieval married couple would have believed that the woman, not just the man, experiencing pleasure was necessary to have children. Cue the church clutching its pearls in the background, but the official Catholic theology and teaching of sexuality was, again, mutable. The thirteenth-century sect of the Cathars viewed all sex, married or otherwise, as evil, so in response and opposition to them, the Catholic church began glorifying marital sex to some degree. There was a recognition that both spouses owed each other sexual availability and pleasure, and marriages could be dissolved if this wasn’t upheld on either end.

As well, since close to half the days of the year (Wednesdays, Fridays, Sundays, Lent, Advent, holy days, six weeks after childbirth, etc) were regarded as impermissible for sexual activity, that meant couples (if they were religiously observant, or if they just wanted to avoid the possibility) had the option of spacing out procreative sexual activity. There wasn’t any institutional or official acceptance of sex outside marriage (though oh boy, it happened – up to 30% of brides were pregnant at their wedding), but there was also a lot of argument about what constituted marriage. It could just be as simple as saying “I take you as my wife/husband” without any church framework or institution whatsoever, and then having intercourse. (See chapter three, “Sex and Marriage,” in Sexuality in Medieval Europe.) The church viewed these couples as fornicators if they hadn’t been married formally, but what we would consider cohabiting unmarried couples (similar to a couple living together before actual marriage today) were fairly common. Noblewomen in particular were expected to give their husbands heirs, but after that, if they didn’t like each other much, he would have mistresses and she could be excused from it. The noble couples we know of with a high number of children seem to have been the ones who genuinely liked each other/had happy marriages anyway, and thus continued having sex even after the succession was secured. 

Plus, the ideal of chastity, both inside and outside of marriage, was very socially influential. The late medieval English mystic Margery Kempe managed (after having fourteen children with her husband) to get him to agree to a chaste marriage (we have him sadly asking her if she would prefer to kill him with a hatchet rather than letting them have sex again – which, after fourteen kids, she might). Women who chose to be virgins or abbesses or nuns were also excused from childbirth, although they sometimes faced pressure from their families to marry and continue the line. But chastity was admired in both men and women, and considered a prerequisite for holiness, so it was a way to avoid sexual activity (and thus more children) as well as getting in the church’s good books.

Lastly, there’s the general idea that people in the medieval era were filthy, dirty, foul-smelling, had rotten teeth, etc. Medieval people probably had structurally better teeth than we did (though obviously without modern dentistry/orthodontics) albeit worn down from grit/particles, because processed sugar wasn’t part of their diet. Next, while obviously they did not know about germs/the root causes of illnesses, they logically associated filth and bad smells with disease. Most cities had ordinances about where you could dump your waste and strict punishment for litterbugs. Full-body bathing was rarer than today, because of how much time and effort it would take to fill a whole tub, but they washed hair, hands, faces, etc regularly, and bathhouses were a part of medieval town culture. They prized sweet smells and perfumed/fragrant herbs, so while they would obviously have more body odor than we do with daily showers/soap/deodorant/etc, they wouldn’t be some strange shit-smeared, rotten-toothed rustic barely one step above a caveperson. In the 1400s, we find the Hotel-Dieu, the major hospital in Paris, believing that pregnant/postnatal women should have three baths a week and their linen washed regularly (that whole article is worth a read – said hospital was also entirely staffed by women/religious sisters).

Since this has gotten super long (as I said, more than you want to know), allow me to summarize. Midwifery/women’s health care has (surprise!) a very long history and was intentionally destroyed/excluded from male-dominated university curriculums, medieval women giving birth did die but not outlandishly/without any treatment at all, and the presence of women in medical school/practice was increasingly restricted up to and around the Renaissance. (It’s a subject of debate how many midwives were targeted in witch hunts, but some of them definitely were.) This also connected to medieval attitudes about sexuality, procreation, religion, and women, and the options that medieval women had for controlling the number of children they had or didn’t have, and their relationships with their husbands and what was expected of them as a result.

I will also note in closing that the “dying in childbirth” thing in historical fiction is a way to easily invoke the ever-present Dead Mother trope in a historically plausible, if rather lazy, way. Since everyone knows women did die (and do die) in childbirth, it becomes an easy way to kill off the protagonist’s mother or to make some point about The Dangers Of Women’s Lives Back Then (whether in-universe or intended for the modern audience). All of which is absolutely the case, but which ignores, as usual, the complexity of the ways in which premodern medicine for women, and women themselves, created a corpus of knowledge and treatment that remains unacknowledged, overlooked, dismissed, or otherwise intentionally destroyed by a patriarchal, misogynistic system.

/takes a bunch of shots

/falls over

[megacircuit9universe]

X-Tech: Never Possible Until it is

THU JAN 02 2020

I just watched the latest video by YouTuber, Isaac Arthur, who I’ve been following for years, and greatly respect, addressing time travel, but while he tried to cover every version of time travel that comes up in science fiction, and in legit scientific discourse... he did not cover the version I talk about in this blog.

I was a bit surprised, but then again, mine (explained in the entry entitled, Time Travel Basics, and fleshed out in some follow ups shortly after it) is basically the John Titor version of time travel.

And over the 13 or so years since I first read the Titor stuff online, I’ve noticed that nobody, either in fiction, or legit discourse, ever does venture anywhere near the Titor model... which is kinda strange, given that so many other, clearly unworkable models pop up all the time.

It’s not as though the Titor model is just so ridiculous that it’s not even worth considering... because, well... plenty of very ridiculous models for time travel are given very serious consideration, in our movies and science fiction novels, if not elsewhere.

Still, the original message boards where Titor appeared, to talk about how he was a time traveler, and explain what he knew about how his military issue time distortion unit worked, were forums for physics students and physics enthusiasts.

And what always struck me reading the back and forth on those forums was that nobody ever challenged his technical explanations.  Everybody seemed to agree that the physics part of his story held up.

But that part was way over my head at the time, so I was very curious to understand why the physics seemed to hold up so well.

It took me most of those 13 years, watching recorded lectures and other videos on YouTube, and listening to several audio books on my commutes, dealing with different aspects of both quantum physics and string theory... before it finally clicked in my head, and I could see that Titor’s explanation not only squared with physics, but so did the schematics he’d provided.

Again, go back and read, Time Travel Basics, but, in a nutshell, it’s this idea of using two micro black holes... controlled by manifolds that inject electrons either into them, to increase their spin, or at angles across their event horizons, to slow the spin... to create two nested bubbles of frame-dragged spacetime, the inner one with positive time, and the outer one with negative time.

I won’t get further into it than that here, except to say that the one thing Titor talked about that always stumped me were the gravity sensors.  

Inside his two nested bubbles of spacetime, he was essentially in his own tiny universe, outside the main universe, but was able to maintain a lock on the Earth’s movements backward through time (rotating backward and revolving around the sun backward as the whole solar system revolved backward around the center of the galaxy) thanks to gravity sensors that would give feedback to the manifolds, telling them how to maneuver the two micro-singularities to stay with the GPS coordinates on Earth’s surface, from which he had departed.

I finally got my answer one morning in the car on the way to work, listening to an audio book on string theory, when the author explained how, unlike light, gravity could be felt between branes (or membranes) of space time.

It’s one possible explanation for why gravity is such a weak force on our own brane, compared to much stronger forces like electromagnetism... because gravity leaks out into the greater, “bulk,” of the multiverse.

He didn’t know it, but he’d told me that Titor’s gravity sensors could work... which was the final piece of the puzzle.

Everything else, from creating micro-singularities in particle accelerators, and capturing them magnetically, for industrial use... to manipulating their spin, mass, and attitude with a manifold of cathode rays (such manifolds were how old color tube TV sets worked)... to the nuclear powering of the device... to the many worlds theory... all passed, for being physically plausible.  So when the gravity sensors checked out too... well, that’s when I knew Titor was probably telling the truth.

So why am I so alone in this belief, in 2020... and why has the whole Titor model pretty much vanished from the conversation?

Well... this is what you might expect to happen when a person with a working model of something tries to explain it to people from the past who just aren’t there yet.

Imagine going back to the year 2000, and explaining on a serious tech forum how a typical smart phone from 2010 works... it’s a got a touch screen, and a bunch of gyros and sensors packed inside, and a lithium battery and... bla bla bla... 

Even though they are all well versed on the subject of tech, and are only about seven years away from the first smart phone... it’s likely that nobody will take your strange new idea seriously.  

Some will point out how certain features are just too far away... and the internet infrastructure couldn’t support such a thing... and the level of miniaturization isn’t realistic... and the batteries would be volatile and prone to explosions.

Others will argue that even if such a device could be Frankensteined together, nobody would want one device to do everything.  Nobody wants to watch TV shows on their alarm clock, that is also their flashlight! 

Why would they be like that?  Well... you know how people are.. when they consider themselves the experts and the vanguards of a given field.

Who are you anyway?  You’re just some rando who claims to own one of these so-called, “smart phones,” and you don’t even know how it works.  

You’re just a fanciful futurist describing some fanciful vision for a thing that would be nearly impossible to make, and totally impractical, probably, and that nobody asked for.  Get out of here!

My other example would be explaining how a modern airplane works, to scientists in... say... 1875.  Even if you were spot on with your description of a typical 737... with its wings, aelerons, flaps, jets, etc... its hydraulic control tubes and its aluminum body... fueled by a petroleum based liquid stored in its wings...

They would counter by explaining to you why none of that would actually work, and even if it could... nobody would ever convince a hundred regular civilians to climb into such a death trap and “fly” from New York to Los Angeles... in “hours.”

Get the fuck out of here!

My argument here, about experts and vanguards rejecting working ideas from the future... is kind of borne out by how far off the mark they always are, when asked to envision future tech.

Such visions are always hilariously wrong, because they are always clearly based on exactly what they know in the moment... plus what little they know about a few experimental things going on.  

But they never think about the unforeseen breakthroughs, both large and small, that can help make seemingly ridiculous things like the Boeing 737, or the IPhone 4, possible, practical, and marketable.

The above two analogies are not perfect though, because in John Titor’s case, he was in the military, using a military issue time machine.  It wasn’t a tech civilians even knew about, necessarily... and also, as I said earlier, there really wasn’t any push back from the nerds on his forums about the physics.  

They agreed it was theoretically sound enough not to bother attacking, and instead focused on his descriptions of the future... his past... all the world events to come later in the 2000s, 20-teens, and beyond.

And, while he answered honestly, he also explained that his appearance in 2000 meant they were all now on a different world line, that would not play out the same way.

His recollections were framed as predictions... and when the predictions didn’t come to pass... Titor was considered by most, debunked.

Some argued for a while... correctly, that they were never predictions, because he explained that we were on a different world line than his.  But... others countered, by pointing out how this argument makes his predictions unfalsifiable... which, in logical terms, means they’re garbage.

The whole discussion ended there... without ever really touching the mainstream consciousness.  John Titor was considered, by those who knew about him, to be just a fun hoax... and, like any other meme... fell out of fashion and was forgotten.

But my point is... he had schematics!  He had sound explanations for how the tech worked!  Screw the predictions... or arguments that the predictions are unfalsifiable!  The tech holds up!  Look at that!  Talk about that!

Look at the rather flawless descriptions of how it came to be invented, what it was being used for, and what it was like to operate a time distortion unit, from the perspective of the guy in the driver’s seat.  

It really irks me that everybody has both ignored and forgotten about that very tangible, testable part of Titor’s story... and then come back today with those same tired old arguments like, “If time travel were possible, we would have heard from one of them by now!”

Oh, really?

“If it were possible, we would have time tourists all over the place, and always would have, since Ancient Rome.”

Really?  Cuz... what if it was just a military tech not available to the public and what if it only had a small practical range of a few decades... as explained both by Titor, and by my Time Travel Basics entry?  Huh?

Huh???

Well... I guess I’m just gonna have to be content with being a crackpot, with no audience. :(

Be that as it may, my  model predicts that WW2 is the great historical barrier for time travel... with only a few rogue time travelers daring to go even as far back as the late 1940s... where they could still hope to refill their oxygen tanks, and get some kind of crude repairs done to their time distortion units.

Most only go as far back as the mid 1970s, with a few outliers hitting the 60s or 50s, and probably never finding their way back to anything like the home worldline they came from, after straying that far afield with no way to establish their, “divergence” to any useful degree.

But the twenty-teens were (are, will be) a good pit stop... the Denver, or Phoenix of Time Travel... if it were a coast to coast drive across the U.S... because things were (are, will be) just advanced enough to stop and get your bearings, or resupply, or get repairs done... but far enough away from the home time (which is the late 2030s) to bother stopping.

It’s possible that the 2020s will be the same kind of Denver for time travelers of, say, the 2050s... and that the 2030s themselves will be a Denver for time travelers of the 2080s... but if so... these more sophisticated time travelers from further in the future will probably be a lot more careful about the cybernetic impact of their pit stops in these future decades.

In other words, they’ll be more careful not to turn the internet, and therefore the world around them, into a total circus of unreality, in which all the locals question their sanity every day on a regular basis.

Things should calm down for us, in the 2020s, is what I’m saying... at least in the socio-political sphere.  The climate’s gonna be something different, but...

...whereas in the twenty-teens you were saying, “I can’t believe so and so is the leader of my country and so many assholes are coming out of the woodwork, and the rest of us feel unmoored from reality, as if we’ve been sucked into a parallel universe!”

In the 2020s you’re more likely to be saying, “I can’t believe we had a thunder snowphoon in July, and that Lake Eerie is on fire, but thank God the world’s leaders are on top of this, and have the support of pretty much everybody, except for the oldest, shittiest cranks who we all ignore.”

And maybe you’ll also be saying, “Thank God, also for [X-tech] without which everybody would be so fucked right now!”

Man, that was a long ramble!

Sorry.

I’m going to bed.

[captain-zajjy]

Solstice, Chapter 12 - A Final Fantasy XV Story

Pairing: Ignis x Female Original Character

AO3 | Chapter 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

A/N: Chapters 10-12 of this game broke me. 

After clearing the final Royal Tomb in Cartanica, the group had reboarded the train, and Ignis had laid down on bottom bunk of their sleeper car after showering and almost immediately passed out from sheer exhaustion. Exploring the murky swamp of the abandoned mine had left him physically battered and emotionally drained, far more than he was willing to admit to the others.

He only hoped his words had left some lingering effect on Gladiolus and Noctis - their little party was already beset on all sides; internal bickering was the last thing they needed, and he absolutely wouldn’t tolerate it being on his account. The pair of them had at least seemed cordial in the few moments Ignis remained awake after his head hit the pillow.

He couldn’t say how much time had passed before he woke, only that it must have still been night time (although the definition of night was apparently getting rather murky these days); the car was quiet, save for Gladiolus’s constant snoring and the rhythmic rumbling of the train riding the rails.

All the bruises, bumps, and scrapes he’d gotten trying to make his way around the slick, uneven terrain of the Caestino had truly begun to ache in earnest, each pain a protest from his body to remind him that continuing on this journey literally blind was a foolhardy venture. But he had to. He couldn’t abandon his friends, his King, no matter the toll it took on him.

