#the former two we draw more often than the latter

[annelise-draws]

More of mine and @carolmaclaine's OCs! Johann Agrick, Viorica Pirvu (and Tisane the stoat), Andre and Eloise Lotbiniere-d'Agincourt.

[loving-n0t-heyting]

Finished the megan phelps roper autobio a few days ago. Left me with some thoughts.

The first thing to say is that it was very well written and interesting, especially earlier on pre-exodus, in its portrayal of the wbc. There was smth especially captivating about how she described what was essentially a soft coup within the church transforming it from a consensus-run collective to a formalised patriarchal gerontocracy—its worth reading if for no other reason than to get an insiders visceral feeling of what its like to live in that kind of an activist/religious community from birth

There is this tone the book adopts, tho, especially towards the end, which is obviously absolutely integral to its appeal but nevertheless offputting to me. Its a sort of contrite attitude, portraying her decision to leave and denounce the church as an act of penance for the vile crime against humanity of living a life of Hate. Again, clearly the book wouldnt sell without that line, its the essence of her entire personal brand as an author and speaker (the high market value of which—tho she ofc does not say this in print—must have featured at least somewhat in her decision to leave, if by no other means than relieving certain anxieties about her ability to sustain herself afterward). So its not surprising she would put it so front and centre.

But approaching this penitence objectively it just seems... kind of misplaced? Not that i have anything against public acts of apology and grovelling! But, frankly, its hard to read the account and not conclude she is much more of a victim than anyone she protested or besmirched into hurt feelings. Partly by her family in the form of the inevitable abuse attendant upon being raised in that kind of insular fortress community—tho she does a good job not lazily smearing them as some kind of sadistic cult, part of why i thought her description was so interesting and insightful. But also by counterprotesters and others riled up by her churchs activism: she describes their having faced sexual harassment, physical intimidation and violence, even arson in the face of what were clearly and pointedly constitutionally protected exercises of free speech. All of the former manifestly worse than the latter. Often with cops looking the other way! In a just world these targets of her "hate" would have a lot more apologising to do to her than the other way around

The book even caused me to reconsider the degree of my disgust with their most notorious practice: funeral picketing. Not having followed the pickets at the time super closely, i had interpreted them reflexively as incursions (perhaps constitutionally protected, but still unwarranted) on private family grief, turning what would be a personal act of mourning into a spectacle of vitriol and political grandstanding both ways. So i was surprised to hear the familys official statement on the matter:

So long as the families, military, media, veterans groups, and community-at-large, use funerals or memorial services of dead soldiers as platforms for political patriotic pep rallies, we will continue to picket those pep rallies. If they put the flags down and go home, we’ll go home. Not before then.

This seems basically entirely levelheaded, aside from my disagreement with the object level views they were voicing at these events. Privacy is a two-way street: if you are going to turn yr sons funeral into a patriotic circus, you cant fairly complain about ppl returning fire with a concurrent anti-patriotic circus. No heat, no kitchen. I suspect the actual operative principle in many ppls minds is that it doesnt alter the sacrosanct private character of the funeral to engage in socially normative politicising, but socially abnormal politicising crosses the line. Which is just clearly a grotesque and inherently conservative (derogatory) unprincipled distinction to draw

Speaking of which: its sort of tricky to place the church as conservative/rightwing or liberal/leftwing at all. Even setting aside fred phelps earlier and very laudable struggle against institutional racism. In some sense they were part of the rightwing backlash to gains in gay rights, but not in a way that dovetailed with any serious rightwing political projects on that front. They were the paradigmatic doomers: there was no point engaging in legal efforts to stem the marriage tide, say, bc the american experiment as a whole had incurred gods wrath and was living on borrowed time. To the extent they did have any significant legal impact, it was overwhelmingly positive: they were the ones that brought us snyder v phelps, a heroic win for freedom of speech. They remind me as much as anything of a certain kind of maoist sect, like revcom, not just in style but in content (fervent anti-americanism, racial equality, confidence that The End Is Nigh and the only serious question is how to respond to this imminent demise of the existing order, free speech fundsmentalism clearly for instrumental reasons joined with strict internal censorship, even a version of "no investigation, no right to speak!" inculcated from early childhood)

I think one of my first ever posts on my old blog was on this topic with a nascent, less informed version of the views im expressing here. Some forms of freezepeach contrarianism are just part of my unchanging core ig

[blueberrypancakesworld]

What if ? - Adrien becoming a big brother

warning : angst, fluff, hurt/comfort, no use of Y/n

Gabriel Agreste x fem!reader

Info : So I needed to wrote another idea of @iamallthingsasian of what could have been when Betterfly's wife (adriens stepmother) got pregnant. Have fun reading this little thing ;)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

°What could be?

°It could have been that in one of the many parallel universes Adrien was not an only child. That his father, who found hope and love in Hesperia or Betterfly, and his two former enemies Shadybug and Clawnoir, the latter being his own son Adrien, found hope and became good.

°They all saw hope and love in a new future Adrien with his Marinette finally came together and his father eventually found love. A stroke of fate that the blonde could not immediately cope with. He fled to his girlfriend and the two together in drawings, music and concerts tried to process the fear that they felt.

°But after Adrien realized how happy his father was with his new girlfriend. How kind she was to Gabriel, Nathalie, Marinette and himself, his resentment against her had slowly subsided and together they were all the good that now fought against evil.

°A team that one year later had a message to announce. Adrien would have a half-sister and become a big brother. Is it true?" murmured the blond, looking at the ultrasound image as they sat together at the table. Gabriel nodded and Y/n put a hand on her belly.

°Yet you couldn't see anything, but in a few months you would start to see something. They both feared that Adrien would get angry or even run away. The reaction was understandable. To their surprise and relief, the blond stood up and hugged his parents. He had finally taken his stepmother more than just into his heart.

°The family would grow before a little girl was born months later. ,,Adrien your little sister Emelie" said Gabriel and stepped aside. He put a hand on his son's shoulder before Adrien saw his sister in his stepmother's arms. The little baby looked at him curiously and gurgled before taking a finger from him.

°,,Emelie...like mother" he said and his voice became brittle Marinette took his hand and Gabrielle put a hand on his shoulder and stroked his head. The family seemed to have finally found peace...at least in this universe.

°But they wanted to share the happiness with Ladybug and Catnoir from the other universe. They traveled there with the help of Alyas and had a meeting. Ladybug was completely enraptured by little Emelie and Gabriel held his wife supportively while Adrien held the baby. ,,Emelie...she's so cute...you're lucky" the only child murmured and his friend held his hand. Before he gave the baby back to its mother and she rocked it slightly.

°They all knew about the pain, the mistreatment of his father and fine Hawkmoth. They knew that Adrien was suffering until Hesperia had an idea. ,,How about we visit more often and train together and you could see Emelie" he suggested and saw the blond's look turn from disbelief to gratitude.

°He fell into his "father's" arms and stroked the baby's head one last time, knowing that in this pain he was feeling there was also hope.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[anotherhumaninthisworld]

Can you please give an explainer on the friendship between Robespierre and Desmoulins and what their dynamic together was like? I know they were at school together as kids but were they really as close as movies usually portray them as? Was Robespierre better friends with Saint-Just?

Bonus: What's the story behind Desmoulins using Roussaeau against Robespierre?

Merci!

That’s an interesting question considering how often their relationship, as you say, has gotten dramatized.

The good days of the relationship

Both Robespierre and Desmoulins started attending the boarding school of Louis-le-Grand at the age of eleven, the former in 1769, the latter in 1771. We don’t know when exactly they first ran into and/or got to know each other, nor exactly just how close or not they actually grew to be while at college. To me, the following two statements do however suggest that their relationship back then was at least better than ”mere acquaintances”:

Oh, my dear Robespierre! It is not long since we were sighing together over our country’s servitude, since, drawing from the same sources the sacred love of liberty and equality, amid so many professors whose lessons only taught us to detest our land, we were complaining there was no professor of cabals who would teach us to free it, when we were regretting the tribune of Rome and Athens, how far was I from thinking that the day of a constitution a thousand times more beautiful was so close to shining on us, and that you, in the tribune of the French people, would be one of the firmest ramparts of the nascent freedom! Desmoulins in number 15 of Révolutions de France et de Brabant (March 8 1790)

I knew Camille in college, he was my study companion, he was then a talented young man without mature judgement. Since then Camille has developed the most ardent love of the Republic;... one must not look only at one point in his moral life, one must take the whole of it; one must examine him as a whole. Robespierre defends Camille at the Jacobins December 14 1793 (only time he ever admitted to a college friendship with anyone at all)

Liévin-Bonaventure Proyart, who worked at the college up until 1778, would give the following description of the relationship Desmoulins and Robespierre had back then in his La vie et les crimes de Robespierre: surnommé le Tyran… (1795):

In his lower classes, and however young he had been, [Robespierre] was very rarely seen sharing the amusements and games which most please childhood. His cold and misanthropic heart never knew those outpourings of lively and frank joy, natural signs of candor and ingenuity. Of all the noisy and endlessly varied amusements which make the public recreation of a college such an animated scene, none pleased him, and he preferred dark reveries and solitary walks. If someone, at these moments, approached him, he received him with a cold gravity; and answered him at first only in monofyllables. If he took it upon himself to praise his style and his scholastic productions, Robespierre did him the favor of striking up a conversation with him. But, however little one ventured to thwart him, one instantly became the object of some harsh and virulent trait. Camille Desmoulins, who lived at the same college, and whose impetuous and untidy character did not adapt well to the philosophical arrogance of Robespierre, had from time to time grapples with him, but from then on as since, the champions did not fight on equal terms. Always more reflective than the opponent who provoked him, and more master of his moves, Robespierre, watching the moment, pounced on him with all the advantage that cold prudence has over temerity.

Fellow students Beffroy de Reigny and Stanislas Fréron would in the latter half of the 1790’s similarly make the contradiction of stating both that the young Robespierre didn’t have any friends at school and that he and Desmoulins had been college comrades (Beffroy writing that Robespierre was ”his (Desmoulins’) comrade and mine” and Fréron that Desmoulins was Robespierre’s ”childhood comrade”). Though given the time these texts were written, I think this might should be read more as these Robespierre-dislikers wanting to have the cake and eat it too (ergo they both want Robespierre to have killed his childhood friend and to have been so repulsive he had no friends at all) than as full blown evidence Camille was Robespierre’s ”only friend” at school as the latter puts it in La Terreur et la Vertu.

Finally, Marcellin Matton, when writing a short biography over Camille in 1834, stated the following regarding his college days:

It was [at Louis-le Grand] that Camille got to know Maximilien Robespierre. They differed in character, but both had this passion which always distinguishes men of genius — love for liberty and for independence. The fully republican education one gave to young people born to live under a monarchy contributed a lot to their character. Without stop and in all forms, one presented them with history of Gracchus, Brutus, Cato. Camille was always together with Robespierre and their conversation most often revolved around the constitution of the Roman Republic.

While this certainly sounds like it could just be romantizing, we do know Matton was friends with Camille’s mother-in-law and sister-in-law, and it it’s therefore possible it’s them (who in their turn would have gotten it from Camille) who have given him this account of a close college relationship.

It’s sometimes argued that Robespierre and Desmoulins can’t have been friends while at school since they were never in the same grade, and it therefore would have been really hard for them to socialize. And indeed, when looking over the school regulations that were in motion during their time there, that does indeed come off as quite a hard thing to do — students were to stick to their ”quarter” both in dormitories, during classes, study hall, on Sunday outings, and at table (at first I thought maybe these ”quarters” weren’t neccessarily made up of students who all came from the same grade, but this other piece seems to rule out that possibility). This leaves the thirty-minute recesses as the only places where students from different quarters would have gotten a chance to interact with one another (bc they all seemed to have recess at the same time according to the schedule…). I do however think Robespierre and Desmoulins’ own testimonies weigh heavier than this. Desmoulins would also go on to admit college friendships with other students we know for a fact can never have been in the same grade as him.

In 1774 and 1775, both Robespierre and Desmoulins’ names featured on the list of students that had been awarded annual prizes for their hard labors, which means that they, according to the regulations, got presented before the bureau of administration by the principal ”to there receive praise and rewards due to their work and the success of their studies” together.

After graduating (Robespierre in 1781, Desmoulins in 1785) the two seemingly lost sight of one another, at least we don’t have any evidence they corresponded or in other ways kept up contact. Two pieces do however show us they did not forget about each other entirely. The first is a letter dated spring 1786 Camille adressed to the aforementioned Beffroy de Reigny, who in January the same year had openly thanked his ”former study comrade Robespiere [sic]” for sending him two of his works as a gift.

It was noticed lately, as a misfortune attached to the house where we were brought up together, that none of those who had distinguished themselves there fulfilled in the world the hopes that he had first given, that you alone seem happier right now, and we rejoice in your many subscribers. Although the subscribers are your dear and beloved cousins, we can clearly see that you have not forgotten the rest of the family, nor lost sight of the mountain where we were the first to applaud you. The advantageous manner in which you have spoken of M. Robespiere [sic] has charmed us all; up to now, M. Jéhanne has missed only one opportunity to provide you with the occasion of doing him justice as well. The joy with which you gave well deserved praise to a comrade reproached me for my conduct towards you, and obliges me to retract. 

In 1793, Robespierre did in his turn admit to before the revolution have read a poem (that according to Camille had been written in 1787), and felt proud once he realized who the author was:

Remember that at a time when the monarchy was best established on its foundations, Camille, a simple individual, without support, without advocate or patron, a lawyer without a cause on the fourth floor, dared to put into verse the proudest principles of the most determined Republican. Then, in the depths of my province, I learned with secret pleasure that the author was one of my college comrades.

Interestingly, Robespierre’s younger brother Augustin started studying law at Louis-le-Grand in 1784, one year before Camille graduated from said program, although neither would claim to have known the other while at college.

On May 8 1789, Desmoulins authored a letter to his father, telling him about the opening of the Estates General at Versailles three days earlier. Lamenting the fact he himself didn’t get elected for it, he writes: ”one of my comrades has been more fortunate than I, it’s de Robespierre, deputy from Arras. He has been wise enough to plead in his own province.” The fact Camille was able to recognize Robespierre eight years after their separation (and care about it enough to write it down), could be read as yet another sign their college relationship had at least mattered somewhat, especially since this letter is from before Robespierre had made any kind of name for himself politically. How exactly Camille found out Robespierre had been elected (did he recognize his face in a crowd, accidentally run into him or just see it written down somewhere?) is however unknown.

After the ceremony, Camille did however head back to Paris, while Robespierre would remain at Versailles up until October 1789. On July 23 1789, the latter writes to his friend Antoine Buissart that he has been shown the stormed Bastille after the king and the National Assembly’s brief visit to Paris following July 14, but there’s no evidence he saw Desmoulins during it, or even that he knew he had been the one inciting the storming at this point.

In the beginning of September, Camille released Discours de la Lanterne aux Parisiens, the first of his works which he mentioned Robespierre in:

I would at least congratulate M. de Robespierre for opposing with all his strength the release of the Duke of Vauguyon. M. Glaizen opposed it in an even more eloquent manner. Member of the criminal committee, he resigned immediately. This speaks of conviction. Honor to MM. Glaizen and Robespierre!

Later the same month, Camille went back to Versaille after having been invited by Mirabeau, and the day after his arrival (September 20 1789) he could write to tell his father: ”If you hear bad things said about me, console yourself with the memory of the testimony that MM. de Mirabeau, Target, M. de Robespierre, Gleizal and more than two hundred deputies gave me.” Camille stayed with Mirabeau for two weeks before returning to Paris, but there’s no proof he saw Robespierre any more times during his stay.

