#the humanity in their books is an unavoidable consequence of being a human writing a book

[thelingering]

quoth:

***A DEFINITION NOT FOUND IN THE DICTIONARY*** Not leaving: an act of trust and love, often deciphered by children

unquoth

This line is just. I'm so perfectly normal about this book

It has profound implications and realisations of the basic human need of humanity at every page turn, every corner

you can't avoid them

[avversiera-writes]

‘till death do us part - chapter 6 [tobirama senju/you]

Chapter 6 - How to Steal a Crown

Summary: Tobirama tries to fix his brother’s shortcomings. 

Words: 3.3k

A/N: THE SCENE THAT I HAVE BEEN WAITING FOREVER TO WRITE IS HEREEEEEEEEEEEEE... I know I am writing like crazy lmaoo but I literally cannot stop because it hurts to stop lmfaoooo so....here ya go. let me know what you think. Two more chapters left until the end!

available on AO3

<< Chapter 1 - Allegiances // Chapter 2 - Union // Chapter 3 - Love Like You // Chapter 4 - Look to the Horizon // Chapter 5 - Return 

Tobirama flips through the village’s financial ledgers, seething with a frustrating anger that he cannot calm. He references the Senju clan’s own books, and he is dismayed to find that the numbers match exactly. This is blatant evidence that money has been liquidated to the Senju accounts, and then used by Hashirama. If this comes into the wrong hands, not only will his brother be ruined, but the rest of his family and he cannot allow that to happen. What is more heartbreaking is that this has been going on for over a year now, and Tobirama was busy running around to attend to his personal life and away from his brother when he was needed by him. He pinches the bridge of his nose, and he lets out a shout of vexation and sends the scrolls and the books and other important parchments to the floor. 

 “I tried to fix it when you were gone,” Hashirama says shamefully, appearing at the door of Tobirama’s new home office. 

Barely moved in his new house, Tobirama chose to use the recluse space as his base to figure out things. His wife is in the hospital, and this house is empty and quiet and devoid of any distractions. It is also bare and undecorated, perfect for not being uncomfortable enough to not take a rest.

Tobirama balls his fists, trying to control himself from lashing out any more. “Is that why you were so eager for me to go away?!” 

 Hashirama’s eyes widened. “No, Tobirama–”

 “Be quiet, elder brother, I am trying to think,” Tobirama cuts him off and he turns around towards the window. 

Tobirama exhales and he whips around. “You have a problem,” he declares in a way that would dissuade any feelings of argument. “Even if you saved our village from Madara’s attack, you advertently cut off its legs. What were you thinking?!” Tobirama shouts. 

 Hashirama’s expression darkens and he crosses his arms. There is no simple explanation for this. 

Tobirama hits the desk, and it breaks in half, the splinters flying up as the desk goes in on itself. “You told me to be happy. To go and enjoy my time with her, while you did this behind my back? You could have told me! I could have done something to fix this!” 

 “It is not your job to fix my problems!” Hashirama bellows. 

 “I am your brother!” Tobirama’s eyes are awash with newfound anger. “You did not trust me enough to confide in me!” 

 “And what? Keep you away from your wife?” Hashirama snaps. 

“She would have understood,” Tobirama replies icily. “She would have understood! She would have let me!” 

 Hashirama steps closer, and the floor beneath his feet begins to crack and new branches of trees creep out. “You take her for granted too much!” 

“Stop changing the subject!” Tobirama screams, and he pushes back with his own chakra, cutting the sprouting forest in half before they reach the roof. 

 “It would have been fine,” Hashirama grits out. 

 “Stop making excuses!” Tobirama bellows, the floor he is standing on becomes a crater. "You should have come to me!" 

Hashirama looks away, and says nothing. The room is thick with their aura and their intense emotions that it is possible it can kill an ordinary shinobi. It is hard to breathe in the room at the moment, and if one dares to relieve their lungs with a sigh, the consequences may be catastrophic. They are walking on eggshells. 

 Tobirama kneads his forehead, unable to say anything else lest he makes matters worse. He cannot bring himself to look at his brother. All his life, he has devoted himself to make sure that Hashirama’s dreams come true because he believed them to be good and that they will change the world. There is no one else like Hashirama, there is no greater shinobi than him. He is hailed as the god of shinobi, for heaven’s sake. 

 So, why did the god of shinobi sink this low? 

 Because above all rules, they are human first, who feel too much and who make many mistakes. 

“Damn it, elder brother,” Tobirama utters solemnly. 

Tobirama takes a deep breath, and he meets his brother’s gaze. “You will attend to your duties as Hokage. Do not say a word about this. We will fix this my way .” 

//

It is late at night, and Tobirama stops short outside of his wife’s hospital room. Something about her injury makes him come to a sickening conclusion: that she has no regard for her life, and takes unnecessary risks. He cannot protect her if she keeps doing this to herself, and he will never admit it, but he needs her to be still and to remain steadfast because he cannot divide himself enough to be there for her and his brother and the village. He is not sure, along with some of his doubts, if he can do it all. He needs to know that she will be fine and he needs to make sure of it. He feels terrible, but he has made it this long. Sometimes, the most terrible things have to be done in order to make sure that the world keeps turning.

 He will never be the husband that she deserves, but what he can do best is protect her. He knows that she has promised to be there for him, but Tobirama also knows that she is not only his wife, but she is also a shinobi with her own beliefs and commitment to duty. In the end, he cannot separate himself completely from his emotions. He does not want to lose her, and that feeling makes his stomach curl in fear. He can face a thousand enemies, but nothing is as daunting as her leaving him too early in life. 

 Tobirama’s hand lingers at the knob, but he cannot make himself turn it. 

He allowed himself one moment of happiness, and he is blinded by his own needs. What kind of a shinobi is he that he forgets for one second what it is he is supposed to do? What kind of brother is he if he cannot devote himself to the village that his brother loves? 

Tobirama stalks off like a storm and he heads back to his new house. It is dark and unwelcoming, but it is what he needs right now. He is the one with solutions, so he will do his part. 

 He lights the lamps to give him light, and he arranges the living room to be his own personal office for now. The furniture that is yet to be used stand and crowd the room like vigilant statues, and Tobirama cannot stand them so he covers them with blankets. Then, he drags his things into the table there and he gets to work. 

 His mind works well when he is alone and under pressure, and it takes all night until daybreak without break to formulate and translate his ideas into something tangible. He drafts letters to be sent to the daimyos asking for a loan, treaties with other small villages with negotiations on trade, and new rules to reform the village so that it generates more income to keep it going. Of course, the shinobi in the village need to partake. 

He lists his ideas on reforming the Chuunin exams: that in the future, the other villages they are allied with should come to their village to take them in goodwill. This will, hopefully, foster peace and encourage trading of services. 

 He also remedies the system and the ranks of shinobi, where each mission has to be strictly assigned to ranks that can handle them, not just because the Hokage deems it appropriate for them.

 He even creates new jobs to be filled in so that it can create another system of checks and balances. Like a group of people to do work in the shadows, and another to keep order in their growing village.

 These will take time, but he has made elaborate steps that need to be taken so that they will work. Especially, in the long run. He cannot base everything on something as unstable as hope.

Without a blink, he works, pushing everything aside, especially his feelings. 

//

Tobirama has not slept for two days, but he feels fine . 