Still, the pain was enough to prevent Ignis from falling back asleep, and it kept those pesky, intrusive doubts circling around his mind. Suppressing a groan, he sat up, felt around the end of the bunk until he found his jacket, and pulled his phone and sunglasses from the pockets. As quietly as he could manage, he rose and fumbled around for the door. Unlike his suite in Altissia, which had seemed chasmally large, everything on the train was narrow and cramped, which meant it was only a short matter of time until he bumped into what he was looking for.

Once in the corridor, Ignis slid the door shut behind him and sat down against it to ensure he didn’t lose his way. And to ensure that he didn’t frighten any fellow passengers who might happen to be about, he donned his sunglasses, covering up at least some of his scars. He had yet to get a straight answer out of Prompto about just how bad it looked; Gladio would tell him the hard truth, but the man had been too moody to bother.

Ignis pushed the home button down on his phone and instructed the device to call Valeria. He could at least manage to do that much on his own.

It rang several times before a sleepy voice mumbled on the other end of the line, “Hello?”

“I apologize. It’s late.” I think.

“Iggy... It’s fine.” Valeria still sounded only half-awake. Ignis felt guilty for rousing her, but he needed someone to talk to, someone to help him clear his head. “Are you...is everything okay?”

“It’s alright,” he said, gingerly rubbing the sore spot on his knee where he must have fallen at least a dozen times down in that bloody swamp. “We got what we came for. We’re headed to Gralea now.”

“Gralea...” Valeria sighed and Ignis heard a shifting sound in the background, like she was sitting up in bed. “A lot of the Niffs are talking about Gralea. It sounds like things are getting pretty bad there, like the MTs have gone berserk.”

“We’ll keep that in mind,” Ignis said, making a mental note. “Magitek running amok might work to our advantage.”

“You’re going after the Crystal?”

“Indeed,” he replied. “And if we happen to bump into the Emperor or the Chancellor, we’ll bump them off for good measure.”

“Do you really think killing them will change anything?” Valeria asked.

“Cut off the head of the snake...”

“And its heart keeps beating.” Given his current traveling companions, he forgot that such an analogy was less demonstrative on someone who had actually paid attention in biology class.

“For a time,” Ignis conceded. “But it lacks direction and purpose. The Empire has already overextended itself. Without those men holding it together, it will surely crumble.”

“I hope so, Iggy. If nothing else...” Valeria sighed. “They deserve to pay for what they’ve done.”

“You’ll get no argument from me there.” They sat in silence for a spell, Ignis taking a quiet sort of comfort in the steady sound of her breathing on the other end of the line.

“Ignis.” Valeria’s voice dropped, her tone gentle and forlorn. “Your eyes... They aren’t getting better, are they?”

He exhaled sharply, shifting on the cold floor of the train. Somewhere on the ride to that swamp, he’d accepted it, accepted that he’d never again see the sun rising over the Citadel, never watch himself and his friends grow old and grey, never look upon her lovely face once more. He’d accepted it, and yet it was so damn hard to say out loud.

“No,” he finally admitted. “I...no.”

Valeria let out a long sigh, as if she’d already known his answer. “I’m so sorry, Iggy. It’s like...it’s like it’s all a bad dream. But it’s not. Everything’s gone wrong.”

We’ll put it right, he thought. The things that could be fixed, anyway. “Tell me, Val. Do you think I’m being selfish? By insisting I continue on, despite my...impairment.” The word left a sour taste in his mouth, one that he knew he had best get accustomed to.

She paused. “Reckless, maybe. Not selfish.”

Ignis frowned. “‘Reckless’ isn’t a word I usually like to associate with either.”

It was a few moments before Valeria spoke. “You said it yourself: ‘Cut off the head of the snake’ and the rest falls apart. Do you really think the three of them can penetrate the Imperial capital without you?”

“Hmm...through sheer force, perhaps. But, certainly a more clandestine approach would prove most effective.”

“You need a sharp mind for that, Iggy. Not eyes,” she said gently. “I...I can’t begin to fathom how difficult this must be for you, but you mustn’t doubt yourself. You can do this. The others can tell you what you can’t see.”

It was difficult - extremely, painfully difficult - to ask the others for help with basic things right in front of him, that he should have just been able to see, but he knew he had to stop thinking of it that way. They didn’t seem the least bit chagrined when they called on him for his historical or political knowledge, for battle strategies, for advice. He would just have to start thinking of it as a give-and-take now, instead of just giving.

“You’re right, of course,” Ignis said.

“I usually am.”

That elicited a small smile from him, perhaps the first real smile he’d had since he woke to constant darkness.

“I miss you. Terribly,” he said suddenly, without thought. “Ah, forgive me. I know you don’t like it when I say such things.”

“It’s not that I don’t like it.” Valeria’s voice had grown thick. “It just...hurts.”

“I know.” Ignis didn’t want to hurt her either; but it was the circumstances, not him. “When we finish in Gralea, we’ll be coming back to retake the Crown City. Noct could use another sharp mind, one that has first-hand knowledge of the Imperial occupation.”

“Are you offering me a job?” Ignis was relieved to hear her resume her normal, glib tone.

“I can’t guarantee you any sort of steady pay. And, at the moment, the food is quite lousy, but I assure you that the chef plans to rededicate himself to the craft as soon as he is able.”

“Hmm...” Valeria mused. “A job working for the King. I guess I could do worse.”

“Much worse.”

“Plus, I heard that his chamberlain is stylish and brilliant.”

Ignis felt heat rising in his cheeks and a fullness spreading in his chest. He hadn’t realized just how much he needed her playful flattery until now, how good it felt to be handled by something other than kid gloves.

“I don’t know about all that, but I suppose there’s only one way to find out.”

As soon as Valeria got off the phone with Ignis, she buried her face in her knees and sobbed. I miss you. I miss you.

Dammit, Iggy, she thought. He was marching into the heart of the Empire, the Empire that had destroyed their home and killed her mother, the Empire that had blinded him and murdered the Oracle, the Empire that had by all accounts lost control of its own monstrous creations. The possibility that she might never see him again was very high, very real, and too much for her heart to bear.

And even if he did make it back to her and to Lucis, he would never see her again, period. That thought caused her to cry even harder.

He was acting so strong, so stoic about the whole ordeal, but she knew him and knew he had to be suffering, not only with the sudden physical limitations, but even more psychologically, and the only thing she could do about it was try to give him some kind words over the phone. It wasn’t enough.

She wanted to take him and disappear somewhere safe and quiet, where there were no kings or princes or emperors, where she could just hold him close and let him know that he was wonderful just the way he was. That he was enough.

Valeria hated this world and what it had done to him and to her, to the thousands just like him and her who had been ripped apart by other men’s ambitions. And the worst part of it was that she could see no end in sight. Even if they somehow managed to succeed, if Noctis managed to retrieve the Crystal and kill the Emperor, it would still come back to war. Men like Caligo Ulldor would rise up in the Emperor’s place, and there would be more death, more destruction, more daemons. All that would be easier to endure by Ignis’s side, it was true, but that wasn’t comfort enough to stem her tears.

I miss you. Terribly. Valeria missed him too. And she missed the mornings of waking up before dawn, being the first one in the office and the last one out. She hadn’t even been particularly happy  with that life, but at least it was steady, safe, and stable. At least then, surrounded by her employees and shareholders and business acquaintances, she could convince herself that she wasn’t all alone. That all her years of schooling, her sacrifices, her daily existence was all for something, even if that something had never really been her choice all along.

Now, she was no one, just an ID number on a bracelet, another faceless refugee to be herded by the Empire, to pasture or to the slaughter. It didn’t make any difference to the Niffs. Everyone who had ever cared about her was either dead or far away. And even though she was surrounded by hundreds in the exact same situation, she still felt all alone. No one had the energy to care anymore. All she had now was that lingering fear that the Niffs would come and haul her off again, this time for good.

Caligo Ulldor would be returning to Insomnia soon - and empty-handed, since Valeria knew Ignis and the rest were on an entirely different continent - and Loqi Tummelt wasn’t going to leave her be in the meantime. She wouldn’t entertain his proposal, not even for a second - despite her real fears that this war would end exactly as he predicted, she knew that Ignis wouldn’t want to be spared, not at the cost of the Prince’s life. He’d placed Noctis’s life above his own since he was a child; he would never just lie down and accept his own safety.

There was only one thing to be done: Valeria had to leave. She didn’t know how she would avoid the soldiers and all the blockades, and she certainly didn’t know what she’d do with herself if she managed to make it outside the city walls, but she knew to remain here much longer was a death sentence.

Valeria’s experience outside the Crown City was limited to meeting her father for lunch at a diner once every few months, where he always made the same bad jokes (“Well, I guess you don’t need any money”) and forced her to pose for a photo with a rusty old Kenny Crow statue or some other stupid landmark. But Ignis had spent a considerable amount of time roaming the Lucian countryside, and had surely made at least a few allies along the way - hopefully ones that would be willing to put her up until the Prince and his entourage returned.

There was just one last thing Valeria had to do before she left. Human experiments in the Manufacturing District. Felix had been the only person who’d showed her any sort of kindness or friendship, and she couldn’t quite bring herself to abandon him, especially to a fate as terrible as that. If it were her - no, if it were Ignis - she would hope that someone would at least try to help.

Valeria set her jaw and wiped her face with her shirtsleeve. Enough crying. Her tears would help exactly no one. And enough sitting around and waiting. Waiting for Ignis to come back, for the Niffs to cart her off, for someone to take pity on her.

The world may have gone mad, but her fate was still her own.

It seemed that, for Ignis, Tenebrae Station was never meant to hold pleasant memories.

He’d been here once before, a long time ago, traveling alongside the uncle he’d just met to a kingdom he’d only ever heard about in bedtime stories. He couldn’t remember the layout of the station or how it had looked at that time - much as that might have aided him now that he was unable to see - but vividly recalled the bright cordovan leather of his shoes, polished to a sheen for his parents’ funeral. Five-year-old Ignis had stared down at them, his feet hanging off the bench as he waited on the train, trying to understand just why he had to go far away, how Mummy and Daddy weren’t ever coming back home.

He’d been confused, terrified by the uncertainty of his future - much the same as twenty-two year-old Ignis was feeling now. The uncle that had taken him in was dead, the faraway kingdom he’d come to think of as home laid in ruins back across the sea. And him, scarred and without sight, in service to a young, unprepared King, with no army or resources to take down a seemingly infinite Empire. The outlook was as dark and murky as his ruined vision.

Adding to that was the more immediate concern for Prompto, snatched by that snake of a Chancellor for ends Ignis couldn’t quite bring himself to contemplate. In many ways, Prompto was the most vulnerable member of their group, and Ignis knew he wasn’t the only one who’d begun to think of him as something akin to a younger brother during their journey. A sentiment Ardyn Izunia was almost certainly counting on.

Something hard and unyielding collided painfully with his side, snapping his attention back to the present. Ignis grunted, swallowing a curse aimed more at his own infirmity than the sudden throbbing just above his hip.

“Watch out, Iggy.” Ignis felt Gladio’s broad hand on his back, steering him away from whatever it was he had just run into.

Poor choice of words aside, Ignis knew Gladiolus was every bit as unprepared and uncertain on how to behave in this situation as he himself was. Ignis constantly vacillated between wanting to assert that he could manage just fine on his own, and gratitude for a familiar guiding voice or hand when he found himself adrift and rudderless in the endless sea of darkness. But this was his burden, his deficiency, and it was his responsibility alone to instruct the others on what sort of assistance he did or didn’t require.

With that in mind, Ignis stopped, calling out Gladio’s name. “We ought to restock our supply of curatives.” They were certainly going to need as many potions as they could carry if they were going to make it through Gralea intact. “Surely there must be a vendor near the station.”

“Sounds good,” Gladiolus replied, sounding about half-interested. “Shop’s off to your left.”

Ignis waited, listening for Gladio’s footsteps and the creak of his leather jacket as he moved, but nothing happened.

“Are you...occupied with something?” Ignis asked, frowning in confusion.

“Huh?” Gladiolus replied. “What are you asking me for? You’re the one who knows about all that crap.”

Ignis’s frown shifted from one of confusion to consternation. “I...I can’t...” I can’t read the prices, I can’t see what’s in stock, I can’t even be certain of how much gil is in my own bloody wallet.

“‘I can’t.’” Gladio’s tone was almost mocking. “Words I never thought I’d hear coming out of Ignis Scientia’s mouth.”

Ignis parted his lips to retort, but was interrupted by a hand on his shoulder, spinning him to his left. “Stall’s about forty feet in front of you.” Gladiolus pressed a crumpled wad of paper into Ignis’s hand. “Here’s five thousand gil. Don’t let ‘em rip you off.”

Ignis stood there for a moment in indignation before he heard Valeria’s voice in his head. You can do this. Then he understood. Gladiolus wasn’t cutting Ignis loose to humiliate him, but because he, despite his earlier objections, believed in Ignis as well. You can do this. You can do this.

Squaring his shoulders, Ignis made his way forward, silently counting steps as he went. At thirty-four, his cane struck something - hopefully the shop stall.

“Uh...” Ignis cleared his throat, praying he wasn’t speaking to empty air. “Pardon me?”

To his right, there was the sound of creaking wood, and then creaking joints, and Ignis shifted toward it, his free hand finding the stall’s counter.

“My word!” The voice belonged to a woman, who must have been quite old from the way she rasped and half of her body seemed to click and pop as she moved. “My word!” she declared again.

Ignis frowned. He knew his scars were obvious, even behind his sunglasses, but at least Aranea had brought it up with some tact.

“Good afternoon,” he said flatly, hoping to move the transaction along.

“Oh, that posh voice! It really takes me back,” the shopkeeper crooned. “I haven’t heard highborn speech like that in years! Aside from Lady Lunafreya, of course. Stars guide her soul.”

Oh, Ignis thought, feeling slightly chagrined. She was startled by how I speak. He was well-accustomed to his accent being regarded as a peculiarity, a topic of idle conversation, but here in Tenebrae, particularly to the older set, it was a very real, tangible indicator of class and status.

“Have you come to see to the Manor, m’lord?” She sounded so hopeful, Ignis almost felt guilty for his response.

“Just passing through, I’m afraid.” He wasn’t certain if the Imperials had bombed the ancestral home of the Fleuret family or merely set it ablaze, but either way, the acrid smell of smoke made its way to the station with every passing breeze.

“Oh, that’s a shame,” the woman said with a sigh. “I guess they’re just going to let it burn... Anyway, what can I do for you, m’lord?”

Ignis didn’t bother correcting her about his title. He doubted a woman who had spent decades addressing anyone who spoke like him in such a manner would suddenly stop now that he asked her to.

“What...er, what do you have for sale?”

“Everything I’ve got listed here.” He felt her tap on the counter. “Best prices in Tenebrae, m’lord.”

“I, uh... I’m afraid I’ll have to trouble you for some assistance.” It’s her job, Ignis reminded himself, trying to chase away the embarrassment that Ignis Scientia, best and brightest of his day, couldn’t bloody read a list of inventory right under his nose.