When Robespierre too went to Paris soon thereafter, he settled in an apartment on Rue de Saintonge, today a 45 minute walk away from Camille’s erstwhile home on Rue de Tournon 19. Despite finally living in the same city again, it’s not until March 6 1790 I’ve discovered something more concreate tying the two together. It’s a note from Desmoulins to Robespierre, found listed in Mémoires de l’Académie des sciences, agriculture, commerce, belles-lettres et arts du département de la Somme (1907) as one of many Desmoulins related text published in Journal de Vervins during the summer of 1884. Unfortunately, I can’t find this journal online anywhere, so I don’t know what the note was about.

In November 1789, Camille founded his very first journal — Révolutions de France et de Brabant — that would run until the fall of 1791. Searching for the term ”Robespierre” in the seven digitalized volumes of the journal, I find Camille talking about him around 85 times. The first time is in number 4 (released December 19 1789), where he makes sure to underline the fact that he and Robespierre had been ”college comrades”:

…If my dear college comrade, Robespierre, had said the same thing to the viscount, he wouldn’t have been able to respond like Saint Peter.

This was the first in a long series of homages Desmoulins’ journal would pay Robespierre. Throughout the years, he called him among other things ”The last of Romans and my hero” (number 41, September 6 1790), ”So pure, so inflexible, the peak of patriotism” (number 46, October 11 1790), ”the living commentary on the Declaration of Rights” (number 65, February 21 1791) and ”immutable” (number 76, May 9 1791). Desmoulins was also second in giving Robespierre the famous nickname ”the Incorruptible.” Not even Robespierre’s erstwhile boyfriend brother in arms Pétion, where Camille still admitted it was impossible to speak of one without thinking about the other (number 55, December 13 1790) got the same almost saintlike treatment. While Robespierre got praised by several journals positive to the revolution, I don’t think it would be that unfair to say Desmoulins was his cheerleader number one during at least its first few years. Several times, Robespierre also sent Camille speeches and letters of his which the latter willfully inserted into his journal (1, 2, 3).

I’ve found only one time Révolutions de France et de Brabant had something negative to say about Robespierre, and it is in number 27, released on May 31 1790, and conviently enough, the next piece of information regarding Desmoulins and Robespierre’s relationship that I know of:

I wasted my time preaching the republic. The republic and democracy are now down, and it is unfortunate for an author to shout in the desert and to write pages as worthless, as little listened to, as the motions of J. F. Maury. Since I despair of overcoming insurmountable currents, tied for six months to the bench of rowers, perhaps I would do well to regain the shore, and throw away a useless oar. I should leave Garnery, continue writing Révolutions de France et de Brabant at a discount, without attempting with my librarian, the unequal struggle of Tournon with Prudhomme. But I hear Robespierre call my discouragement corruption, and exclaim that I am sold like the others to the King's wife and to the ministerial party. I must undeceive my dear Robespierre, I must give new proofs of my incorruptibility every week, show that I am as proud a republican as he is, and that when the number of patriots, which is diminishing prodigiously every day, would be reduced to one or two citizens, it is I who would like to remain the last of the Jacobins. […] How is it that I was accused of being a sold-out journalist, and that I saw Robespierre and L... among my slanderers, when it is so difficult to find proofs of corruption against me? […] So I could not have my neck wrapped in a handkerchief and complain of esquinancia without being reproached for argyrancia as well. Ungrateful Robespierre!

A week later, June 7 1790, Robespierre authors the following letter to Desmoulins, in response to something the latter has written about him in the number of his journal released right after the one quoted above:

Monsieur, I read the following passage regarding the decree from May 22 on the right of war and peace in your (votre) latest number of Révolutions de France et de Brabant: On Saturday, May 22, the little dauphin applauded a decree Mirabeau had put forward with a good sense way beyond his young years. The people applauded too. It led back in triumph Barnave, Péthion [sic], Lameth, d'Aiguillon, Duport, and all the illustrious Jacobins; imagiening itself having just won a great victory, and these deputies had the weakness to maintain it in an error which they enjoyed. Robespierre was more frank, he said to the multitude which surrounded him and stunned them with his beating statement: ”Well! gentlemen, what are you congratulating yourself on? the decree is detestable, detestable to the last bit; let's let the brat clap his hands at his window, he knows better than us what he's doing.” I must, monsieur, point out the error in which you have been led on the fact which concerns me in this passage. I told the National Assembly my opinion on the principles and consequences of the decree which regulates the exercise of the right of peace and war; but there I stopped. I did not make the statement you cite in the Tuileries garden; I didn’t even speak to the crowd of citizens who gathered in my path as I crossed it. I believe I must disavow this fact: 1, because it is not true; 2, because, however disposed I am to always display in the National Assembly the character of frankness which should distinguish the representatives of the nation, I am not unaware that elsewhere there is a certain reserve which suits them. I hope, monsieur, that you will be good enough to make my statement public through your newspaper, especially since your magnanimous zeal for the cause of liberty will make it a law for you not to leave bad citizens the slightest of pretext to calumniate the energy of the defenders of the people. De Robespierre.

There’s certainly not much in this letter implying Robespierre is friends with Desmoulins, or even knows him as anything more than a journalist… All readers’ letters published within Révolutions de France et de Brabant up to this point have however used vouvoiement and been about as formal, so it’s possible Robespierre (who, according to his conserved correspondence, doesn’t use a particulary warm tone with anyone around this period save his arragois friend Antoine Buissart) is trying to mimick them. It’s also not impossible his tone had something to do with what Desmoulins had written about him a week earlier. Desmoulins did however not let himself become influenced by it when publishing and responding to the letter in the the next number (June 14 1790) of his journal. He even chose to adress Robespierre in tutoiment, even though Robespierre addressed him with vouvoiement, and despite having adressed every other correspondent to the journal with vouvoiement up until this point.

If I insure this errata, my dear Robespierre, it is only to show your (ton) signature to my fellow journalists, and teach them not to cripple a name that patriotism has illustrated. There is in your letter a dignity, a seanatorial gravity which wounds college friendship. You’re rightly proud of the laticlave of deputy to the National Assembly. This noble pride pleases me, and what annoys me even more is that not everyone feels their dignity as you do? But you should at least greet a former comrade with a slight nod. I love you none the less, because you are faithful to principles, even if you are not so faithful to friendship. However, why demand this retraction from me? When I would have slightly altered the truth in the anecdote I told, since this fact is honorable for you, since I doubtless said what you thought, if not your expressed words, instead of disavowing the journalists so curtly, you had to content yourself with saying like the cousin, in the charming comedy of the supposed dead man: ”Ah! Monsieur, vous brodez!” You are not one of those weak men of whom J.J Rousseau speaks, who do not want anyone to be able to repeat what they think, and who only speak the truth in their negligee or in their dressing gown, and not in the National Assembly or in the Tuileries.

According to Brissot, the incident did however end up making both college comrades rather piqued against one another. In his memoirs (1793), he wrote the following about it:

I reread this letter to Camille, which chance put before my eyes at this moment, and of which Robespierre himself had brought me a copy to print so that it would have more publicity. It is dated June 8 [sic] 1790 […] Doesn't everything in this letter, on which I can't help but dwell yet, bear the character of a vague uneasiness, of a singular timidity? I remember on this occasion Robespierre with his fears and his scruples which he could not dissimulate. Desmoulins' thoughtlessness alarmed him; he didn't know what to think of it. Was this young man paid to write such follies, and thus compromise the friends of reason and liberty? The deputy's response to the journalist was dignified, proud; it was indeed the style of a patriot. Royalism? what clumsiness! […] Before inserting this complaint in my diary, I warned Camille, whose susceptibility I knew. His answer was made, he left it to me; but I thought I was agreeable to him by publishing neither this answer nor the complaint of which it was the object. He seemed to me strongly piqued against Robespierre. Was it in this tone that a college friend had written to him? What had this rose-watered Brutus to blame, and what power was he so afraid of displeasing? However, Cassius did not want to anger Brutus. Desmoulins always sought to stick to celebrities, to Danton as to Mirabeau, to Linguet as to Robespierre; he would have sought out Marat, had that wolf been able to live with someone in society. Moreover, Robespierre's letter, like his signature, struck his mind, and his answer smelt a bit of taunting.

If the relationship got damaged, it was however not enough to stop Robespierre from saving Camille after an arrest warrant had been issued against him during the session of the National Assembly held on August 2 1790:

M. Malouet: …Is Camille Desmoulins innovative? He will justify himself. Is he guilty? I will be the accuser of him and of all those who take up his defense. Let him justify himself, if he dares. (A voice rises from the stands: ”Yes, I dare.” A part of the surprised assembly rises; the rumor spreads in the assembly that it is M. Camille Desmoulins who has spoken; the president gives the order to arrest the individual who uttered these words). N…: I ask that we deliberate beforehand on this arrest. M. Robespierre: I believe that the provisional order given by the President was indispensable; but must you confuse imprudence and inconsideration with crime? He heard himself accused of a crime against the Nation, it is difficult for a sensitive man to remain silent. It cannot be supposed that he intended to disrespect the Legislative Body. Humanity agrees with justice, pleads in its favour. I ask for his release, and that we move on to the agenda. The president annonces that M. Camille Desmoulins has escaped and can’t be arrested. The Assembly pass onto the order of the day.

Desmoulins was grateful Robespierre had stepped in, and in number 38 (August 16 1790) of his journal, he described the incident in the following way:

My dear Robespierre did not abandon me at this moment. By condemning me at first he conciliated all minds, and then brought them back with great art by developing this motion: if it is someone other than M. Desmoulins who raised his voice, this breach of assembly wheat must be punished; if it is him; it is difficult for an accused who does not feel guilty not to accept the challenge of his accuser. I ask for his release. Robespierre was applauded.

When Fréron (who we know was on friendly terms with at least Camille) described the very same incident in his journal l’Orateur du Peuple, he did refer to Robespierre as ”[Camille’s] friend” so perhaps their relationship had indeed gotten better since Robespierre’s impersonal letter…

Three numbers later (September 6 1790) Desmoulins writes about having given Robespierre a book written by abbot Jean-Joseph Rive:

O most learned and most patriotic of abbots! I read your letters, in which you always start out angry with me, and in which you end up smothering me with patriotic semens, and I gave your dear Robespierre your 700 pages in-80. But when do expect us to find the time to read your little novel?

Pierre Villiers, who in his Souvenirs d’un déporté (1802) claimed to have served as Robespierre’s secretary April-November 1790, wrote that the latter during this period ”thought the highest (il a fait le plus grand cas) of Camille Desmoulins. He's going too fast, Robespierre said to me, he'll break his neck; Paris wasn't made in a day, it takes more than a day to undo.”

On December 11 1790, Camille was given permission to marry Lucile Duplessis. Two weeks later, December 27, Robespierre, alongside Pétion, Brissot, Mercier, Sillery, Danton, Duport du Tertre, Barnave, Viefville des Essarts, Charles Lameth, Alexandre Lameth, Mirabeau, Andrieu and Deviefville, signed the couple’s wedding contract (1, 2). Two days after that, the wedding ceremony was held in Église Saint-Sulpice. Writing to his father about it, Camille could report that the witnesses this time had been ”Péthion [sic] and Robespierre, the elite of the National Assembly, M. de Sillery, who wanted to be there, and my two collegues Brissot de Warville and Mercier, the elite among the journalists.” The priest presiding over the ceremony was Denis Bérardier, who from 1778 to 1787 had been Camille and Robespierre’s college principal, after which he had been elected to represent the clergy at the Estates general. In the previously cited letter to his father, Camille writes that Bérardier during the ceremony held a speech that moved both him, Lucile and all of the witnesses to tears. An anonymous anecdote from 1792 similarily claims Camille began to cry out of joy during the ceremony, only this time Robespierre, instead of crying along with him, responded: ”don’t cry, you hypocrite!” It was however dismissed as apocryphal by Desmoulins’ latest biographer. After the ceremony, Camille reports that groom, bride, the witnesses and Bérardier all went over to his place to have dinner together with Lucile’s parents and sister. 

A little more than a month after the wedding, Robespierre, impatient to see a speech of his printed in Révolutions de France et de Brabant, sent the following letter to Camille. This is the first time in his conserved correspondence where he doesn’t use vouvoiement, and it won’t be until February 1793 that he does so again (though I don’t have any appreciation on whether adressing someone in third-person is less formal or not):

Paris, February 14 1791 I point out to Monsieur Camille Demoulins [sic] that neither the beautiful eyes nor the fine qualities of the charming Lucile are reasons for not announcing my work on the national guard which has been given to him and of which I send him a copy if necessary. At this moment there is no object more pressing or more important than the organization of the National Guards. At least that is what the citizens of Marseilles think, of whom I am here attaching a decree relating to my speech. I beg Camille not to mislead himself and to try to also send me back the letters from Avignon and the replies which I gave him. Robespierre

Camille obliged, printing the speech a week later in number 65 (February 21 1791) of his journal. It happened to be Discours sur l’organisation des gardes nationales, in which Robespierre becomes the first person ever to use the three words ”liberté, égalité, fraternité” as a slogan. But it was Camille who in July 1790 had been the first to bring the three words together as a formula. Robespierre and Desmoulins can therefore be said to hold the shared responsibility for the invention of what today is France’s national motto.

Five days after Camille had published Robespierre’s speech, February 26, Madame Chalabre wrote to the latter that ”The patriot Camille, in his last speech, paints with a charming naturalness, a truly original precision, the character of your talents. One would think that the genius of the good and unfortunate Jean-Jacques inspired him; it is of such a delicate touch; he shed so many tears reading this passage! Good Camille, you deserve the happiness which I hope you will enjoy with your lovely companion.” A week later, March 3, Sillery writes to Camille that ”Madame de Sillery is coming to dine at my house with Pétion and Robespierre, I dare to ask your lovable and beautiful wife to too do me this honor. […] Come, my dear Camille, if you have ever found yourself in a pure and exact democracy, it will be eight o’clock on Sunday when I hope to embrace you.”

In number 79 (June 4 1791) of his journal, Camille praises the ”simplicity” of Robespierre ”going by foot from his home on rue Saintonge to the National Assembly and dining for 30 sols,” implying they are on good enough terms for him to know those details about him. A few weeks later, June 21, Paris woke up to the discovery that the royal family had disappeared from the capital during the night. In number 82 (June 27 1791) of his journal, Camille would describe in detail what he had been up to during this day:

I left [Lafayette] hoping that maybe the immense career that the King's flight had opened to his ambition had brought him back to the popular party, and arrived at the Jacobins, striving to believe in his demonstrations of friendship and patriotism, and to fill myself with this persuasion, which, despite my efforts, flowed from my mind through a thousand memories, as through a thousand outlets. The only man who has my full confidence, Robespierre, had the floor. See here a speech full of truths of which I haven’t lost a single one, and tremble: [he then transcribes a speech Robespierre holds on the flight of the royal family] How shall I express this abandon, this accent of patriotism and indignation with which he pronounced it! He was listened to with that religious attention from which we collect the last words of the dying. It was, in fact, like his testament that he came to deposit in the archives of the club. I did not hear this speech with as much composure as I report at this moment, where the arrest of the former King has changed the face of affairs. I was moved to tears in more than one place, and when this excellent citizen, in the middle of his speech, spoke of the certainty of paying with his head for the truths he had just pronounced, I cried out: we will all die before you!

Apparently no one ever taught Camille to be careful with what you wish for.

In the same number, Desmoulins also describes how, the next day, he and several others brought a woman who had information to give on the escape attempt to the Jacobin club, in the hopes that her testimony would get Robespierre to denounce Lafayette and Bailly. Once arrived, they talk to him and Buzot, who both quickly become convinced of the high credibility of the witness, but are taken aback by the measures proposed to be taken. ”We will be,” they said, ”pushed back from the tribune, referred to the research committee, and our accusation will be entered in this mortuary register of denunciations.” After a while Pétion shows up and definitely discourages Robespierre, who, according to Camille, ”at first was quite disposed to take away the reputation of Bailly and La Fayette via assault.”