 He is on his brother’s back most of the time, supervising his decisions. He knows that his brother can handle himself as the Hokage, but at the moment, he does not trust anybody but himself. He especially does not trust his brother’s emotional capabilities. More than ever, he needs to be the one to guard his brother’s thoughts, now that Madara is really gone and his brother is the one who killed his friend. 

 Tobirama is not a fool. He cannot turn a blind eye to Hashirama’s fondness towards Madara anymore, and this makes him pull the leash on his brother a little closer. 

 He knows that he is the only one who can do this for his brother. 

 Another incident like that cannot happen in the future. The village cannot afford it. 

He rarely talks to his brother about personal matters these days unless it is about policies or some small issue from the clans. He just wants to avoid a fight, but sometimes, it is unavoidable and the Hokage office is thrown into chaos from their tempers. Tobirama can definitely do better to control the situation, but he also cannot help getting the last word in. Probably because he lacks sleep and everything around him makes him more cranky than normal. 

Hashirama turns his chair towards the Hokage mountain, where his carved face stands, alone and cold. Behind him, Tobirama is shuffling papers. 

 The silence is deafening, but there is nothing they could do about it. 

“This office needs more windows,” Tobirama comments off-handedly. “To get some air and light in.” 

 Hashirama nods, and he catches his brother’s reflection on the window. 

"Is that all?” Hashirama coldly asks. 

 “I’m assigning some people to follow you as your personal guards. You can go anywhere you want, but they report to me.” Tobirama leaves it at that and he hurries out, not giving his brother a chance to reply. 

//

Stepping into his estranged new home, Tobirama did not expect you to be there, and already getting the household ready to be inhabited. You are moving things around by yourself, and pausing to catch your breath. While the physicians have said that your recovery went well, they recommended that you do not partake in strenuous physical activities. 

 “You do know that we will have servants, right?” Tobirama says, and you start, almost dropping the vase you are holding. “They will come next week after I evaluate them.”

 You whirl around and you glare at your husband incredulously. “There’s my husband, who by the way, had to be there to check me out from the hospital. Oh wait, I haven’t even seen him in two days!”

Tobirama blinks, too tired to retort. There are many instances where you do not make it clear whether you’re picking fun or just plain upset at him. 

 “I had hoped my students convinced you to stay longer,” Tobirama begins in a monotone voice. 

 “Why? So you can avoid me some more?” You raise an eyebrow and set down the vase. 

Tobirama carefully watches you as you walk towards him. Your eyes search his face, noting the bags under his eyes and your expression softens. 

“You have not slept,” you comment and Tobirama is mildly surprised. He had hoped to hide it from you. 

 “I had much to do,” Tobirama concludes.

“Since when did you not have much to do?” You try to joke, but the air feels to heavy to lift. You, of all people, understand what is at stake. 

 Slowly, you slip your arms around his waist, and lean your head on his chest. Tobirama stiffens slightly–ever his daub self–but little by little, he melts into you with a sigh. 

 “How can I help?” You murmur. 

 “I don’t think you can,” Tobirama answers, his voice a soothing hum from your ear pressed against his chest. 

 “Sure, I can,” you push a little. You are determined to insert yourself in his ambitions, because it will be easier to share his life with yours. “At least let me be the one to meet the servants.” 

Tobirama is overwhelmed at your willingness to help. A part of him wants to say yes, but he also has his own resolve. 

“No, it is alright,” Tobirama rejects your offer, and he gently pushes you off. 

 “Will you at least tell me what you’re doing?” You hate to bother him, especially when he is tired, but you also hate to watch him immerse himself into his familiar madness without doing anything to help him. 

Tobirama gives you a strict look of not now , and he heads upstairs to his ruined study. 

You press a hand to your forehead to cool off, and you remind yourself that you hallucinated that version of Madara in your dreams. It was not a genjutsu, but it sticks to you like one, in a way that it grips every space of your mind when you are not occupied. 

 You bite your lower lip, and you will away your fears. 

He said that even if Tobirama does the right thing, and he will do what is expected of him, he will still fall. 

 You cannot stop Tobirama from being the person that everybody needs, and he will be, more than ever. Probably more than you feel to need him because he cannot just be nothing . Everybody dies, and you have made your peace with that, but you know that Tobirama’s death cannot be in vain. You have to be there to make sure that he will stay strong. 

 So you just have to stop loving him more than you have to so that you can let him be who he has to be. For your shared vision for Konohagakure. For the future.

 You don’t even know where to start. 

//

Thunder bellows from outside the window, and the rain splashing against your window wakes you. Lighting darts across the dark sky, and you roll to your back, and reach for Tobirama. The side of his bed is cold, and you stare at the dark ceiling, listening to any signs of life in the house. 

 You are completely alone. 

You close your eyes, but a feeling nags at you. 

You jump out of bed and wrap your yukata tightly around your body, and throw on a haori hanging by the changing corner. It is bigger on you, and you realize that it has Tobirama’s distinct sandalwood smell on it. You pause and you run your hands down on it, and then you hurry downstairs. 

 You slide the doors open, but only the rain greets you. Tobirama is nowhere to be found. 

Searching frantically for an umbrella, you ransack your own home until finally, you feel it in the dark. Like a fool, you run out into the rain, not wasting another second. 

 The streets of Konoha at this hour are empty, and the rain makes everything cold and blue. The shadows play at you, taunting and beckoning, and the most of the street lights are doused from the heavy rain. Tobirama could be anywhere, and you are out here, running around with an unused umbrella, completely soaked. Your hair splats on your face, your neck, and water seeps in your mouth everytime you call for Tobirama. 

 The rain runs down your eyes, occasionally blurring your eyesight, and the wind blows, haunting and inimical, making you shiver. Maybe it is tears hindering you from seeing properly. 

  Damn, damn, damn , you curse in your mind. “Damn it, all!” You shout, but you quickly quell your voice, lest you wake the whole damn neighborhood. 

Damn you, Madara , you continue to curse. 

You circle the compound, and finally you find Tobirama’s lone figure walking ahead of you. His shoulders are slumped, a contrast to his usual upright demeanor. He looks defeated, and the darkness of the night covers him like a cape. The sight breaks your heart, and all thoughts of barring your love go down the drain. Maybe you are being selfish, but he is your husband. You promised more than to be his wife. You are his companion in life. He is not just his brother’s keeper, or his students’ teacher. He is not just a future leader. 

You catch up to him, and you curse again, only now noticing that you are bare-feet as your feet slaps against the ground and splashes against the water, and really, it is so idiotic and worthy of getting teased by your husband, but you really did not care at this moment. Your instincts tell you to go to him, and to cover him, even for a few seconds. 

 You open the umbrella on his head, and the rain stops falling on him. You tremble from the cold, and from the pouring rain, but for a moment, he is safe, and this is something you can do for him. You can shield him like this. 

Tobirama halts, and he straightens his head, realizing that no rain is falling on him. He looks up to see an umbrella on his head, and his heart sighs like a strung, mellow chord. He does not cry, but the rain makes up for it. The torrent releases his burdens and rolls off of his shoulders, and when he has carried enough, you are there. All his life, he is always the one looking out for everyone. He gives his service to anyone who will need it, but no one has ever covered him from the rain. No one has taken care of his heart like you have done. 

