#the church of the children of atom

[novie-luv]

Who are the Children of Atom?

The Church of the Children of Atom (truncated as Atomites, sometimes derisively called rad eaters) is a religious movement that worships Atom, a deity personifying nuclear weapons, their detonation, and the resulting radiation.

Where most people see weapons of mass destruction, we see holy tools of creation. Generally, we believe the world was created when an atom was split and that each nuclear detonation represents the birth of countless new universes.

[Source] [Index Post]

[compulsivehands]

One of my favourite factions in Fallout is The Children of Atom. Their aesthetic and whole religion is fascinating to me! Especially since some of them appear to have developed immunity to radiation. I want to see them more! I want to know more!!

[atomsmessenger]

Come to church, we have laser pistols, wastelanders Omelettes, and beer.

And Arcade, I guess, but you can't touch.

[3zgritty]

This just in. The Church of the Children of Atom have admitted to spending over 7billion NCR dollars annually to prevent people from posting Joshua Graham soaking fanfiction on Archive of Our Own. This news brodcast has been brought to you by. Mrs. Old Vegas. I hate you.

[lunchboxpoems]

THE CALL TO WORSHIP

The possibility that the zero gave birth to the universe, that all our somethings come from nothing, the fear of being alone like that, children of chance, orphans down to our atoms, is mother to the idea of god. God

is a dress we slip over solitude, a mask for oblivion to wear, a rule-giver in a world where no flower or bear cares that we are here or what we do.

I prefer a theology of silence, the eschatology of the shrug, a religion of holding my wife’s hand for now.

But, if the industry of the church is what it took to give me bells ringing Sunday mornings, to which crows sometimes rise and deer turn, I’m grateful for a sound that pulls me out of myself, lifts my head toward sun and clouds, into the up and all, the blue, the on and on of it, when I bend the only knee I have to bend, feel happily small, contingent, and held, by what I can’t say, short of everything.

BOB HICOK

[monstrousgourmandizingcats]

in one of your previous replies, you mentioned cardinals whom the media overlooks that will likely play a pivotal role in choosing the next pope. could you talk a bit more about some of those particular people?

Hi!

Yes, so a lot of these guys are less "overlooked" and more "misrepresented." As you might be aware, Anglophone Catholic media is a very right-wing space, and this extends to wishcasting about this conclave and the cardinals participating in it; even if a relatively conservative Pope does emerge from it, they are going to exaggerate how conservative, possibly in the sort of tones one associates with an old-school phone sex line. It's just how these people are. Think outlets like CNA, The Pillar, even some journalists who cover the Catholic Church for the secular press. So the issue with the cardinals I'm about to profile is that most reporting in the developed-world Anglosphere thinks, or hopes, that they'll be based trads who retvrn to the days of Benedict XVI (himself an absurd caricature in these idiots' minds) and fully repudiate that meanie Francis and his persecution of Latin Mass people, affluent donors, and career Curia ghouls. Well, in the real world, they won't.

Fridolin Ambongo Besungu, Archbishop of Kinshasa and current President of the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar. Age 65. Papabile. Probably the currently most powerful African cardinal. Was a senior advisor of Pope Francis and generally closely aligned with him, but is best-known in the West for the one issue area where that wasn't true: homosexuality. Cardinal Ambongo has the extreme aversion to gay people that is widespread in Africa, and he was the force behind getting the whole continent a(n ostensibly temporary) carveout from Fiducia supplicans, the document that kinda-sorta-if-you-squint allowed blessings of same-sex couples. He also had a "hot mic" moment in connection with this where he accused Westerners of having "decadent morals" and "not liking children" (true to an extent tbh but bringing it up in this context is a red flag).

However, this is not one of Ambongo's main issues if one looks at his overall career and theological work. His actual priorities are climate action and opposition to the Congolese government. Moreover, one of his big projects within Africa is a pastoral rapprochement with polygamists (a serious issue there), and while "I can excuse polygamy but I draw the line at homosexuality" is a viable position as President of SECAM, it's possible that as Pope he'll be more self-aware of how that looks in other parts of the world and leave the current state of play with Fiducia alone.

Charles Maung Bo, Archbishop of Yangon. Age 76. Second-string papabile. First Burmese cardinal and former President of the Federation of Asian Bishops' Conferences, which is to Asia what SECAM is to Africa. His most Francis-y position is, like with Ambongo, environmental theology; he has compared climate change to the atomic bomb and said it has already "devastated communities and the lives of millions" (which is, of course, true). His least Francis-y position is his anti-Chinese stance and discomfort with the Vatican-China accords that Pope Francis and Cardinal Parolin negotiated. He's spoken very highly of Francis in the days since his death. He's a cipher on LGBT issues and women in the Church, but Asian bishops do tend to have a more open position on the former than do African ones.

Virgílio do Carmo da Silva, Archbishop of Dili. Age 57. The only archbishop in Timor-Leste, the most heavily Catholic country in the world. Not papabile but has been unusually forthright in the ideological positioning he thinks the next Pope should have--neither left nor right of Pope Francis but "neutral" to "keep the Church going in that direction".

There are, however, disquieting indications that Cardinal do Carmo da Silva might be creepily reactionary specifically on "gender theory"; he's said to have gone to a conference on the subject in Prague hosted by right-wing American dark money and featuring a presentation by a hyperconservative Dutch cardinal, Wim Eijk. But it's noteworthy that do Carmo da Silva expressly endorses a continued glide path in a "bergoglian" direction despite that.

Robert Sarah, former Prefect of the Congregation (now Dicastery) for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments. Age 79. Was less than two months shy of aging out of the conclave at the time of Pope Francis's death. Probably the African cardinal most familiar to Catholics in the West, because he is a "based trad" or whatever who moved away from the typical Third Worldist "conservative on the Western culture wars, more 'open' on everything else" stance towards boilerplate reactionary positions over the course of his 70s. Committed elder abuse against then-Pope Emeritus Benedict in order to derail the Amazon synod in 2019. Is a "mass migration" fearmonger despite being a Guinean living and working in Western Europe himself. I do not like him and he has almost certainly burned too many bridges to emerge from this conclave as Pope, although if Francis had died in 2018 or so he would have been much more viable. Currently overinflated in conclave betting markets in countries where that's legal due to the generally rightoid tendencies of the online gambling community. Nevertheless, he still commands a lot of respect among other African bishops and cardinals and might be problematical as a power broker even though I don't think he's a serious papabile. If he does emerge from this conclave as Pope, it's probably best interpreted as a divine scourging for, you know, something or other. Lord knows the Church has done enough to be divinely scourged for.