The escape attempt resulted in the demonstration and shootings on Champ de Mars on July 17 1791. On the evening of the same day as these events, we find Desmoulins and Robespierre at the Jacobin Club, both speaking of what had just happened. Shortly thereafter Camille went incognito for a while, hiding out at Lucile’s parents’ country house at Bourg-la-Reine until finally resurfacing in Paris again in early September. In the meantime, Robespierre had changed address and gone to live with the Duplay family on Rue Saint-Honoré 398, today a 35 minute walk from Rue du Théâtre 1 (today Rue de l’Odeon 28) where Camille and Lucile had moved shortly after their wedding. In her old days, Élisabeth Duplay authored a list over the people who most commonly would frequent her family’s house during the revolution.

The Lamenths and Pétion in the early days, quite rarely Legendre, Merlin de Thionville and Fouché, often Taschereau, Desmoulins and Teault, always Lebas, Saint-Just, David, Couthon and Buonarotti.

However, judging by an anecdote told by the same Élisabeth, Desmoulins’ visits went from being frequent to rare after a certain incident (that I would guess happened in 1793 considering Élisabeth still places his overall visits under the ”often” section):

One day Camille familiarly enters the Duplay house; Robespierre was absent. He starts a conversation with the youngest of the carpenter's daughters; as he retires, Camille hands her a book he had under his arm. ”Elizabeth,” he said to her, ”do me the service of holding onto this work; I will come back for it.” No sooner had Desmoulins left than the young girl curiously half-opened the book entrusted to her custody: what was her confusion, seeing paintings of revolting obscenity pass under her fingers. She blushes: the book falls. All the rest of the day Elizabeth was silent and troubled; Maximilian noticed it; drawing her aside. "What's the matter with you," he asked her, "you look so worried to me?" The young girl lowered her head, and as an answer went to fetch the book with the odious engravings which had offended her sight. Maximilien opened the volume and turned pale. "Who gave you this?" he asked in a voice shaking with anger. The girl frankly told him what had happened. "It’s fine," Robespierre went on, "don't talk about what you've just told me to anyone: I'll make it my business. Don't be sad anymore. I'll let Camille know. It is not what enters involuntarily through the eyes that defiles chastity: it is the evil thoughts that one has in the heart.” He admonished his friend severely, and from that day on, visits from Camille Desmoulins became very rare.

In a diary entry entry from June 1792, Lucile seemingly confirms the connection she and her husband had with Robespierre’s host family when she writes ”I went with C(amille) and little Duplay (most likely Élisabeth’s little brother Jacques-Maurice) to an old madwoman’s.”

On September 30 1791, the National Assembly was shut down and Robespierre left Paris for Arras, where he arrived on October 14. He was back in the capital again on November 28. A little more than two weeks later, December 16, Brissot, held his first speech in favor of going to war. As known, Robespierre opposed this, holding his first speech against the idea just two days later. Desmoulins quickly joined his side, holding a similar speech on December 25. When Robespierre held his third big speech on the subject, on January 11, Desmoulins, who listened to the reading, was enthusiastic and the next day he wrote the following letter to the ”patriots of Millau” (cited in Camille et Lucile Desmoulins: un Rêve de République):

At the moment I am still enthusiastic. This speech will be reread in all sections, in all clubs and in all patriots' houses; everywhere one will admire and especially love the author, but what would have happened had you heard him speak yourself! Those who were his college comrades, and even those who last year were his colleagues in the National Assembly, have not recognized Robespierre for some time. From a man of spirit, he became eliquent, and now he is sublime at intervals. It seems that he grows by one foot every month, as it is true that the home of talent is the heart. When, two years ago, I presented him, in my journal, as a Cato, I was far from foreseeing that he would never rise to the height of the talent of Demosthenes.

A month later, Desmoulins also aimed a blow against Brissot with the release of the pampleth Jean Pierre Brissot démasqué. While said pampleth definitely outlined who Camille considered his enemies, it also made clear who were his champions, with Robespierre, who’s name got mentioned nine times throughout, taking up the forefront:

This true patriot (Rœderer) has not forgiven me, him and his cabal, for loving Robespierre, my college friend, venerable, great in my eyes, although it has been said that there was no great man for his valet-de-chambre, nor for his college friend and the witness of his youth.

In a letter written shortly thereafter to François Suleau, another one of their former college comrades, Desmoulins claimed that ”[Robespierre] sees me as invulnurable after the proof of incorruptibility that I produced in my latest writing to Brissot.” Apropos of Desmoulins still seeing Suleau, a firm royalist, he added: ”I cannot blame my friend Robespierre when he tells me that he would run away from my house on seeing a notable from Coblentz (Suleau) enter.” 

War was nevertheless declared on April 20 1792. The very same day, Camille and Fréron, who had both had to quit their journals in the aftermath of the massacre on Champ de Mars, signed a contract for creating a new one — La Tribune des Patriotes. The first number was meant to be released on May 7, but the following day, their publisher Charles Frobert Patris told Camille he had refused to print it, on the charge of it being ”a libel.” Camille reported this to the Jacobin club the very same day, and the following session Patris came forward to explain himself. Things did however not go the way he’d planned, and in a pampleth released shortly afterwards, Patris wrote the following regarding the session:

How come you (Robespierre) tolerated that the vile informer (Camille), to whom I was answering, seeing the club cover with long applause the hard truths that I was beginning to tell him, left his place to go sit down behind you, pulled you by the tailcoat and spoke to you in a low voice and with an air of intelligence! Didn't you have to feel that such intimacy would favor him, and turn to my prejudice?

Soon thereafter, La Tribune des Patriotes could finally be released. This work too was in part meant to protect and advocate for Robespierre, starting already in the first number:

O my dear Robespierre, I gave you this name (the Incorruptible) three years ago! Let people re-read my writings: at the time of my highest admiration for the Mirabeaus, the Lafayettes, the Lameths, and so many others, I always set you apart, I always placed your probity, character and soul above all; and I have seen that the public, while learning from my writings, has hitherto confirmed my judgments, six months or a year after I had made them. Since degenerate friends of truth come to the aid of the impotence of our means to defray the cost of this journal, Fréron and I will not abandon you in the breach, in the midst of a cloud of enemies. The efforts of all these false patriots relentless today - against you alone, we will divide them, by drawing on us their hatred, and by fighting at your side, not for a man, not for you, but for the cause of the people, the equality of the constitution, which has been attacked in you.

Desmoulins and Fréron had originally planned to have the journal run for at least a year, however, it failed to catch an audience and was put down already after four numbers. Robespierre’s name did however still get mentioned a total of 40 times throughout the journal, always in a positive light.

On July 6 1792, Lucile gave birth to a son who received the name Horace. The idea that Robespierre was his godfather would appear to be nothing but a myth seeing as the baptism record doesn’t mention any godparents but only two witnesses — neither of which is Robespierre but instead Laurent Lecointre and Merlin de Thionville. After the good days of the relationship were over, both Lucile and her mother would however contemplate over Robespierre having held Horace in his arms on multiple occasions, the former writing: ”You (Robespierre) who have smiled at my son and whom his infantile hands have carassed so many times…” and the latter asking if he still remembered ”the caresses you lavished on little Horace, how you delighted to hold him upon your knee.”

Three days after his birth, Horace was sent off to a wetnurse, while Lucile soon thereafter went to her parents’ country house to rest up. Camille remained in Paris working on a speech that he delivered on July 24. A few days before it he reported to Lucile that ”I dined at Robespierre’s today and talked ever so much about Rouleau (nickname for Lucile), Rouleau, my poor Rouleau.” Lucile returned from the countryside on August 8. Four days later, after the Insurrection of August 10, Camille was made secretary by the new Minister of Justice Danton. After a week, the three went to live at Hôtel de Bourvallais, just a six minute walking distance away from the Duplay house, and where, in Lucile’s own words, ”we spent three months quite cheerfully.”

The trial of the king started around the same time Camille and Lucile returned to their original apartment. Robespierre and Camille once again fought side by side for the same goals — this time for death and against an appeal to the people. In number 2 of his journal La Defenseur de la Constitution, Robespierre inserted a speech Camille had made on the latter of these two questions.

On March 26 1793, Desmoulins and Robespierre were both elected for the so called Commission of Public Safety, alongside 23 others. The commission, consisting of both fervent montagnards and girondins, was however off to a rocky start, and already on April 6 it was put to death and replaced by the Committee of Public Safety, which neither Desmoulins nor Robespierre was on.

On May 17 1793, Desmoulins announced the release of his new pampleth l’Histoire des Brissotins to the Jacobins. We know that Robespierre had had a hand in the creation of this pampleth through a note inserted in Camille’s Lettre de Camille Desmoulins au général Dillon released a few months later:

The true origin of the rigor of the Committee towards you, would it be in a very long note, which was printed following l’Histoire des Brissotins, which Robespierre made me cut out?

The Jacobins published l’Histoire des Brissotins on May 19, and a week later, Robespierre, who for a long time had refused to do so, openly called for an insurrection against ”the corrupt deputies” of the National Convention at the Jacobins, a wish he then repeated three days later. Two days after that, the Insurrection of May 31 took place, and on June 2 the Convention voted for the arrest of 29 Girondins. I think it could be argued it was Desmoulins and Robespierre who together had delivered the principal deathblow to this ”faction.”

Nine days after the murder of Marat, July 22 1793, the Jacobin Club tasked Desmoulins, Robespierre, Lepeletier and Dufourny with writing an adress to the French people regarding it. Said adress was printed and read aloud at the club four days later, obviously deploring of the event and praising the murdered. Just one day after that, July 27, Robespierre was elected as member of the Committee of Public Safety. Camille on the other hand remained restless, and on November 1, he wrote to ”his old friend” to ask to be sent on a mission to Aisne.

I point out to our dear Robespierre that there is no impediment by law to me going to my department. Choudieu and Ricord, who are in theirs, Barras, and so many others, prove that the decree of which Billaud-Varennes spoke yesterday either does not exist or is not being executed. So I always recommend to him, as Lejeune's assistant, the historian Lucceius, reminding him of the custom of the senate of Rome, which never failed, when one of its members wanted to spend a week in Greece or Sicily, to see his father, to deliver to him, honoris curá, letters of credence, and the title of commissioner, or of legatus, which did not prevent him, on the way, from deserving well of the republic, and from gaining the vasarium. His old friend, Camille Desmoulins. To citizen Robespierre, member of the Committee of Public Safety.

As can be seen, Desmoulins adresses Robespierre in third person here, just like Robespierre had done to him two years earlier. These letters are the only examples of these two using third person that I’m aware of, almost making you suspect it was a conscious choice they made of adressing the other like that. Desmoulins did however not obtain any mission, but remained in Paris, as did Robespierre.

On December 5 1793 was released the first number of Desmoulins’ new journal Le Vieux Cordelier. According to what he wrote in said number, it was after having heard Robespierre and Danton speak at the Jacobins on December 3 that he decided to pick up his pen again — ”I leave my office and my armchair, where I had all the leisure to follow, in detail, this new system of our enemies, of which Robespierre only presented the outline, his occupations at the Committee of Public Safety not allowing him to embrace it in its entirety like me.”

 Like with l’Histoire des Brissotins, Camille had let Robespierre proofread and give his approval of the number before it got sent to the publisher. He did the same thing again for the second number, released on December 9, that concerned itself with the topic of dechristianization, denouncing Anacharsis Cloots and Anaxagoras Chaumette for their role in it. These thoughts were shared by Robespierre, who had spoken for liberty of cults on both November 21 and 28 and December 5 and December 6, and would go on to get Cloots expelled from the Jacobins when the latter passed through its scrutiny test on December 12. Two days later, the turn had come to Camille to go through the very same examination. He was at first questioned on his friendship with the general Arthur Dillon and for having stated that the Girondins ”died as republicans” the day they were condemned. After Desmoulins had justified himself, stating among other things that ”a well marked fatality willed that, among the sixty [sic] people who signed my wedding contract, I only have two friends left — Danton and Robespierre. All the others have emigrated or been guillotined,” Robespierre took to the floor and, after reproaching Camille for having been on friendly terms with Mirabeau, Dillon, Lamarlière and the Lameth brothers, made sure his friend passed the test. To ensure it, he first recited from heart a long poem Camille had written in 1787, the verses of which ”struck me so hard back then, that they have been ingraved in my memory,” and then said the following:

The manner in which Camille expressed himself at a time when some great patriots of today trembled, perhaps even cringed, before the tyrant; these are character traits that must be taken into account when judging a man. It is true that no one better than he justifies the proverb of the peoples living on the banks of the Guadalquivir and the Tagus: so and so was brave on such a day. Camille, stricken with thoughts of death, constantly sees the guillotine before his eyes; he imagines that because several of his friends have perished by the last torture, the same fate awaits him. Here is the character of Desmoulins: easy to let himself be warned, he quickly believes in the signs of patriotism that he perceives; but is he undeceived? His love for public affairs makes him tear the veil; he drags in the mud the cheats he had placed under the canopy; it is thus that he treated Mirabeau, the Lameths, and the Brissotins in recent times. The Girondin faction wanted to attract Camille to their party; Sillery was charged with this role. The famous Pamela appeared before Desmoulins, accompanied with an enchanting voice the sounds of a melodious lute; Camille, insensitive to the sting, faithful to his wife, faithful to republican principles, disdained the attractions of this new Circe, of this second Herodiade. Desmoulins, the first of all, mounted at the Palais Royal on the unsteady boards of a tottering table, preached patriotism, pistol in hand; he rendered great services to the Revolution. His energetic and easy pen can still serve it usefully, but it is necessary that, more circumspect in the choice of his friends, he must break any pact with impiety, that is to say, with the aristocracy; on these conditions, I request the admission of Camille Desmoulins.

The next part in the reblog.

[dailycharacteroption]

Hybrid Class Review: Shaman

(art by telthona on DeviantArt)

Overview

And we’re back with another review of a hybrid class! This time we’re beginning the first of what I affectionately call the S-Block, an entire four classes in the Hybrid category that all begin with the letter S!

And the first of those classes is the Shaman, a class that hybridizes the oracle and witch classes!

I liken the shaman to being similar to the arcanist in that it combines two similar casting classes together to get something new, but while the arcanist can often feel like “a sorcerer with wizard training” or “a wizard willing to break boundaries”, the shaman feels like a completely new thing.

You see, the oracle and witch do have a lot of things in common when you think about it. Both are thematically empowered by a force they may lack specific details on, but also they are both defined by being able to pick and choose special abilities periodically, the former being stuck with a set based on their mystery, while the latter having a much more general list.

And the shaman succeeds at blending these two together, but like all hybrid classes, they also succeed in doing something unique that sets them apart as well.

But to understand what that is, we have to first understand what a shaman is.

Throughout every culture in the world, past or present, there have been beliefs in spirits. Call them what you want. Minor gods, kami/youkai, fairies, shedim, or what have you, the belief in magical beings beyond mortal ken, particularly those that govern some otherwise bodiless force of nature, has existed since the earliest days of mankind.

Many depictions of these spirits describe them as usually being present but without a physical body, with a rare few being able to manifest a body when they need to, and the shaman class in Pathfinder certainly draws a lot of inspiration from this interpretation. Even as more specific otherworldly creatures have statblocks and bodies to interact with the world.

The shaman class essentially refers to those that channel divine magic by forging pacts with bodiless nature spirits, Their spells essentially being a combination of them being empowered to cast by the spirit as well as them politely asking the spirit (as well as nearby local ones) to perform the actions of the spell.

While each shaman has a main spirit they are bonded with, granting them specific powers as well as a list of optional choices, what really sets shamans apart is they can also form a secondary bond with a more local spirit each day, not only gaining some of their specific abilities, but also some floating choices for their optional “hex” powers. Essentially, Each shaman has a lesser form of an oracle’s mystery, but also the ability to take on a different secondary one with a handful of variable hexes as well.