“What...? Oh, oh my word!” the woman whispered, then he heard scrambling as fast as her aging joints would allow. “I am so sorry, m’lord. I’m over here with my head buried in a book, not paying attention, and I-”

“No need to apologize.” Ignis held up his hand to arrest her babbling. “If you could just tell me what’s for sale, please.”

“Of course, m’lord! Now, let’s see...” The shopkeeper ran through the inventory and prices - which weren’t terrible, but he highly doubted they were the best in the country - and Ignis was able to procure a full set of restoratives, throwing in a few extra for Prompto. Ignis wanted to be prepared for anything (well, almost anything - he couldn’t quite bring himself to prepare for the worst) when they found their erstwhile companion.

With the bag in hand, Ignis turned around and made his thirty-four steps back to Gladiolus.

“Well, well. Look at that,” Gladiolus said playfully. “What was it you were saying before?”

Ignis shoved the change into Gladio’s burly chest. “Don’t push it, Gladio.”

But despite the bag full of potions, Ignis had to admit he felt just a little lighter than he had before.

[free-mormons-blog]

The Passing of the Primitive Church: Forty Variations on an Unpopular Theme -- Mormonism and Early Christianity -- HUGH NIBLEY 1987

The Passing of the Primitive Church: Forty Variations on an Unpopular Theme

A Somber Theme: Ever since Eusebius sought with dedicated zeal to prove the survival of the church by blazing a trail back to the apostles, the program of church history has been the same: “To give a clear and comprehensive, scientifically established view of the development of the visible institution of salvation founded by Christ.”1 To describe it—not to question it. By its very definition church history requires unquestioning acceptance of the basic proposition that the church did survive. One may write endlessly about The Infant Church, l’Eglise naissante, die Pflanzung der Kirche, etc., but one may not ask why the early Christians themselves described their church not as a lusty infant but as an old and failing woman; one may trace the triumphant spread of The Unquenchable Light through storm and shadow, but one may not ask why Jesus himself insisted that the Light was to be taken away.2 Church history seems to be resolved never to raise the fundamental question of survival as the only way of avoiding a disastrous answer, and the normal reaction to the question—did the church remain on earth?—has not been serious inquiry in a richly documented field, but shocked recoil from the edge of an abyss into which few can look without a shudder.3

Yet today that question is being asked again, as it has been in other times of stress and crisis, not with the journalistic flourish of Soltau’s Sind wir noch Christen? but with the cautious historical appraisal of an H. J. Schoeps, contemplating the age-old tension between eschatology and church with their conflicting ideas about the church’s future. Can it be that the repugnance of churchmen to eschatology and their coolness toward the authentic writings of the early Fathers are due in no small part to the dim view which the primitive Christians took of the prospects of the church?4 The purpose of this paper is to list briefly the principal arguments supporting the thesis that the church founded by Jesus and the apostles did not survive and was not expected to. We shall consider the fate of the church under three heads: (1) the declarations of the early Christians concerning what was to befall it; (2) their strange behavior in the light of those declarations; (3) the affirmations and denials, doubts and misgivings of the church leaders of a later day. Our theme is the Passing of the Church, our variations, designated below by Roman numerals, are a number of striking and often neglected facets of church history.

The Early Christian View: Christian apologists had a ready answer to those shallow-minded critics who made merry over Christ’s failure to convert the world and God’s failure to protect his saints from persecution and death: God does not work that way, it was explained, his rewards are on the other side, and his overwhelming intervention is reserved for the eschaton, until which all sorts of reverses can be expected—nihil enim est nobis promissum ad hanc vitam; the prospect of failure and defeat in the world, far from being incompatible with the gospel message, is an integral part of it.5

(I) Jesus announced in no uncertain terms that his message would be rejected by all men, as the message of the prophets had been before,6 and that he would soon leave the world to die in its sins and seek after him in vain. 7 The Light was soon to depart, leaving a great darkness “in which no man can work” while “the prince of this world” would remain, as usual, in possession of the field.8 (II) In their turn the disciples were to succeed no better than their Lord: “If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more shall they call them of his household?” 9 Like him they were to be “hated of all men,” going forth as sheep among wolves, “sent last as it were appointed unto death,”10 with the promise that as soon as they completed their mission the end would come. 11

(III) But what of the church? Those who accepted the teaching were to suffer exactly the same fate as the Lord and the apostles; they were advised to “take the prophets for an example of suffering affliction and patience,” and to “think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try” them, but rejoice rather to suffer as Christ did “in the flesh . . . that we may also be glorified together.”12 After them too the prince of this world was waiting to take over; they too were to be lambs among wolves, rejected as were the Master and the disciples: “The world knoweth us not because it knew him not.”13 Knowing that “whosoever will save his life must lose it,” they openly disavowed any expectation of success, individual or collective, in this world.14 (IV) As for the doctrine, it was to receive the same rough treatment, soon falling into the hands of worldly men who would “pervert the gospel of Christ” from a thing the world found highly obnoxious to something it was willing to embrace, for such has always been the fate of God’s revelations to men.15

(V) All this bodes ill for the “interval” between the Ascension and the Parousia; the Zwischenzeit was to be a bad time and a long one.16 What is more, it begins almost immediately, the apostles themselves calling attention to all the fatal signs, and marveling only that it has come so soon. 17 As soon as the Lord departs there comes “the lord of this world, and hath nothing in me”; in the very act of casting out the Lord of the vineyard the usurpers seize it for themselves, to remain in possession until his return; 18 no sooner does he sow his wheat than the adversary sows tares, and only when the Lord returns again can the grain be “gathered together,” i.e., into a church, the ruined field itself being not the church but specifically “the world.”19 After the sheep come the wolves, “not sparing the flock,” which enjoys no immunity (Acts 20:29); after sound doctrine come fables;20 after the charismatic gifts only human virtues (1 Corinthians 13:8, 13). The list is a grim one, but it is no more impressive than (VI) the repeated insistence that there is to be an end, not the end of the world, but “the consummation of the age.”21 It is to come with the completion of the missionary activities of the apostles, and there is no more firmly rooted tradition in Christendom than the teaching that the apostles completed the assigned preaching to the nations in their own persons and in their own time, so that the end could come in their generation.22

(VII) It was no imaginary end. When the saints were asked to “endure to the end,” that meant just one thing, as Tertullian observes—to suffer death.23 When the sorely pressed Christians need “a strong comfort,” the only comfort forthcoming is the promise of the resurrection and the assurance of salvation “whether we live or die.”24Never is there any mention of relief on the way, of happy times ahead, of final victory for the cause, or of the consoling thought that generations yet unborn will call one blessed. Such assurances belong to a later age; the only encouragement the first Christians ever got is that given to soldiers making a last-ditch stand: they are ordered not to attack but “to have long patience,” grimly hanging on “to the end,” because only by so doing can they show their worthiness to inherit eternal life.25

But we are told not only of one but explicitly of two ways in which the ancient church was to make its exit. (VIII) For far more numerous than those true saints who were to give their lives as witnesses were those who were to succumb to the blandishments of false teachers. The fate of the vast majority of Christians was not to be overcome by a frontal attack—true martyrs were relatively few—but to be led astray by perverters.26 The spoilers do not destroy the vineyard, but “seize the inheritance” for themselves; we read of betrayal, disobedience, corruptions; of deceivers, perverters, traitors; of wresting the scriptures, denying the gifts, quenching the Spirit, turning love into hate, truth to fables, sheep to wolves; of embracing “another gospel,” and so forth. The offenders are not pagans but loudly professing Christians.27 As, once the prophets are dead, everyone paints their tombs with protestations of devotion, so “when the master of the house has risen up and shut the door,” shall the eager host apply for admission to his company—too late.28 The apostasy described in the New Testament is not desertion of the cause, but perversionof it, a process by which “the righteous are removed, and none perceives it.”29 The Christian masses do not realize what is happening to them; they are “bewitched” by a thing that comes as softly and insidiously as the slinging of a noose.30 It is an old familiar story, as Bultmann notes: “The preaching of Jesus does not hold out any prospect for the future of the people. . . . The present people does not behave otherwise than its predecessors who had persecuted and killed the prophets. . . . The message of Jesus does not contain any promise of the splendid future of Israel.”31 (IX) As is well known, the early Christians viewed the future with a mixture of fear and longing, of longing for the triumphant return of the Lord, but of deadly fear of the long and terrible rule of the that had to come first. So great is the dread of what they know lies ahead, that devout fathers of the church pray for the indefinite postponement of the Day of the Lord itself as the price of delaying the rule of darkness.32

(X) The Apostolic Fathers denounce with feeling the all too popular doctrine that God’s church simply cannot fail. All past triumphs, tribulations, and promises, they insist, will count for nothing unless the people now repent and stand firm in a final test that lies just ahead; God’s past blessings and covenants, far from being a guarantee of immunity (as many fondly believe) are the very opposite, for “the greater the knowledge we have received, the greater rather is the danger in which we lie.”33 The case of the Jews, to say nothing of the fallen angels, should prove that we are never safe.34 God will surely allow his people to perish if they continue in the way they are going—he will hasten their dissolution: “Since I called and ye hearkened not . . . therefore I in my turn will laugh at your destruction. . . . For there will come a time when you will call upon me and I shall not hear you.”35 The Apostolic Fathers compare the church to fallen Israel, and confirm their solemn warnings by citing the most lurid and uncompromising passages of scripture.36 (XI) They see the church running full speed in the wrong direction, and in great distress of mind plead with it to do an about-face “before it is too late,” as it soon will be.37 For their whole concern is not to make new converts, but rather “to save from perishing a soul that has already known Christ,” seeing to it that as many as possible pass “the fiery test ahead,” keep the faith that most are losing, and so reach the goal of glory beyond. 38 They know that the names of Christ and Christian carry on, but find no comfort in that, since those names are being freely used by impostors and corrupters,39 whom “the many” are gladly following.40

(XII) The call to repentance of the Apostolic Fathers is a last call; they labor the doctrine of the Two Ways as offering to Christian society a last chance to choose between saving its soul by dying in the faith or saving its skin by coming to terms with the world.41 They have no illusions as to the way things are going: the church has lost the gains it once made, the people are being led by false teachers,42 there is little to hinder the fulfillment of the dread (and oft-quoted) prophecy, “the Lord shall deliver the sheep of his pasture and their fold and their tower to destructions.”43 The original tower with its perfectly cut and well-fitted stones is soon to be taken from the earth, and in its place will remain only a second-class tower of defective stones which could not pass the test.44 In the Visions of the Pastor of Hermas the church is represented as an old and failing lady—”because your spirit is old and already fading away”—who is carried out of the world; only in the world beyond does she appear as a blooming and ageless maiden.45 The Apostolic Fathers take their leave of a church not busily engaged in realizing the kingdom, but fast falling asleep; the lights are going out, the Master has departed on his long journey, and until he returns all shall sleep. What lies ahead is the “Wintertime of the Just,” the time of mourning for the Bridegroom, when men shall seek the Lord and not find him, and “seek to do good, but no longer be able to.”46

Strange Behavior: What the strangely negative behavior of the first Christians suggests is less the expectation of an immediate Parousia than the shutting up of the shop until a distant reopening. (XIII) It has often been noted that their public relations were the world’s worst, that they “could not and did not court publicity outside the movement.”47 In sharp contrast to the later church, they were convinced, as Hilary observes, that the church “could not be Christ’s unless the world hated it.”48 The disciples, following the example and precept of their Master, made no effort to win public sympathy and support.49 This hard and uncompromising attitude has puzzled observers in every age, and indeed it makes little sense in an institution seeking either to convert the world or to survive in it.50 None knew better than the Christians themselves that their intransigence had no survival value, and yet they went right on “turning the world upside down” and mortally offending respectable people.

(XIV) The first Christians maintained a strange and stubborn reticence on certain matters (including their beliefs about the Second Coming), even when their silence led to serious misunderstanding and persecution.51 Even among the members the teaching was carefully rationed, for it was not the trivia but the high and holy mysteries, the most prized things of the kingdom, that were carefully kept out of circulation,52 so that Origen can report no clear official teaching in his day “not only regarding minor matters, but on the very first principles of the gospel.”53 Critics and scholars since Celsus have been puzzled by this early Christian reticence on matters which, if the church was to carry on, should have been highly publicized.54 And while Christians since Irenaeus have categorically denied that any teachings of the apostolic church were withheld, they have done so only to avoid the alarming implications of the primitive Christian reticence.55

(XV) Consistent with the policy of reticence is the strict limitation placed on the missionary activities of Jesus and his disciples, both in time and place, and their firm rejection of the highly successful proselytizing methods of the Jews. In his recent study of this anomaly, Joachim Jeremias has concluded that while Jesus did indeed envisage a universal call to the nations, he thought of it as coming only at the eschaton and not at the time of his mortal mission, which clearly did not have world conversion as its objective.56

(XVI) No less striking is the conspicuous absence of any missionary organization in the apostolic church, and the complete indifference of the Apostolic Fathers to the great business of converting the world.57 Their prayer for the church is to be gathered out of the world, not spread abroad in it, and to be caught up into the kingdom, not to build it here.58

(XVII) Instead of settling down as the later Christians sensibly did to long-term projects of conversion, the early Christians were driven by the “keen sense of urgency and stress” that fills their writings. “The time is short” was the refrain, and the missionaries had only time to give a hasty warning message and be on their way. It seems, according to K. Holl, that the apostles went about their business ohne für die Zukunft zu sorgen—without a thought for the future.59 What strange missionaries! They never speak of the bright future ahead nor glory in its prospects, but seem quite prepared to accept the assurance that they would preach to a generation that would not hear them and that, as in the days of Noah, the end would follow hard upon their preaching.60

(XVIII) But if the early saints mention no glorious future for the church, when that should be their strongest comfort, they do shed abundant tears when they look ahead. If the fall of Jerusalem and the temple was to be the great opportunity for the church that later theologians insist it was, Christ and the early saints were not aware of it, for they give no indication of regarding the event as anything but tragic.61 Paul viewed the future of the church “with tears” as, according to early accounts, did other leaders. 62 Apocryphal writings describe the apostles as weeping inconsolably when Jesus leaves them to their fates, and in turn the church shedding bitter tears for the loss of the apostles, that leaves it without guidance and counsel. 63 Whatever their historical value, such accounts convincingly convey a mood, and Kirsopp Lake recommended Browning’s terrible Death in the Desert as the best background reading for understanding the state of mind of the church at the passing of the apostles—all is lost.64

(XIX) The failure of the apostles to leave behind them written instructions for the future guidance of the church has often been noted and sadly regretted. It is hard to conceive of such a colossal oversight if the founders had actually envisaged a long future for the church. The awkwardness of the situation is apparent from R. M. Grant’s explanation of it, namely, that the apostles “did not live to see the Church fully organized and at work.”65 As if they should wait until the work was completed before giving instructions for completing it! Actually the most tragic disorganization and confusion followed hard upon the passing of the apostles, according to Hegesippus, and as a direct result of it.66 Plainly the early leaders made no careful provision for the future, even as they “failed to compose anything that could properly be described as ‘church-history'” in spite of their great interest in times, seasons and dispensations, and the imperative need and accepted use of sacred history in the economy of religious organizations.67