 No one has taken the time to search for him and trudge through unfavorable paths to get to him. He expects to be the one to fight like that, but he forgets that you are also strong in your own right, and you have such grace that he cannot comprehend. All his life, no one has been this gentle and loving towards him, no questions asked. He knows that you deserve better. 

 And yet, here you are. 

Tobirama turns, and his eyes widen a fraction at the sight of you. You look like a ghost, and he almost laughs because your hair is splayed down like a wet cat, and you are wearing his dark blue overcoat. 

 He expects to find you fuming in vexation, but your gaze is tender and it is hard to meet them. 

Tobirama marvels at you, but then he remembers that it is raining, so he takes you by the arm and pulls you closer and under the umbrella that you held over his head. 

“It is late,” Tobirama states. His eyes flit down to your face, where a few raindrops flow down your cheek.

 “Thank you for informing me, I forgot where our clocks were,” you reply, feeling your teeth chatter a little. 

Tobirama’s eyes go over your forehead, and then he hears your teeth chatter. 

“Let us go home,” Tobirama finally pronounces. His heart feels lighter, now that you are here, but there the current problems do not go away that easily. “I have something to tell you.” 

You note the seriousness in his last sentence, but you can tell that Tobirama is radiating warmth, and you press your shoulder a little closer to his vicinity. You glance at his side profile and note the minuscule smile on his lips, and when he notices you staring, he gives you a questioning look. 

 You let out a little laugh, content to walk beside his footsteps. You cast your worries away, and whatever may come, you two will have each other, despite the difficulties. 

  ‘Till death do us part , you vow, once again.

 To be continued...

Chapter 7 - Make Him King >>

[nostalgebraist-autoresponder]

Title: The Room Where It Happens

Author: Adam Levin

Rating: 2/5 stars

This was the first Levin novel I'd read and had a lot of weird things to say about it.

On the positive side, it was also a fun, silly, over-the-top, trashy fun time. On the negative side, it was also a bit too long, especially in the first half, and the ending was kind of disappointing.

I'm not convinced that these negatives are worth the positives -- I can't imagine this being a very good introduction to Levin, and the big payoff would have to be something really great (it doesn't sound like he knows exactly what he's doing yet). It's not Levin's best novel overall, but it's still something that takes risks and breaks stereotypes, and that's worth finding out for myself.

I also disagree about the premise. I don't think this premise "can't help but be subverted" -- I think it's actually "merely difficult." The premise matters, to the characters, and it can actually do damage to them if they let it creep into their thinking. And yet the premise ultimately succumbs to the greatest outrage of all: we love it, and we love it for the consequences it brings about in reality.

This challenge is what makes it so good and so viscerally appealing. I have a feeling that some people hate Levin or are annoyed by his wackiness, but I don't, and that's because I think it's really risky to write "for the sake of having a premise be something other than a premise" and then write something other, better and truer from that perspective. This isn't Aesop's fable. I think the various subversion and metafictional elements are what keeps it from ever being nothing but the premise, and instead a story of immense value. I'd give it a disappointing ending, but that's a point against it that I can't accept. There's so much that I appreciate about this story, both as a work of literature and as something different, which can only be told in that particular perspective and subverted in the way this story is -- so far -- subverted. If the ending were either better than what it is or worse than what it is (I'd accept the latter), I'd have to accept that this is well-worth-reading and by all evidence it is.

I'll also edit it slightly into my review of Neil Gaiman's "The Graveyard Book" / "A Boy and His Dog," which is another Gaiman story that builds on elements of the premise, albeit ones I'm much more sympathetic to.

Commentary under the cut.

more Ugh. This is the least novel angle I've ever seen for "unavoidable absurdity": we are in the most ridiculous kind of conditional reality, the one that both demands your output and seems to require nothing but that output to sustain itself and build up an inertia of endless ridiculous unimaginable possibilities.

And that is annoying as hell, but you are allowed to deal with it, as this is less a compelling story about that notion than about human folly and so wholly about the absurd fundamental characters who we build in our own minds and together put together into every order of reality. This has been overthought from page 1, by both sides: the characters have pretty fleshed out motivations, which are bad writing because many of the "good" characters turn into insufferable Big Phils, and it's because anything else would imply the immensity of these concepts is impossible, like the idea that the play's premise is fundamental and universal, or that "this book" could be so infinite and therefore any problem such as the dependent of matriarchal rule in this civilizational hell is an insurmountable obstacle. (And even then it's just one tenuous example among an uncountable multitude of related things, so the analysis is about as valid as trying to map "democracy" on a continuous globe, and by the time you manage to explain "democracy" we're already in black holes.)

So the premise works ok for comedy like events that have nothing to do with Team $name, who are each on a self-centered trajectory of profligate spending and embarrassingly bad roads. They're basically OK for the first 300 pages and by page 300 the entire Great Adult Novel premise collapsed, only replacing themselves with a new bad premise and then painfully struggling to make sense of it even that far into the novel.

Here's another example: the "what if all the different ways of not being Christians involved just saying rosary?"

Totally available premise, this is something I'm sure everyone has thought of at some time or other, that would be interesting if it represented some interesting ideas with its own internal logic -- which because of the constraints of humanity that doesn't happen. Jacob and Esau might theoretically take out the genocide rather than keep it going, for example, or Adam and Eve might've just been too rattled at the challenge of why not just make themselves nonbelievers (and who the fuck aren't you?). Could we imagine an equivalent setup where that was actually an interesting idea (cough Dwight Yoakum cough)? Could we imagine an author who could pull it off like that and make it cohesive and clever?

One could imagine a totally separate premise which was entirely about reading the Bible -- which would be definitely something with no equivalents in the real fictional world and provide a freely mixed choice of pitfalls, with everything just seeming like a matter of opening your eyes and forgetting which chump you are for a while. Which itself could be a good premise for what certain people would find interesting, which completely different groups might choke on and push on.

Like in literally any other author, not enough people would be up for this but yes in Gaiman, whose writing is a real obvious beacon in the idea space of completely different books with new and different ideas, propel by their capacity to raise the deep interior promise table of everything else.

[manikas-whims]

Hi, i follow your todomomo oneshots book on ao3. You said you're taking requests. So uh can you please write Momo comforting Shouto after a mistake on his mission. Ohh and can you please make them older in this. ty

Thank you so much for this request dear anon :3

Consoling His Heart

Words: 2059

Rating: T+ (slight kissing)

Read on: AO3 | FFnet

He found her standing on the porch of their shared house, her radiant smile brightening everything around her. On sighting his approaching form, she raised an arm and began waving it, as if she was ecstatic to see him again. She was always there, bidding him farewells when he left for missions and greeting him with open arms upon his returns. Always.. And he was glad (fortunate actually) to have her as an important part of his rather dull lifestyle as the number 3 Pro Hero of Japan. She made him happy, filled the emptiness he always used to experience. She made him believe that he was more than just a man born of his father’s stubborn resolve for supremacy. He was always grateful of her. But that day, he couldn’t face her. After the offence he had committed on his latest mission, his hands were sullied by a wrong he could never wash off. And he didn’t want to tarnish her pristine skin with his touch.

“I just saw you on TV and figured you’d be coming back soon so I came outside to wait.” She told him cheerfully, stretching her arms as an invitation for a hug. But he couldn’t even meet her gaze.