Mykola Bychok, Eparch of Saints Peter and Paul of Melbourne of the Ukrainians. Age 45 (yes, really). Youngest cardinal in many decades, a "Uniate" Ukrainian Catholic who's spent most of his ministry in the Ukrainian diaspora in the United States and Australia, probably appointed because Francis wanted a Ukrainian and wanted an Australian and didn't like the other church leaders from those places. Bychok himself reportedly hated Francis's guts, but for personal reasons, not ideological ones; he may have also thought Francis was too soft on Russia (not totally unreasonable tbh). He supports synodality and decentralization, like most Eastern Catholics, but is a cypher on culture war issues. He is almost certainly not papabile but because of his unique and interesting situation he might end up with some sway among other "peripheries" cardinals, especially other young (for cardinals) ones.

Jean-Pierre Kutwa, Vice President of the Regional Episcopal Conference of Francophone West Africa and former Archbishop of Abidjan. Age 79. A prototypical "very hostile to 'Western ideological colonization' on homosexuality, gender roles, and family structures, otherwise sympathetic to Pope Francis's social teachings" African prelate. Probably not papabile but seems to command a lot of respect among other Global South cardinals.

Antoine Kambanda, Archbishop of Kigali. Age 66. A Rwandan genocide survivor who has expressly endorsed a continuation of Francis's overall direction for the Church despite sharing the culturally-engrained homophobia of Ambongo, Sarah, and Kutwa.

Stephen Brislin, Archbishop of Johannesburg. Age 68. A second-string papabile according to some sources. A white South African of the Alan Paton/Breyten Breytenbach "one of the good ones" variety (as far as I can tell) who fully supported Pope Francis's direction, even on homosexuality. One of the few African prelates to expressly say that SECAM's position on Fiducia did not reflect his own.

Chibly Langlois, Bishop of Les Cayes and President of the Episcopal Conference of Haiti. Age 66. Has survived two earthquakes and a car crash. Francis loyalist, cypher on Western culture war issues.

Ignace Bessi Dogbo, Archbishop of Abidjan. Age 63. I think he might be a dark horse papabile and so do some news organs within Africa. Ideologically similar to his predecessor in the see of Abidjan, Kutwa, but temperamentally more of a "Francis bishop". One African news organ, Felastory Media out of Nigeria, expressly describes Dogbo as "aligned with Francis's pastoral, synodal vision".

Abidjan, which is the cultural and commercial capital of Ivory Coast, is one of only a few metropolitan areas in the world outside Rome to currently have more than one voting cardinal, along with New York, Toronto, Madrid, Washington, and Lisbon. It has over six million people and one of the largest and fastest-growing Catholic populations in the world. I think Dogbo would be a good option for a more Francis-aligned African Pope; he seems to share other African prelates' homophobia, but without emphasizing it.

William Goh, Archbishop of Singapore. Age 67. A Francis cardinal and seems broadly positive about the late Pope's legacy, but on the conservative side. Might be able to scout out a candidate acceptable to conservatives but less extreme than Sarah. Was at the same creepy "gender ideology" conference as do Carmo da Silva, but, like do Carmo da Silva, does not seem to be primarily interested in the subject.

Soane Patita Paini Mafi, Bishop of Tonga and former President of the Episcopal Conference of the Pacific. Age 63. Hates him some climate change, hates him some Western influence on Polynesian culture. Relatively pro-LGBT for that kind of cardinal, largely because of differences on this point between attitudes widespread in Polynesia and attitudes widespread in Africa. Probably not papabile but an interesting figure.

Lazarus You Heung-sik, Prefect of the Dicastery for the Clergy. Age 73. First Curial cardinal from Korea. Is emerging in reportage on the pre-conclave events as a moderate, consensus-oriented power broker who would like to shield some of these other Global South cardinals from the more extreme and divisive aspects of Sarah's influence.

Dieudonné Nzapalainga, Archbishop of Bangui and President of the Central African Episcopal Conference. Age 58. Discussed as papabile by some sources within Africa. Very young for this process; is the same age as John Paul II was when he became Pope. Could rival or beat Pius IX's record for longest-reigning Pope since St. Peter. Avowedly and explicitly believes that Africa in general and his country (the Central African Republic) in particular have bigger problems than being muh ideologically colonized by the gayz or whatever. Is all but explicitly santo subito-ing Pope Francis.

Nzapalainga has a similar formation and spirituality to Sarah; they were both educated by the Spiritan religious order, which had a "traddy" vibe and was very present in Francophone Africa at mid-century. (Marcel Lefebvre was the superior general of the order for much of the 1960s, if that rings a bell.) But he is much, much, much more moderate than Sarah; he has, again, showered the late Pope Francis with praise, and was one of the few senior figures in the Church with this kind of trad-adjacent formation to continue to work productively with him throughout his pontificate.

Louis Raphaël I Sako, Patriarch of Baghdad of the Chaldeans and head of the Chaldean Catholic Church. Age 76. Like Bychok, is from an Eastern Catholic church, i.e. an organized body of Christians with its own liturgy and spirituality but in full communion with Rome. Is in the extremely unusual and arguably illegal position of having his home government's explicit endorsement for the papacy; the (Shia Muslim) Prime Minister of Iraq thinks very highly of him and openly supports him as Francis's successor. Not considered papabile by seemingly anyone outside the Iraqi government, but who knows? Has effusively praised Francis since his death, especially for his efforts at interfaith solidarity and rapprochement with the Islamic world.

Baselios Cleemis, Major Archbishop of Trivandrum and head of the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church. Age 65. "Il cardinale glocal" (as in global+local) according to Italian news. Like many Indian prelates, has been strongly supportive of Pope Francis. Seems to command esteem among both other South and Southeast Asian cardinals and other cardinals from the Eastern Churches, such as Bychok and Sako.

There are many, many more of these people, but I hope this gives some idea of the dynamics at play with this conclave specifically in Catholicism outside the traditional heartlands of Western/Central Europe and the Americas. These people are "gettable," many of them are neither conservatives nor progressives/bergogliani the way we normally think about those concepts, and they do have an immediate sense of the suffering of the world that the more genteel rich-country cardinals broadly lack.

[thefalloutwiki]

❓ Question of the Week ❓

[novie-luv]

The Alters at Which We Worship

[cherubnthechaoschoir]

BARK! BITE! BLEED! (INTERLUDE) - FWB!Frankie Morales x AFAB!Reader

summary: the sting of biting one’s tongue is a lesser of two evils compared to the sting of rejection.

a note from Lucy: Not really a full part but still important to the storyline. Just a little bit of a deeper look into the reader and Frankie’s relationship, their characters and their ideas of each other.

playlist | moodboard

wc: 3046

Warnings: 18+ MDNI! no use of y/n, obsessive behaviour, frankie is obsessed and it is very unhealthy, toxic relationships, age gap (reader is 21, Frankie is 27) - though not mentioned in this part, graphic smut, oral (f receiving), face sitting, p in v sex, creampie, biting, softdom!frankie, scratching, references to suicide, references to racial discrimination and othering in American school systems.

series m.list | m.list

“Is it your smile I enjoy…or the parts of me still stuck in your teeth?”