What’s more, while the shaman spell list combines many toys from both the cleric/oracle and witch spell lists, they also get a lot of elemental spells for both damage and utility, making them almost a three-way hybrid with druid as well.

With their flexible hexes, spirits, and spells, shamans shape up to be one of the most versatile spellcasting classes in the game, with a lot of tricks up their sleeve and the ability to prepare for a lot of different foes.

Additionally, being surrounded and partnered with spirits seems more… intimate than gods, patrons, or the vague natural forces of oracles, witches, and druids respectively. Like, depending on the game, spirits feel more like something you’d interact with every day, not just when you prepare spells in the morning or the GM decides they really want you to do something.

With all that in mind, let’s start this week right and dive into what the class truly has to offer!

[tumblingxelian]

For the Salty Ask, any fandom:

#1 What OTPs in your fandom(s) do you just not get?*

#6 Has fandom ever made you enjoy a pairing you previously hated?*

#11 Is there an unpopular character you like that the fandom doesn’t? Why?

(Smashes a glass bottle on my face) Let's fucking do this!

#1 What OTPs in your fandom(s) do you just not get?*

Gosh there are too many to list in a single post, and a few may get me targeted assassins XD

I'm quite lukewarm on Rei & Mina from Sailor Moon, maybe reflecting that I wasn't super into the manga & only watched some of the live action stuff but still.

Reylo, obviously. Other Star Wars would be Obi-Wan/anyone really, and also the fact people actually treat Anakin and Padme as romantic or like they could have a functional relationship scares me.

If we do a quick drive-by on ATLA, I really don't get why Azula & Aang became so popular, or Zuko & Katara. Or more, the best explanations I have for them still leave me going :/ at best. So there's that.

In Warcraft we have Thrall & Jaina, which is just 100% a case of, "Wow, they sure are standing next to each other" as far as ships go. Also for WOW is Jaina & Sylvanas, I only get it aesthetically, kinda.

Felix & Kagami from ML has me like ???? I didn't watch past S3 though so ??? Also that people treat Gabirel & Emile or Gabriel & Nathalie as like.. healthy is just... What!? I get the ships, I don't get the fanon spin on them.

In Dragon Ball, this one also draws targeting fire, but I never really got Vegeta & Bulma, which is canon I know, but still. A fling is one thing but an actual relationship just leaves me head-scratching. Also not sure if this is still the case, but I recall Gohan & Piccolo as being weirdly popular back in the olden days, and like, what!?

In DC, oh boy, gonna piss some people off with this one, but:

Bruce & any long term relationship, I don't care if its Selina, Talia, Clark, or Diana, or Harvey. This is not a man who can commit to another human being, because he's committed himself to staling the utterly uninterested Gotham City. Anything claiming otherwise is positively incomprehensible to me.

Also I don't grasp why Dick & Babs is so popular, or Tim & Steph, or Tim & Jason. The former has some history, but it so often feels like crow-barring two former high school crushes who have moved on together against their will. The latter is just like,... No, just no.

Within RWBY, if we are strictly going by popular pairs then I really don't get Weiss & Jaune, or Ruby & Jaune. I'm not even talking about like, V2 behavior or whatever, they've all grown, but I don't see how they've grown in a way that leads to these being popular ships. I had a similar stance on Blake & Sun when it was a major player; like attraction can be there without me thinking it works as a ship.

Also Ironwood & Glynda is just like... She could not be more utterly not into him if she tried, why are you people forcing it? Same with Winter & Qrow, their dynamic doesn't even have a fun rivals to lovers vibe to it.

Also as I believe you mentioned but Oscar & Ruby doesn't click with me. Again, I can sort of follow the logic, but I always end up at, "Why is this what you want?" Because to get to it, at least when it comes to the more intense advocates, it usually involved ripping out all the interesting stuff from their dynamic and characters for hurt comfort fic material.

You're gonna kill me.

But I have similar feelings about Ruby & Penny. I can see it more than Oscar & Ruby, but at the same time I just... It doesn't click with me and most stuff I see of it removes all the interesting character drama and dynamics so I get bored outside of a purely aesthetic appreciation level.

#6 Has fandom ever made you enjoy a pairing you previously hated?*

Sort of an interesting spin on this, I kind of tricked myself into enjoying a ship I previously didn't like through fandom.

Specifically when writing a Sailor Moon fanfic, I tweaked Usagi & Mamoru's dynamic to be a bit more like their mutual antagonism from the early anime, but cos both were on equal footing, I found their banter really enjoyable to write & started vibing with it.

There might be others but I am drawing a blank right now ><

#11 Is there an unpopular character you like that the fandom doesn’t? Why?

Yamcha.

Always Yamcha, forever Yamcha, my poor sweet victim of character desolation, Yamcha!

He's introduced in the comedic part of the series with this premise being that he's a powerful and dangerous bandit, who is chronically shy around girls and is deeply romantic, wanting a family.

He's shown to be a skilled fighter who developed powerful techniques on his own with zero training. He knows tons of martial arts lore, was a nice mix of sensible but brave and basically Goku's big brother.

But he kept getting used as the WORF and then after being killed via kamakaze after stepping up to protect his younger friend from such a fate, he is memed to death by the fandom. & is later characterized as a cheater despite having been nothing but loyal to Bulma across the series. Has his desire for a married life & family surgically removed & given to Krillin, & basically gets treated like trash for the rest of time.

Outside of DB...

Pretty much every character, creature or faction I find interesting in Warcraft is hated or regarded with indifference so that's fun XD

As to specific characters from other series:

Chloe of ML, people hating on an already hated in universe 14 year old whose neglectful, corrupt father left her to be raised by he staff in a room that makes a dentist surgery look homey & who otherwise only taught her the worst lessons imaginable. Along with an emotionally and verbally abusive mother & who was actively groomed by the main villain of the series who has known her since she was a child are just... For fucks sake she's 14.

Lila of ML, she's a messy, confusing ass character cos it seems the writers don't have a solid idea for her. But like, within the first three seasons at least, she's still a 14 year old who has two adults with cameras plated in her room manipulating and controlling her.

Azula of ATLA, another 14 year old who was treat like shit by the adults in her family. She's a weapon to her father, a monster by birth to her mother, "Crazy" to an allegedly kind old uncle who has killed infinitely more people than her & only felt bad when it impacted him. Seriously, fuck all those doing Azula hate. She's a better villain than Ozia, a more merciful and skilled general than Iroh, and seems to have at least some actual loyalty to her family unlike Ursa who only cared about Zuko.

Mai of ATLA, People hate her for her dead pan affect and the fact she's not cradling Zuko's sof lil baby head, and or between him & the ship for him they like. Fuck off again, Mai's fun.

Cinder of RWBY, villains are meant to do bad things. Villains like Cinder do not appreciate being blackmailed. Villains like Cinder don't appreciate people who know their secrets, like using the Lamp, being around to hold it over her head later. She's not stupid, some people just lack media literacy.

Harriet of RWBY, while I get that she's not super popular, I tend to find the level of vitriol she gets uncomfortable at best. Like, it often feels less like people not getting the characters role & more like, some people running will with the chance to be unrelentingly hostile towards a fictional black woman. Elm gets some of this but is more often forgotten.

Talia of DC, there is so much racism both in canon and fanon and its heartbreaking.

[henrysglock]

how/when did your view change from basically "brenner is a nonce and i hate him" to where you're at now? not judging, i just feel like i missed a chapter

Hi Anon!

This is a super valid question, and the chapter(s) I think you might be missing are TFS and straight up fanon.

First point: Brenner is weird about kids, and I don't like him as a person

I still firmly believe filmed-canon Brenner is fucking Weird™ about children. There's no erasing the 3-legged Papa drawing from my memory, let alone all the Weird Shit re: him and Henry and the children. I still have a great deal of dislike for him/I still think he's canonically a villain. (Or at least an anti-villain/someone who does Fucked Up And Downright Evil Things while thinking they're pursuing the greater good...which actually ends up being to the Detriment of everyone involved. Smth about two wrongs not making a right.)

He does many bad things, and I don't like his behavior, but that also doesn't preclude me from acknowledging the times when he shows real grief over the past, particularly re: Henry.

For example, when I say "that's the face of a man who's missing his wife", it means "Despite the harm he did to Henry, Brenner was (on some level) affectionately attached to him, and we can see that in the way he talks about his handling of the situation/the way he talks about Henry's banishment".

It doesn't mean "Brenner and Henry had a summer wedding and everyone cheered" or "actually, Brenner is a good person who was nothing but good to Henry and the children"...because those are straight up not true statements. Brenner does bad things. Nobody likes what he's doing. Sometimes even he doesn't seem to particularly like what he's doing, but he does it anyway.

Second point: TFS vs filmed canon

Where I start to tread into a genuine grey area about his character as a whole is with TFS Brenner, because while TFS Brenner is more outwardly/verbally aggressive, he's not nearly as "evil" overall. I mean, the man can't even land an insult on Henry and have it stick, let alone do him any physical harm. TFS Brenner never whips out the sedatives or shock collar, not even when the procedure with Dimension X gets derailed and Henry's fighting his way out of the lab. TFS Brenner is so reluctant to do Henry any real harm that it's almost a little distracting at times, especially in comparison to Brenner in filmed canon.

That's not to mention there's this weird thread of:

Yes, Brenner's using Henry as a means to get at the Dimension X/the Mindflayer in a very "Captain Ahab and the White Whale" manner, but also: -- Henry is weirdly safe from the Mindflayer while in the lab right up until he "connects" to Dimension X and Patty mysteriously appears in the void with him at the exact same time/Henry doesn't have any "attacks" in the lab like he was having just out and about in "Hawkins" -- Louis talks more about there being love between Henry and Brenner than he does about there being love between Henry and Patty (pictured below) -- Henry seems to have rejected the Mindflayer at the end with prompting from Brenner by rejecting Patty the exact same way El rejects One at the end of the massacre fight (pictured below) -- Patty actually ends up doing Truly Questionable Actions consent-wise more often and with more physical severity than Brenner does/Patty has stronger ties to the Mindflayer than Brenner does

In short— TFS Brenner and on-screen Brenner are so different that I have to judge them separately. I find the former promising and the latter lacking re: Not Being Fucking Weird.

And I know you're probably like "you can excuse the ball gag thing?" to which I say: That sequence occurred 20 years after the events of TFS and "Brenner" hasn't aged a day? And he's also done a whole about-face re: Weird Romantic Things (Father and Son -> Co-parents)? Nah, baby, there's something else going on there. That's almost kind of giving the vibes of the Mindflayer impersonating Brenner, which wasn't the case before.

Third point: Fanon

I'm playing in my sandbox with Ken dolls, particularly if this ask was in reference to my fics/wips.

For example, Papa Warbucks is a

What if: -- The supernatural stuff didn't exist, Henry was just a weird kid, Brenner's dad died under "normal" circumstances/the Creel murders never happened -- Brenner didn't meet Henry until Henry was already 21, so the age gap isn't 14 and 31, it's 21 and 38, meaning everything is above-board -- Brenner wasn't ever affiliated with the CIA or DOD, so he never got the chance to even think of exploiting/skirting the legal system the way he does in canon -- All this is set somewhere between 2018-2024

type of alternate universe.

This is because I think that under the "right" circumstances, Henry and Brenner could have been a powerful/compelling duo. They do have times in TFS where they really gel as partners in crime (so to speak), so I genuinely think that if the circumstances were tweaked, even just in the way of "these two met as adults", they could have been contenders for a Valid Ship in canon (based on TFS).

Thus, the fic ends up being a would've, could've, should've type deal where things actually go well between the two of them. It's me exploring their potential personality-wise without the roadblocks canon puts in place logically/morally.

I hope this answers your question!

[sonicasura]

I've been thinking about my KN8/Kirby crossover, Starry Dreams, again. (My ass still hasn't done the extended versions for BotW/TotK or Blue Exorcist yet. 🥲) Thus why not share more stuff on the fluffier side of things. (We all need it due to the latest chapter.)

Kirby and Kafka's spiritual bond soon shows it affects both in more ways than one. You know how I said that our himbo could use Copy Abilities as a result? Well, any power boosts between the two are shared.

You guessed it then kudos! Kirby gains a new form, Kaiju Kirby, based on Kafka's own Kaiju nature. The appearance is very similar to how Copy Abilities are portrayed in Super Smash Bros which basically sums up to a 'cosplay' of the character.

I do plan on drawing this. Although it's 50/50 on whether Kirby looks like he's wearing a full body mask like the Corrin design or a removable mask that animates yet he can take it off. He is gonna be greenish obsidian in color and have back spikes because I loved it when Copy Abilities changed the pink puff's colors too. (Sucks they removed it over the years.)

You can bet your ass that Kafka fawned over Kirby's new form partly from his kaiju instincts. It's further proof this is his whelp. Kafka's instincts does lead him to do stuff such as proudly presenting the star warrior to his friends. Although now the Defense Force really thinks Kirby is No.8's biological offspring, lol.

Kafka attempts to piece together the 'lore' after each adventure in Dreamland. Considering he cleans up Kaiju corpses for a living, he would try to understand what him and Kirby went against throughout the few years. Although Kafka still wonders who has been leaving tidbits on collectible figures or random notes(based on in-game Pause Screen Descriptions for Bosses).

Our himbo finally finds a new place to call home, an old farmhouse out in the countryside. There are a few reasons for the decision. Kirby has more room to roam about or enjoy a nice nap, the Robobot doesn't have to be holed up in Reno's basement anymore, and Landia has a place to rest. (You can say Kafka's hunch about the four headed dragon wanting to live with them became true.)

Kirby and No.8 grew quite popular amongst the public. The Defense Force did try to put a handle on it as not all of them were keen about the vigilantes. Futaba and Ami threw a massive wrench in their plan when the former began carrying plushies based on the two. Something which led to tons of merchandise that expanded in variety often should No.8 call upon an ally(usually Landia) or Kirby summons the Robobot.

The Third Division gets back together after the base is fully repaired. (Rookies take temporary apprenticeships with the other departments as to fit canon.) Kafka's apprenticeship is put on hold once his secret becomes known to the whole place.

The rest of the Defense Force are unaware as a case is being built for Hibino. Soshiro and Mina want to make sure their friend alongside his companions stay safe from the more dangerous members in the force.(Obvious corrupt higher ups/mad scientists.) This includes looking over the rules and setting up procedures based on available loopholes.

Kirby became a sort of unofficial mascot for the Third Division especially with the female officers. It isn't uncommon to find the pink puffball napping next to Bakko(Mina has taken pictures), doodling as Okonogi works on the Robobot Armor, or playing some games with off-duty Rookies. Kafka is happy that everyone is getting along.

Now I have been thinking about an alternate version of Starry Dreams. This one has a childhood sweethearts type pairing between Kafka, Soshiro, and Mina with Skully showing up around canon. Plus my ass couldn't resist the look on the latter two's faces when their husband comes home with Kirby in hand alongside a towed spaceship.

Kafka would already have the barn house since he figures both of his partners prefer some peace and quiet. They do learn that our himbo can transport others much earlier as Soshiro ends up being an impromptu ally for Kirby 64. How it happens is the two decided to have a lazy day and slept in while Mina was making breakfast. She unfortunately had to watch Soshiro vanish alongside Kafka to Dreamland.

You can bet both our himbo's partners broke some Defense Force rules to help him in these adventures. This includes stealing and modifying their combat suits. It only grows when Kafka's powers alongside Skully come into the picture.

Nothing like an unlikely family to turn the world of Kaiju No.8 upside down.

[the-pea-and-the-sun]

Nineteen year olds are barely legal, much less true adults. They are naive and vulnerable with so many new responsibilities in their lives. They are more willing to do things they’ll regret in the future because they think it will make them ~real~ grown-ups. The human brain doesn’t fully mature till someone is in their late twenties.