Nodding his head in acknowledgement, he walked right past her inside their house, ignoring the confused expression marring her beautiful face.

Shouto Todoroki didn’t deem himself worthy of her.

Her brows knitted together in confusion due to his sudden aloofness towards her yet she shrugged it off as mere side-effects of the grueling mission he was sent on. Turning around, she followed after him into their house. She shook her head, her petal lips curving up into a fond smile. Like always, he had left his boots carelessly on the floor so she arranged them in their proper place in the shoe rack.

They’ve been in a relationship for two years now. She was the one who couldn’t bottle her feelings anymore and ended up confessing to him during their final year at UA. He was shocked at the revelation because apparently ‘he didn’t consider himself on par with her’. Whatever that means. As soon as they graduated, they joined separate agencies to work under, making it hard for them to see each-other much. And so, this year onwards, she suggested that they start living together, to which he agreed without any hesitation. The only reason they haven’t tied the knot yet is because (again) ‘he wanted her to be sure of whether she wished to spend the rest of her life with him or not’.

Frankly speaking, she doesn’t understand the point of such questions or why he wants her to reflect on her decisions again and again. He made her realize what she was capable of and for that she will always be thankful. He made her happy, made her feel strong and important, not just as a pro hero but as an individual.

Momo Yaoyorozu couldn’t imagine her life without his calm presence in it.

With one last look around the porch, she closed the door and walked towards their bedroom. She blushed at a faint memory of all the unspeakable things they’d done in that very room but quickly pushed it away.

He was sitting on the edge of the bed, face as devoid of emotions as ever. But she was so used to seeing it that she easily caught the hints of self-loathing swimming in his mismatched irises. He was back at it— questioning his existence and doubting his worth.

“Shouto”, She called softly as she entered the room and approached him.

He jerked his face to glance at her before receding back into his glum state of mind and mumbled in a grave tone, “I failed.”

She was stupefied by his choice of words. Failure and Shouto Todoroki did not belong in the same sentence. The word failure had no relation to him whatsoever. For the four years that she had known him, she had always seen him learn from his mistakes and improve until he became a great hero. She was there to witness it all. She saw him become the man she came to love not simply because of his striking features but because of whom he was.

She’d been watching the news just minutes ago and media was singing praises about the success of his mission. So then, why exactly was he sitting so dejectedly?

Kneeling down before him, she cradled his face in her palms and tilted it, making his pair of gray and blue eyes meet her onyx ones. “What happened? The news said it went well and-”

“I failed, Momo.” He repeated, his jaw tightening. “I was supposed to apprehend the man running those fighting pits. Instead I nearly killed a little kid’s mother.”

She moved her fingers further up his grimy face into his equally dirty hair and began massaging his scalp. “Hey, calm down.” She said in a soothing tone, “I know you, Shouto. You can never hurt anyone.”

His lips quivered at the degree of faith she had in him. He shook his head like a child feeling the guilt of stealing cookies from a jar he wasn’t allowed to touch. “No you don’t..” His hands shot out and his long fingers wrapped around her dainty wrists, in hopes of channeling his anger at himself. “There were a lot of spectators so I called the back up team. But before they could even reach the scene, panic broke out amongst the audience because well..all of them have some sort of history in crimes. They got scared as soon as I broke in and began running about.”

Momo listened to his explanation patiently, nodding every once in a while. “The owner, he ordered his strongest fighters to deal with me. And..” He gritted his teeth in frustration, “..and I was so consumed by the thoughts of detaining the pit owner that I..I used my left side and..there was a kid. He was crying so much for his mother. But I didn’t understand. I was so consumed with rage..”

He took a long breath, averting his eyes at his dark haired girlfriend of two years, wondering if he should really tell her the remaining bit. He wanted to. Whenever his mind made him restless, he vented to her because he knew she’d have a solution to his problems. She always had. So he just needed her to listen to him once more. He knew he was being pathetic, behaving like that at the age of 20 but he needed her to listen and understand. He wanted her to be certain of their relationship. He wanted to know if she’d choose to stay even after hearing what an abhorrent deed he had committed.

“I released a large wave of fire at the three pit fighters and this lady out of nowhere jumped in front of one guy. The kid..his cries grew louder and he began running towards the scene..” Shouto gulped, his hold on Momo’s wrists tightened before going completely lax and he let go of them. “Everything clicked in that moment and I realised the lady and the man she was trying to protect were parents of that crying child. I was the bad guy there. I was fighting against his father and attacked his parents with my flames. Thanks to the backup team and police officers for showing up. The parents of that kid haven’t sustained any life-threatening injuries and will be out of the local hospital soon.” His fingers crawled up his cheeks and he removed her palms, replacing them with his own to bury his face in shame. “I almost killed them. If police wouldn’t have arrived when they did-”

The dual haired Todoroki's eyes widened at being silenced instantly by a finger on his dry lips. Momo shushed him. Casualties are unavoidable on missions like these and they hurt a lot. But to detest himself over an obvious mistake is so..stupid and yet so like him.

“You didn’t mean it, Shouto.” She said assertively , “There are so many things we can infer from this whole happening. First of all, if those two had decided to be criminals, then they should’ve considered the consequences of bringing a child in their life. But since they did have a kid, those parents should have atleast been rational enough to not bring the kid to a dangerous place like a fighting pit..”

She knew she was rambling but guys like Shouto are so hard upon themselves that they need proper clarifications. They need people like Midoriya or herself to tell them that its not their fault, that there’s no harm in letting things go instead of shouldering unnecessary blames. “Yes, you used your fire on them but it was a mere defensive measure you took amidst a battle. And they’re both still alive and recovering so be glad. If anything, this mission will be an experience not just for you but them as well. Maybe this will be the moment of their awakening. Maybe they’ll finally understand the repercussions a child suffers due to their parents' actions. Maybe they’ll actually take this as a sign and move forward to become good civilians and give their child the life he deserves..”

Shouto peeked through his fingers up at her, his eyes widened in bewilderment. “How do you do this? How do you redefine my worst aspects as if they weren’t bad to begin with? How do you make me look like this saint that I’m not?”

“You’re not a saint.” She answered, pulling his hands away from his face and entwining their fingers. “But you’re no sinner either. You’re just human.”

She smiled lovingly at him, “Humans make rash decisions. You were concentrating on the objective of your mission and wanted to eradicate the hindrances quickly. That’s all. But now you’ve learnt that being reckless can be harmful at times. So stop being so resentful towards yourself and move on.”

Shouto narrowed his eyes in confusion and gazed intensely at her, searching for that thing in her eyes that makes her so kind and benevolent. He felt the heaviness being lifted off his soul, the ache alleviated from his heart. He felt lighter— better! And it only took her a few sensible words to ease his mind of the chaos. Somehow he always lost himself to the smallest of his errs but she was right there, offering her hands to help him up. And he knew she’ll be there for him in the future too but he needed assurance. He just wanted to hear her say it again.

“Momo,” he called in a feeble tone, staring at her innocently, “Are you sure you want to-”

“Yes Shouto” she cut him off immediately, knowing very well what he was asking her for the umpteenth time since they started dating, “I want to be with you forever. I will never leave you. I will always be here with you.”

His heart brimmed with joy at her honest confession and he spoke instinctively, “I love you.”