Some days Frankie liked to pretend you were a map. Easy to read. The landmarks recognisable on top of your skin. The world growing with you, shifting over bone. Breathing with life. The valley of your breasts. The bridge of your hips. The high street that was your spine. At the top of the high street, just over the fleshy part at the nape of your neck, was a library. It was locked. Always. Sometimes he would look through the window to see if anyone was still there. Peer in through grimy glass to expect someone thumbing through pages of a book, folding the corners to mark a quote, or a passage that held particular resonance. Alas, they were plastered with dated newspapers and rotting boards nailed to the over closed shutters. So he wandered back down, past the railway tracks of one rib, the empty children’s playground of another. The church on your sternum. The graveyard had no flowers by headstones. Half were smothered by a thick blanket of browning moss. Others were merely so caked in grime and crumbling that names were illegible. And passed over the bridge to the empty bandstand of your navel. Where music would play if someone gave the time of day. Behind him were footprints of marks he left with his teeth. A need to show himself he had been here. I have been here.

Behind the bandstand, deeper in, on a small mound of a hill, lay a wooden gate. And beyond the gate was an orchard fenced off from the rest. Here, Frankie would indulge his selfish tongue in the sweet fruit. Between two trunks of apple trees. Bite after ripened bite. The juice was full with a sweet flavour and sticky as it dribbled down his chin. Stained his fingers with their residue when he wiped his mouth. But there was a sharp aftertaste. And before he knew it the apple rotted in his hand. Dropped to the dew dappled grass and damp dirt.

It was always quiet in that town he roamed. No train on the tracks to go clickety-clack. No child on the swings giggling ‘higher dad!’. No busker at the bandstand humming the hymn of god loving us back. Just him. Eerie and silent with only his footsteps to accompany the low murmur of the tree conversing with the blackbird. And the gutters slugged with stagnant rain. He avoided pavement cracks. His mother would save her back. He rounded ladders. It cut himself seven years of slack. Nothing bad would come of it either way. That map was his mind's creation. So he kissed you hard enough to invert you. Fucked you hard enough to invert you. Maybe then he would see what was inside. What wallowed under your skin and festered hot in the gaps between? Each atom of each cell was a stone he wished to turn over. Because there must be something. You had your walls for a reason. Maybe it was written on you like a book? Carved into flesh, a signature he could run a finger over after reading. Behind the backs of your lids, under the tips of your nails. The crook of a knee or elbow. Or he’d trace the freckles on your skin like constellations. Using them like sailors in the archaic times to pass through uncharted waters. Scylla would come and feast on his weathered ship soon enough. Drag him to Davy Jones’s locker. No vessel of good intent crossed your choppy waters before.

You both agreed that you were not a mother. A wife. A bride. Or anything else he might want you to be other than human. You were happy with your independence. You didn't want to throw anything away just yet. Not at all. Not for a long, long while. You set ground rules. Had a straightforward argument that you bought up without the need for him to ask what this consisted off.

“We tell each other when we have had sex with someone else.” Seemed easy enough to Frankie. “And wear protection with them too.” Another valid request. “But most of all, no feelings. I don’t care who you sleep with, or what you do with them, and if you meet someone who you really hit it off with then we call it quits. But if you start to feel even a shred of something more, Frankie, that's it. We call it.”

That had poor Francisco swallowing back a lump in his throat before it could choke the reply back down him. His stomach felt hot, and burned all of a sudden as he tried to digest what you had said. A knot consisting of a livewire thrummed in his gut and made his skin flush. And it irked him to no end.

Frankie remembered his years as an outsider. In a school where the white outnumbered the other. A child of immigrants, lucky enough to have skin that passed. He heard stories of a boy who sat two rows down from him in his American history class. A boy with dark skin and textured hair. Who was teased about his colour. Who threw himself from a bridge because every time he looked down at his hands, darker than those of other students, he felt like he didn’t belong. Frankie felt it too. He could memorise the names of presidents. He could recite that the capital of Texas was Austin. That the United States of America were at war with the United Kingdom from the twelfth of April 1861 to the thirteenth of May1865. But no matter how much of a textbook he would splurge out from between his lips he was always from the outside looking in. It made him wonder in silence to his pillow if he would ever belong. If any fact, or word, or story would make him fit in. He’d have even the gaps between two. He’d squeeze into it, no matter how small, and make it his to belong in. He thought the army would be his ticket in. That if he served a country he would earn his place in it. A foolish thought. For even now, looking at you, he felt the chill from the other side of the window pane. The side in the cold.

While you lay draped in bed, strewn out like the sheets, smoking a cigarette in languid drags, he thought to himself how little he truly knew. Yes he knew about America. But not a sentence about you. Your past. Yes, he knew you did your laundry on Sundays. You came home from the bar you worked in at 1:00. But nothing of note. Nothing important. Part of him liked it. Mystery left room for the mind to entertain. Often fantasy was far more intriguing than reality and it made you seem all the more interesting. A comfort to know he wasn't wasting his time on no one; But rather devoting it to someone. However, the other part— the part of him that watched smoke serpentine from the glowing end of your cigarette— hated it. The way it felt in his gut. Anxiety. He felt it before. But never in this situation. In combat he knew he didn't have time for it. It didn't ululate or linger. It was there, then he swallowed, and it wasn't. Now? Well…he had these moments between. Moments where you would light a cigarette, inhale, exhale. And he would watch as your chest rose, then fell in a pattern enough to hypnotise him. Something so simple as your breathing engaged him. Frankie wondered what it would be like; to live under your skin and have the steady up and down lull him to sleep at night. A rocking back and forth. To and fro. Up and down. Belonging. Moments where he would trace the line of your spine with his eyes. Too scared to touch what wasn’t his until he would bite his tongue and press a single finger to the dip and back down its soft curve. Earlier in the evening, when the sky started to stain tangerine, you had been canting your hips into his, dragging up and down on his length and singing his praises in a breathy chorus. Lost on the feeling of the stretch. The welcome invasion. Then you did the same with his face. Clit brushing zealously over the hooked, aquiline bridge of his nose. Your slick devoured by his wanting mouth. Frankie was the river that ran and unravelled in valleys to feed into your ocean. He hated being in the dark. Only when he fucked you did he have a chance at turning on a light.

“Read it.” He mumbled, nodding to the book in your hands, and rolling over between your thighs to part them. A classic of some century long past. One he never cared much for. But he wanted something. Needed something to tell you to do. Or just something to say. Because the silence was torture for his lonely mind.