(XX) Then there is the total neglect of education in the early church, which G. Bardy would justify with desperate logic, arguing that education for the young was neglected because the church got its membership from converts among the adult population—fiunt, non nascuntur Christiani.68 And were all those converts childless, and were there no children in the church for those three long centuries during which it was without schools? In view of the great emphasis placed on education by the church in the fourth century, its total neglect in the preceding centuries can only have been deliberate. Well might E. de Faye find it strange that Jesus “ne songe nullement î former une école de jeunes hommes qui . . . seraient les hérétiers de sa doctrine” (“does not think to form a school of young men who would be the heirs of his teaching”), for if there were to be heirs of the teaching such a provision was indispensable.69 Why no education, then? Actually the Apostolic Fathers were greatly concerned about education, warning their people against the bad education of the world, and chiding them for their neglect of the only education that counted—that which prepared the young for the next life.70

(XXI) Neglect of standard education was matched by an equally disturbing indifference to the social and political problems which would necessarily be of vital concern to any enduring social institution. For years liberal scholars sought to discover a social gospel where none was to be found, and it is indeed hard to believe that a religion of brotherly love could so persistently ignore the crying social ills of the day.71 But the Christians excused themselves with the explanation that more urgent business had priority—they had no time for such things.72 Why not, if the church was to continue? (XXII) And why should a permanent and growing church refuse to invest in lands and buildings? For a long time eminent churchmen endorsed the old Christian prejudice against the construction of sorely needed church buildings.73But what could have been the original objection to anything as innocent and salutary as the building of a church? The early Christians tell us: the church cannot own real estate (they explain) because it is only here temporarily, and must never be allowed to forget that fact.74 (XXIII) Hans Lietzmann has shown that when “the Church sojourning at Rome” or elsewhere writes to “the Church sojourning at Corinth” or elsewhere it means that both churches are thought of only as temporary visitors in their cities; collectively and individually the church was here only on a brief pilgrimage. They were das wandernde Gottesvolk, strangers and pilgrims all, destined for but a short time upon the earth.75

Planned Martyrdom: The strongest argument for the survival of the church is the natural reluctance of men to accept defeat—even temporary defeat—for the work of God: “tot denique martyria in vacuum coronata?” cries Tertullian, ignoring Polycarp’s assurance that “all of these ran not in vain, because they are with the Lord in the place which is their due, with whom they also suffered. For they did not love this present world.”76 (XXIV) The loudly proclaimed objectives of the first martyrs do not include the future prosperity of the church. In bidding farewell to Jews and Gentiles Paul announces that his missions to them have been successful, not in terms of converts, but of clearing himself of a terrible responsibility: henceforth their blood is on their own heads; he has fulfilled his assignment successfully, for a crown awaits him—on the other side.77 “Thus it appears,” writes O. Cullmann, “that the coming of the Kingdom does not depend upon the success of this ‘preaching’ but only on the fact of the proclamation itself.” 78 What does depend on the preaching is (1) the salvation of the preacher, who is under condemnation unless he bears witness and frees himself of “the blood of this generation,” and (2) the convicting of a wicked world which must be “without excuse” in the day of judgment.79 The preaching is not to convert the world but “for a witness”—martyria occurs more than six times as frequently as kerygma in the New Testament—and it has long been recognized that the primary qualification and calling of an apostle was to be an eye witness.80 The calling of a witness is to preach to an unbelieving generation ripe for destruction, with the usual expectation (as the name “martyr” indicates) of being rejected and put to death.

(XXV) The strange indifference of the early martyrs to the future of a church for which later ages fondly believed they gave their lives has not received the comment it deserves. In a world in which a noble altruism was constantly on the lips of orators, in a society whose model citizen was that Pius Aeneas who promised his afflicted followers that grateful generations to come would call them blessed, and in a sect which placed brotherly love before all else, the Christian martyrs, unlike the pagan martyrs or Christian heroes of later times, never take comfort in the thought that others will profit by their sufferings, or that their deeds will be remembered and their names revered in ages to come. Ignatius, Andrew, and Perpetua will neither live nor die for the church, but talk of nothing but their personal glory with Christ hereafter, “for while he suffered for us, we suffer for ourselves.”81 This concept of martyrdom is the opposite of that which later prevailed, as Dionysius of Alexandria points out in a letter to Novatus, noting that whereas the early martyr was concerned “for his own soul alone . . . today the martyr thinks in terms of the whole Church.”82 Since the latter is the more humane and natural view, there must have been a very good reason for ignoring it. It could not have been that primitive Christians enjoyed suffering, for they did not;83 nor were they as self-centered even as the later Christians, who found in martyrdom the solace of matchless public acclaim and undying earthly renown.84 The very tears of the early leaders show plainly enough (as Chrysostom often observes) that they were genuinely concerned about the future. If, then, the martyrs refuse to think and speak in terms of a continuing church, it is not because they are peculiarly self-centered people, but simply because they see no future for the church.

(XXVI) So firmly fixed in the Christian mind is the conviction that every true Christian, every saint, is by very definition a martyr, that when persecutions ceased devout souls felt themselves cheated, and new ways and means of achieving martyrdom had to be devised, though they were never more than substitutes for the real thing.85A telling argument for any sect seeking to prove its authenticity has ever been the claim to have more martyrs than the others, 86 while the largest church of all at the peak of its power must needs describe itself in pathetic terms as a persecuted little band of saints—for tradition will not allow any other kind of church to be the true one.87 From the beginning the church is a community of martyrs, whose proper business is “nothing else than to study how to die”;88 and though “the final note is of the victory of God,” as C. T. Craig observes, before that happy culmination John “seems to have anticipated a universal martyrdom for the Church.” 89

The Great Gap: That ominous gap in the records which comes just at the moment of transition from a world-hostile to a world-conditioned Christianity has recently received growing attention and a number of interesting labels, such as the lacuna, the eclipse, the void, the great vacuum, the narrows, the period of oblivion, etc.90Brandon compares it to a tunnel “from which we emerge to find a situation which is unexpected in terms of the situation which went before.”91 (XXVII) The church, that is, which comes out of the tunnel is not the church that went into it. The great gap is more than a mere absence of documents; it is an abrupt break in the continuity of the church, so complete as to prove to Theodore Brandt that “the living faith cannot be transmitted from past ages,” which is at least an admission that it has not been. 92 The early Christians knew they were approaching a tunnel; they were acutely aware of “the terrible possibility of apostasy for the church”—not merely of apostasy from it,93 and never doubted “the general apostasy which would precede the coming of the Messiah.”94 And the church of the next age is just as aware of having passed through the tunnel, and losing its more precious possessions in the process. (XXVIII) For after the passing of the apostles “le vide est immense” (“The void is immense”), since it was the presence of living witnesses that had made the original church what it was.95 Henceforth the “Elders” of old are referred to as a fabulous race of beings endowed with gifts, powers, and knowledge far exceeding anything found on earth any more, and mere proximity to the apostles and the elders becomes a special mark of sanctity and authority.96 As “the great lights went out” the most devoted Christians engaged in a wistful “Operation Salvage” to rescue what might still be saved of “those things which came by the living voices that yet remained.”97 What more eloquent commentary on the passing of the church?

(XXIX) At the same time a horde of deceivers “who up until then had been lurking in dark corners,” as soon as they saw that there were no more apostles left to call them to account, came boldly forth, each claiming that he alone had the gnosis which the Lord had secretly imparted to the apostles after the resurrection.98 Strangely, they met with no official opposition: the Fathers who oppose them emphatically disclaim any apostolic authority and, what is more, know of no one else who might have it.99 “Nous sommes incapable”, writes D. Busy, “d’expliquer comment, la terre entière se trouvant évangélisée, les prédicateurs de l’Evangile ont l’air de disparaître et laissent le champ libre aux faux méssies et aux faux prophètes comme . . . la bête de la mer ne rencontre plus la moindre résistance.”100 (“We are unable to explain how, while the whole was being evangelized, the preachers of the gospel seem to disappear and leave the field free for false messiahs and false prophets; how . . . the beast of the sea does not meet the least resistance”.) The prophecy (2 Thessalonians 2:12) is no more puzzling than the event; for the second century, the great moment of transition, is no age of faith but “par excellence the age of Heresy.”101

It was not a case of reformers or schismatics attacking the main church—the problem was, since the Christians had always rejected with contempt the argument of mere numbers, to find the true church among a great number of sects, each claiming to be the one true original article and displaying facsimiles of ancient spiritual gifts, rites, and officers to prove it.102 Justin knows of no certain norm for distinguishing true Christians from false, and Irenaeus struggles manfully but vainly to discover one.103 While the perplexed masses asked embarrassing questions and flocked to the banner of any quack who gave promise of possessing the gifts and powers, especially prophecy, which it was commonly felt the church should have inherited,104 even the greatest churchmen hesitated and wavered, unable to resist the appeal of the old charismatic Christianity or to decide just where it was to be found.105 In the end, in Harnack’s words, “Gnosticism won half a victory,” for if the “Gnostics-so-called” had to default on electrifying promises which they could not fulfill, neither was any found to match their false claims with the genuine article, and the great surge of hope and enthusiasm that had carried the Gnostics on its crest subsided in disillusionment and compromise.106

(XXX) Still, the constant revival through the centuries of the old stock Gnostic claim that the one true apostolic church has by some miracle of survival come down to the possession of this or that group, is a perpetual reminder of the failure of subsequent Christianity to come up to the expectations of the first church.107 (XXXI) For the chronic discontent which haunts the Christian churches is by no means limited to the lunatic fringe. The vigorous beginnings of monasticism and pilgrimage were frankly attempts to return to the first order of the church, with its unworldly austerities and its spiritual manifestations, and as such were viewed by official Christianity as a clear vote of no-confidence—a rebuke and repudiation of the system.108

(XXXII) Modern students have agreed in describing the second generation of the church as a time of spiritual decline and low vitality, of torpor and exhaustion, “a dull period of feeble originality and a dearth of great personalities.”109 “Enfin,” writes G. Bardy, “c’est le tiedeur que domine.”110 Doctrinally it was a definite “Abfall vom Evangelium,” with the basic teachings altered and denatured beyond recognition. 111 As “the understanding of the Spirit . . . became lost . . . and the Christian had to rely on his own powers,” that Christian became calculating, complacent, and respectable, in a word, all that the first Christian was not.112 The overall impression, Goguel reports, is “definitely one of decadence.”113

Yet the same voices that bring these charges against the second generation unanimously approve the new mentality as a necessary coming down out of the clouds, a new-found sobriety and maturity, a sensible acceptance of the facts of life, as “uplifted eyes . . . [turned back] to earth . . . to find their assurance in hard facts.”114 At last, we are told, the Christian could enjoy “what he had been missing so long, the consideration and respect of the outside world.”115 Only by scrapping the old “evangelical eschatology,” according to one Catholic authority, could “Christian morality and the Church itself . . . take on larger dimensions,” this being (according to another) a necessary step “towards wider horizons than those to which the Galilean nucleus had chosen to confine itself.” 116 One may well ask how wider horizons and larger dimensions could be achieved by a Christianity admittedly “more hard and fast, less spontaneous, and in a sense, more cramped” than what had gone before; J. de Zwaan, who describes it thus, marvels “that the main stream of Gospel-tradition could pass through these narrows.”117 But the larger dimensions were the intellectual splendors of Hellenism, toward which the Gnostic agitation had hurried the feet of the church, the new Christian culture substituting erudition for inspiration, the rhetoric of the schools for the gift of tongues, a numerus episcoporum for the Spiritus per spiritalem hominem,118 and the orderly mechanics of ritual for the unpredictable operation of the spiritual gifts as “eschatological consciousness changed into sacramental piety.” 119 “Christianity,” wrote Wilhelm Christ, “was squeezed into a system congenial to pagan-Greek-rationalist thought, and in that safe protective suit of armor was able to face up to the world; but in the process it had to sacrifice its noblest moral and spiritual forces.”120 In paying the stipulated price for survival, the church of the second century proved what the early church knew so well, that whosoever would save his life must lose it.121

(XXXIII) The sensational change from the first to the second generation of the church was not, as it is usually depicted, a normal and necessary step in a long steady process of evolution. It was radical and abrupt, giving the old Christianity when set beside the new “tout l’aspect d’une anomalie,” as Duchesne puts it—an anomaly so extreme that many scholars have doubted that the primitive church ever existed.122 “Rapidity of evolution explains the difference between the gospels and the second century,” we are assured. 123 But rapidity is the sign not of evolution but of revolution, and the second-century upheaval was no part of a continuing trend at all, for after that one tremendous shift there are no more such changes of course in the way of the church: henceforward fundamental attitudes and concepts remain substantially unchanged.124 Eduard Norden has noted that early Christian literature had no literary predecessors and no successors, but appears as a completely alien intrusion into the classical tradition, an incongruous and unwelcome interruption, an indigestible lump which, however, disappears as suddenly as it came, leaving the schoolmen to resume operations as if nothing had happened.125 The march of civilization continued, but it was not the march of the church.

Arguments for Survival: The arguments put forth by those who would prove the survival of the church are enough in themselves to cast serious doubts upon it. (XXXIV) The first thing that strikes one is the failure of the ingenuity of scholarship to discover any serious scriptural support for the thesis. There are remarkably few passages in the Bible that yield encouragement even to the most determined exegesis, and it is not until centuries of discussion have passed that we meet with the now familiar interpretations of the “mustard seed” and “gates-of-hell” imagery, which some now hold to be eschatological teachings having no reference whatever to the success of the church on earth.126

The most effective assertions of survival are the rhetorical ones. We have already referred to the subtle use of such loaded terms as “the Infant Church,” “the Unquenchable Light,” etc., which merely beg the question. Equally effective is the “quand meme” (“even though”) argument, which frankly admits the exceedingly dim prospects of the early church and the scant possibility of survival and then, without further explanation, announces in awed and triumphant tones: “But in spite of everything it did survive!” (XXXV) Survival is admittedly a miracle and a paradox; its very incredibility is what makes it so wonderful.127 Ecstatic assertion alone carries the day where any serious discussion of evidence would mark one a cavilling cynic. For this argument comes right out of the schools of rhetoric; its favorite image, that of the storm-tossed ship which somehow never sinks because it bears virtuous souls, is already a commonplace in the Roman schools of declamation.128 The thrilling voices that assure us that all the powers of evil rage in vain are not those of the early Fathers, but of imperial panegyrists and spell-binding bishops of another day, with their comforting pronouncements that God has, as it were, invested so heavily in his church that he simply would not think of letting it fail at this late date.129

The strongest support of this “facile and dangerous optimism” has always been the decisive fact of survival itself, as proven by the undiminished eminence of the Christian name; only, in fact, if one defines apostasy as “a more or less express renunciation” of that name can the survival of the church be taken for granted, as it generally is.130 But what is the authority of the Christian label when early apologists can declare that it has become meaningless in their time, being as freely employed by false as by true Christians?131 Or when the Apostolic Fathers protest that vast numbers “bear the name deceitfully”? Or when Jesus himself warns that “many shall come in my name,” and all of them falsely: “Believe none of them!”132

A favorite theme of fiction and drama has ever been the stirring victory of Christianity over all the powers and blandishments of paganism. But this was victory over a strawman, a papier-mâché dragon brought onto the stage to prove to a confused and doubting world that the right had been victorious after all.133 The early leaders worried constantly, and only, about the enemy within; paganism, long dead on its feet, the butt of the schoolmen for centuries, was not the real enemy at all. (XXXVI) There were, to be sure, areas of doctrine and ritual in which paganism did present a real threat, but precisely there the church chose to surrender to the heathen, the pious economy of whose splendid festivals and the proud preeminence of whose venerated schools became an integral part of the Christian heritage.134

Christians have often taken comfort in the axiom that it is perfectly unthinkable that God should allow his church to suffer annihilation, that he would certainly draw the line somewhere. This is the very doctrine of ultimate immunity against which the Apostolic Fathers thunder, and later fathers remind us that we may not reject the appalling possibility simply because it is appalling.135 (XXXVII) If wicked men can “kill the Prince of Peace,” and Belial enjoy free reign as “the prince of this world;” where is one to draw the line at what is unthinkable? For Hilary the suggestion that Jesus actually wept is baffling, paradoxical, and unthinkable—”yet he wept!”136 If “after the prophets came the false prophets, and after the Apostles the false apostles, and after the Christ the Antichrist,” is it unthinkable that the church should likewise have a dubious successor?137 After all, Christians like Jerome found it quite unthinkable that Rome could ever fall, and used identical arguments to affirm the ultimate impregnability of the church and the empire.138 The hollowness of the rhetorical arguments for sure survival has become apparent in times of world-calamity, when the orators themselves have, like Basil and Chrysostom, suddenly reverted to the all-but-forgotten idiom of apocalyptic and eschatology, and asked, “Is it not possible that the Lord has already deserted us entirely?”139 The question is the more revealing for being uttered with heavy reluctance and in times of deepest soul-searching.