Hi, so first of all the human brain "fully maturing" when a person becomes 25 (or their "late 20s"? I've actually never heard that one before) is a myth. Establishing a specific age of consent is necessary for legal purposes, but there is no actual magic number where a person suddenly becomes a "true adult". 18 is the only magic number you will get, because that is the exact age a person becomes an adult legally in the US and many other countries. You can define a legal adult and have an age where someone is a legal adult, but all the other things that we associate with maturity and adulthood, where someone becomes culturally an adult, are things that happen gradually, not suddenly. There are clear points where someone obviously is an established adult because they have more of the things we associate with adulthood, like someone who's in their mid 30's, is married with children, etc. And clear points where someone obviously isn't an adult and isn't close to being one, like a middle schooler who's dependent on their parents, and there's a lot of people who are in the middle, like 19 year old college students. It's necessary to draw a clear line between these two points in a person's life, but the actual line does not exist. A 17 year old emancipated minor with a full-time job who can support themselves might be seen as "more adult" and "more mature" than someone who's finishing up their GED at 19. It's still necessary for us to consider the former legally a child for the purposes of being able to consent even though the emancipation process has granted them many legal rights that only an adult should have, and it's still necessary for the latter to be considered an adult with adult rights that can't be taken away.

Sure, 19 year olds are "barely legal" and may do things that make them be perceived as "more grown up" than they actually are. This is because being a young person comes with a lot of stigma, and that stigma is exacerbated, not lessened, by saying a person can't truly consent until their in their late 20s. 19 year olds do often have less maturity than adults who are older than them, and there are people out there who will try and take advantage of that immaturity. A 19 year old deciding to have a one-time hook up is not an inherently worse or more immature decision than them deciding to take out a giant student loan. The solution to this is not to prevent 19 year olds from being able to legally handle their own money without the assistance of a "true" adult, it's to make sure 19 year olds are going into the world informed, and not in such vulnerable situations where they would need to take out a giant loan so early in their lives.

I'm 21 years old. When I was 20, (which really, is hardly different from being 19, isn't it?) I had a great experience with someone who was 27. I'm pretty confident that when I'm 25, there will be no switch-flip in my head that makes me realize what I did was wrong. When I was 18, I was in what I did not realize at the time was a really toxic and awful relationship with someone my own age. There was no switch-flip in my head to make me realize this either, just a gradual accumulation of life experiences and re-evaluations of what I wanted for myself and not for others and what I could do about it. There ARE people who specifically target vulnerable people in order to have relationships with them, often because they're young or because they're disabled or because they have a low sense of self worth or an insecurity about their age. There are also people who fetishize youth and equate it with beauty and innocence and because of this are unwilling to date people who society deems too old to be attractive. Young people and old people are both vulnerable groups that people often abuse and take advantage of. Vulnerable groups are more likely to be in abusive relationships and are more likely to allow others to make decisions for them that don't reflect their own interests. The solution is not to prevent these people from making their own decisions. Making the less-vulnerable groups who, by your own admission, already have more power than the vulnerable groups be the ones who get to say who is a legal consenting adult and who is not will not protect these groups. And you need to realize that for the purpose of arguing who has a right to be called a consenting adult who can have sex with any other consenting adults approximations aren't going to cut it. Are you arguing that 19 year olds can consent to have sex with each other, but not with "true adults"? Aren't two underdeveloped minds worse than one? Should it be more okay for a 19 year old to have sex with a minor than a 25 year old, since they aren't "true adults" anyway? Do we just prosecute whoever the "truest adult" is? If you don't like where the line is drawn, where do you propose we draw it? There is no "barely legal" status for 19 year olds, and there is no "brain probably fully developed" status for people in their mid to late 20s. The only actual logical conclusion a person can come to with this argument is for the age where someone is considered to be a "true adult" with true adult rights to be 25 instead of 18, because you're essentially arguing that 19 year olds can't consent (to sex specifically, I assume. I never hear people making the "brain not fully developed" argument for bank or housing loans).

It's important for adults, all adults, including and especially vulnerable groups, to be able to decide for themselves when and if they want to have sex and who they will have sex with. Arguing that "less mature" brains can't consent to sex or other "adult only" things, like having a bank account or owning a home, is the same logic people use to take rights away from people who are mentally or physically disabled. It harms the vulnerable group under the guise of protecting them.

[datasoulglitch]

[Soulmate Demons AU old arts / part 1]

And finally, the prelude is finished and we go to the main thing. ..Hmm .. although all the most of basic things I've already told before?.. ​ Well, individual arts still have their own stories.. I also have some RPs archieved, which can be rewritten as a stories too.. I still thinking about it. I already had experience in writing, but I wasn't sure where it could be posted.. O-okay, I got carried away..

This is based on one of the outfits that my former friend chose for Soul. Since he made his “art” in Gacha Life, he often chose different clothes every time. ..To be honest, it drove me crazy, because in the end I didn't know which outfit to rely on when I drew them and what is now the canon in his version of Soul (Tamashi), almost every time the details were different.. In fact, I decided to draw Soul in this outfit because he liked this? .. At least it seemed to me. It was.. interesting experience.

It was a moment when I realized that I would like to come up with an appearance for Corrupt that would compared to Soul's, but so far just horns and tail, ignoring the wings that a former friend added to their appearance. Of course, a more edgy style, unlike Soul's relatively smooth ones. This is where AU start to exist, but without official name yet. I can’t remember where the idea for a scarf and gloves came to me.. It is unlikely that it came from the RPs.. Most likely I just wanted to add more individuality, adding details than to make completely different clothes (already had enough Tamashi's clothes that had more and more details every time..)

It was my aswer to his gacha recreation of [skittletoc] art in which Soul shows Corrupt middle finger with "F*ck you", but in his interpretation it was "This is why what am I saying~ Fuck you Darling~" It was kinda out of nowhere, but I can see that it's just random thing for lolz, but.. I’ll be honest, Corrupt doesn’t feel funny about that. Therefore, there were two reactions. The one he showed..

..and the true one.

[Really, despite his origin, my version of Corrupt came out quite sensitive and emotional when it comes to those to whom he trusts, craving for mutuality in his feelings. So it's not surprising that this was his original reaction to such an action..]

It was a critical moment. Enough events happened that dismoraled Corrupt so much that even I had to violate the rules of a spatial continuum to simply bring him back to his senses. In theory, this is Soul's work .. .. sigh .. I don't know. It is difficult, I retell the events that took place due to the actions mostly of the person and not the character whom he roleplayed, is this even correct? In other hand.. This is the past that already made. I can't rewrite it, it all left a mark on us, remained in the form of arts and stories. In general, AU about these two together, having special bond, while a friend with whom we created it constantly makes some kind of nonsense aimost all the time. As, for example, through role-playing actions Soul suddenly acts around Corrupt as if the latter is something despised, although they seem to have romance already, as he said? This really created a bunch of misunderstandings and resentments. It can be imagined that at first Soul treated Corrupt with hostility and don't likes him, for a reason, but I can’t imagine him being so vile as to make him to believe that there is something between them, and then brutally reject, playing with feelings. No it's not like him at all.. [I think I still personally cannot get rid of resentment because of many things that have happened. Remembering them, I go through it again. ..I hope that this will help me bury some bad memories, and then I can create new, and better one for this AU. Albeit alone..]

I can continue here.. but probably I'll divide it into a few more posts.. ..because I'm too generous with details and comments.. ..It can take me away into more of my memories and experiences, and there is a particularly cruel moment ahead that I cannot forget. We haven't reached that yet, but I don't think that I can say only a few words about it. Like now.

So it's better to go through it measuredly.. It resonates with my emotions too much.

[giomagnetism]

Handing you Spencer prompts on a platter. 🤥🍟🙈🌙👖🌪️ (That one's real fun) and 🖍️

emoji prompts

🤥 LYING — are they good liars? do they have tells to show they're lying?

First I have to draw a distinction here, with outright lies vs. partial or carefully-phrased truths. The former Spencer almost never does, not so much as a matter of principle as a matter of dislike. She's blunt to the point of insult and prides herself on that; she is not going to mince words, and if you think she'd be the type, she takes it as a personal insult. This you have to understand about Spencer: if you don't like her, those straightforward and flat and reserved mannerisms, that is a you problem. Full stop. She's shit at outright lies; most of the time she doesn't know where to begin fabricating them. She stammers and fidgets and glances around too much. Her favored method is remaining silent, and usually let some other person do the talking.

(Exception granted if she's trolling. Then she's just fine at making stuff up.)

The latter she's much better at, and in fact get used for the sake of surviving. Spencer has kept a lot of secrets over the years, things she just doesn't want folks knowing. It is much easier to divert their attention by telling them just enough about what they want to know and nothing more, or convincing them that they don't have, or want, to know the answer. If you know her well enough, you can catch these in the way her talk and temper get shorter—if given the chance, she will otherwise like to answer in excruciating detail—but no one knows her that well, by her own design. Nobody gets close enough to figure out the flaws in her story.

🍟 FRIES — do they order food often? or they prefer to cook their own food?

Both! Uh. That is, cooking is a skill she gets exponentially better at over time, and she's also the "we have food at home" type. Unlike Shiloh, she doesn't like squandering her cash on takeout, but she isn't very good at it initially—and combined with the fact that she almost never has the energy to cook, most of what she makes are frozen foods or two-step recipes. Given the time, energy, and training, Spencer really loves to cook. I mean, she's kind of infamous for cooking on shift with stinger pots and fire-starters—no point in letting all that Salmonid meat go to waste.

Yet more often than not she does end up with takeout, maybe a sit-down restaurant if the payout's alright. As mentioned, at one point Shiloh and her make a tradition of buying each other dinner after a shift, which... they do a lot of runs, you know.

🙈 SEE NO EVIL — what's a side of your oc that they don't want to show other people?

That's, tricky. It isn't really a matter of different facets so much as a matter of depth. Spencer doesn't vary much—most everyone's going to know the same hard personality traits, the same unromantic attitude. The one distinction you could draw would lie in the fact that she's much rougher on-shift; admittedly, it is an outlet she doesn't want anyone from her ordinary life learning about, but not just because of the difference in personality. It's more about the independence (although Spencer's so much more neutral off-shift that it'd come as a shock to most of her coworkers).

However, there're plenty of smaller things that Spencer doesn't want anyone knowing, and a fair number of them recontextualize the person she is and why. Those are the things masked by depth, stuff that—even if she wanted to tell—she's kept to herself for so long that she just can't fathom what another person would do with it. Spencer was an isolated kid, and it takes her a very long time to grow out of it.

🌙 MOON — what is your oc's greatest wish? how far are they willing to go for it?

She doesn't have one. Wishing implies hope, implies a desire for change. She's fine with her lot in life, she swears; that can't be so hard to believe.

👖 JEANS — what is their go-to outfit?

Her default in-game gear's the full-moon glasses, white layered LS, and red & black squidkid! Spencer was designed with a pretty plain fashion sense—layered shirts, torn jeans, sneakers, that kind of thing. Kinda like, skater girl stuff. For the period during [CLEARANCE REQUIRED] she defaults to shorts and whatever random shirt or tank top she grabs first.

🌪️ TORNADO — what is the biggest change you've ever made to them? how have they changed from their original version?

I have unfortunate news and that's that the answer to this one's major spoilers. But, it still wasn't actually a significant change: Spencer has stuck as near to her original impulse as development's allowed. Her premise and character had a lot of built-in flexibility, and I liked her in the first place because I could take off and run in whichever direction I wanted. Not to mention that I made her not even six months ago—although I doubt she'll ever change as much as Marlo did over time (benefits of being a better writer this time around) it took much longer than that for any significant changes to emerge for them! If you want a meaty answer for this one, ask about them, lmao.

🖍️ CRAYON — what advice would you give to them?

Life's longer than you think it is.

[venusstadt]

Black Women And Black LGBTQ+ Lives Matter, Too.

(DISCLAIMER: This article was originally published 6/12/20 on Medium.com, prior to the creation of venustadt.com. As such, my opinions may or may not have altered since the text below was originally written. This article has been re-published here to track my growth as a writer.)

George Floyd was murdered May 25 in Minneapolis. His murderers were Tou Thao, who jeered at concerned bystanders; Thomas Lane and J. Alexander Keung, who helped restrain him, though he was already in handcuffs; and Derek Chauvin, who knelt on Floyd’s neck for eight minutes and 46 seconds, despite Floyd’s pleas for breath.

Since then, unprecedented protests have emerged in all 50 states and even places as far as the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and France. Protestors of all races, religions, and ages experiencing police brutality firsthand, being exposed to teargas and losing eyes to rubber bullets. Online, people are signing petitions, circulating and donating to bail funds, and calling on brands and influencers to use their platform to speak up about black lives. And, though it may be too early to tell, we may be on the verge of revolutionary change: statues and other symbols of white supremacy and oppression are being destroyed all over the world, and with calls to defund the police, the concept of police abolition is entering the public sphere. Minneapolis City Council announced their plan to vote on disbanding their police force June 9. 

While some less astute observers may think that George Floyd’s death was the sole catalyst for these fervent protests, it was, in reality, the final straw. Just weeks prior, the murder of Ahmaud Arbery by Gregory and Travis McMichael drew national attention when the video of Arbery’s death went viral, drawing comparisons to Trayvon Martin’s 2012 death. Floyd himself joins a long list of black men and boys murdered by law enforcement, such as Philando Castile, Mike Brown and Eric Garner, who also died of asphyxiation in 2014. These names, and many more, have been rightfully plastered on posters and chanted at protests. 

Other names, however, aren’t drawing enough attention. Officers killed Breonna Taylor as she slept in her home on March 13. Though her death has led to Louisville’s banning of no-knock warrants, no arrests have been made, leading many to feel as if her case has taken a backseat to other police brutality victims. Likewise, the name of Tony McDade, a black trans man killed by police just two days after George Floyd, has so far been left out of wider media coverage. 

Though black women and girls are statistically killed less by law enforcement than black men--2.4 to 5.4 in 100,000 versus 1 in 1,000 for the latter, according to the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences--it is still important for those killed by police to receive justice. Consider the deaths of Sandra Bland and Aiyana Jones, or the gender- and race-based sexual violence perpetrated against the 13 victims of former officer Daniel Holtzclaw, who, according to Buzzfeed News, “deliberately chose women he thought were unlikely to be believed -- black women with criminal records from an impoverished neighborhood.” 

Unfortunately, there seem to be no specific statistics addressing interactions between black LGBTQ persons and law enforcement. However, it is worth noting that the 1969 Stonewall riots, often dubbed the first Pride, came about due to months of police violence against the LGBTQ community, culminating in the police raid of Stonewall Inn. A year later, similar protests broke out in LA after the death of black trans sex worker Laverne Turner. With the intersecting identities of blackness and queerness, it’s not a stretch to believe that black LGBTQ persons face unique challenges when it comes to police violence and navigating the judicial system. 

It’s intersecting identities like these -- blackness and girlhood/womanhood, blackness and queerness, sometimes all three -- that explain why violence against black women and black LGBTQ persons is often overlooked. These two groups are a minority within a minority, and the black community, like any community, has a long way to go in terms of misogyny and homophobia/transphobia (see the reactions to Gayle King’s Lisa Leslie interview or Zaya Wade coming out as trans). 

Recently, amid the George Floyd protests, black trans woman Iyanna Dior was verbally and physically assaulted by around 30 cis black men (and some cis black women) in a Minnesota convenience store. Around the same time, black women on Twitter held honest discussions about rape and childhood sexual assault, only to be met with backlash and crude jokes. One user even accused the women of trying to divide black people during a critical time. 

There lies another tissue. Black LGBTQ persons and black women are often forced to choose between their identities, even though these identities often combine to create a unique experience of oppression. Look no further than the recent insistence that black gay people are “black before they are gay,” or, as stated previously, the accusation that black women discussing their assault divides the race.