You were halfway through stubbing your cigarette into the chipped ceramic dish on your bedside table when he spoke. “What?” You asked, tilting your head in curiosity, eyes searching his. As if the answer lay in their storm-brewing shade of chestnut. Although in the dark, under nothing but halogen street lamp glow, they looked a lot more like black. A nothingness that promised the existence of something.

“I said,” Frankie mumbled again, his voice firm, low and with a gravely finish to it that was just like him. Rough around the edges. Hard to part with. “Read it.” and then, Out loud.”

The words were smudged into the skin of your thigh as he trailed his lips over the inside of the right. His hands skimmed down the outside and squeezed plush flesh. Plump and smooth. Small divots of silver stretch marks on your flesh like ink carved into flesh. Hand painted by some deity in the sky that paid no mind to him now. When he traced his mouth higher he stuck out his tongue. You were wet and hot with his breath and his spit, his come too, still sticky between your thighs at the apex of them. Your very centre. Where his prominent, aquiline nose traced through your folds before his tongue flicked your clit once. “Frankie…” you whined, toes curling. Because you were so sensitive. So worn and stretched and aching. He hushed you, taking liberty over the time where he called the shots. When he was able to bend you to his will and have your head spinning dizzy instead. He didn't feel so motion sick when that was the case.

“Shhh…” he soothed, and pressed the flat of his tongue to your aching sex where heat melted and spread out through your limbs, seeping into muscle and unwinding tension. “Just read…”

Silence. And he thought he may have taken it too far. Finally sent you over some indiscernible edge that appeared too quickly for him to press the brakes. But then your honeyed voice filled his ears;

“Orpheus wished and prayed, in vain, to cross the Styx again, but the ferryman fended him off. Still, for seven days, he sat there by the shore, neglecting himself and not taking nourishment. Sorrow, troubled thought, and tears were his food.” You started, eyes blurring under the hazy weight of pleasure. His tongue delved a little deeper, circled your clit, flicking over the hood of it once, twice, thrice in quick laps. The tip of it pressed to a point and rolled it in careful, full circles. Your nerves thrummed like livewires, humming the same way telephone lines would in a hot summer rainstorm. Where heat lightning flashed ahead.

“Pretty pussy all used and fuckin’ soaked still.” He murmured into you slick, now in a generous shine across his chin. You whined, keening your hips up so his nose pressed to your mound and the smattering of curls there. He lay belly flat to the mattress, hips rutting slowly in tandem with the torturous, bold, and thick laps of your cunt. “C’mon, baby. Léeme a mí. Keep going.”

You read on, lips quivering, words dying by the dragging slice of a moan, a whimper, or simpering whine. Toes curling as his tongue lapped at you. “Three times the sun had ended the year, in watery Pisces, and Orpheus had abstained from the love of women, either because things ended badly for him, or because he had sworn to do so. Yet, many felt a desire to be joined with the poet, and many grieved at rejection.”

His mouth made a sinful soaking sound, wet and generous and full of your taste. “Que cosa mas linda.” He crooned into your cunt, lips smearing into your drenched sex while you stumbled over the words on your page. “Coño— tan mojado, bebita.” You whimpered again, a pathetic sound, fingers daring to curl into the thick head of brown hair at the crown of his head and press him deeper— because, god, you had never wanted something so carnally in your life. “Son deliciosas.” The glint of wanting in his eyes was like the blade of a knife catching the light. A flash of warning before it sliced tender flesh and let blood bleed red. You watched in quivering liquid smooth heat while he tasted, and favoured, and lusted over the seam between your thighs. It was such a pretty sight. Such a wonderful feeling of freedom that sat aching and twisting in your belly. The feeling of impending relief— release. A little death.

“I cant–” You gasped, legs jolting before the malleable, soft and round swell of your thighs clamped over his ears. Your core bearing down on the plane of his nose at your clit and his tongue that dipped in and out of your slick, drooling hole. Large hands, rough to touch, unforgiving and telling, pressed them back to the mattress again. He had you spread completely, open and melting into a pathetic resolve of messy sounds. He dragged his nose through your folds once more, before his lips enclosed around your bud and drew it between them in a sharp suck that had you seeing stars. Ovid’s Metamorphosis, Orpheus, they were put back between the pages of a closed book. Shimmering away into mere dust of thought. A coiling pressure replaced them. One of pleasure, and a slight pain of overstimulation. Hot like a wire in a ready-to-blow fuse. “Fuck– Frankie…” You yelped, and he replied with nothing more than a guttural groan into your centre. A lewd slurp of the slit of your cunt as if it was his last meal. Like it was divine to him. Tasted sweeter than a slice of heaven. Here he could blur into you and forget he was separate. Ignore that you ended somewhere and he started some place after. No gap between could exist with his face pressed into your pussy. Gushing all over his lips and tongue and cheeks just for him. Drenching his face in the thick shine of your slick.

And then there was the slow release of the ache; The coiling heat blooming in your lower belly. Growing with each circle of his tongue over your swollen clit. Your legs twitched from a moment, breathing heavily and staggered as you squeezed your eyes tightly shut. Your vision fizzled behind your eyelids for a moment, making opening your eyes to look down at him retreating would probably have you passing out.

“Bien hecho, chica.” he mumbled as he smeared his lips over your goose pimpled skin, hair stood on end from the tone of his crooning voice, the rough scrape of his moustache over flesh. “Good girl.”

He climbed back up the bed to lie next to you, and the two of you lay still for a while. Your mind felt dormant under the heavy guise of something dragging, your eyelids like paperweights, stinging with the need to just sleep.

“Been meaning to ask you something…” Frankie spoke up, smoothing a hand over your stomach atop the bedsheets you had slipped back under.

“Mhm?’ You asked in a voice that was hazed by the want to sleep, eyes still closed, but awake.

“I’ve got this…thing.” He started, and he watched art you opened one eye to peer at him sceptically, lips pursed ever so slightly. “And all my mates have dates because they're either married, or engaged, or have been planning to get round to proposing…” You scoffed before he had the chance to pick up the trail off of his own sentence. He couldn’t quite meet the scrutinising eyes of yours. The ones that narrowed a fraction as they watched him smooth over the top of your sheets, over a thread that had snagged there when being washed in the machine.

“What thing are you bateing me into going to, Morales?”

“Just a military thing.” He shrugged, trying to be nonchalant, but the way his thick fingers found and pulled at the same stray thread of your duvet cover said otherwise. “A formal.” There was a hint of fear settling like silt at the bottom of a river in his eyes. A flicker. If that. Maybe you could call it a glimmer from afar. Whatever you might call it, it was better left unsaid. You sighed to save him the embarrassment, rolling onto your side and propping your head up with your arm.

“And there isn’t a single soul on this planet that you know of who can accompany you other than me, hm?”