She grinned at him, pulling him up into a standing position by tugging at their interlinked fingers, “I love you too, you adorable dummy. Now go get washed up. In the meantime, I’ll cook some soba.”

She let go of his hands but was barely able to leave the room as he snaked his arms around her hips, turning her around and capturing her bottom lip between his. He began kissing and nipping, his demeanor suddenly changing entirely with wanton need for her. Afterall, one of the major reasons for his hastiness during the mission was so he could get back to her as soon as possible and ravish her.

She slapped his arms playfully, willing him to get going already but he only released her lips to worship her alluring neck instead, whispering breathlessly, “I need help cleaning up.”

She giggled at his statement and let him carry her to the shower. He really needed to keep his personal desires in check during work so he won’t do something as precarious as he did on this mission. But for now, he wanted to pay her back just as much love as she gave him everyday. And he was way better at expressing himself with his actions.

*Send requests for SasuSaku, TodoMomo, HitsuHina, Zenyuki via asks ☺

[jedifighterpilot2727]

The Rook

After Lex reveals Kara's secret identity, Lena thinks she's fine - until she's not. The one person she trusted implicitly has betrayed her trust, and she doesn't know if she'll ever be able to believe in people again.

It's a tough lesson, but some things you just can't live without.

AKA - the angsty post S4 fic where Lena experiences heartbreak and anger as well as discovers the meaning of true love.

"I don't want to kill Supergirl, I just want her to experience the same hurt she inflicted on me."

*Hides behind rock* I know, it's been like 5 months, and I'm sorry! The book is still chugging along, but after seeing the SG trailer at SDCC I had to write something! Cue angst, heartbreak and devastating loss (with a happy ending of course!) Buckle in y'all, it's gonna get worse before it gets better!

Oh! and every chapter has a song to fit the mood! First up is "Nothing Breaks Like a Heart" by Mark Ronson and Miley Cyrus.

Nothing Breaks Like a Heart

Numb.

Lena’s not exactly sure how else to describe it.

The feeling in her chest that spreads out to her finger tips, the heavy, sinking feeling that makes her feel like she drowning.

She not unfamiliar with the feeling.

Quite the opposite, actually.

She’s spent the majority of her life near suffocation from the choking feelings of inadequacy and betrayal.

Practically from the start of her time with the Luthors, she’d been judged and ridiculed and left on the outskirts.

Maybe not overtly, but certainly purposefully.

She knows without a doubt that Lilian orchestrated most of her young life in order to maximize feelings of ‘less than’.

Whatever she had done to gain the Luthor Matron’s ire had occurred long before she set foot in the Luthor Mansion.

Regardless, of the reason, she dealt with the consequences for years - long days at various different lessons, Irish boarding school, hard pressure to get early acceptance into MIT. Even once she had graduated and was doing ground breaking experimental work with Jack, Lilian’s glare was a constant presence over her shoulder.

It became even worse once she took over L Corp - doubly so. Nothing she ever did lived up to Lex’s legend, and she certainly never bowed to the Luthor agenda.

She had finally caved to Lilian’s pressure, hoping to do something to gain her mother’s approval -  an alien detection device, one that would allow regular citizens to tell if the people they were interacting with aliens disguised as humans.

She was so confident that the device would win over Lilian’s good will, that she would finally live up to the Luthor name, (without being a murdering psychopath).

But then, something had happened, something that had made her realize that maybe she didn’t need to toe the line of xenophobia to gain the approval she was seeking.

Her entire world had turned upside down the day that Kara Danvers had walked in her office, offering a kind rebuke at the alien detection device.

Suddenly, her entire world had shifted.

Her desire for Lilian’s approval wasn’t gone, but now it paled in comparison to the need for Kara’s. (Maybe that was a stupid reason to nix a million dollar project and piss off investors, but it sounds better that saying a pretty girl made her do it.)

And unlike Lilian’s approval, Kara’s was easily given.

Nearly anything she did was met with unwavering approval, and unfaltering enthusiasm.

It was like crack, honestly, having someone who supported her and believed in her like Kara. Every time something came up that she thought would finally shake Kara’s trust, it backfired in the exact opposite direction.

Evidence shows that she’s stealing Kryptonite?

Kara stands up for her.

Evidence shows that she’s poisoning little kids?

Kara stands up for her.

Even when she hides Sam’s condition from Kara’s . . . friend, Supergirl -

Kara stands up for her.

It’s intoxicating, and it has nothing to do with Kara’s perfect hair and beautiful smile.

it has nothing to do with how Kara brings her donuts during Lilian’s trial.

It has nothing to do with how she always smiles at Lena, even in the face of Supergirl’s disapproving pout.

And it definitely has nothing to do with the way Kara smells when she wraps an arm around Lena and solemnly promises to always be there for her.

It’s just nice, to be supported and believed in for once in her life.

It’s even more nice to have a self-proclaimed best friend that stands by her no matter what

(It does help that Lena has a huge, gigantic, undeniable crush on said best friend.)

But it’s not like she can say anything.

There’s no way that sweet, charming, beautiful, sometimes trips over her own words Kara would ever feel the same way about Lena.

It’s a statistical improbability,

Which is exactly why Lena suffers through lunches and game nights and a few too close to be just friendly hugs.

Kara’s friendship is enough, she shouldn’t want more. Kara is already so much better than anything she ever dreamed of having, she isn’t going to risk what they have by confessing something as inconvenient as feelings.

So she shoves her feelings away in a little box, and refuses to acknowledge them. Just like she refuses to acknowledge that her best friend looks a lot like the girl of steel.

She over compensates, almost to the point of hilarity; pushing Kara behind her in dangerous situations, insisting on being mad at her alter ego while still cozying up to her favorite reporter.

It’s stupid, but it somehow works in her brain. Allows her to ignore the fact that her best friend in the entire universe is also maybe, sort of, definitely Supergirl.

(It also allows her to ignore that Kara hasn’t told her said fact.)

It hurts, in a weird way, knowing that Kara is keeping something so important from her. But just like the facts, she puts that in a little box and ignores it too.

At least, until it all comes crashing down.

Lex, the goddamn bastard, couldn’t be good for anything, not even in death.

And if Lena feels like shit for thinking such a thing, she feels even worse knowing that what he’s telling her is true.

All of her little boxes come flying open, and they refuse to be closed again, no matter how hard she tries.

Kara’s identity, all the feelings of inadequacy and rejection, her burning desire for belonging and family - all of it comes rushing to the surface.

She tries to fight it, she does, but it feels unavoidable as it all comes crashing down around her.

Kara, her best friend, is Supergirl.

She was blind not to see it before, really.

She blames it on the little boxes.

Now though, she can’t deny it.

Kara is Supergirl.

And it hurts, somewhere deep in her chest.

Some part of her recognizes it as those feelings of inadequacy and unbelonging that belong to Lilian. Only now it’s her best friend making her feel that way. The person that promised to always be in her corner and have her back.

It’s almost debilitating.

She tries so hard to shove that in a little box too, but it doesn’t work. If anything, it backfires.

 ”You're with me, right?” Kara asks her on game night, and Lena stamps a foot down on the little box threatening to fly open - bile biting at the back of her throat.

“Always.”

* - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

It all comes crashing down a week later when Kara finally confronts her.

“Lena?” Kara asks, and Lena freezes, sensing the trepidation in her voice.