(XXXVIII) How deeply rooted in Christian thinking was the belief that the church would pass away is seen in the remarkable insistence of the orators of the fourth century that the great victory of the church which at that time took everyone by surprise was actually a restoration of the church, which had passed away entirely: “We of the church were not half-dead but wholly dead and buried in our graves,” the apostasy and the age of darkness had actually come as predicted, and were now being followed, as prophesied, by a new day of restoration.140 Here was an explanation that fitted the traditional view of the future: the church, it was explained, is like the moon, a thing that disappears and reappears from time to time.141 But if the fourth-century triumph was really that “restitution of all things” foretold by the apostle (Acts 3:21), it could only betoken the arrival of the eschaton, and so the orators duly proclaimed the dawn of the millennial day and the coming of the New Jerusalem.142

(XXXIX) One of the most significant things about “the glorious and unexpected triumph of the Church” was precisely that it was unexpected; everybody was surprised and puzzled by it.143 It was not what people had been taught to expect, and the remedy for their perplexity was a bold revamping of the story: “The facts speak for themselves,” is Chrysostom’s appeal, 144 and Eusebius sets his hand to a new kind of church history, with success��easy, inevitable success—as his theme.145Traditional concepts were quickly and radically overhauled. The familiar Two Ways were no longer the ways of light and darkness lying before Israel or the church, but the way of the church itself, Our church, versus the way of the opposition, whoever they might be. 146 “To endure to the end” no longer meant to suffer death but the opposite—to outlive one’s persecutors and enjoy one’s revenge.147 The old warnings and admonitions were given a new and optimistic twist: “As it was in the days of Noah” now meant that all was well, since “the rains did not come until Noah was safely in the Ark”;148 “No man knows the hour” becomes a cura solicitudinis, a comforting assurance that there was plenty of time and no need to worry;149 “this generation shall not pass away” really meant that the generations of the church would never pass away.150 It did not disturb a generation bred on rhetoric to be told that Peter heard with amazement that one should forgive seventy times seven, that being an announcement of the future generations that should believe.151 Nor did it seem overbold to explain the prediction that the apostles should be hated of all men as a rhetorical exaggeration;152 or to interpret the Lord’s prediction that men would seek him in vain as proof of his presence in the church, which would render any searching a waste of time, i.e., vain; 153 for it is not the Lord but the devil who comes “as a thief in the night.”154

One might fill a book with examples of such bold and clever rhetoric: the presence of wolves in the church simply fulfills the millennial promise that the wolf and the lamb shall graze together;155 tares in the church are a sign of its divinity, since it must embrace all men, good and bad, to be God’s church.156 What really happened was that the sheep promptly routed the wolves and the wheat overcame the tares—not the other way around!157 It was easy to show that all the bad predictions were duly fulfilled—on the heads of the Jews—while all the good promises made to them were properly meant for the Christians. The tears of the apostles were actually the happiest of omens for the church, exciting in all beholders, by a familiar rhetorical trick, those feelings of pity and devotion which would guarantee unflinching loyalty to the cause forever.158 It is fascinating to see how Chrysostom can turn even the most gloomy and depressing reference to the future of the church into a welcome promise of survival: the very fact that the ancient saints worried about things to come proves that there was to be a future, and so—delightful paradox!—they had nothing to worry about!159 If it can be said of the orating bishops that “the true size and color of every object is falsified by the exaggerations of their corrupt eloquence,” 160 it must also be noted that these were not wanton or irresponsible men, but devoted leaders desperately desirous of assuring themselves and their people of the unassailable integrity of the church: John Chrysostom repeatedly declares that the church is higher, holier, and (above all) more enduring than heaven itself.161 He could do that (on the authority of Luke 21:33) without a blush because rhetoric had transferred the church into a glorious abstraction, a noble allegory, and as such an eternal, spiritual, indestructible entity.162 On the other hand he had to do it to meet the importunities of those who beset him night and day “unceasingly and everlastingly” with searching and embarrassing questions as to whether the church still possessed those things which in the beginning certified its divinity.163

(XL) Where no rhetorical cunning could bridge the gap between the views of the fourth century and those of the early church, the latter were frankly discounted as suitable to a state of immaturity beyond which the church had happily progressed, emancipated from the “childish tales and vaporings of old grandmothers.”164 The learned fathers of the fourth and fifth centuries boast that the wise and noble who shunned the primitive church are now safe in a bosom of a Christian society which preaches and practices things that would have frightened off the rude converts of an earlier day,165 and invoke the eloquence of Demosthenes against the simplicitatem rusticam of the literal minded.166 This has been the official line ever since, and modern churchmen duly shudder at the thought of being “at the mercy of the primitive Church, its teachings, its life, its understanding,”167 and congratulate themselves on having outgrown the “fond imaginings of the Apostles.” 168

The Dilemma: Ever since the recent “rediscovery of the importance of eschatology within the New Testament”169 scholars have been faced, we are told, with a choice between eschatology and history—tertium non datur. (“there is no third choice”)170 Actually there has always been a third choice, namely to accept the passing of the church as the fulfillment of prophecy in history. But that, of course, is exactly what church history will not allow: “Modern New Testament critics,” writes R. M. Grant, “insist on the priority of the Church to its written records.”171 The church must be rescued at all price. For that reason it has been necessary to ignore Jeremias’ simple and obvious solution to the “vollendeter Widerspruch” (“complete contradiction”) between the conflicting missionary policies of the early church: the limited preaching belongs to one act of the play, the world preaching to another.172 This is a thing that Christians will not concede, for if the church is to remain on the scene, the drama must be one act or none.173

To preserve this hypothetical unity students have ascribed to the first Christians a fantastic one-package view of the future in which all the culminating events of prophecy are fulfilled at a single stupendous blow, “gathering up into one great climax the many judgments the . . . prophets had foretold.”174 When the great event failed to transpire, the great delay turned the great expectation into the great fiasco (the terms are not ours!), the church passing through the great disappointment to the real fulfillment, the great triumphal procession of the kingdom through the world. Such an unflattering view of the founders’ foresight is forced on the experts by a constitutional inability to think of the church as anything but a permanent and growing institution. 175 It was this very attitude, it will be recalled, toward his own church that made it impossible for Trypho the Jew to accept Justin’s complicated Messianic history.

But though the “great misunderstanding” theory has the merit of preserving the integrity of the church, it gravely jeopardizes the integrity of its founders while failing to give due consideration to certain peculiar and significant facts, viz., that the early Christians did not predict an immediate culmination of everything, but viewed the future down a long vista of prophetic events having more than one “end”;176 that not a single verse of scripture calls for an immediate Parousia or end of the world;177that there is a notable lack of evidence for any early Christian disappointment or surprise at the failure of the Parousia.178 While the enemies of the church exploited every absurdity and inconsistency in its position and made merry over “Jesus the King who never ruled,” they never played up what should have been the biggest joke of all—the feverish, hourly expectation of the Lord who never came. For R. Eisler this strange silence is nothing less than “the most astonishing of all historical paradoxes.”179 But what makes it such is only the refusal of the evidence to match the conventional pattern of church history: if there are no signs whatever of blasted hopes and expectations, we can only conclude that there were no such expectations. There were indeed Christians who looked for an immediate coming of the Lord and asked, “Where are the signs of his coming?” but they are expressly branded by the early leaders as false Christians, just as the virgins who expected the quick return of the Master, who “delayed his coming,” were the foolish ones.180

Students of church history have long been taught that whereas the primitive saints, living in an atmosphere of feverish expectation, looked forward momentarily to the end of everything, the later Christians gradually sobered up and learned to be more realistic. Exactly the opposite was the case, for while there is no evidence that the sober first Christians thought the end of the world was at hand, there is hardly a later theologian who does not think so: “From the days of the early church, through the vicissitudes of the lengthening middle centuries, into the twilight of the medieval day, the conviction of the world’s end . . . was part and parcel of Christian thought.” 181It had to be the end of the world, because the end of the church was inadmissible. Yet such was not the case with the first Christians, thoroughly at home with the idea that divine things, while they are preexistent and eternal, are taken away from the earth and restored again from time to time.182 If the church comes and goes like the moon, it is only with reference to this temporal world where all things are necessarily temporary.183 A great deal of attention has been given in recent years to early Christian and Jewish concepts of time and history. The present tendency is to treat the church as existing “sub specie aeternitatis, et pourtant dans le temps” (“sub specie aeternitatis, and yet in time”) as a supernatural and eschatological entity, “eine Schöpfung von oben her” (“a creation from above”).184 This releases it from earthly bonds, as does Ambrose’s declaration that the civitas “which lives forever, because it cannot die,” desires only to leave the earth in all possible haste and be caught up, literally as Elijah was, into heaven.185

To escape the dark interval between the apostles and the Parousia, scholars have bored two exits. The one recognizes a catastrophe ahead but postpones it to a vague and distant future,186 while the other admits that it was near at hand but insists that the damage was not so bad after all.187 Thus both convictions of the early church, that the end was near and that it was to be disastrous, receive reluctant confirmation—for no one suggests that only a distant and partial disruption was expected. There is a third escape hatch, around which there has been much milling and crowding in recent years, but it seems to be only a false door, a semantic exercise in which the conflicting claims of eschatology and history are simply placed side by side and declared reconciled in various ingenious and symbolic ways. If this vast literature of double-talk, “bewildering in its variety,”188 shows any perceptible trend, it is an inclination to have eschatology, since it can no longer be brushed aside, swallowed alive by the church: “The Church is an ‘eschatological community,’ since she is the New Testament, the ultimate and final. . . . The doctrine of Christ finds its fulness and completion in the doctrine of the Church, i.e. of ‘the Whole Christ.'”189 Such language actually seeks to de-eschatologize eschatology by making “mythical and timeless what they [the early Christians] regarded to be real and temporal.”190

More to the point is the searching question of Schoeps with which we began this survey, whether after all the real church may not have been left behind in the march of history: “Waren sie am Ende doch die wahren Erben, auch wenn sie untergingen?” (“at the end were they the real heirs, even if they perished?”)191 We have indicated above some of the reasons for suggesting that the church, like its founder, his apostles, and the prophets before them, came into the world, did the works of the Father, and then went out of the world, albeit with a promise of return. Some aspects of the problem, at least, deserve closer attention than students have hitherto been willing to give them.

*   “The Passing of the Church: Forty Variations on an Unpopular Theme” first appeared in Church History, 20 (June 1961): 131–154. It was reprinted under the title “The Passing of the Primitive Church” in When the Lights Went Out (Salt Lake City: Deseret 1970):1–32. This article also appeared in BYU Studies 16 (1975): 139–64.

1.   Karl Bihlmeyer, Kirchengeschichte (Paderborn: Schönigh, 1951), 1. Teil, 1–2.

2.   “There is always danger of a metaphor once adopted becoming the master instead of the servant,” writes E. A. Payne, commenting on K. S. Latourette’s “Unquenchable Light” in “The Modern Expansion of the Church: Some Reflections on Dr. Latourette’s Conclusions,” Journal of Theological Studies 47 (1946): 151.

3.   While suspecting the worst, the Fathers could not bring themselves to admit it, according to John Kaye, Ecclesiastical History of the Second and Third Centuries, Illustrated from the Writings of Tertullian (London: Farran, 1894), 48–51. See note 139 below.

4.   The tension is discussed by René Marlé, “Le Christ de la foi et le Jésus de l’Histoire,” Études 302 (1959): 67–76. Cf. Robert M. Grant, “The Appeal to the Early Fathers,” Journal of Theological Studies, n.s. 11 (1960): 14, 23.

5.   Arnobius, Adversus Gentes (Against the Heathen) 2, 76, in PL 5:934a; 2 Corinthians 4:8–18; Tertullian, Ad Scapulam (To Scapula) 1, in PL 1:775–80; Cyprian, Epistolae (Letters) 56, in PL 4:362.

6.   Matthew 17:12; 21:37–39; 23:31–37; Mark 12:6–8; Luke 17:25; John 1:5, 10–11; 3:11–12, 19, 32; 5:38, 40–47; 7:7; 8:19, 23–24, 37–38, 40–47; 15:22–25; cf. Acts 3:13–15.

7.   Matthew 9:15; Luke 9:41; 13:25–27; 17:22; John 12:33–34; 12:35–36; 13:33; 14:30; 16:16; cf. Acts 3:21.

8.   John 9:4–5; 14:30. Evil triumphs from Abel to the eschaton: Matthew 23:35–39; 17:12; Luke 11:51; Recognitiones Clementinae (Clementine Recognitions) 3, 61, in PG 1:1208.

9.   Matthew 10:24–25; Mark 13:13; Luke 10:16; John 15:18–21; 17:14; Acts 28:26–27; Frederick C. Grant, “The Mission of the Disciples,” Journal of Biblical Literature35 (1916): 293–314.

10.   Matthew 10:16–22, 28; 24:9; Mark 3:9; Luke 10:3; John 16:1, 2, 33; 1 Corinthians 4:9; Clement, Epistola I ad Corinthios (First Epistle to the Corinthians) 5, in PG1:217–20.

11.   Matthew 24:14; 28:20; Mark 13:10. Notes 17 and 21 below.

12.   James 5:10–11; 1 Peter 1:6–7, 24; 4:12–14; Romans 8.

13.   1 John 3:1; 1 Peter 5:1; John 17:25.