“Please?” He practically begged, rolling on top of you to speak to the skin of your hot neck, skin still slightly salty from the sweat that had previously lain there. “Just as a friend. Nothing more, I promise you.” It would would be nice to have someone there he wished to add, but but his tongue to hold it back. He hated the idea of seeming soppy. Either way, the sting of biting one’s tongue is a lesser of two evils compared to the sting of rejection.

“I suppose I better find a dress then.”

[elsalouisa]

"One of the few occasions when I ever saw the Czarina really happy was when she went back with her husband to her old home in Darmstadt for the marriage of my brother Andrew to Princess Alice, daughter of Prince Louis of Battenberg (who later took the title of Marquis of Milford Haven). She was like a girl released from school then, her face lost its look of sadness. She and Queen Alexandra were the two most beautiful women at the wedding, the Empress in misty delphinium blue and the Queen of England in a dress of amethyst sequins and wearing an amethyst necklace and tiara. There was, of course, a tremendous family reunion for the marriage and the festivities lasted through several days of dinners, balls and gala performances at the opera. That was in 1903. The other day I came across a photograph of some of the guests and realised that nearly half of the group died by violence not very much later. The Emperor, the Empress, their children, the Grand Duchess Elizabeth and several Russian Grand Dukes were put to death during the Revolution. My father was assassinated, some of the English guests and one or two of the German princes were killed in the Great War. Perhaps it was as well for us that we could not read the future, for I think it would have cast a shadow over the tejoicings.

Andrew and Alice had two wedding ceremonies, the first in the Protestant Church and the second in the Russian Church with Greek Orthodox rites. During the service the Russian priest asks the bride two questions . . . whether she consents of her own free will to matry her husband and whether she has already promised her hand to any one else. As my sister-in-law is slightly deaf she was carefully tehearsed the day before, but, even so, at the last moment she was so nervous that she confused the questions and made the responses in the wrong order, to the horror of the officiating priests and the intense amusement of the guests.

My mothet’s sister, the Duchess Vera of Wuttemberg, was at the wedding and, as usual, my brothers and 1 teased her unmercifully. Her appearance was irresistibly funny in our eyes, for she was small and dumpty, with a fat, round, spectacled face and, in the days when the shingle was unknown, she wore her hair cut short. Her hats and even her tiaras were always secured to her head by bands of elastic. At the family dinner after the wedding my brother George sat next to her and, at a pause in the proceedings, snatched off her tiara and put it on his own head. Everybody laughed, Aunt Vera included, though she vowed vengeance on the culprit. Her turn came, as she thought, 2 little later, when the bride and bridegroom started on the honeymoon. We were all gathered at the door throwing rice after them, when someone knocked off poor Aunt Vera’s glasses, which were smashed to atoms on the stone steps. She turned round quickly and, guessing, although she was unable to see clearly without her spectacles, that George was to blame again, dealt a mighty box on the ear of the petson standing immediately behind her. Unfortunately, it was not George, for he had taken care to slip out of range, but the British Admiral, Mark Kerr, who was the recipient of it!"

Memoirs of H R H Prince Christopher of Greece

[aemiron-main]

Father And Son: TFS, Brenner, Cat Stevens, The Cycles, Cat’s Cradle, 8:15gate, Radiationgate and Cat’s In The Cradle

So, during TFS, Brenner says the following to Henry, specifically saying “father and son” to him at the end:

Which, that made me think of the 1970 Cat Stevens song, Father and Son, because Brenner’s dialogue is worded the EXACT same same way as the song title:

And you might be thinking “this is a stretch, Brenner just saying ‘Father and Son’ doesn’t mean it’s connected to the Cat Stevens song, ‘father and son,’ is a common phrase, right?” and usually, I’d agree- however, Cat Stevens, and specifically, the EXACT ALBUM that Father and Son is on has ALREADY BEEN REFERENCED in ST specifically in the context of Brenner.

Where?

In the newspaper (because of COURSE it’s the newspapers again)- look at Brenner’s crossword here:

It says “tillerman’s beverage,” as one of the hints- and the answer is tea. As in Tea for the Tillerman. As in the exact album by Cat Stevens that Father and Son is on:

And not only does it appear in Brenner’s crossword, but they specifically showing him crossing that one off:

And there’s him having written the answer in, down vertically from 60- “tea”:

And what is the song “Father and Son” about? Well, it’s basically about what the title says- a father and his son. But specifically, it's about a the difference in perspective between father and son re: his son leaving/it's about the generational divide between father and son, and was written about the idea of a son wanting to leave to join the Russian Revolution.

This is also all interesting regarding the idea of anachronistic song references in TFS, specifically, songs from the 70s, such as Chuck E’s In Love being referenced in TFS versus Father and Son being from 1970:

And while I don’t think Brenner himself was necessarily referencing the song (although it’s possible because as evidenced by him knowing the answer to that crossword, he’s clearly aware of the album Tea for the Tillerman), it’s still yet another reference to a 70s song in TFS.

And speaking of TFS, Father and Son was originally supposed to be a musical (and of COURSE there's an Edward involved LMAO):

Versus the musical number in the church in TFS and the musical Oklahoma being reference repeatedly in TFS/Ted Wheeler sings a song from it.

However, there’s also more to this whole ST referencing Cat Stevens thing- because it’s something I talked about on discord quite awhile ago-

-but basically, summarizing those screenshots, this all connects to “I Just Died In Your Arms Tonight,” playing over a scene of Karen in s3, because that song has these lyrics:

And that “curtains are closed, cat’s in the cradle,” lyric is interesting for the following reasons:

a.) the whole “behind the curtain” thing in ST plus the whole TFS play/curtain thing

B.) “Cat’s in the cradle,” versus the book Cat’s Cradle from 1963 by Kurt Vonnegut- which has some VERY interesting connections to ST.

So, in Cat’s Cradle, the narrator is a writer that introduces himself as Jonah (but his name is really John and he’s never named again), and he sets up the plot as a flashback. The plot centers around when Jonah was planning to write a book called The Day the World Ended about what people were doing on the day of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.

Which, the connection to Hiroshima is interesting considering what I talked about in this post regarding how 8:15 gate connects to Hiroshima & to James’ radiationgate posts.

And in the book, John also includes snippets from religious texts called The Books of Bokonon. Most of the events of the novel occur before the narrator was converted to his current religion, Bokononism.

And while researching for his book, Jonah heads to Ilium, New York, the hometown of the late Felix Hoenikker, who was a co-creator of the atomic bomb, because Jonah wants to interview Hoenikker's children, coworkers etc.

When he gets there, Jonah finds out about a substance called ice-nine, created for military use by Hoenikker and now likely in the possession of his three adult children. Ice-nine is an alternative structure of water that is solid at room temperature and acts as a seed crystal upon contact with ordinary liquid water, causing that liquid water to instantly freeze and transform into more ice-nine. Among several odd unfoldings in Ilium, the narrator meets Hoenniker's younger son, Newt, who recounts that his father was doing nothing more than playing the string game "cat's cradle" when the first bomb was dropped.