I’m not arguing that we shouldn’t focus on the deaths of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and other black men who have been made victims of police brutality. In a world where many more victims are silenced due to the lack of video evidence, we must amplify Floyd and Arbery’s stories so that they may receive justice. But as we fight for black men and boys, we must also remember the Breonna Taylors, the Tony McDades and victims of intracommunity violence like Iyanna Dior to reach the ultimate goal of black liberation. 

All lives don’t matter until black lives matter. Likewise, black lives won’t matter until all black lives -- black women’s lives, black trans lives, black gay lives -- matter as well.

[missmayhemvr]

you know this is why a lot of people were down with the idea of drawing your own conclusions about research, a particular researcher can take  literally any set of information and frame/draw conclusions from that because they were never doing the research just to figure out if something is a thing, but rather working backwards from their conclusion.

another one of these is the rat drug experiment and the research of black people being more likely to have diabetes or indigenous people being more likely to become alcoholics. cause none of those studies or experiments say what people think they say, but due to the framing for the research for the latter two and the working backwards from the conclusion and thus building the experiment to have the desired outcome of the former one, we take a bunch of things as a given and in a lot of ways due causal eugenics in our day to day lives.

the study op is talking about would result in a similar way of casual dismissal of issues pertaining to being autistic or when autistic people speak on issues  concerning other people like the prior ones i brought of. allowing autistic people to be shut out of conversations across the board on grounds that their autism prevents them from judging things clearly as they have an over investment in their own personal moral code. this kinda thing becoming widely “known” could literally prevent autistic people from holding jobs in research, law, and other fields that are very important that autistic people are in, as they will be affected by said fields.

none of this is to say that researchers are all going out of their way to produce bad research. It is more often how op said, however their are more than enough people in high places working backwards from their conclusions, so its important that when you see “study confirms x narrative about y group” you read into it with some skepticism and always consider sample sizes and methodology. too many people see a headline about a study or experiment and accept it as universal law. 

There has been a lot of research about autistics over the years, but this one really took the cake!

This is what happened when researchers attempted to compare the moral compass of autistic and non-autistic people…

[mcswoon]

It's not often they get to stay at a real inn as opposed to staying in tents in the woods. He didn't mind the latter, but the former meant they got to bathe off days of grime with proper soap. Meant they could have some hot food that wasn't beans. Meant they were sleeping in beds rather than on rolls. It was a luxury that they weren't going to lose out on taking advantage of. Now of course there'd been some hissing between him and Cletus about where McDoon was spending the night, but he made it clear with a few direct words that he wasn't missing out on a bed with Kate.

It was complicated. This little group they had going for them. Kate and Cletus hated each other while McDoon didn't mind either of their presence. It sure got tenser when he and @femraged started rolling around in her tent, but McDoon wasn't going to ask about it. He knew it would turn into a whole thing with Cletus. He'd much rather just go with the fights and frustrations the man would thrust onto him. He could take it all out on Kate later when the two of them got tangled up.

Which is exactly what the two of them wound up doing the moment the door to their room was closed. Kate grabbing him by the front of the shirt and slamming her back into the nearest wall. They kissed for what felt like ages before their clothes were going-- layers shedding and hitting the floor in piles. A bath had already been prepared for them. The place they chose in this vast city being more luxurious than their other options, but they'd recently come into some money. It was what they deserved.

Their first stop was that tub, McDoon climbing into it to get settled only for Kate to follow suit. She slipped into the tub, a knee settling onto either side of McDoon's lap. Her hands sliding up his chest and moving to lock behind his neck as she lowers to press herself to his lap. It wasn't out of intimacy, but of comfort. Relaxing her frame and leaning forward to push their foreheads together, ❛ i've been waiting for this all day. ❜

Her words bring a soft chuckle from his chest, his own hands having moved away from the tub in order to slide up her sides. He settles them after a stroke, resting them on her hips under the water. His eyes are shut, taking in the moment and the closeness. The calm. They rarely had that in the midst of everything, but getting it and taking it in with her? That was more intimate than rolling around in the sheets. Maybe domestic too. Perhaps that's why Cletus was getting more annoyed with it. McDoon just wasn't himself in some ways around Kate. This? Letting his guard down for even a second, gunbelt hanging from a chair nearby... it hadn't been him even a year ago.

"The bath or the time?" He murmurs in asking, drawing his head back so he can open his hues and look at her, "Because I wasn't thinkin' too much about wipin' away the grime as I was gettin' my hands on ya, ma'am." He chuckles again, thumbs stroking her hips, "Moment I knew we were settling here I knew I'd be insatiable until we were alone."

[atticnotebook]

"The Poet" by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Those who are esteemed umpires of taste, are often persons who have acquired some knowledge of admired pictures or sculptures, and have an inclination for whatever is elegant; but if you inquire whether they are beautiful souls, and whether their own acts are like fair pictures, you learn that they are selfish and sensual. Their cultivation is local, as if you should rub a log of dry wood in one spot to produce fire, all the rest remaining cold. Their knowledge of the fine arts is some study of rules and particulars, or some limited judgment of color or form which is exercised for amusement or for show. It is a proof of the shallowness of the doctrine of beauty, as it lies in the minds of our amateurs, that men seem to have lost the perception of the instant dependence of form upon soul. There is no doctrine of forms in our philosophy. We were put into our bodies, as fire is put into a pan, to be carried about; but there is no accurate adjustment between the spirit and the organ, much less is the latter the germination of the former. So in regard to other forms, the intellectual men do not believe in any essential dependence of the material world on thought and volition. Theologians think it a pretty air-castle to talk of the spiritual meaning of a ship or a cloud, of a city or a contract, but they prefer to come again to the solid ground of historical evidence; and even the poets are contented with a civil and conformed manner of living, and to write poems from the fancy, at a safe distance from their own experience. But the highest minds of the world have never ceased to explore the double meaning, or, shall I say, the quadruple, or the centuple, or much more manifold meaning, of every sensuous fact: Orpheus, Empedocles, Heraclitus, Plato, Plutarch, Dante, Swedenborg, and the masters of sculpture, picture, and poetry. For we are not pans and barrows, nor even porters of the fire and torch-bearers, but children of the fire, made of it, and only the same divinity transmuted, and at two or three removes, when we know least about it. And this hidden truth, that the fountains whence all this river of Time, and its creatures, floweth, are intrinsically ideal and beautiful, draws us to the consideration of the nature and functions of the Poet, or the man of Beauty, to the means and materials he uses, and to the general aspect of the art in the present time.

The breadth of the problem is great, for the poet is representative. He stands among partial men for the complete man, and apprises us not of his wealth, but of the commonwealth. The young man reveres men of genius, because, to speak truly, they are more himself than he is. They receive of the soul as he also receives, but they more. Nature enhances her beauty to the eye of loving men, from their belief that the poet is beholding her shows at the same time. He is isolated among his contemporaries, by truth and by his art, but with this consolation in his pursuits, that they will draw all men sooner or later. For all men live by truth, and stand in need of expression. In love, in art, in avarice, in politics, in labor, in games, we study to utter our painful secret. The man is only half himself, the other half is his expression.

Notwithstanding this necessity to be published, adequate expression is rare. I know not how it is that we need an interpreter; but the great majority of men seem to be minors, who have not yet come into possession of their own, or mutes, who cannot report the conversation they have had with nature. There is no man who does not anticipate a supersensual utility in the sun, and stars, earth, and water. These stand and wait to render him a peculiar service. But there is some obstruction, or some excess of phlegm in our constitution, which does not suffer them to yield the due effect. Too feeble fall the impressions of nature on us to make us artists. Every touch should thrill. Every man should be so much an artist, that he could report in conversation what had befallen him. Yet, in our experience, the rays or appulses have sufficient force to arrive at the senses, but not enough to reach the quick, and compel the reproduction of themselves in speech. The poet is the person in whom these powers are in balance, the man without impediment, who sees and handles that which others dream of, traverses the whole scale of experience, and is representative of man, in virtue of being the largest power to receive and to impart.

For the Universe has three children, born at one time, which reappear, under different names, in every system of thought, whether they be called cause, operation, and effect; or, more poetically, Jove, Pluto, Neptune; or, theologically, the Father, the Spirit. and the Son; but which we will call here, the Knower, the Doer, and the Sayer. These stand respectively for the love of truth, for the love of good, and for the love of beauty. These three are equal. Each is that which he is essentially, so that he cannot be surmounted or analyzed, and each of these three has the power of the others latent in him, and his own patent.

The poet is the sayer, the namer, and represents beauty. He is a sovereign, and stands on the centre. For the world is not painted, or adorned, but is from the beginning beautiful; and God has not made some beautiful things, but Beauty is the creator of the universe. Therefore the poet is not any permissive potentate, but is emperor in his own right. Criticism is infested with a cant of materialism, which assumes that manual skill and activity is the first merit of all men, and disparages such as say and do not, overlooking the fact, that some men, namely, poets, are natural sayers, sent into the world to the end of expression, and confounds them with those whose province is action, but who quit it to imitate the sayers. But Homer's words are as costly and admirable to Homer, as Agamemnon's victories are to Agamemnon. The poet does not wait for the hero or the sage, but, as they act and think primarily, so he writes primarily what will and must be spoken, reckoning the others, though primaries also, yet, in respect to him, secondaries and servants; as sitters or models in the studio of a painter, or as assistants who bring building materials to an architect.

For poetry was all written before time was, and whenever we are so finely organized that we can penetrate into that region where the air is music, we hear those primal warblings, and attempt to write them down, but we lose ever and anon a word, or a verse, and substitute something of our own, and thus miswrite the poem. The men of more delicate ear write down these cadences more faithfully, and these transcripts, though imperfect, become the songs of the nations. For nature is as truly beautiful as it is good, or as it is reasonable, and must as much appear, as it must be done, or be known. Words and deeds are quite indifferent modes of the divine energy. Words are also actions, and actions are a kind of words.

The sign and credentials of the poet are, that he announces that which no man foretold. He is the true and only doctor; he knows and tells; he is the only teller of news, for he was present and privy to the appearance which he describes. He is a beholder of ideas, and utterer of the necessary and casual. For we do not speak now of men of poetical talents, or of industry and skill in metre, but of the true poet. I took part in a conversation the other day, concerning a recent writer of lyrics, a man of subtle mind, whose head appeared to be a music-box of delicate tunes and rhythms, and whose skill, and command of language, we could not sufficiently praise. But when the question arose, whether he was not only a Iyrist, but a poet, we were obliged to confess that he is plainly a contemporary, not an eternal man. He does not stand out of our low limitations, like a Chimborazo under the line, running up from the torrid base through all the climates of the globe, with belts of the herbage of every latitude on its high and mottled sides; but this genius is the landscape-garden of a modern house, adorned with fountains and statues, with well-bred men and women standing and sitting in the walks and terraces. We hear, through all the varied music, the ground-tone of conventional life. Our poets are men of talents who sing, and not the children of music. The argument is secondary, the finish of the verses is primary.

For it is not metres, but a metre-making argument, that makes a poem,--a thought so passionate and alive, that, like the spirit of a plant or an animal, it has architecture of its own, and adorns nature with a new thing. The thought and the form are equal in the order of time, but in the order of genesis the thought is prior to the form. The poet has a new thought: he has a whole new experience to unfold; he will tell us how it was with him, and all men will be the richer in his fortune. For, the experience of each new age requires a new confession, and the world seems always waiting for its poet. I remember, when I was young, how much I was moved one morning by tidings that genius had appeared in a youth who sat near me at table. He had left his work, and gone rambling none knew whither, and had written hundreds of lines, but could not tell whether that which was in him was therein told: he could tell nothing but that all was changed,--man, beast, heaven, earth, and sea. How gladly we listened! how credulous! Society seemed to be compromised. We sat in the aurora of a sunrise which was to put out all the stars. Boston seemed to be at twice the distance it had the night before, or was much farther than that. Rome,--what was Rome? Plutarch and Shakspeare were in the yellow leaf, and Homer no more should be heard of. It is much to know that poetry has been written this very day, under this very roof, by your side. What! that wonderful spirit has not expired! these stony moments are still sparkling and animated! I had fancied that the oracles were all silent, and nature had spent her fires, and behold! all night, from every pore, these fine auroras have been streaming. Every one has some interest in the advent of the poet, and no one knows how much it may concern him. We know that the secret of the world is profound, but who or what shall be our interpreter, we know not. A mountain ramble, a new style of face, a new person, may put the key into our hands. Of course, the value of genius to us is in the veracity of its report. Talent may frolic and juggle; genius realizes and adds. Mankind, in good earnest, have arrived so far in understanding themselves and their work, that the foremost watchman on the peak announces his news. It is the truest word ever spoken and the phrase will be the fittest, most musical, and the unerring voice of the world for that time.

All that we call sacred history attests that the birth of a poet is the principal even in chronology. Man, never so often deceived, still watches for the arrival of a brother who can hold him steady to a truth, until he has made it his own. With what joy I begin to read a poem, which I confide in as an inspiration! And now my chains are to be broken; I shall mount about these clouds and opaque airs in which I live,--opaque, though they seem transparent,--and from the heaven of truth I shall see and comprehend my relations. That will reconcile me to life, and renovate nature, to see trifles animated by a tendency, and to know what I am doing. Life will no more be a noise; now I shall see men and women, and know the signs by which they may be discerned from fools and satans. This day shall be better than my birthday; then I became an animal: now I am invited into the science of the real. Such is the hope, but the fruition is postponed. Oftener it falls, that this winged man, who will carry me into the heaven, whirls me into mists, then leaps and frisks about with me as it were from cloud to cloud, still affirming that he is bound heavenward; and I being myself a novice, am slow in perceiving that he does not know the way into the heavens, and is merely bent that I should admire his skill to rise, like a fowl or a flying fish, a little way from the ground or the water; but the all-piercing, all-feeding, and ocular air of heaven, that man shall never inhabit. I tumble down again soon into my old nooks, and lead the life of exaggerations as before, and have lost some faith in the possibility of any guide who can lead me thither where I would be.

But leaving these victims of vanity, let us, with new hope, observe how nature, by worthier impulses, has ensured the poet's fidelity to his office of announcement and affirming, namely, by the beauty of things, which becomes a new, and higher beauty, when expressed. Nature offers all her creatures to him as a picture-language. Being used as a type, a second wonderful value appears in the object, far better than its old value, as the carpenter' s stretched cord, if you hold your ear close enough, is musical in the breeze. "Things more excellent than every image," says Jamblichus, "are expressed through images." Things admit of being used as symbols, because nature is a symbol, in the whole, and in every part. Every line we can draw in the sand, has expression; and there is no body without its spirit or genius. All form is an effect of character; all condition, of the quality of the life; all harmony, of health; (and, for this reason, a perception of beauty should be sympathetic, or proper only to the good.) The beautiful rests on the foundations of the necessary. The soul makes the body, as the wise Spenser teaches:--

"So every spirit, as it is most pure, And hath in it the more of heavenly light, So it the fairer body doth procure To habit in, and it more fairly dight, With cheerful grace and amiable sight For, of the soul, the body form doth take. For soul is form, and doth the body make."'

Here we find ourselves, suddenly, not in a critical speculation, but in a holy place, and should go very warily and reverently. We stand before the secret of the world, there where Being passes into Appearance, and Unity into Variety.

The Universe is the externization of the soul. Wherever the life is, that bursts into appearance around it. Our science is sensual, and therefore superficial. The earth, and the heavenly bodies, physics, and chemistry, we sensually treat, as if they were self-existent; but these are the retinue of that Being we have. "The mighty heaven," said Proclus,"exhibits, in its transfigurations, clear images of the splendor of intellectual perceptions; being moved in conjunction with the un- apparent periods of intellectual natures." Therefore, science always goes abreast with the just elevation of the man, keeping step with religion and metaphysics; or, the state of science is an index of our self-knowledge. Since everything in nature answers to a moral power, if any phenomenon remains brute and dark, it is because the corresponding faculty in the observer is not yet active.