14.   Matthew 16:24–26; 2 Corinthians 4:8–16; Philippians 3:1–21; Luke 12:22–34.

15.   Jude 4–11, 16–19; Matthew 13:13–30; Romans 1:16–32; 2 Corinthians 11:3–4; 2 Thessalonians 2:7–12; 1 Timothy 4:1–3; 6:20–21; 2 Timothy 4:3–4; 2 Peter 2:1–22.

16.   It ends only with the second coming, Matthew 13:30, 39–43; Mark 12:9; 2 Thessalonians 2:8; Didache 16; Justin Martyr, Dialogus cum Tryphone (Dialogue with Trypho) 51, 2, in PG 6:588–89.

17.   1 John 3:1; John 17:25; 1 Peter 5:8.

18.   John 14:30; Matthew 21:38; Mark 12:7; Luke 20:14.

19.   Matthew 13:24–30, 38. Both syllegein and synagogein are used.

20.   2 Timothy 4:2–4; 2 Thessalonians 2:9–12; Romans 1:21–31.

21.   Matthew 24:14; cf. 10:23; 28:20, where aeon refers to that particular age, Oscar Cullmann, “Eschatology and Missions in the New Testament,” in William D. Davies & D. Daube, eds., The Background of the New Testament and Its Eschatology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1956), 417; cf. Niels Wilhelm Messel, Die Einheitlichkeit der jüdischen Eschatologie (Giessen: Töpelmann, 1915), 61–69, 44–50. See note 182 below.

22.   Mark 13:9–10; Acts 2:16–17, 33; Origen, Commentaria in Evangelium Secundum Matthaeum (Commentary on Matthew) 39, in PG 13:1655B, concludes that, strictly speaking, jam finem venisse; so also John Chrysostom, In Epistolam ad Hebraeos (On the Epistle to the Hebrews) 21, 3, in PG 63:152.

23.   Tertullian, Adversus Gnosticos Scorpiace (Scorpiace) 9–10, in PL 2:162–67; 13–15, in PL 2:171���75; Ignatius, Epistola ad Polycarpum (Epistle to Polycarp) 3, in PL 5:709; Epistola ad Ephesios (Epistle to the Ephesians) 9, in PL 5:652.

24.   Hebrews 6:11; Philippians 3:8–10; 1 Peter 1:4–6, 9; Clement, Epistola II ad Corinthios (Second Epistle to the Corinthians) 5, 2–4 in PG 1:336; Barnabas, Epistola Catholica (Catholic Epistle) 8, 6, in PG 2:748; Justin, Apologia pro Christianis (Apology) I, 57, in PG 6:413–16.

25.   Mark 13:34–37; 1 Peter 4:12–13. Like soldiers, each to remain at his post, Clement, First Epistle to the Corinthians 37, in PG 1:281–84; 21, in PG 1:256; Tertullian, Liber ad Martyres (To the Martyrs) 3, in PL 1:707–9; cf. Clement, First Epistle to the Corinthians 5, in PG 1:217–20; Ignatius, Epistle to Polycarp 3, in PL5:709–10; Epistola ad Magnesios (Epistle to the Magnesians) 5, in PG 5:761–64; Barnabas, Catholic Epistle 2, 1, in PG 2:729–30.

26.   “Ita ut pauci remaneant certantes pro veritate usque ad finem, qui et salvandi sunt soli.” Origen, Commentary on Matthew 24, in PG 13:1654D. There were few martyrs; G. de Ste. Croix, “Aspects of the ‘Great’ Persecution,” Harvard Theological Review 47 (1954): 104, and countless betrayers, W. H. Frend, “Failure of the Persecutions in the Roman Empire,” Past and Present 16 (November 1959): 15–16.

27.   Early sources speak of two factions within the church, and of the “seducers” completely exterminating the righteous party, Carl Schmidt, Gespräche Jesu mit seinen Jüngern (Leipzig: Hinrich, 1919), in TU 43:196–98; cf. Samuel G. F. Brandon, The Fall of Jerusalem and the Christian Church (London: Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge, 1951), 54.

28.   Luke 13:25–30; Matthew 23:29. There is a time limit to the promise, Hebrews 12:17, and “when the tower is finished, you will wish to do good, and will have no opportunity,” Pastor Hermae (Shepherd of Hermas), Visio (Visions) 3, 9, in PG 2:907.

29.   Justin, Dialogue with Trypho 110, in PG 6:729; Hilary, Contra Constantium Imperatorem (Against the Emperor Constantius) 4, in PL 10:581B.

30.   Galatians 3:1–4. Ignatius describes the corruption with striking imagery as of pleasing and plausible wolves, Epistola ad Philadelphenses (Epistle to the Philadelphians) 2, in PG 5:697–708, a goodly label on a bottle of poison, a deadly drug mixed with sweet wine, Epistola ad Trallianos (Epistle to the Trallians) 6, in PG5:679–80, counterfeit coin, Epistle to the Magnesians 5, in PG 5:647–48, cleverly baited hooks, ibid., 11, in PG 5:653–56, etc.

31.   Bultmann, “History and Eschatology in the New Testament,” New Testament Studies 1 (1954): 7–8.

32.   A mixture of “Freude, Sehnsucht, und bange Furcht,” Rudolf Knopf, Die Zukunftshoffnungen des Urchristentums (Tübingen: Mohr, 1907), 7–11. Cf. Didache 16.

33.   Clement, First Epistle to the Corinthians 41, 4, in PG 1:289–92; “The last stumbling-block approaches,” Barnabas, Catholic Epistle 4, 3 and 9, in PG 2:731–34; Clement, First Epistle to the Corinthians 7, 1, in PG 1:221–25; Clement, Second Epistle to the Corinthians 7–8, in PG 1:337–41; Shepherd of Hermas, Visions 2, 2, in PG 2:897; 4, 1, in PG 2:909.

34.   Clement, First Epistle to the Corinthians 15, 4–6, in PG 1:237–40; 8, in PG 1:225–28; 39, in PG 1:285–88; 57, in PG 1:324–26; Clement, Second Epistle to the Corinthians 6, in PG 1:336–37; Barnabas, Catholic Epistle 4–5, in PG 2:731–37; 13–14, in PG 2:765–69.

35.   Clement, First Epistle to the Corinthians 57–58, in PG 1:324–28. The promise of the Paraclete is no guarantee, Clement, Second Epistle to the Corinthians 6, 9, in PG 1:336–37.

36.   So Clement, First Epistle to the Corinthians 3–7, in PG 1:213–25; Barnabas, Catholic Epistle 2–6, in PG 2:729–44; 16, in PG 2:773–76; Constitutiones Apostolicae (Apostolic Constitutions) 7, 32, in PG 1:1621; Lactantius, Divinae Institutiones (Divine Institutes) VII, 17, in PL 6:1008–9.

37.   Clement, First Epistle to the Corinthians 1, in PG 1:201; 3, in PG 1:213; 19, in PG 1:248; 41, in PG 1:289; 47, in PG 1:305–8; 52, in PG 1:316; Barnabas, Catholic Epistle 2, in PG 2:729; Ignatius, Epistle to the Ephesians 17, in PG 5:749–52; Epistle to the Philadelphians 2, in PG 5:820; Shepherd of Hermas, Visions 2, 2, in PG2:897; 3, 9, in PG 2:907; Similitudo (Similitudes) 7, in PG 2:969–72; 9, 21 and 25–26, in PG 2:999–1002; 10, 1, in PG 2:1009.

38.   Didache 10:5; Ignatius, Epistle to Polycarp 1, 2, in PG 5:861–64; Epistle to the Ephesians 17, in PG 5:749–52; Epistle to the Philadelphians 1, in PG 5:820; Shepherd of Hermas, Similitudes 9, 14, in PG 2:917; Barnabas, Catholic Epistle 2, 1, in PG 2:729; 21, in PG 2:779–81.

39.   Clement, First Epistle to the Corinthians 15, in PG 1:237; 30, in PG 1:269–72; Clement, Second Epistle to the Corinthians 3–4, in PG 1:333–36; Barnabas, Catholic Epistle 10, 4, in PG 2:752–56; Ignatius, Epistle to the Ephesians 15, in PG 5:657; 7, in PG 5:649; Epistle to the Magnesians 4, in PG 5:648; Epistle to the Trallians 6, in PG 5:680; Polycarp, Epistola ad Philippenses (Epistle to the Philippians) 10, in PG 5:1013; Shepherd of Hermas, Visions 1, 3, in PG 2:893–96; Similitudes 9, 13, in PG 2:991; 9, 21, in PG 2:999.

40.   Polycarp, Epistle to the Philippians 7, in PG 5:1012; Shepherd of Hermas, Mandatum (Mandates) 11, 1, in PG 2:943.

41.   Ignatius, Epistle to the Magnesians 5, in PG 5:648; Clement, Second Epistle to the Corinthians 6, in PG 1:336–37; Barnabas, Catholic Epistle 5, in PG 2:733; 18, in PG 2:776; see Kirsopp Lake’s note on the Shepherd of Hermas in his Apostolic Fathers, Loeb ed. (1912), 2:21, n. 1; reprinted Classic Library Series, vols. 9, 10 in two vols. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1970).

42.   Clement, First Epistle to the Corinthians 1, in PG 1:201–8; 3, in PG 1:213–16; 19, in PG 1:248; 24, in PG 1:260–61; Ignatius, Epistle to the Trallians 7, in PG5:764–65; Epistle to the Ephesians 9, 5, in PG 5:713; 17, in PG 5:749–52; Shepherd of Hermas, Visions 3, 3, in PG 2:901; 10, in PG 2:907. Cf. Testament of Hezekiah 2:3B–4:18 in OTP 2:159–61.

43.   Barnabas, Catholic Epistle 16, in PG 2:771–76; Didache 16:3; Enoch 89; 56; 66–67; Logion 14, in “Prétendues sentences de Jésus,” in PO 4:176–77; cf. “Le Salut – les vieux sages,” in PO 9:227–28.

44.   Shepherd of Hermas, Visions 3, 3–7, in PG 2:901–6.

45.   Ibid., 3, 11–13, in PG 2:907–10.

46.   Shepherd of Hermas, Similitudes 3, in PG 2:955; 4, in PG 2:955–58; 9, in PG 2:979–1010; Clement, First Epistle to the Corinthians 58, in PG 5:328; Eusebius, HE III, 31, 3, in PG 20:280–81; V, 24, 2, in PG 20:493–508.

47.   A. D. Nock, “The Vocabulary of the New Testament,” Journal of Biblical Literature 52 (1933): 135.

48.   Hilary, Liber contra Auxentium (Against Auxentius) 4, in PL 10:611B.

49.   K. Holl, “Urchristentum und Religionsgeschichte,” Zeitschrift für systematische Theologie 2 (1924): 403–5; Suzanne de Dietrich, Le Dessein de Dieu, 2nd ed. (Neuchatel: Delachaux & Niestle, 1948), 19, finds only one case, Mark 5:19, in which Christ did not avoid publicity.

50.   Origen, Contra Celsum (Against Celsus) 2, 76, in PG 11:848; 4, 28, in PG 11:1068; Minucius Felix, Octavius 7–11, in PL 3:262–81; Lactantius, Divine Institutes V, 7, in PL 6:991.

51.   Minucius Felix, Octavius 9–10, in PL 3:270–76; Justin, Dialogue with Trypho 52, in PG 6:589–92 (the Parousia a secret); 90, 2, in PG 6:689–92; Tertullian, Apologeticus adversus Gentes pro Christianis (Apology) 7, in PL 1:358–62; Clementine Recognitions 1, 52, in PG 1:1236; Clement of Alexandria, Stromata 1, 12, in PG 8:753; 5, 10, in PG 9:93–101.

52.   Matthew 13:9–17; Clementine Recognitions 2, 60, in PG 1:1264; 3, 1, in PG 1:1281–82; Tertullian, De Praescriptionibus (The Prescription against Heretics) 25–26, in PL 2:43–46; Origen, Against Celsus I, 1, 1–7, in PG 11:651–69; Ignatius, Epistle to the Trallians 5, in PG 5:781–84.

53.   Origen, Peri Archon (On First Things) I, 2, in PG 11:130–45; I, 4, in PG 11:155; I, 6–8, in PG 11:165–83.

54.   Origen, Against Celsus 2, 70, in PG 11:905–8; Albert Schweitzer, Geschichte der Leben-Jesu-Forschung (Tübingen: Mohr, 1951), 396. This is an edition of the earlier Von Reimarus zu Wrede; cf. English translation, The Quest of the Historical Jesus (New York: Macmillan, 1961). Herman Gunkel, Zum religionsgeschichtlichen Verständnis des Neuen Testaments (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1903), 78–79; Kirsopp Lake, Introduction to the New Testament (New York: Harper, 1937), 37.

55.   Irenaeus, Contra Haereses (Against Heresies) IV, 33, 7, in PG 7:1076–77; II, 27, 1–3, in PG 7:802, insists that nothing has been lost, cf. I, 8, 1, in PG 7:519, etc., yet speaks with awe of the knowledge of the apostles, I, 13, 6, in PG 7:588; III, 2, 2, in PG 7:847, which Ignatius implies far exceeds his own, Epistle to the Ephesians3, in PG 5:645; Epistle to the Magnesians 5, in PG 5:648; Epistola ad Romanos (Epistle to the Romans) 4, in PG 5:689. Later fathers were intrigued by the great unwritten knowledge of the apostles, Gottfried Thomasius, Die christliche Dogmengeschichte als Entwicklungs-geschichte des kirchlichen Lehrbegriffs, 2nd ed. (Erlangen: Deichert, 1886–89), vol. 1, Dogmengeschichte der alten Kirche (Erlangen: Deichert, 1886), 209, 297–98.

56.   Joachim Jeremias, Jesu Verheissung für die Völker (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1956), 15–16, 61–62 = Jesus’ Promise to the Nations, tr. S. H. Hooke (London: SCM Press, 1958).

57.   Albert Dufourcq, Epoque syncrétiste. Histoire de la fondation de l’église, la révolution religieuse (Paris: Blond, 1909), 220; Jeremias, Jesu Verheissung für die Völker, 17, 21, 60–61. Note 38 above.

58.   Didache 10:5; Ignatius, Epistle to the Romans 7, in PG 5:693: “deuro pros ton patera”—literally.

59.   Discussed by Olof Linton, Das Problem der Urkirche in der neueren Forschung (Uppsala: Almquist & Wiksell, 1932), 198–200.

60.   Robert Eisler, Iesous Basileus ou Basileusas, 2 vols. (Heidelberg: Winter, 1930), 2:237.

61.   Brandon, The Fall of Jerusalem and the Christian Church, 7–11.

62.   Homiliae Clementinae XI, 16, 21, in PG 2:384A; Hippolytus, De Consummatione Mundi (spuria) (On the Consummation of the World) 10–11, in PG 10:913A–C; Athanasius, Vita Antonii (Life of Antony) 82, in PG 26:957.

63.   Acta Pilati 15, in PO 9:108–9; James Rendell Harris, Gospel of the Twelve Apostles, 28, 33, 35, 38; A. W. Wallis Budge, Contendings of the Apostles, 2 vols. (London: Oxford University Press, 1899–1901) 2:62, 53–55, 59.