Which, all of the ice-nine stuff has me staring at the lack of water in the UD, and the song “Cold As Ice” playing during S3, during a scene where Mike has a Lynx behind his head (which, the Lynx thing is something I’ll come back to in this post bc it ties into all of the “cat’s in the cradle,” stuff, esp being in the same season/possibly the same ep as that Karen “cat’s in the cradle scene” and Victor’s burning cradle scene vs the taxidermy lynx in the Creel house).

And also, the book even has its own Papa- the dictator called “Papa” Monzano, who is introduced when Jonah goes to the fictional Caribbean island San Lorenzo, which is also where Jonah gets introduced to Bokononism.

Bokononism was founded by Bokonon, who was a former leader of the island, and who created Bokononism as part of a project to give people hope and community in the face of the island's poverty. As a deliberate attempt to give Bokononism an alluring sense of forbidden glamor, the religion is outlawed, which forced Bokonon to live in "hiding" in the jungle.

Which, Bokonon hiding in the jungle reminds me of all of the stuff re: Henry supposedly hiding in the darkness versus Will hiding in S1.

And also, Papa Monzano, threatens all Bokononists with impalement on a large hook (despite the fact that Monzano himself secretly practices the religion, and the hook punishment doesnt really get used)- which this makes me think of all of the impalement imagery in ST, such as Billy being impaled by the fleshflayer-

(which is extra interesting considering the visual parallels between this shot of Billy’s impalement pose versus Vecna’s attic pose & how Vecna also gets impaled by the tentacles when they plug into him)

-plus Phineas Gage having been impaled by a rod-

(which is ALSO extra interesting considering how the Phineas Gage scene/“No Longer Gage” ties into TFS with Alice saying that “Henry” is “Not Henry,” and how right before that Alice-Henry exchange, Henry had these weird appendages grow out of his back, which is extremely visually similar to the Vecna attic scene I just mentioned, and therefore also ties all of this back to Billy’s impalement, especially considering the parallels between Billy and Max versus Henry and Alice, although Henry doesn’t treat Alice the way Billy treats Max, there’s still parallels + Max has unending Henry parallels, especially re: sibling death & Billy’s death vs Alice’s death)

And also, Monzano has an adopted daughter, Mona- which, that immediately makes me think of Patty being Mr Newby’s adopted daughter, especially considering Mr Newby’s Brenner parallels, such as Mr Newby having stolen Patty versus Brenner stealing kids-

-AND Mr Newby being very authoritarian/dictator-esque when it comes to how he runs the school & how he runs his family.

And also, Monzano is ill from cancer- which, as we know, there’s SO many references to cancer in ST, considering what I’ve talked about re: the connections between regen healing and cancer plus the idea that Peter Owens may have had cancer.

And also, Monzano wants his successor to be Frank Hoenikker, who was both Monzano's personal bodyguard and, coincidentally, Felix Hoenikker's other son. Frank achieved this position by giving "Papa" Monzano a piece of ice-nine.

However, Frank doesnt want to be the new leaser and somewhat randomly offers Jonah the presidency. Although Jonah is surprised at at first, he accepts after he finds out that this means he’ll get go marry Monah. Soon after, the bedridden "Papa" Monzano commits suicide by swallowing ice-nine, whereupon his corpse instantly turns into solid ice-nine.

Papa Monzano being bedridden has me staring directly at Brenner Sr (who Brenner Jr also calls Papa), who was bedridden and dying after his return from Dimension X.

Frank Hoenikker admits to giving Monzano ice-nine, and the Hoenikkers explain that when they were young their father would give them hints about the existence of ice-nine while experimenting with it in the kitchen. After their father's death, they gathered chunks of the substance into thermos flasks and have kept them ever since.

Which, this has me staring at the scene of the Bingham kids in the kitchen, and how Peter Bingham puts in “too much salt,” versus the salt and ice used for sensory deprivation tanks, versus ice-nine, PLUS “Peter” Bingham versus what I mentioned earlier about Peter Owens and cancer, PLUS what I mentioned about Mr Newby versus all of the parallels between Mr Bingham and Mr Newby and Suzie versus Patty etc etc.

And after Monzano dies, celebrations for Jonah’s presidential inauguration begin, but during an air show performed by fighter planes, one of the planes malfunctions and crashes into the seaside palace, causing Monzano's still-frozen body to fall into the sea.

Instantly, all the water in the world's seas, rivers, and groundwater transforms into solid ice-nine. The freezing of the oceans immediately makes tornadoes ravage the earth, but Jonah manages to escape with Mona to a secret bunker beneath the palace. When the initial storms subside, they emerge and search the island for survivors, and discover a mass grave where all the surviving San Lorenzans committed suicide by touching ice-nine. Grieving for her people, Mona follows suit and dies.

This makes me think of a.) the complete lack of water and complete lack of people in the UD, and b.) all of the bunker stuff in ST, specifically, the NINA bunker + Murray’s bunker, and how Murray has a bunch of Creel references in his bunker, like his his Billie Holiday record + his WW2 posters which then also connect to the Peter Pan and Skull Rock and Eddie-Edward stuff but that’s a post on its own- but that also makes me think of what I said earlier re: Phineas Gage getting impaled because Scott uses that skull graphic that reminds me a lot of Murray's poster:

I also now have to wonder- if the UD was once a normal timeline that got devastated in some apocalyptic manner, could there still be PEOPLE there?? In bunkers?? After all, we’ve only seen UD Hawkins, but if the UD extends to other parts of the world, then what if there’s an UD NINA bunkers that still has living people inside of it??? Or hell, what about Murray’s bunker in the UD?? They’ve never shown it to us, but for all we know, there could be living people/alternate timeline versions of people in there, having survived however long it’s been since the disaster.

And at the end of the book, Jonah lives with some other survivors in a cave- versus TFS Henry having ended up lost in a cave in Nevada, and ending up contracting the shadow as a result, and Brenner says that Henry “changed, like my Papa,” due to Henry’s time in the cave, which brings us back to what I said earlier about Brenner Sr.

And anyway, setting all that aside and going back to the other reason why that “cat’s in the cradle,” line fron I Just Died In Your Wems Tonight is interesting, there’s also C.) “cat’s in the cradle,” versus the song Cat’s Cradle by Harry Chapin.