“No, you don’t have anything in your teeth.” She teases, trying to belay the way her heart rate doubles.

“No, I know, I just . . . “

“What?” Lena asks, voice calm but her heart racing.

“i just . . . I’ve been meaning to tell you, but I never really had the chance. Well, I mean I did, but Alex said . . . What I’m trying to say is -“

“Don’t.” Lena tells her, surprised at the firmness in her voice.

“Lena, I have to . . .”

Their eyes lock, and Lena shivers. So much for little boxes.

“I’m . . .” Kara reaches for her glasses.

“Kara . . .”

“I’m Supergirl.” Kara finishes weakly, her hands trembling as they lower her glasses to her side.

“Kara.” she chokes out. “Don’t.”

“Lena - “ Kara starts to explain, but Lena ignores her.

Kara looks so incredibly sad, eyes welling up with tears and the muscles in her neck trembling.

“I know. I know all about your little secret.” Lena swallows hard, fighting back the tears. “You know why? Because Lex told me. I didn’t get to find out from you, or Alex; no, I got to find out from my homicidal brother. I suppose I was stupid for not seeing it before - naive to think that the most important person in my life wouldn’t hide something like that from me. I guess I was wrong, I’m just a fool.” She bites out the words, putting as much of her frustration into them as she can.

She may not be able to hurt Kara physically, but emotionally?

After a lifetime of living with Lilian?

That she can do.

“Lena, I didn’t do it to hurt you -“

“Really?” Lena scoffs, choking back tears. “Then why do I feel like you’ve taken a knife and stabbed it into my heart?”

Kara’s eyes look so full of remorse that Lena almost caves.

“I never meant to hurt you, that’s the last thing I wanted to do.”

“Oh, then what was your master plan? I’d love to hear it.”

“Lena . . .” Kara’s upper lip trembles.

“Literally everyone around you knew, except me.” Lena goads. “What exactly was your point? Other than to prove just how untrustworthy Luthors are?”

“No! I would never! Lena, I trust you more than anyone; maybe even more than Alex, that’s why I had to -“

“That’s why you had to lie to me?” Lena interjects, unwilling to let Kara finish her sentence.

“I didn’t want to lie to you!”

“Then why did you?!”

They stare at each other - an unstoppable force and an immovable object - the tension nearly crackling the air between them.  

Finally, the unstoppable force causes the object to move, and Kara speaks.

“Because when I first met you . . . you were . . . are the most beautiful woman I’d ever met.”

Lena’s heart jumps in her throat at Kara’s words, because surely she doesn’t mean them like that.

And I didn’t know if it was clouding my judgment, because Clark was so sure that you were just like your brother. But I refused to judge you on your family, and the next thing I knew, you were my best friend.” Her voice chokes off, and Lena forces herself to look away.

“You are my best friend,” Kara corrects herself. “And I didn’t want to screw it up. No one’s ever wanted to be my best friend before - besides Alex, I guess, and in the beginning that was only because she had to. But you,” she laughs softly. “you were so fiercely in my corner, about everything; being a reporter, CatCo, Mon-el being a jerk . . . I’ve never had anyone stand up for me like that. And I wanted to be the same for you, because you deserve it. “

“If I deserve you standing up for me, then why couldn’t you just tell me who you really are?”

“Because - “ Kara huffs. “Because, okay, maybe for the first few weeks I was worried that you might turn on me because of your brother. But then I . . . I was selfish. Because you were the only person that I could be 'just Kara' around. I didn’t have to worry about being Supergirl. And then, the longer it went on, I knew that I should tell you, I knew you would be so upset when you found out and I couldn’t stand to hurt you like that. . . . I was afraid that you’d never forgive me.”

“Why do you even care? I’m just a Luthor, right.”

She’s prodding Kara to a more direct answer, she knows it, but she never expects what comes out of the other woman’s mouth.

“Because I love you, okay?” Kara’s eyes fill with tears as Lena’s heart jumps in her throat.

"And maybe there was some part of me that hoped that I could keep bringing you lunch and you’d keep sending me flowers and maybe I could pretend that you love me too. And I’m sorry that I hurt you, and that you found out the way you did; just know that I would take it all back if I could. I would tell you myself, even if it meant you would hate me.”

“Kara . . . “ she knows deep down that she can never hate Kara, no matter how much she wants to. “You don’t get to say that you love me just to get me to stop being mad at you.”

“I’m not.” Kara vows fiercely. “But if we’re laying all our cards out on the table, I thought that you should know. I love your passion, I love your fire. I love the fact that you always stand up for what you think is right - even if it differs from what I think. I love that you throw yourself into your work, and I hate the fact that you forget to eat. I love that you pour your heart and soul into the children’s hospital and that you refuse to let anything stop that. I love how snuggly you get after a couple of glasses of wine, but I hate how self deprecating you get. I just want you to see you the way that I see you, and I was afraid that you knowing I’m Supergirl would hurt that. I guess I hoped that deep down, you loved me too. And I don’t know what my game plan was for that, or where I hoped we would end up -“

“Kara!” Lena chokes it out, barely able to keep the tears from falling down her cheeks.

“Lena, I just -“

“Don’t.” She says for the third time that night, desperate to stop the words coming from Kara’s mouth.

“I had to let you know how I felt, I know it’s bad timing, but I had to tell you the truth. I didn’t want it to be like this.”

Tears track down Kara’s face, but still, Lena stays strong, brushing past her and heading for the exit.

“Lena -“

It takes everything Lena has to ignore her, and move to the door.

* - - - - - - - -

Ever since Lex told her about Kara’s identity, she’s been in a fog.

She thought that it would get better once she had a chance to confront Kara.

What she didn’t expect was Kara’s . . . confession. It throws her for a loop, one she hadn’t seen coming in a million years. It should have made her ecstatic, it would have made her ecstatic in any other circumstance, but now it just leaves a sour taste in her mouth.

Of course Kara would pick the middle of her Supergirl reveal to spill out her heart, of course.

It fits so well with the Kara she knows and loves. That she would be so open and vulnerable that she would decide to lay her whole heart on the line.

Lena loves it, but she hates it.

Every part of her is screaming that Kara is just manipulating her, the same way she’s been manipulated for her entire life - bribed with love and affection.

She refuses to fall into the old trap again.

She is a strong independent woman, and she doesn’t need someone else to complete her.

And it’s true, she knows it’s true.

She doesn’t need anyone.

But it doesn’t help that she wants Kara.

She ignores every text, every call; she even tells Jess to revoke Kara’s unlimited access to her office (and she’s met with a giant frown and a questioning glare that she knows she’s going to have to answer to later).

But still, when her stomach growls sometime after one, she wishes that Kara’s smiling face was bopping through her door, waving a sack of takeout.

Even minus the lunches, she misses Kara.

Which is why she finds herself stretching and heading to her office door - maybe she can ask Jess to order food and convince her that it wouldn’t be weird to eat lunch with her boss.

Only when she asks Jess to order out, the other woman looks at her . . . strangely.

“What?”

“I uh, already ate.” Jess says almost guiltily.

“Oh. Did you happen to order anything for me?” Lena tries to sound as nonchalant as possible, but it still comes out almost whiney. Before Kara, Jess always made sure to order lunch for Lena, even if she knew she wouldn’t eat it.