No wonder, then, if these waters be so deep, that we hover over them with a religious regard. The beauty of the fable proves the importance of the sense; to the poet, and to all others; or, if you please, every man is so far a poet as to be susceptible of these enchantments of nature; for all men have the thoughts whereof the universe is the celebration. I find that the fascination resides in the symbol. Who loves nature? Who does not? Is it only poets, and men of leisure and cultivation, who live with her? No; but also hunters, farmers, grooms, and butchers, though they express their affection in their choice of life, and not in their choice of words. The writer wonders what the coachman or the hunter values in riding, in horses, and dogs. It is not superficial qualities. When you talk with him, he holds these at as slight a rate as you. His worship is sympathetic; he has no definitions, but he is commanded in nature, by the living power which he feels to be there present. No imitation, or playing of these things, would content him; he loves the earnest of the north wind, of rain, of stone, and wood, and iron. A beauty not explicable, is dearer than a beauty which we can see to the end of. It is nature the symbol, nature certifying the supernatural, body overflowed by life, which he worships, with coarse, but sincere rites.

The inwardness, and mystery, of this attachment, drive men of every class to the use of emblems. The schools of poets, and philosophers, are not more intoxicated with their symbols, than the populace with theirs. In our political parties, compute the power of badges and emblems. See the huge wooden ball rolled by successive ardent crowds from Baltimore to Bunker hill! In the political processions, Lowell goes in a loom, and Lynn in a shoe, and Salem in a ship.' Witness the cider-barrel, the log-cabin, the hickory-stick, the palmetto, and all the cognizances of party. See the power of national emblems. Some stars, lilies, leopards, a crescent, a lion, an eagle, or other figure, which came into credit God knows how, on an old rag of bunting, blowing in the wind, on a fort, at the ends of the earth, shall make the blood tingle under the rudest, or the most conventional exterior. The people fancy they hate poetry, and they are all poets and mystics!

Beyond this universality of the symbolic language, we are apprised of the divineness of this superior use of things, whereby the world is a temple, whose walls are covered with emblems, pictures, and commandments of the Deity, in this, that there is no fact in nature which does not carry the whole sense of nature; and the distinctions which we make in events, and in affairs, of low and high, honest and base, disappear when nature is used as a symbol. Thought makes everything fit for use. The vocabulary of an omniscient man would embrace words and images excluded from polite conversation. What would be base, or even obscene, to the obscene, becomes illustrious, spoken in a new connexion of thought. The piety of the Hebrew prophets purges their grossness. The circumcision is an example of the power of poetry to raise the low and offensive. Small and mean things serve as well as great symbols. The meaner the type by which a law is expressed, the more pungent it is, and the more lasting in the memories of men: just as we choose the smallest box, or case, in which any needful utensil can be carried. Bare lists of words are found suggestive, to an imaginative and excited mind; as it is related of Lord Chatham, that he was accustomed to read in Bailey's Dictionary, when he was preparing to speak in Parliament. The poorest experience is rich enough for all the purposes of expressing thought. Why covet knowledge of new facts? Day and night, house and garden, a few books, a few actions, serve us as well as would all trades and all spectacles. We are far from having exhausted the significance of the few symbols we use. We can come to use them yet with a terrible simplicity. It does not need that a poem should be long. Every word was once a poem. Every new relation is a new word. Also, we use defects and deformities to a sacred purpose, so expressing our sense that the evils of the world are such only to the evil eye. In the old mythology, mythologists observe, defects are ascribed to divine natures, as lameness to Vulcan, blindness to Cupid, and the like, to signify exuberances.

For, as it is dislocation and detachment from the life of God, that makes things ugly, the poet, who re-attaches things to nature and the Whole,--and re-attaching even artificial things, and violations of nature, to nature, by a deeper insight,-- disposes very easily of the most disagreeable facts. Readers of poetry see the factory-village, and the railway, and fancy that the poetry of the landscape is broken up by these. for these works of art are not yet consecrated in their reading; but the poet sees them fall within the great Order not less than the bee-hive, or the spider's geometrical web. Nature adopts them very fast into her vital circles, and the gliding train of cars she loves like her own. Besides, in a centred mind, it signifies nothing how many mechanical inventions you exhibit. Though you add millions, and never so surprising, the fact of mechanics has not gained a grain's weight. The spiritual fact remains unalterable, by many or by few particulars; as no mountain is of any appreciable height to break the curve of the sphere. A shrewd country-boy goes to the city for the first time, and the complacent citizen is not satisfied with his little wonder. It is not that he does not see all the fine houses, and know that he never saw such before, but he disposes of them as easily as the poet finds place for the railway. The chief value of the new fact, is to enhance the great and constant fact of Life, which can dwarf any and every circumstance, and to which the belt of wampum, and the commerce of America, are alike.

The world being thus put under the mind for verb and noun, the poet is he who can articulate it. For, though life is great, and fascinates, and absorbs,--and though all men are intelligent of the symbols through which it is named,--yet they cannot originally use them. We are symbols, and inhabit symbols; workmen, work, and tools, words and things, birth and death, all are emblems, but we sympathize with the symbols, and, being infatuated with the economical uses of things, we do not know that they are thoughts. The poet, by an ulterior intellectual perception, gives them power which makes their old use forgotten, and puts eyes, and a tongue, into every dumb and inanimate object. He perceives the thought's independence of the symbol, the stability of the thought, the accidency and fugacity of the symbol. As the eyes of Lyncaeus were said to see through the earth, so the poet turns the world to glass, and shows us all things in their right series and procession. For, through that better perception, he stands one step nearer to things, and sees the flowing or metamorphosis; perceives that thought is multiform- that within the form of every creature is a force impelling it to ascend into a higher form; and, following with his eyes the life, uses the forms which express that life, and so his speech flows with the flowing of nature. All the facts of the animal economy,--sex, nutriment, gestation, birth, growth--are symbols of the passage of the world into the soul of man, to suffer there a change, and reappear a new and higher fact. He uses forms according to the life, and not according to the form. This is true science. The poet alone knows astronomy, chemistry, vegetation, and animation, for he does not stop at these facts, but employs them as signs. He knows why the plain, or meadow of space, was strown with these flowers we call suns, and moons, and stars; why the great deep is adorned with animals, with men, and gods; for, in every word he speaks he rides on them as the horses of thought.

By virtue of this science the poet is the Namer, or Language-maker, naming things sometimes after their appearance, sometimes after their essence, and giving to every one its own name and not another's, thereby rejoicing the intellect, which delights in detachment or boundary. The poets made all the words, and therefore language is the archives of history, and, if we must say it, a sort of tomb of the muses For, though the origin of most of our words is forgotten, each word was at a stroke of genius, and obtained currency, because for the moment it symbolizes the world to the first speaker and to the hearer. The etymologist finds the deadest word to have been once a brilliant picture. Language is fossil poetry. As the limestone of the continent consists of infinite masses of the shells of animalcules, so language is made up of images, or tropes, which now, in their secondary use, have long ceased to remind us of their poetic origin. But the poet names the thing because he sees it, or comes one step nearer to it than any other. This expression, or naming, is not art, but a second nature, grown out of the first, as a leaf out of a tree. What we call nature, is a certain self-regulated motion, or change; and nature does all things by her own hands, and does not leave another to baptise her, but baptises herself; and this through the metamorphosis again. I remember that a certain poet described it to me thus:

Genius is the activity which repairs the decay of things, whether wholly or partly of a material and finite kind. Nature, through all her kingdoms, insures herself. Nobody cares for planting the poor fungus: so she shakes down from the gills of one agaric countless spores, any one of which, being preserved, transmits new billions of spores to-morrow or next day. The new agaric of this hour has a chance which the old one had not. This atom of seed is thrown into a new place, not subject to the accidents which destroyed its parent two rods off. She makes a man; and having brought him to ripe age, she will no longer run the risk of losing this wonder at a blow, but she detaches from him a new self, that the kind may be safe from accidents to which the individual is exposed. So when the soul of the poet has come to ripeness of thought, she detaches and sends away from it its poems or songs, -- a fearless, sleepless, deathless progeny, which is not exposed to the accidents of the weary kingdom of time: a fearless, vivacious offspring, clad with wings (such was the virtue of the soul out of which they came), which carry them fast and far, and infix them irrecoverably into the hearts of men. These wings are the beauty of the poet's soul. The songs, thus flying immortal from their mortal parent, are pursued by clamorous flights of censures, which swarm in far greater numbers, and threaten to devour them; but these last are not winged. At the end of a very short leap they fall plump down, and rot, having received from the souls out of which they came no beautiful wings. But the melodies of the poet ascend, and leap, and pierce into the deeps of infinite time.

So far the bard taught me, using his freer speech. But nature has a higher end, in the production of new individuals, than security, namely, ascension, or, the passage of the soul into higher forms. I knew, in my younger days, the sculptor who made the statue of the youth which stands in the public garden. He was, as I remember, unable to tell directly, what made him happy, or unhappy, but by wonderful indirections he could tell. He rose one day, according to his habit, before the dawn, and saw the morning break, grand as the eternity out of which it came, and, for many days after, he strove to express this tranquillity, and, lo! his chisel had fashioned out of marble the form of a beautiful youth, Phosphorus, whose aspect is such, that, it is said, all persons who look on it become silent. The poet also resigns himself to his mood, and that thought which agitated him is expressed, but alter idem, in a manner totally new. The expression is organic, or, the new type which things themselves take when liberated. As, in the sun, objects paint their images on the retina of the eye, so they, sharing the aspiration of the whole universe, tend to paint a far more delicate copy of their essence in his mind. Like the metamorphosis of things into higher organic forms, is their change into melodies. Over everything stands its daemon, or soul, and, as the form of the thing is reflected by the eye, so the soul of the thing is reflected by a melody. The sea, the mountain-ridge, Niagara, and every flower-bed, pre-exist, or super-exist, in pre-cantations, which sail like odors in the air, and when any man goes by with an ear sufficiently fine, he overhears them, and endeavors to write down the notes, without diluting or depraving them. And herein is the legitimation of criticism, in the mind's faith, that the poems are a corrupt version of some text in nature, with which they ought to be made to tally. A rhyme in one of our sonnets should not be less pleasing than the iterated nodes of a sea-shell, or the resembling difference of a group of flowers. The pairing of the birds is an idyl, not tedious as our idyls are; a tempest is a rough ode, without falsehood or rant: a summer, with its harvest sown, reaped, and stored, is an epic song, subordinating how many admirably executed parts. Why should not the symmetry and truth that modulate these, glide into our spirits, and we participate the invention of nature?

This insight, which expresses itself by what is called Imagination, is a very high sort of seeing, which does not come by study, but by the intellect being where and what it sees, by sharing the path, or circuit of things through forms, and so making them translucid to others. The path of things is silent. Will they suffer a speaker to go with them? A spy they will not suffer; a lover, a poet, is the transcendency of their own nature, -- him they will suffer. The condition of true naming, on the poet's part, is his resigning himself to the divine aura which breathes through forms, and accompanying that.

It is a secret which every intellectual man quickly learns, that, beyond the energy of his possessed and conscious intellect, he is capable of a new energy (as of an intellect doubled on itself), by abandonment to the nature of things; that, beside his privacy of power as an individual man, there is a great public power, on which he can draw, by unlocking, at all risks, his human doors, and suffering the ethereal tides to roll and circulate through him: then he is caught up into the life of the Universe, his speech is thunder, his thought is law, and his words are universally intelligible as the plants and animals. The poet knows that he speaks adequately, then, only when he speaks somewhat wildly, or, "with the flower of the mind;" not with the intellect, used as an organ, but with the intellect released from all service, and suffered to take its direction from its celestial life; or, as the ancients were wont to express themselves, not with intellect alone, but with the intellect inebriated by nectar. As the traveller who has lost his way, throws his reins on his horse's neck, and trusts to the instinct of the animal to find his road, so must we do with the divine animal who carries us through this world. For if in any manner we can stimulate this instinct, new passages are opened for us into nature, the mind flows into and through things hardest and highest, and the metamorphosis is possible.

This is the reason why bards love wine, mead, narcotics, coffee, tea, opium, the fumes of sandal-wood and tobacco, or whatever other species of animal exhilaration. All men avail themselves of such means as they can, to add this extraordinary power to their normal powers; and to this end they prize conversation, music, pictures, sculpture, dancing, theatres, travelling, war, mobs, fires, gaming, politics, or love, or science, or animal intoxication, which are several coarser or finer quasi-mechanical substitutes for the true nectar, which is the ravishment of the intellect by coming nearer to the fact. These are auxiliaries to the centrifugal tendency of a man, to his passage out into free space, and they help him to escape the custody of that body in which he is pent up, and of that jail-yard of individual relations in which he is enclosed. Hence a great number of such as were professionally expressors of Beauty, as painters, poets, musicians, and actors, have been more than others wont to lead a life of pleasure and indulgence; all but the few who received the true nectar; and, as it was a spurious mode of attaining freedom, as it was an emancipation not into the heavens, but into the freedom of baser places, they were punished for that advantage they won, by a dissipation and deterioration. But never can any advantage be taken of nature by a trick. The spirit of the world, the great calm presence of the creator, comes not forth to the sorceries of opium or of wine. The sublime vision comes to the pure and simple soul in a clean and chaste body. That is not an inspiration which we owe to narcotics, but some counterfeit excitement and fury. Milton says, that the lyric poet may drink wine and live generously, but the epic poet, he who shall sing of the gods, and their descent unto men, must drink water out of a wooden bowl. For poetry is not 'Devil's wine,' but God's wine. It is with this as it is with toys. We fill the hands and nurseries of our children with all manner of dolls, drums, and horses, withdrawing their eyes from the plain face and sufficing objects of nature, the sun, and moon, the animals, the water, and stones, which should be their toys. So the poet's habit of living should be set on a key so low and plain, that the common influences should delight him. His cheerfulness should be the gift of the sunlight; the air should suffice for his inspiration, and he should be tipsy with water. That spirit which suffices quiet hearts, which seems to come forth to such from every dry knoll of sere grass, from every pine-stump, and half-imbedded stone, on which the dull March sun shines, comes forth to the poor and hungry, and such as are of simple taste. If thou fill thy brain with Boston and New York, with fashion and covetousness, and wilt stimulate thy jaded senses with wine and French coffee, thou shalt find no radiance of wisdom in the lonely waste of the pinewoods.

If the imagination intoxicates the poet, it is not inactive in other men. The metamorphosis excites in the beholder an emotion of joy. The use of symbols has a certain power of emancipation and exhilaration for all men. We seem to be touched by a wand, which makes us dance and run about happily, like children. We are like persons who come out of a cave or cellar into the open air. This is the effect on us of tropes, fables, oracles, and all poetic forms. Poets are thus liberating gods. Men have really got a new sense, and found within their world, another world, or nest of worlds; for, the metamorphosis once seen, we divine that it does not stop. I will not now consider how much this makes the charm of algebra and the mathematics, which also have their tropes, but it is felt in every definition; as, when Aristotle defines space to be an immovable vessel, in which things are contained; -- or, when Plato defines a line to be a flowing point; or, figure to be a bound of solid; and many the like. What a joyful sense of freedom we have, when Vitruvius announces the old opinion of artists, that no architect can build any house well, who does not know something of anatomy. When Socrates, in Charmides, tells us that the soul is cured of its maladies by certain incantations, and that these incantations are beautiful reasons, from which temperance is generated in souls; when Plato calls the world an animal; and Timaeus affirms that the plants also are animals; or affirms a man to be a heavenly tree, growing with his root, which is his head, upward; and, as George Chapman, following him, writes,

"So in our tree of man, whose nervie root Springs in his top;"

when Orpheus speaks of hoariness as "that white flower which marks extreme old age;" when Proclus calls the universe the statue of the intellect; when Chaucer, in his praise of 'Gentilesse,' compares good blood in mean condition to fire, which, though carried to the darkest house betwixt this and the mount of Caucasus, will yet hold its natural office, and burn as bright as if twenty thousand men did it behold; when John saw, in the apocalypse, the ruin of the world through evil, and the stars fall from heaven, as the figtree casteth her untimely fruit; when Aesop reports the whole catalogue of common daily relations through the masquerade of birds and beasts; -- we take the cheerful hint of the immortality of our essence, and its versatile habit and escapes, as when the gypsies say, "it is in vain to hang them, they cannot die."