Which, “Cat’s in the Cradle" by Harry Chapin is about a father not being able to find time for his son and then his son growing up without him and not being able to find time for his father- basically, the son becomes just like his father, ironically, as a result of his lack of interaction with his father, which, the whole “becoming his father,” thing has me staring DIRECTLY at the lines in TFS re: “you have to BE your dad”:

And the “Cat’s In The Cradle,” thing is extra interesting because that song CONSTANTLY gets misattributed to Cat Stevens, who has an album called Cats Cradle:

Which, that reminds of all of the mistaken identity stuff in ST, especially regarding Brenner and Richard vs Martin/the identity mixups there and Eddie Munson delivering subtext for Edward & Eddie Munson being wrongfully accused of murder & Victor also being wrongfully accused by Wayne versus “the man who did this,” and how that connects to Brenner.

And speaking of “cat’s in the cradle,” there’s also all of the cradle imagery with Victor:

And there’s also all of the cat imagery in ST, specifically the silver cat/lynx stuff in S3 versus the stuffed silver cat/lynx in the Creel house and Victor talking about a wildcat:

Not to mention that again, that lyric is from “I Just Died In Your Arms Tonight,” versus Henry literally “dying” in Victor’s arms:

And it’s also interesting that this seems to be a REALLY specific song choice for S3/they really wanted “I Just Died In Your Arms Tonight,” because the use of this song is anachronistic, as S3 is set in 1985, and I Just Died In Your Arms Tonight was released in 1986- which is also interesting considering what I talked about earlier re: TFS and song anachronisms.

Point is, I think that Brenner’s TFS dialogue re: “father and son,” is meant to reference the Cat Stevens song “Father and Son,” and that there’s a bunch of other connections re: “cat’s in the cradle ,” and Vonnegut’s “Cat’s Cradle,” and Harry Chapin’s “Cat’s In The Cradle,” and all of Victor’s cat and cradle imagery.

And I also won’t be surprised if we get the song Father and Son on the s5 soundtrack.

[atomsmessenger]

It took us an hour, but we've finally got all the bodies of my old coworkers piled up in the corner here. We must've also done something appealing to Atom, as well. I mean, just look at how those plasma rifles float ominously above them.

[propheticpotato42]

I’ve been thinking a lot about the potential of religion in the fallout universe.

We’ve seen a lot of local cults throughout the series but really only two religious “institutions” and those are Mormonism and Catholicism. The reason why I single out these two is that they both seem to have a larger reach than any of the other cults or practices while also maintaining a level of stability and uniformity.

The examples of Mormonism we see in Honest Hearts shows, through the New Canaanites, that the Mormon faith is still alive in post-apocalyptic South West and still has many devotees and followers. The many is implied.

The examples of Catholicism are less overt. We only ever meet a handful Catholics in the modern Fallout games and they are all in Fallout 3. Father Clifford runs a church and is aided by Diego who wants to join the Priesthood. The only other Catholic is Marcella who is a missionary sent from “The Abbey of the Road” and you met her in Point Lookout. What I think is interesting about this is the consistency. What I mean is that when Marcella arrives at Father Clifford’s church she immediately recognizes all of the prayers and the two engage in the same rituals and prayers. This means that Father Clifford uses the same language and ritual as the Abbey, which makes sense if they are both Catholics, but it also means that there is no massive drift going on after 200 years. Either that or Father Clifford is associated with the Abbey. Furthermore the rule of Clerical celibacy also survived the 200 years as can be seen by the Diego missions, and celibacy is the kind of thing you could see not surviving the post apocalypse.

For me this screams that both Mormonism and Catholicism are still alive in wasteland, and potentially more widespread than we may think.

I have this theory that the Catholic Church may even still fully exist as an institution in certain parts of the post apocalyptic Americas but warped by time and has incorporated some elements of Folklore Religion.

Also I lied earlier because there is a third religious institution, the Children of Atom. They appear in both Fallout 3 and 4 and show a consistent religious believe and structure. Also they fucking spread from the capital wasteland all the way to Far Harbor. And in the Far Harbor DLC they even start experiencing the beginning of a straight up religious schism. There is a lot of potential there to explore if only Bethesda used it.

What really interests me is the potential for various other religions groups. Are there any Muslims in the wasteland? Hindus? Buddhists? The US is the most diverse place on the planet and it is kinda hard to believe that all of these various religions didn’t survive in some way. I just don’t believe it.

And think of the potential!!!!

Post apocalyptic Amish settlements! Greek Orthodox Churches built in the middle of abandoned cities! A Sikh inspired equivalent to the Followers of the Apocalypse!

I can understand how bringing in real world religion can get messy fast but even in that case why don’t we see any new religions that are more than kooky local groups? Why doesn’t spirituality spread in the wasteland? And again the potential!

There is so much there!!!

[scotianostra]

On December 20th, or 21st 1805, depending on the source, the chemist Thomas Graham was born in Glasgow.

I like posts that perhaps people can easily explore and make a connection with, like in this case, if you are ever in George Square in Glasgow you can check out his statue and say “well at least I know a wee bit about the man now” rather than just reading the name and moving on to the more famous ones, like Burns , Watt or Scott.

Graham persisted in becoming a chemist, though his father, who wanted him to enter the church as a minister, disapproved and withdrew all his support. It was with the church in mind that he entered Glasgow University at the age of 14, but while there he became interested in science and nowadays is known as one of the founders of modern physical chemistry.

Thomas was the eldest of seven children of a merchant father. After attending preparatory school and high school he started classes at the university of Glasgow in 1819. He remained there for seven years taking an M.A. in 1826.

Graham was a lecturer in chemistry at the Mechanics Institution in Glasgow and then he was appointed professor of chemistry at Andersonian University in the city. It was at this point that he was able to devote more time to experimentation and the seven years he spent at Andersonian were busy. In 1837 he was appointed professor of Chemistry at London University (now University College, London) where he occupied the chair until 1855 when he succeeded Sir John Herschel as Master of the Mint and remained in that position until he died.

Graham is best remembered for his discovery that under the same temperature and pressure the rate of effusion of a gas is inversely proportional to the square root of its atomic mass. Basically this law means that the smaller the atomic mass of the gas the faster it will diffuse. Graham was awarded the Keith prize in 1834 by the Royal Society of Edinburgh for this discovery.

Thomas Graham is also remembered for his invention of dialysis. Between 1861 and 1864 Graham, while he was studying the ability of dissolved substances to pass through a membrane, noticed that substances that crystallized well like salt passed well through the membrane and substances that did not crystallize like gelatin did not. He distinguished these two classes of substances as crystalloids and colloids. This discovery led directly to the dialysis that is done on kidney patients today.

Graham is also remembered for is characterization of phosphates in solution. For all of these discoveries Graham was awarded the Copley medal of the Royal Society in 1862.

Thomas Graham died on September 16th, 186 and is buried at Glasgow Cathedral.

[findingrome1]

Peace be with you friends.

Today August 6th and later August 9th will mark the 79th anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This event marks the 1st and God willing only time when nuclear weapons were used in history. Since then history was permanently altered for better or for worse.