64.   Lake, Introduction to the New Testament, 62.

65.   Robert M. Grant, Second Century Christianity (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1946), 9.

66.   Eusebius, HE III, 32, 7–8, in PG 20:281–84.

67.   Robert L. P. Milburn, Early Christian Interpretations of History (London: Black, 1954), 25–26.

68.   Gustave Bardy, in Revue des Sciences Religieuses 12 (1932): 1, quoting Tertullian, Apology 18, 4, in PL 1:362–65.

69.   Eugéne de Faye, Étude sur les origines des églises de l’age apostolique (Paris: Leroux, 1909), 111.

70.   E.g., Shepherd of Hermas, Visions 1, 3, in PG 2:891–93; 2, 2, in PG 2:895–97; 3, 9, in PG 2:897; Similitudes 9, 19, in PG 2:997; Mandates 11–12, in PG 2:943; Clement, First Epistle to the Corinthians 21, in PG 1:256. Cf. Eusebius, HE V, 28, in PG 20:512; Clementine Recognitions 1, 1–5, in PG 1:1207–9.

71.   See Marlé, “Le Christ de la Foi et le Jésus de l’Histoire,” 67–76.

72.   Origen, Against Celsus 8, 72 and 74, in PG 11:1624–29; Tertullian, Apology 38, in PL 1:526–31; Apostolic Constitutions 7, 39, in PG 1:1037–40; Barnabas, Catholic Epistle 2, in PG 2:729; 4, in PG 2:731; 1 Corinthians 7:29–32.

73.   Origen, Against Celsus 8, 17–20, in PG 11:1540–49; Zeno, Liber (Commentary) 1, Tractatus (Tractate) 14, in PL 11:354B–358A; Minucius Felix, Octavius 10, in PL 3:274; Jerome, Epistolae (Letters) 130, 15, in PL 22:1119A; Arnobius, Against the Heathen 6, 1, in PL 5:1162B.

74.   Shepherd of Hermas, Similitudes 1, 1, in PG 2:951; Clement, Second Epistle to the Corinthians 5, in PG 1:336; Cyprian, Liber de Mortalitate (Treatise on Mortality) 25, in PL 4:623B.

75.   Hans Lietzmann, Geschichte der alten Kirche (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1932–34) 2:41–42 = A History of the Early Church, vol. 2, The Founding of the Church Universal, tr. Bertram Woolf (London: Nicholson & Watson, 1950); Ernst Käsemann, Das wandernde Gottesvolk (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1939), 51–52.

76.   Tertullian, The Prescription against Heretics 27–29, in PL 2:46–48; Polycarp, Epistle to the Philippians 9, in PG 5:1012–13.

77.   Acts 17:6;2 Timothy 4:6–8. Conversion not the object, 1 Corinthians 1:17.

78.   Oscar Cullman, in Davies & Daube, Background of the New Testament and Its Eschatology, 415.

79.   1 Corinthians 9:16; John 15:22; Matthew 23:34–35; 27:25; Luke 11:49–51; Acts 5:28; 18:6; Clementine Recognitions I, 8, in PG 1:1211, “tacere non possumus.”

80.   Oscar Cullman, Urchristentum und Gottesdienst (Zürich: Zwingli, 1950), 39–56.

81.   Ignatius, Epistle to the Romans 6–8, in PG 5:691–94; Epistle to the Ephesians 11, 1, in PG 5:654; Passio s. Perpetuae 6; 18; 21. Quote from Apostolic Constitutions V, 5, in PG 1:833.

82.   Eusebius, HE VI, 45, in PG 20:633.

83.   Tertullian, Apology 1, in PL 1:305–8; Cyprian, Treatise on Mortality 12, in PL 4:611–12.

84.   Eduard Norden, Die antike Kunstprosa (Leipzig: Teubner, 1898) 2:418–19, contrasts the early and later Christian concepts of martyrdom. The transition is clear in Cyprian, who must warn, “non martyres Evangelium faciant,” Letters 24 (22), in PL 4:293A.

85.   Cyprian, Letters 8, in PL 4:255A; De Duplici Martyrio (On the Twofold Martyrdom) 35, in PL 4:982A; Clement of Alexandria, Stromata IV, 7, in PG 8:1268–80; Leo, Sermo 47, 1, in PL 54:295B–C.

86.   So Asterius Urbanus, Fragmenta contra Montanistas (Against the Montanists), frg. 3; 6; 8, in PG 10:149B, 153A–B.

87.   So Optatus, De Schismate Donatistarum (On the Donatist Schism) 17; 24–26, in PL 11:968–69, 979B–986A.

88.   Cyprian, Epistola ad Fortunatum (Letter to Fortunatus), Praefatio, in PL 4:678–82.

89.   Clarence T. Craig, The Beginnings of Christianity (New York: Abingdon-Cokesbury, 1943), 328.

90.   Pieter A. van Stempvoort, “Het onstaan van het Kerkbegrip en de oudste Kerkorganisatie,” in J. H. Waszink et al., eds., Het Oudste Christendom en de antieke Cultuur, 2 vols. (Haarlem: Tjeenk Willink, 1951), 2:331; Brandon, The Fall of Jerusalem and the Christian Church, 9–11. The imagery goes back to Eusebius, HE I, 1, 3, in PG 20:48–53.

91.   Brandon, The Fall of Jerusalem and the Christian Church, 10; Eduard Schwartz, Kaiser Constantin und die christliche Kirche (Leipzig: Teubner, 1913), 17–18; Hans Lietzmann, Kleine Schriften (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1958–62) 1:97.

92.   Theodore Brandt, Die Kirche im Wandel der Zeit (Leipzig: MBK-Verlag, 1933), 79.

93.   E. C. Blackman, “The Task of Exegesis,” in Davies & Daube, Background of the New Testament and Its Eschatology, 13.

94.   Gustave Bardy, La conversion au christianisme (Paris: Aubier, 1949), 296.

95.   Dufourcq, Epoque syncrétiste. Histoire de la fondation de l’église, 250; Maurice Goguel, Les premiers temps de l’église (Neuchatel: Delachaux et Niestlé, 1949), 139; and Maurice Goguel, “La seconde génération chrétienne,” Revue de l’Histoire des Religions 136 (1949): 36–37.

96.   Eusebius, HE III, 37, in PG 20:292–93; III, 39, in PG 20:292–302; Clement, First Epistle to the Corinthians 47, in PG 1:305–8; Polycarp, Epistle to the Philippians3, in PG 5:1008; Ignatius, Epistle to the Romans 5, in PG 5:809–12; Irenaeus, Against Heresies III, 3, 4, in PG 7:851; Methodius, Ex Libro de Resurrectione (From the Treatise on Resurrection) 6, in PG 18:313B.

97.   Eusebius, HE III, 39, 1–4, in PG 20:297; V, 10, 4, in PG 20:453–56; XI, 3–5, in PG 20:456–57; Justin, Dialogue with Trypho 82, in PG 6:669–72; Origen, Against Celsus II, 8, in PG 11:805–8.

98.   Eusebius, HE III, 32, 7–8, in PG 20:281–86; II, 1, 3, in PG 20:140–41; Irenaeus, Against Heresies I, in PG 7:437–45.

99.   Polycarp, Epistle to the Philippians 3, in PG 5:1008; Barnabas, Catholic Epistle 1, 5, in PG 2:727; the case of Ignatius is discussed by Jean Reville, “Études sur les origines de le’épiscopat,” Revue de l’histoire religieuse 22 (1890): 285–88.

100.   D. Busy, in Recherches de science religieuse 24 (1934): 431.

101.   Bardy, La conversion au christianisme, 306; Grant, Second Century Christianity, 9–18.

102.   “Singuli quique coetus haereticorum se potissimum Christianos, et suam esse Catholicam Ecclesiam putant,” Lactantius, Divine Institutes IV, 30, in PL 6:540–44; Eusebius, HE V, 13–18, in PG 20:460–81; Sozomen, HE V, 9, in PG 67:1237–40; V, 20, in PG 67:1277–80; VI, 26, in PG 67:1361–66; VIII, 20, in PG 67:1568–70, etc. Origen, Against Celsus III, 10–12, in PG 11:932–36.

103.   Justin, Apology 8, in PG 66:338–40; Dialogue with Trypho 35, in PG 6:549–53; 42, in PG 6:565; 80, in PG 6:664–80; cf. Origen, Against Celsus VI, 11, in PG11:1305–8.

104.   Eusebius, HE V, 16, in PG 20:464–72; Justin, Quaestiones (Inquiries), nos. 100, 5, in PG 6:1344–45, 1256AB.

105.   Sulpicius Severus, Historia Sacra (Sacred History) II, 46, in PL 20:155; II, 50, in PL 20:157–58. Eusebius worried too, Walther Völker, “Von welchen Tendenzen liess sich Eusebius bei Abfassung seiner ‘Kirchengeschichte’ leiten?” Vigiliae Christianae 4 (1950): 170–71.

106.   Adolf von Harnack, Lehrbuch der Dogmengeschichte, 5th ed. 3 vols. (Tübingen: Mohr, 1931), 1:250; Eusebius, HE V, 15–16, in PG 20:172–73.

107.   The Reformation itself attempted revival of “prophetic, eschatological Christianity,” Heinrich Bornkamm, Grundriss zum Studium der Kirchengeschichte(Gütersloh: Bertelsmann, 1949), 63.

108.   Adolf von Harnack, Das Mönchtum (Giessen: Ricken, 1895), passim. The church fathers did not encourage pilgrimages, Bernard Kötting, Peregrinatio Religiosa(Münster: Regensberg, 1950), 421.

109.   Goguel, Les premiers temps de l’église, 34, 180, 192–94.

110.   Bardy, La conversion au christianisme, 304; so Lietzmann, Geschichte der alten Kirche 1:226; Harnack, Das Mönchtum, 25.

111.   Robert Frick, “Die Geschichte des Reich-Gottes-Gedankens,” ZNTW, Beiheft 6 (1928): 154, 152–55; Goguel, Les premiers temps de l’église, 35; Harnack, Das Mönchtum, 25.

112.   Bultmann, “History and Eschatology in the New Testament,” 15.

113.   Goguel, Les premiers temps de l’église, 191.

114.   Milburn, Early Christian Interpretations of History, 26.

115.   Gustave Bardy, L’Eglise et les derniers Romains (Paris: Laffont, 1948), 48.

116.   F.-M. Braun, “Où en est l’eschatologie du Nouveau Testament,” Revue Biblique 49 (1940): 53; Henri Leclercq, “Églises,” in DACL 4:2281.

117.   J. de Zwaan, “Some Remarks on the ‘Church Idea’ in the Second Century,” in Aux sources de la tradition Chrétienne, Mélanges offerts î M. Maurice Goguel a l’occasion de son soixante-dixiéme anniversaire (Neuchatel: Delachaux & Niestlé, 1950), 278.

118.   Tertullian, De Pudicitia (On Modesty) 21, in PL 2:1080B.

119.   Bultmann, “History and Eschatology in the New Testament,” 15.

120.   Wilhelm Christ, Geschichte der griechischen Literatur, 6th ed. 2 vols. (Munich: Beck, 1912–20) 2:2:955.

121.   “In the end therefore, it was the Christian doctrine and practice which underwent the change, and society which remained,” Kirsopp Lake, “The Shepherd of Hermas and Christian Life in Rome in the Second Century,” Harvard Theological Review 4 (1911): 25.

122.   L. Duchesne, Origenes du culte chrétien, 2nd ed. (Paris: Thorin, 1898), 52–53 (5th ed. [1920], 55).

123.   Lake, Introduction to the New Testament, 22; Dufourcq, Epoque syncrétiste. Histoire de la fondation de l’église, 221.

124.   Goguel, Les premiers temps de l’église, 209; Reinhold Seeberg, Textbook of the History of Doctrines, 2 vols. (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1952) 1:118; Karl Adam, Das Wesen des Katholizismus (Düsseldorf: Schwann, 1934), 194 = The Spirit of Catholicism, tr. D. McCann (London: Sheed & Ward, 1929).

125.   Norden, Die antike Kunstprosa 2:479–81.

126.   Linton, Das Problem der Urkirche in der neueren Forschung, 160, 164–66; O. Kuss, “Zur Senfkornparabel,” Theologie und Glaube 41 (1951): 40–46; Jeremias, Jesu Verheissung für die Völker, 58–59; cf. English ed., 68–69.

127.   So Bardy, La conversion au christianisme, 6; Bornkamm, Grundriss zum Studium der Kirchengeschichte, 20.

128.   Stanley Bonner, Roman Declamation (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1949), 59.

129.   “Animae emptae a Christo non potuerunt vendi,” Optatus, On the Donatist Schism 3, 11, in PL 11:1024–25; E. Fascher, “Dynamis Theou,” Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche 19 (1938): 108; Chrysostom exposes the fallacy, In Epistolam ad Galatas Commentarius (Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians) 3, 2, in PG 61:649–50.

130.   Bardy, La conversion au christianisme, ch. 8 entire. Refuted by John Chrysostom, On the Epistle to the Hebrews 5, Homily 8, in PG 63:73, and Salvianus, De Gubernatione Dei (On the Government of God) IV, 1, 61.

131.   Justin, Dialogue with Trypho 35, in PG 6:549–53; Origen, Against Celsus III, 12, in PG 11:933–36.

132.   Matthew 7:22; 24:5; Mark 9:39; 13:6; Luke 21:8; Acts 17:15.

133.   E.g., the gloating attacks on the dead Julian, Norden, Die antike Kunstprosa 2:563.

134.   Ibid., 2:460–62, 465, 476–77, 529–32, 680–83; Frend, “Failure of the Persecutions in the Roman Empire,” 12.

135.   Hippolytus, Fragmenta in Danielem (Fragments on Daniel) 5, 7, in PG 10:681D; Demonstratio de Christo et Antichristo (On Christ and the Antichrist) 29, 57–58, in PG 10:749B, 776B–777A; On the Consummation of the World 11, in PG 10:913C.

136.   Hilary, De Trinitate (On the Trinity) 10, 55, in PL 10:387.

137.   Quote is from John Chrysostom, Commentary on Matthew 46, 1, in PG 58:476.

138.   Johannes Straub, “Christliche Geschichtesapologetik in der Krisis des römischen Reiches,” Historia 1 (1950): 64.

139.   Basil the Great, Epistolae (Letters) 150, 2, no. 139, in PG 32:584A. Tertullian, The Prescription against Heretics 27–28, in PL 2:46–47, must console himself with the argument of numbers. Even before Eusebius, Praeparatio Evangelica (Preparation for the Gospel) 1, 3, in PG 21:33, Hegesippus sought to reassure himself that there was an absolute continuity, according to L. Duchesne, Le Liber Pontificalis (Paris: Thorin, 1886–92) 1:1, who vainly seeks the same assurance, Henri Leclercq, “Historiens du Christianisme,” DACL 6:2697.