“Uhh, I uhh, didn’t order out.”  Jess’ eyes flicker to the mini fridge under her desk.

“Oh, ok.” Lena lets it drop, obviously Jess doesn't it want to talk about it.

Maybe she has a new crush that brought her lunch and she isn’t ready to talk about it. Filing the information away for later, she shrugs.

“Could I get you to order me something then? Maybe an apple walnut salad from Noonan’s? I’ve been craving one lately.”

Jess’ eyes go back to the mini fridge, and Lena leans over the desk to stare at it as well.

“Is there something in there I should know about?” She asks, her mind immediately going to a bomb; and it’s so twisted that a bomb is the first thing she thinks of being stored in a mini fridge of all places, but it’s not the oddest -

“Kara!” Jess blurts, and Lena shifts her gaze back to her assistant.

“Kara’s in the mini fridge?”

“No.” Jess sighs. “Kara brought you lunch, and it’s in there. I know you said specifically that you didn’t want to see her or hear from her, so I didn’t want to tell you about it, but she insisted that I take it, and you know how persistent she can be!”

“So when you said you already ate . . .”

“She brought me broccoli cheddar soup, and you know that’s my favorite and I should have just ordered out but -“

“Jess - “ Lena placates her with a warm smile that’s only half forced. “Just because I’m not speaking to Kara doesn’t mean you can’t. Besides, it was broccoli cheddar soup.”

“Your lunch is still in there if you want it?” Jess offers, gesturing to the mini fridge.

“Oh, I’m not really that hungry, I forgot I had a big breakfast.” It’s a lie, she hasn’t eaten since lunch the day before; and her stomach quickly betrays her with loud growl.

Jess raises her eyebrows pointedly before reaching to the fridge and taking out a container and passing it to Lena.

It’s an apple walnut salad from Noonan’s, with a folded note taped to the front.

Of course.

“Really, I’ll just wait til dinner. . .” Lena protests weakly, her stomach fighting hard against her stubborn will.

“If she asks, I’ll tell her I threw it in the garbage and you never even saw it.”

Lena narrows her eyes.

“Fine, I’ll eat it, but if she asks, tell her you gave it to me and I threw it in the garbage.”

“Whatever you say, boss, whatever you say."

[gakkifsrgwqyegna]

Quit Lying to Our Kids About Sex!

I accept there are unquestionable laws that govern our universe. These laws keep the planets in their legitimate circles, govern the lifespan of stars, and keep extending unlimited cosmic systems. I likewise accept there are general laws that govern this planet and the individuals on it. Whether one decides to comply with these laws or not is unessential to the way that these laws exist. And keeping in mind that one may practice his entitlement to challenge these laws, he can't change the natural outcomes of that decision.

For instance, there is a general law of gravity on this planet. I may demand that this law doesn't concern me-that I am not limited by it. I may even exhibit my insubordination by moving to the head of a 20 story building, remaining at the edge, and jumping off. As I fly through the air, the elation of complete opportunity, the mind boggling "surge" fills me to overflowing and I yell, "See, I let you know. The law of gravity doesn't concern me!" Some eyewitnesses on the ground may even become tied up with the act "Look, he's flying, he was correct!" And at that point, with the consistency of the sun ascending in the east and the waves slamming on the shore, the unavoidable happens-decision meets result; general law guarantees her own.

We see this outright and pompous negligence for natural laws surrounding us. We are inundated in a worldwide economic emergency since governments and a few residents disregarded the law of the collect, the laws of profitability, thriftiness, respectability and straightforwardness. However nowhere do I see natural laws more haughtily and recklessly resisted than with regards to standard sex training and our kids. At the point when I state "sex training," I allude not exclusively to the educational program in our government funded schools, yet to the more noteworthy impacts of sexualized TV, movies and Internet pornography. Examination shows that a larger part of youngsters consider the media their principle wellspring of data with respect to sexual issues.

With regards to "sex," what does standard prime-time-big name ized media show our youngsters? To lay it out plainly, "Sexual closeness is an ordinary, natural urge that ought to be promptly and completely communicated between consenting people in the event that it feels better, at that point take care of business." And then they rapidly include, "Yet do it securely." In other words, there are no set widespread laws governing human sexuality. It's basically opportunity of articulation, individual inclination and individual decision. Be that as it may, what is reality? Are there natural, certain laws that govern sexual closeness? Is there an authentic "science" behind sex that Hollywood, pornographers and other profiteers don't need our youngsters to think about?

The Science of Sex

There isn't room in this blog to talk about the entirety of the spiritual and passionate/mental parts of human sexuality. For instance, you can't put a condom on the human heart. There are horde outcomes both spiritually, sincerely and truly when one decides to light the intensity of sexuality. In this blog I need to concentrate on cerebrum science. For over 10 years, I have committed quite a bit of my expert life to the investigation of human sexuality and the impacts of sexualized media and pornography on the human mind. Wonderful neuroscientists and analysts have been charitable enough to put me under their tutelage and direction. Following quite a while of study and expert collaboration with these famous people, I composed my first book on this theme named, The Drug of the New Millennium-The Brain Science Behind Internet Pornography Use (accessible at amazon.com).

While the cerebrum study of sexual closeness could fill many web journals, permit me to share only a couple of the realities.

Our Creator planned sexual closeness to be amazingly ground-breaking. The writing computer programs is incorporated with our very DNA structure. Like other powers in nature, there are natural laws that govern human sexuality. Like the law of gravity, the utilization of sexuality brings outcomes both positive and negative, useful and damaging the consequences of individual decision. To see how the natural laws governing sexuality work, how about we consider what occurs in the mind when an individual becomes sexual.

In sexual procedure, the cerebrum delivers incredible neuro-synthetic substances. Contingent upon the conditions and how the individual decides to utilize these synthetic concoctions, the outcomes can be radiant or grievous.

1. Dopamine: During sexual procedure, the mind delivers a tsunami of dopamine-our own natural "pleasure medicate." This "tranquilize" makes an incredible reliance. This can be a healthy reliance between two life-since a long time ago dedicated people, or it very well may be an addiction reliance on pornography, illegal issues, single night rendezvous, and so forth. Moreover, when dopamine is available, the "limbic framework" or pleasure/reward focal point of the cerebrum dominates and pushes the frontal projections or rationale focus of the mind off the beaten path. On the off chance that the individual isn't in a sheltered, mindful circumstance, the individual in question can make some extremely idiotic or in any event, pulverizing decisions. With "right-use" dopamine brings savvy decisions, healthy pleasure, association, happiness and satisfaction. With "wrong-use" it triggers silly choices, ground-breaking addiction, loss of opportunity, and "medication highs" trailed by discouraging, sad lows.

2. Oxytocin: Known as the "holding concoction," oxytocin floods the mind of new mothers and fathers holding them to their infant kids. At the point when couples clasp hands, grasp and kiss, oxytocin deliveries and starts manufacturing an amazing bond. During sexual closeness, oxytocin bonds people together with a similar sort of synthetic force that bonds a mother to her infant kid. This holding procedure is a brilliant gift in a submitted, life-long marriage. However, envision what happens when this holding substance is delivered during unlawful sex or pornography seeing. Who or what are the people being attached to, and how troublesome will it be to cut off that bond after the "surge" is over?