This choice is argued for as justified for numerous reasons. One of these chief arguments originally coming from the Truman administration is that of a grim calculation. They made the utilitarian argument that if these 2 bombs can end the war in 2 radical new demonstrations of force killing 100s of thousands then it is worth using. Since in November the USA alongside her allies would invade the home islands. This invasion in conservative estimates would lead to millions more war dead since Japan intended to mirror Germany and to fight to the bitter end. Furthermore take a moment and imagine yourself as the Truman administration in winter. You need to justify a draft expansion to a war worry nation for the Japanese meat grinder where millions of young men have already died. I can empathize with this sentiment and see the reasoning but the Magistrium of the Roman Catholic church and a deeper dive into history shows the use of Little Boy and Fat Man were morally grave actions.

I won't go into all details but I shall provide 2 excellent youtube videos covering this topic. One from World War Two (yes that's the name), and one from the Counsel of Trent. Now the utilitarian argument can overlap with the objective moral truths found in Christianity it still is deficient.

The Atomic bombings were unjustifiable. They targeted civilians by dropping on city centers to maximize their deaths. Miles away from significant military assets and factories. What helped to justify is during the course of ww2 both sides experimented with different theories of targeted civilians. This is because the powers involved were in a state of total war. This meant all sides sought to get the most out of their resources so the line between civilian and soldier was murky. Strategic bombing theory which developed in Europe in the 1920s was put into full effect with the UK under Air Marshal Harris against Germany and her allies. The USA from 1943 onwards was around the clock bombing Japan's economy to ruins. Now these were not justified either. This bombings intentionally ruined 100s of thousands of homes, killed 10s of thousands civilians. People who were not soldiers, but mostly women and children.

One final thing I shall note is that the United States and her allies made blunders in negotiations which prolonged the war. Imperial Japan would have been more keen to come to the peace table if they knew the Emperor would be allowed to live and keep his title even as a puppet. We knew about this through spying and backdoor diplomatic channels but still kept ambiguous on this. This isn't the only blunder but this is the most notable in my opinion. Please visit the links those professionals do a way better job than I could on a post I spent a half hour to write and they go into far greater detail than I did. Keep safe and God bless.

https://youtu.be/Y79iz3ufZbg?si=7Us2H3txroG7I1f6

https://youtu.be/6amuetZv-eM?si=bdAJc3bc9KKHEas0

[thechurchoftheatom]

A Sermon for January 15th: A Reading on Preparedness

Brothers and Sisters in the Atom, today’s message begins with an acknowledgment of the practical. While we, as members of the Church of the Atom, contemplate the vast and long-reaching implications of nuclear energy and waste—our legacy for countless generations—it’s important to remember that most of the challenges we face in life are far more immediate. Disasters may not always arrive in the form of a nuclear apocalypse, but they can still strike without warning, leaving us vulnerable. Floods, fires, hurricanes, power outages, car breakdowns, and even a sudden injury can upend our lives in an instant.

Preparedness is not just a lofty or distant ideal; it is a practical, day-to-day expression of care. It is how we honor our responsibility to ourselves, our loved ones, and our communities. In this spirit, we turn to a reading from Ready.gov, a resource that provides essential knowledge for safeguarding against the unexpected.

A Reading from Ready.gov: Preparedness Basics

"Disasters can strike without warning, disrupting lives, displacing families, and leaving communities in turmoil. By taking small steps now, you can ensure safety and security for yourself and your loved ones in the future."

Emergency Kits: The Foundation of Preparedness

An emergency kit is more than just a box of supplies; it is your lifeline when normal systems fail. A good kit should last at least three days and include:

Water: One gallon per person per day for drinking and sanitation.

Food: Non-perishable items such as canned goods, energy bars, and dry foods, along with a manual can opener.

Tools and Lighting: A flashlight with extra batteries, multipurpose tools, and a crank-powered or battery-operated radio.

First Aid Kit: Bandages, antiseptic, necessary medications, and any required medical devices.

Hygiene Supplies: Soap, hand sanitizer, moist towelettes, and other sanitation items.

Clothing and Warmth: Sturdy shoes, extra clothing, and blankets or sleeping bags.

Important Documents: Copies of IDs, insurance policies, and bank information in a waterproof container.

Cash and Coins: Small denominations for situations where electronic payments are unavailable.

Special Items: Supplies for children, elderly family members, and pets, including formula, diapers, and pet food.

Developing a Plan

Preparedness is more than a kit—it’s a mindset. Develop a plan to ensure everyone in your household knows what to do in an emergency. Establish an out-of-town contact for communication and choose a meeting place for reunification. Practice drills to make the plan second nature.

Everyday Uses for Preparedness

Emergencies don’t always come with fanfare. A flat tire in the middle of nowhere, a power outage during a storm, or even an unexpected illness can test our ability to respond. A well-stocked emergency kit and a thought-out plan make these everyday disasters manageable. Being prepared isn’t just for the unthinkable—it’s for the inevitable.

Reflection on Preparedness

Brothers and Sisters, the Church of the Atom teaches us to look both to the infinite and the immediate. While we are committed to the long-term legacy of nuclear semiotics—ensuring that future generations heed the warnings of our age—we must not neglect the more mundane yet equally important task of ensuring our present safety.

Preparedness is practical, yes, but it is also a sacred duty. When we prepare, we acknowledge that the future matters, that life is precious, and that we are responsible not just for ourselves but for those who depend on us. By preparing, we reflect the values of stewardship, foresight, and care that lie at the heart of our faith.

Think of your emergency kit as an act of love—love for yourself, for your family, and for your community. When you build it, you are not just collecting supplies; you are making a promise to those around you that their safety is your priority.

But preparedness is not a solitary endeavor. Share this knowledge with your neighbors, friends, and family. Strengthen your community’s resilience by encouraging others to create their own kits and plans. Consider joining or supporting a local Community Emergency Response Team (CERT). You can find more information and opportunities to get involved at Ready.gov.

A Warning from the Atom

While our message today emphasizes everyday preparedness, let us not forget the unique guidance of our faith: to avoid the places where the atom’s power has left a dangerous legacy. Nuclear waste storage facilities, marked with the unmistakable trefoil, are not places of curiosity or exploration. They are warnings in themselves—symbols of danger that transcend language and culture. As stewards of this knowledge, we must ensure these places are avoided, respected, and understood as hazardous for generations to come.

Closing Words

As you go forth this week, I urge you to take this sermon to heart. Build your emergency kit if you haven’t already. Update your family’s communication plan. Take practical steps toward readiness not out of fear but out of love and responsibility.

Remember, preparedness is not just for the end of the world—it is for every day. By acting now, you protect the lives and futures of those you hold dear.

And as always, may the energy of the atom guide us—toward safety, toward wisdom, and toward a future of hope and preparedness.