140.   Eusebius, HE X, 4, 12–16, in PG 20:857–60; VIII, 1, 8–ii, in PG 20:740–44; VIII, 1–3, in PG 20:744; cf. Sozomen, HE III, 17, in PG 67:1093–96. The church was overcome by its own sins, Cyprian, Letters 7, in PL 4:246–51, cf. Liber de Lapsis, (Book on the Apostates), in PL 4:478–510. On the Restoration motif, see Michael S. Seidlmayer, “Rom und Romgedanke im Mittelalter,” Saeculum 7 (1956): 405–7; John Edwin Sandys, History of Classical Scholarship, 3 vols. (New York: Hafner, 1958) 1:513–14.

141.   Ambrose, Hexaemeron 4, 32, in PL 14:217–18; Methodius, Convivium Decem Virginum (Banquet of the Ten Virgins) 6, in PG 18:148B; Jerome, Commentarius in Isaiam Prophetam (Commentary on Isaiah) 18, 66, in PL 24:699–702; Lactantius, Divine Institutes V, 7, in PL 6:570–71.

142.   Discussed by this writer, Hugh W. Nibley, “The Unsolved Loyalty Problem: Our Western Heritage,” Western Political Quarterly 6 (1953): 641–46.

143.   The surprise is expressed by John Chrysostom, Expositio in Psalmos (Exposition on Psalms) 148, 4, in PG 55:483–84, and Contra Judaeos et Gentiles, quod Christus Sit Deus (Against the Jews and the Gentiles, that Christ is God) 12, in PG 48:829–30; cf. the perplexity in Justin, Inquiries, 74, in PG 6:1316A.

144.   John Chrysostom, Sermo antequam Iret in Exsilium (Discourse before Going into Exile) 1, 2, in PG 52:429–30; In Illud, Vidi Dominum, Homilia (Homily on the Verse “I Have Seen the Lord”) 4, 2, in PG 56:121.

145.   Völker, “‘Tendenzen in Eusebius’ ‘Kirchengeschichte,'” 161–80. J. Burckhardt calls Eusebius “the first thoroughly dishonest historian,” cited by Moses Hadas, “The Conversion of Constantine,” Jewish Quarterly Review 41 (1950): 423.

146.   See Nibley, “The Unsolved Loyalty Problem: Our Western Heritage,” 644–46.

147.   Lactantius, Divine Institutes V, 24, in PL 6:630.

148.   Eusebius, Commentarius in Lucam (Commentary on Luke) 27, 27, in PG 24:584D–585A.

149.   Hilary, Commentarius in Matthaeum (Commentary on Matthew) 26, 4, in PL 9:1057B.

150.   Eusebius, Commentary on Luke 13, 32, in PG 24:601D–604A.

151.   John Chrysostom, De Decem Millium Talentorum Debitore Homilia (Homily on the Man Who Owed Ten Thousand Talents) 3, in PG 51:21B.

152.   First suggested by Origen, Commentary on Matthew 39, in PG 13:1653D.

153.   Hilary, Commentary on Matthew 25, 8, in PL 9:1055.

154.   Ibid. 26, 6, in PL 9:1058B.

155.   Eusebius, Commentarius in Isaiam Prophetam (Commentary on Isaiah) 11, 6, in PG 24:172C–173A.

156.   Optatus, On the Donatist Schism 7, 2, in PL 11:1085B–1086A.

157.   A favorite theme with Chrysostom, e.g., Homily on the Verse “I Have Seen the Lord” 4, 4, 2, in PG 56:121; Sermo post Reditum ab Exsilio (Discourse Following the Return from Exile) 2, in PG 52:440, 442; Sermo Ipsius Severiani de Pace, in PG 52:425; cf. Athanasius II, Homilia de Semente (Homily on the Seed) 5, in PG28:149C.

158.   John Chrysostom, De Novem Diebus (On the Nine Days) 6, in PG 56:277–78; Basil, Homilia de Gratiarum Actione 4, in PG 31:228A; Hilary, On the Trinity X, 39–43, in PL 10:374–77.

159.   Chrysostom, On the Nine Days 6, in PG 56:277–78.

160.   Edward Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 2 vols. (New York: The Modern Library, 1932), ch. 26, note 101; 1:941.

161.   John Chrysostom, De Capto Eutropio et de Divitiarum Vanitate (On the Capture of Eutropius and the Vanity of Wealth) 1, 6, in PG 52:397–98, 402; Cum de Expulsione Ipsius Sancti Joannes Ageretur, in PG 52:433; Exposition on the Psalms 147, 4, in PG 55:483; Homily on the Verse “I Have Seen the Lord” 4, 2, in PG56:121; Commentary on Matthew 54, 2, in PG 58:535; ibid., 77, 1, in PG 58:702.

162.   Chrysostom, In Epistolam I ad Corinthios Homilia (Homily on the First Epistle to the Corinthians) 32, 1, in PG 61:265; 6, 3–4, in PG 61:51–53.

163.   Chrysostom, De Sancta Pentecoste Homilia (Homily on the Holy Pentecost) 1, 4, in PG 50:459, 453; De Laudibus Sancti Pauli Apostoli Homilia (Homilies on the Praise of St. Paul the Apostle) 4, in PG 50:488; In Inscriptionem Actorum (Inscription on the Acts) 2, 3, in PG 51:81–82; cf. 85; Homily on the First Epistle to the Corinthians 32, 2, in PG 61:265; In Colossenses Homilia (Homily on Colossians) 3, 8, in PG 62:358–59, etc.

164.   Chrysostom, Exposition on Psalms 110, 4, in PG 55:285; Jerome, Commentary on Isaiah 54, 1, in PL 24:516B; 13, in PL 24:627B–629A; Origen, Against CelsusIV, 80, in PG 11:1152–53; De Principiis II, 4, 3, in PG 11:201–3.

165.   Athanasius, Oratio de Incarnatione Verbi Dei (Oration on the Incarnation of the Word) 53, in PG 25:189; Jerome, Letters 66, 4, in PL 22:641; Commentary on Isaiah 60, 1, in PL 24:588D–589A.

166.   Jerome, Contra Joannem Hierosolymitanum (Against John the Jerusalemite) 11–12, in PL 23:380C–381C.

167.   K. Stendahl, “Implications of Form-Criticism and Tradition-Criticism for Biblical Interpretation,” Journal of Biblical Literature 77 (1958): 34.

168.   A. C. Cotter, “The Eschatological Discourse,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 1 (1939): 205.

169.   N. A. Dahl, “Christ, Creation, and the Church,” in Davies & Daube, The Background of the New Testament and Its Eschatology, 422.

170.   Schweitzer, Geschichte der Leben-Jesu-Forschung, 375.

171.   Robert M. Grant, “‘Development’ in Early Christian Doctrine,” Journal of Religion 39 (1959): 121.

172.   Jeremias, Jesu Verheissung für die Völker, 47.

173.   So Johannes Weiss, “Das Problem der Entestehung des Christentums,” Archiv für Religionswissenschaft 16 (1913): 435.

174.   Alfred Fawkes, “The Development of Christian Institutions and Beliefs,” Harvard Theological Review 10 (1917): 115–16.

175.   Linton, Das Problem der Urkirche, 121, 159.

176.   A. Feuillet, “La Synthése Eschatologique de Saint Matthieu,” Revue Biblique 57 (1950): 180–211; Millar Burrows, An Outline of Biblical Theology (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1946), 199–201.

177.   Van Stempvoort, “Het ontstaan van het Kerkbegrip en de oudste Kerkorganisatie,” 250; T. F. Glasson, “The Kerygma: Is Our Version Correct,” in Hibbert Journal51 (1953): 129, 131–32; Frederick A. M. Spencer, “The Second Advent According to the Gospels,” Church Quarterly Review 126 (1938): 6.

178.   Goguel, “La seconde génération chrétienne,” 190; G. Bornkamm, In Memoriam Ernst Lohmeyer (Stuttgart: Evangelisches Verlagswerk, 1951), 116, 118, 121; E. Stauffer, “Agnostos Christos,” in Davies & Daube, The Background of the New Testament and Its Eschatology, 281–82.

179.   Eisler, Iesous Basileus 1:26; cf. S. Franck, “Le Royaume de Dieu et Le Monde,” Dieu Vivant 7 (1951): 17–34.

180.   Clement, First Epistle to the Corinthians 23, in PG 1:236; Clement, Second Epistle to the Corinthians 11–12, in PG 2:344–48; Barnabas, Catholic Epistle 4, 16, in PG 2:731–33; cf. Luke 18:7.

181.   R. C. Petry, “Medieval Eschatology and St. Francis of Assisi,” Church History 9 (1940): 55; F. Bäthgen, Der Engelpapst (Halle: Nieymeyer, 1933), 76.

182.   The old dispensation theory: Origen, Against Celsus IV, 11–12; in PG 11:1039–41; Milburn, Early Christian Interpretations of History, 29–31. The Jews had lost and regained the temple more than once.

183.   Epiphanius, Adversus Haereses (Against Heresies) III, 2, 6, in PG 42:784; Lactantius, Divine Institutes IV, 1, in PL 6:447–51.

184.   H. Clavier, “Problème du Rite et du Mythe dans le quatrième Evangile,” Revue d’Histoire et Philosophie Religeuses 31 (1951): 292; Linton, Das Problem der Urkirchen in der neueren Forschung, 132–33; Dahl, “Christ, Creation and the Church,” 422–43.

185.   Ambrose, Expositio in Lucam (Commentary on Luke) 2, 88, in PL 15:1667–68; John Chrysostom, Homilia in Apostolicum Dictum: Hoc Scitote, Quod in Novissimis Diebus Erunt Tempora Gravia (Homily on the Apostolic Saying: “This Know Also, that in the Last Days Perilous Times Shall Come” [2 Timothy 3:1]) 5, in PG 56:276.

186.   Origen, Commentary on Matthew 56, in PG 13:1688D, attacks this view, held by M. Brunec, in Verbum Domini (1952), 265, 269, 277, 323–24.

187.   Hippolytus, On the Consummation of the World 24–25, in PG 10:937B–C.

188.   F. F. Bruce, “Eschatology,” London Quarterly and Holborn Review 183 (1958): 99, with a survey of the literature, 101–3.

189.   G. Florovsky, “Eschatology in the Patristic Age,” Studia Patristica 2, in Texte und Untersuchungen 64 (1957): 235–38.

190.   Oscar Cullman, “Rudolf Bultmann’s Concept of Myth and the New Testament,” Concordia Theological Monthly 27 (1956): 24; M. Burrows, “Thy Kingdom Come,” Journal of Biblical Literature 74 (1955): 2, 1–18.

191.   H. J. Schoeps, “Die ebionitische Wahrheit des Christentums,” in Davies & Daube, Background of the New Testament and Its Eschatology, 123.

[douchebagbrainwaves]

WORK ETHIC AND SERIES

It's not so much that large organizations stopped working. I agree you shouldn't underestimate your potential. After my mother died, I wished I'd spent more time with her. You could just say: this is exactly what Cezanne and Klee did.1 You have to go out and get them. Proposals to paint anything yellow are denounced as yellowist, as is anyone suspected of liking the color. Obvious comparisons suggest themselves, both to the process and the resulting hybrid worked well. Proposals to paint anything yellow are denounced as yellowist, as is anyone suspected of liking the color. I said we expected them to work out of whatever apartments they found to live in. Plenty of famous people do; in the short term, the quality of comments on community sites, average length would be a lot more common. Only later did he realize math was interesting—only later did he start to ask questions instead of merely answering them correctly. They're determined by VCs starting from the amount the company needed to raise and let the percentage acquired vary with the market, but this is a special case: you can't defeat a monopoly by a frontal attack.

Keeping a lid on meanness. And everyone knows that this is hard for us to believe, could that possibly be a coincidence? People are always asking you this, so you think you're supposed to now, how can you be sure you wouldn't also have believed everything you were supposed to pretend that you wanted to compare the quality of one's work is only a matter of implementing some fabulous initial idea. And odds are that is in fact the data was almost certainly safer in our hands than theirs.2 So why the discrepancy? Some amount of communication is necessary in most jobs, but I'm sure many employees could find eight hours worth of stuff they could do by themselves. For example, open source software is more reliable precisely because it's open source; anyone can find mistakes.

A round. They're filled with new technologies, and the number of startups is the pool of potential founders. And that's one reason open source, blogging is something people do themselves, for free, because they seem so ridiculous by contrast. This was not how things worked at Viaweb. Subtract one from the other end seems especially far away. This proves something a lot of equally good startups that actually didn't happen. I was running a startup, VCs might try to strip you of your stock when they arrived later.

You won't feel later like that was a danger sign. What used to be common. But if the market exists you can usually find ways to make anything scale more than you think, though. But different things matter to different people, and most of those who didn't preferred to believe the heuristic filters then available were the best you could do. If you have a US startup called X and you don't have to wait to start. In 1989 some clever researchers tracked the eye movements of radiologists as they scanned chest images for signs of lung cancer. I think, because they feel uncomfortably constrained in a place where they have to get a big chunk of their company in the series A stage before series As turned into de facto series B rounds. And in both cases the results are not merely a microcomputer version of a mainframe application, after all—it was a team of well-dressed and authoritative-sounding people to make presentations to customers.

What the company should have done is address the fundamental problem: that the best way to do this is to ratchet the debate up one level of abstraction. It also means you know what? Since most released bugs involved borderline cases, the users who are ready to try new things, and we feel bad if we don't. But I'd rather use a site with primitive features and smart, nice users than a more advanced one whose users were idiots or trolls. B as well: you should know as in write down precisely what you'll need to do is cannibalize their existing business, and I can't predict for sure which forces will prevail, but I'll describe them and you can get a lot done. Copernicus was a canon of a cathedral, and dedicated his book to the pope. The inconvenience of this model becomes more and more evident as people get used to networks. And it is synonymous with disaster. If they get confused or bored, they won't. They raise their first round fairly easily because the founders seem smart and the idea sounds plausible. Who thinks they're not open-minded, though they draw the line at things that are superficially impressive. The spread of the term political correctness meant the beginning of this one.

If you got ten people to read a manuscript, you were lucky. If a statement is false, that's the recipe for success in big companies, think what they should be like telephones. Just don't wait. But when they start paying you by the hour—they expect you to get a fix on these underlying forces by triangulating from open source and blogging have to teach startups this? You'll be doing different things when you're acquiring users a thousand at a time, and growth has to slow down eventually. I want to take a shot at describing where these trends are leading. That's what I want to do more than get good grades.

Those few that inevitably slip through will involve borderline cases and will only affect the few users that encounter them before someone calls in to complain. It's not hard to express the quality we're looking for, that leads to more ideas. The fashion for broad-toed shoes in late fifteenth century Europe began because Charles VIII of France had six toes on one foot. I've figured out how to express this quality directly. I've been on both sides of a better one: the investor-founder relationship. You couldn't get access to almost all the best startups. You have no trouble with uncollectable bills; if someone won't pay you can just turn off the service.

Notes

Historically, scarce-resource arguments have been peculiarly vulnerable—perhaps partly because you can survive without external encouragement. The University of Vermont: The Duty of Genius, Penguin, 1991, p.

In both cases the writing of literary theorists.

Thanks to Ariel Poler, Robert Morris, Paul Buchheit, and Jessica Livingston for the lulz.