The poets are thus liberating gods. The ancient British bards had for the title of their order, "Those who are free throughout the world." They are free, and they make free. An imaginative book renders us much more service at first, by stimulating us through its tropes, than afterward, when we arrive at the precise sense of the author. I think nothing is of any value in books, excepting the transcendental and extraordinary. If a man is inflamed and carried away by his thought, to that degree that he forgets the authors and the public, and heeds only this one dream, which holds him like an insanity, let me read his paper, and you may have all the arguments and histories and criticism. All the value which attaches to Pythagoras, Paracelsus, Cornelius Agrippa, Cardan, Kepler, Swedenborg, Schelling, Oken, or any other who introduces questionable facts into his cosmogony, as angels, devils, magic, astrology, palmistry, mesmerism, and so on, is the certificate we have of departure from routine, and that here is a new witness. That also is the best success in conversation, the magic of liberty, which puts the world, like a ball, in our hands. How cheap even the liberty then seems; how mean to study, when an emotion communicates to the intellect the power to sap and upheave nature: how great the perspective! nations, times, systems, enter and disappear, like threads in tapestry of large figure and many colors; dream delivers us to dream, and, while the drunkenness lasts, we will sell our bed, our philosophy, our religion, in our opulence.

There is good reason why we should prize this liberation. The fate of the poor shepherd, who, blinded and lost in the snow-storm, perishes in a drift within a few feet of his cottage door, is an emblem of the state of man. On the brink of the waters of life and truth, we are miserably dying. The inaccessibleness of every thought but that we are in, is wonderful. What if you come near to it, -- you are as remote, when you are nearest, as when you are farthest. Every thought is also a prison; every heaven is also a prison. Therefore we love the poet, the inventor, who in any form, whether in an ode, or in an action, or in looks and behavior, has yielded us a new thought. He unlocks our chains, and admits us to a new scene.

This emancipation is dear to all men, and the power to impart it, as it must come from greater depth and scope of thought, is a measure of intellect. Therefore all books of the imagination endure, all which ascend to that truth, that the writer sees nature beneath him, and uses it as his exponent. Every verse or sentence, possessing this virtue, will take care of its own immortality. The religions of the world are the ejaculations of a few imaginative men.

But the quality of the imagination is to flow, and not to freeze. The poet did not stop at the color, or the form, but read their meaning; neither may he rest in this meaning, but he makes the same objects exponents of his new thought. Here is the difference betwixt the poet and the mystic, that the last nails a symbol to one sense, which was a true sense for a moment, but soon becomes old and false. For all symbols are fluxional; all language is vehicular and transitive, and is good, as ferries and horses are, for conveyance, not as farms and houses are, for homestead. Mysticism consists in the mistake of an accidental and individual symbol for an universal one. The morning-redness happens to be the favorite meteor to the eyes of Jacob Behmen, and comes to stand to him for truth and faith; and he believes should stand for the same realities to every reader. But the first reader prefers as naturally the symbol of a mother and child, or a gardener and his bulb, or a jeweller polishing a gem. Either of these, or of a myriad more, are equally good to the person to whom they are significant. Only they must be held lightly, and be very willingly translated into the equivalent terms which others use. And the mystic must be steadily told, -- All that you say is just as true without the tedious use of that symbol as with it. Let us have a little algebra, instead of this trite rhetoric, -- universal signs, instead of these village symbols, -- and we shall both be gainers. The history of hierarchies seems to show, that all religious error consisted in making the symbol too stark and solid, and, at last, nothing but an excess of the organ of language.

Swedenborg, of all men in the recent ages, stands eminently for the translator of nature into thought. I do not know the man in history to whom things stood so uniformly for words. Before him the metamorphosis continually plays. Everything on which his eye rests, obeys the impulses of moral nature. The figs become grapes whilst he eats them. When some of his angels affirmed a truth, the laurel twig which they held blossomed in their hands. The noise which, at a distance, appeared like gnashing and thumping, on coming nearer was found to be the voice of disputants. The men, in one of his visions, seen in heavenly light, appeared like dragons, and seemed in darkness: but, to each other, they appeared as men, and, when the light from heaven shone into their cabin, they complained of the darkness, and were compelled to shut the window that they might see.

There was this perception in him, which makes the poet or seer, an object of awe and terror, namely, that the same man, or society of men, may wear one aspect to themselves and their companions, and a different aspect to higher intelligences. Certain priests, whom he describes as conversing very learnedly together, appeared to the children, who were at some distance, like dead horses: and many the like misappearances. And instantly the mind inquires, whether these fishes under the bridge, yonder oxen in the pasture, those dogs in the yard, are immutably fishes, oxen, and dogs, or only so appear to me, and perchance to themselves appear upright men; and whether I appear as a man to all eyes. The Bramins and Pythagoras propounded the same question, and if any poet has witnessed the transformation, he doubtless found it in harmony with various experiences. We have all seen changes as considerable in wheat and caterpillars. He is the poet, and shall draw us with love and terror, who sees, through the flowing vest, the firm nature, and can declare it.

I look in vain for the poet whom I describe. We do not, with sufficient plainness, or sufficient profoundness, address ourselves to life, nor dare we chaunt our own times and social circumstance. If we filled the day with bravery, we should not shrink from celebrating it. Time and nature yield us many gifts, but not yet the timely man, the new religion, the reconciler, whom all things await. Dante's praise is, that he dared to write his autobiography in colossal cipher, or into universality. We have yet had no genius in America, with tyrannous eye, which knew the value of our incomparable materials, and saw, in the barbarism and materialism of the times, another carnival of the same gods whose picture he so much admires in Homer; then in the middle age; then in Calvinism. Banks and tariffs, the newspaper and caucus, methodism and unitarianism, are flat and dull to dull people, but rest on the same foundations of wonder as the town of Troy, and the temple of Delphos, and are as swiftly passing away. Our logrolling, our stumps and their politics, our fisheries, our Negroes, and Indians, our boasts, and our repudiations, the wrath of rogues, and the pusillanimity of honest men, the northern trade, the southern planting, the western clearing, Oregon, and Texas, are yet unsung. Yet America is a poem in our eyes; its ample geography dazzles the imagination, and it will not wait long for metres. If I have not found that excellent combination of gifts in my countrymen which I seek, neither could I aid myself to fix the idea of the poet by reading now and then in Chalmers's collection of five centuries of English poets. These are wits, more than poets, though there have been poets among them. But when we adhere to the ideal of the poet, we have our difficulties even with Milton and Homer. Milton is too literary, and Homer too literal and historical.

But I am not wise enough for a national criticism, and must use the old largeness a little longer, to discharge my errand from the muse to the poet concerning his art.

Art is the path of the creator to his work. The paths, or methods, are ideal and eternal, though few men ever see them, not the artist himself for years, or for a lifetime, unless he come into the conditions. The painter, the sculptor, the composer, the epic rhapsodist, the orator, all partake one desire, namely, to express themselves symmetrically and abundantly, not dwarfishly and fragmentarily. They found or put themselves in certain conditions, as, the painter and sculptor before some impressive human figures; the orator, into the assembly of the people; and the others, in such scenes as each has found exciting to his intellect; and each presently feels the new desire. He hears a voice, he sees a beckoning. Then he is apprised, with wonder, what herds of daemons hem him in. He can no more rest; he says, with the old painter, "By God, it is in me, and must go forth of me." He pursues a beauty, half seen, which flies before him. The poet pours out verses in every solitude. Most of the things he says are conventional, no doubt; but by and by he says something which is original and beautiful. That charms him. He would say nothing else but such things. In our way of talking, we say, 'That is yours, this is mine;' but the poet knows well that it is not his; that it is as strange and beautiful to him as to you; he would fain hear the like eloquence at length. Once having tasted this immortal ichor, he cannot have enough of it, and, as an admirable creative power exists in these intellections, it is of the last importance that these things get spoken. What a little of all we know is said! What drops of all the sea of our science are baled up! and by what accident it is that these are exposed, when so many secrets sleep in nature! Hence the necessity of speech and song; hence these throbs and heart-beatings in the orator, at the door of the assembly, to the end, namely, that thought may be ejaculated as Logos, or Word.

Doubt not, O poet, but persist. Say, 'It is in me, and shall out.' Stand there, baulked and dumb, stuttering and stammering, hissed and hooted, stand and strive, until, at last, rage draw out of thee that dream-power which every night shows thee is thine own; a power transcending all limit and privacy, and by virtue of which a man is the conductor of the whole river of electricity. Nothing walks, or creeps, or grows, or exists, which must not in turn arise and walk before him as exponent of his meaning. Comes he to that power, his genius is no longer exhaustible. All the creatures, by pairs and by tribes, pour into his mind as into a Noah's ark, to come forth again to people a new world. This is like the stock of air for our respiration, or for the combustion of our fireplace, not a measure of gallons, but the entire atmosphere if wanted. And therefore the rich poets, as Homer, Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Raphael, have obviously no limits to their works, except the limits of their lifetime, and resemble a mirror carried through the street, ready to render an image of every created thing.

O poet! a new nobility is conferred in groves and pastures, and not in castles, or by the sword-blade, any longer. The conditions are hard, but equal. Thou shalt leave the world, and know the muse only. Thou shalt not know any longer the times, customs, graces, politics, or opinions of men, but shalt take all from the muse. For the time of towns is tolled from the world by funereal chimes, but in nature the universal hours are counted by succeeding tribes of animals and plants, and by growth of joy on joy. God wills also that thou abdicate a manifold and duplex life, and that thou be content that others speak for thee. Others shall be thy gentlemen, and shall represent all courtesy and worldly life for thee; others shall do the great and resounding actions also. Thou shalt lie close hid with nature, and canst not be afforded to the Capitol or the Exchange. The world is full of renunciations and apprenticeships, and this is thine: thou must pass for a fool and a churl for a long season. This is the screen and sheath in which Pan has protected his well-beloved flower, and thou shalt be known only to thine own, and they shall console thee with tenderest love. And thou shalt not be able to rehearse the names of thy friends in thy verse, for an old shame before the holy ideal. And this is the reward: that the ideal shall be real to thee, and the impressions of the actual world shall fall like summer rain, copious, but not troublesome, to thy invulnerable essence. Thou shalt have the whole land for thy park and manor, the sea for thy bath and navigation, without tax and without envy; the woods and the rivers thou shalt own; and thou shalt possess that wherein others are only tenants and boarders. Thou true land-lord! sea-lord! air-lord! Wherever snow falls, or water flows, or birds fly, wherever day and night meet in twilight, wherever the blue heaven is hung by clouds, or sown with stars, wherever are forms with transparent boundaries, wherever are outlets into celestial space, wherever is danger, and awe, and love, there is Beauty, plenteous as rain, shed for thee, and though thou shouldest walk the world over, thou shalt not be able to find a condition inopportune or ignoble.

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Planar Tour Guide: Positive Energy Plane part 2

(art by Nele-Diel at DeviantArt)

Geography

Creation’s Forge, as it’s other name: the Positive Energy Plane, suggests that it is filled with and generates a continuous supernova of positive energy, the very essence of life itself.

Supposedly, the plane was created in the earliest days by drawing the ambient life energy into a concentrated mass like the formation of a star, while also opening up an equal and opposite counterpole of void and entropy: the Negative Energy Plane, in order to counterbalance the one and start the cycle. Whether this is true or not, the natives of the Void don’t like the denizens of the  Furnace very much, while the latter pity the former for reasons the do not share with most mortals.

In any case, the key feature of the plane is the overwhelming amounts of life energy, which as we mentioned yesterday, prove lethal not just to the undead, but also to inadequately-prepared mortals as well, overloading their bodies and bursting them like fireworks.

Those with such protections (and some eye protection for the incredible brightness) find the plane mostly bereft of solid matter. What solid structures do exist are usually islands of crystallized positive energy, where strange plant-like structures grow and thrive in the burning radiance, creating forests of these strange forms of life. Naturally, such an empty expanse has subjective gravity, with those within able to choose to fall in a direction in order to traverse it.

There are, however, structures and some form of civilization to be found on the plane, primarily with it’s guardians, the jyoti. The largest and most well-known of their cities is Arudrellisiir, a city of crystal in the shape of a lattice ring surrounding one of the many star portals linking to a material plane sun, in this case a particularly bright blue-white star. While the city is breathtakingly beautiful, acting like a great refracting kaleidoscope from the light of the central portal, it is also nearly impossible for mortals to visit due to the xenophobia of the jyoti natives.

Mentioned vaguely in only a few esoteric texts, the Dominion of Ksathras is the home of the seven manasaputra kumaras, who use the realm as a place of trial for the souls who find it, offering enlightenment. Because of this, the exact form and terrain of the realm changes at their whims to better suit those who find it. As most who do are not actively seeking alignment, the trials within can often be harrowing in nature.

Another major location is The Garden, an island situated between three jyoti cities, and actually being minor-positive in nature, making it easier on mortals who venture there. Within the garden are massive crystalline flowers, some bright and gleaming, other wilting. The jyoti claim to have planted this garden before the first mortal soul formed, and each flower there represents a mortal soul that ascended to divinity, the health of said flower reflecting that divinity’s status. (Though would-be god-killers will find that harming the flowers does not in turn affect the deity in question). The jyoti tend the garden dutifully, and harvest seeds, pollen, and nectar for divinatory purposes, though rumor has it that such things might have other uses if one could brave the guardians and get ahold of the stuff.

Many adventurers, outsider, and powerful beings sometimes come to Creation’s Forge to negotiate with the jyoti to store or imprison artifacts or creatures within impregnable vaults, and none are more impressive than the Prismatic Vault, with walls and defenses composed of the same multicolored magical barriers as prismatic wall or prismatic sphere. (It’s possible that those spells and similar ones originated on this plane. The Prismatic Vault has many wonders and horrors stored inside, ranging from hundreds of artifacts from across many worlds, as well as at least two liches of mythic power, two fiendish demigods, ant at least one fallen primal inevitable, with rumors of many more such treasures and prisoners as well, all surrounded by such powerful destructive wards and the lethal nature of the plane beyond.

The final listed notable location is perhaps the most grim, and serves as a reminded of what the jyoti and their allies are willing to do to keep the influences of the gods out of their home. The Titan���s Prison is the last remaining trace of an ancient war where at least one deity (now forgotten) led an army of titans to the Furnace to attempt to conquer it, but were soundly defeated, entrapped inside a crystalline prison. Occassionally, massive humanoid shadows are seen beating at the walls from the inside, while sometimes the bodies of danava titans appear impaled on the burning spindles of crystalline positive energy jutting from the globe, burning slowly in the positive energy before being drawn back inside. Sometimes, manasaputra pay the prison a visit, whispering words of forgiveness, but no creature has ever been released or redeemed from within its depths yet.

As we can see, the Positive Energy Plane is a place of primal, overwhelming energy which can leave the visitor aghast as the wonders within, both in awe, and in horror. It is not a place one travels to lightly, for it is hostile both in it’s raw energies, and the distrustful nature of its primary denizens.

Speaking of which, we’ll be taking a closer look at these inhabitants next time!