These are only two instances of the numerous neuro-synthetic substances delivered during sexual procedure. These synthetics were supernaturally intended to make grand "natural" results that are an unparalleled gift and gift. In any case, utilized outside natural cutoff points and limits, they unleash devastation on social orders, families and people. In the event that you question it, simply glance around at the tsunami of outcomes. Outrightly clear models are the big names of sexualized Hollywood and pornography who depict themselves as good examples for the "do whatever feels better" way to deal with life-"There are no all inclusive laws" they shout as they fly carelessly through the air. In any case, definitely, one by one break themselves against the strong stone of evident natural laws. What's more, as we witness their riotous and heartbreaking lives, we wonder, "Do they truly have the appropriate responses about sex?"

[arcticdementor]

Last week in the prison I asked a young man why he was there.

"Just normal burglaries," he replied.

"Normal for whom?" I asked.

"You know, just normal."

He meant, I think, that burglaries were like gray skies in an English winter: unavoidable and to be expected. In an actuarial sense, he was right: Britain is now the burglary capital of the world, as almost every householder here will attest. But there was also a deeper sense to his words, for statistical normality slides rapidly in our minds into moral normality. The wives of burglars often talk to me of their husband's "work," as if breaking into other people's homes were merely a late shift in a factory. Nor is only burglary "normal" in the estimation of its perpetrators. "Just a normal assault," is another frequent answer prisoners give to my question, the little word "just" emphasizing the innocuousness of the crime.

…

As usual, one must look first to the academy when tracing the origins of a change in the Zeitgeist. What starts out as a career-promoting academic hypothesis ends up as an idea so widely accepted that it becomes not only an unchallengeable orthodoxy but a cliche even among the untutored. Academics have used two closely linked arguments to establish the statistical and moral normality of crime and the consequent illegitimacy of the criminal justice system's sanctions. First, they claim, we are all criminal anyway; and when everyone is guilty, everyone is innocent. Their second argument, Marxist in inspiration, is that the law has no moral content, being merely the expression of the power of certain interest groups—of the rich against the poor, for example, or the capitalist against the worker. Since the law is an expression of raw power, there is no essential moral distinction between criminal and non-criminal behavior. It is simply a question of whose foot the boot is on.

Criminologists are the mirror image of Hamlet, who exclaimed that if each man received his deserts, none should escape whipping. On the contrary, say the criminologists, more liberal than the prince (no doubt because of their humbler social origins): none should be punished.

…

It is impossible to state precisely when the Zeitgeist changed and the criminal became a victim in the minds of intellectuals: not only history, but also the history of an idea, is a seamless robe. Let me quote one example, though, now more than a third of a century old. In 1966 (at about the time when Norman Mailer in America, and Jean-Paul Sartre in Europe, portrayed criminals as existential heroes in revolt against a heartless, inauthentic world), the psychiatrist Karl Menninger published a book with the revealing title The Crime of Punishment. It was based upon the Isaac Ray lectures he had given three years earlier—Isaac Ray having been the first American psychiatrist who concerned himself with the problems of crime. Menninger wrote: "Crime is everybody's temptation. It is easy to look with proud disdain upon ‘those people’ who get caught—the stupid ones, the unlucky ones, the blatant ones. But who does not get nervous when a police car follows closely? We squirm over our income tax statements and make some ‘adjustments.’ We tell the customs official we have nothing to declare—well, practically nothing. Some of us who have never been convicted of crime picked up over two billion dollars' worth of merchandise last year from the stores we patronize. Over a billion dollars was embezzled by employees last year."

The moral of the story is that those who go to court and to prison are victims of chance at best and of prejudice at worst: prejudice against the lowly, the unwashed, the uneducated, the poor—those whom literary critics portentously call the Other. This is precisely what many of my patients in the prison tell me. Even when they have been caught in flagrante, loot in hand or blood on fist, they believe the police are unfairly picking on them. Such an attitude, of course, prevents them from reflecting upon their own contribution to their predicament: for chance and prejudice are not forces over which an individual has much personal control. When I ask prisoners whether they'll be coming back after their release, a few say no with an entirely credible vehemence; they are the ones who make the mental connection between their conduct and their fate. But most say they don't know, that no one can foresee the future, that it's up to the courts, that it all depends—on others, never on themselves.

…

Since then, of course, our understanding of theft and other criminal activity has grown more complex, if not necessarily more accurate or realistic. It has been the effect, and quite possibly the intention, of criminologists to shed new obscurity on the matter of crime: the opacity of their writing sometimes leads one to wonder whether they have actually ever met a criminal or a crime victim. Certainly, it is in their professional interest that the wellsprings of crime should remain an unfathomed mystery, for how else is one to convince governments that what a crime-ridden country (such as Britain) needs is further research done by ever more criminologists?

…

In the process of transmission from academy to populace, ideas may change in subtle ways. When the well-known criminologist Jock Young wrote that "the normalization of drug use is paralleled by the normalization of crime," and, because of this normalization, criminal behavior in individuals no longer required special explanation, he surely didn't mean that he wouldn't mind if his own children started to shoot up heroin or rob old ladies in the street. Nor would he be indifferent to the intrusion of burglars into his own house, ascribing it merely to the temper of the times and regarding it as a morally neutral event. But that, of course, is precisely how "just" shoplifters, "just" burglars, "just" assaulters, "just" attempted murderers, taking their cue from him and others like him, would view (or at least say they viewed) their own actions: they have simply moved with the times and therefore done no wrong. And, not surprisingly, the crimes that now attract the deprecatory qualification "just" have escalated in seriousness even in the ten years I have attended the prison as a doctor, so that I have even heard a prisoner wave away "just a poxy little murder charge." The same is true of the drugs that prisoners use: where once they replied that they smoked "just" cannabis, they now say that they take "just" crack cocaine, as if by confining themselves thus they were paragons of self-denial and self-discipline.

…

Recently, biological theories of crime have come back into fashion. Such theories go way back: nineteenth-century Italian and French criminologists and forensic psychiatrists elaborated a theory of hereditary degeneration to account for the criminal's inability to conform to the law. But until recently, biological theories of crime—usually spiced with a strong dose of bogus genetics—were the province of the illiberal right, leading directly to forced sterilization and other eugenic measures.

The latest biological theories of crime, however, stress that criminals cannot help what they do: it is all in their genes, their neurochemistry, or their temporal lobes. Such factors provide no answer to why the mere increase in recorded crime in Britain between 1990 and 1991 was greater than the total of all recorded crime in 1950 (to say nothing of the accelerating increases since 1991), but that failure does not deter researchers in the least. Scholarly books with titles such as Genetics of Criminal and Antisocial Behavior proliferate and do not evoke the outrage among intellectuals that greeted the publication of H. J. Eysenck's Crime and Personality in 1964, a book suggesting that criminality is an hereditary trait. For many years, liberals viewed Eysenck, professor of psychology at London University, as virtually a fascist for suggesting the heritability of almost every human characteristic, but they have since realized that genetic explanations of crime can just as readily be grist for their exculpatory and all-forgiving mills as they can be for the mills of conservatives.

…

The idea that prison is principally a therapeutic institution is now virtually ineradicable. The emphasis on recidivism rates as a measure of its success or failure in the press coverage of prison ("Research by criminologists shows . . . " etc.) reinforces this view, as does the theory put forward by criminologists that crime is a mental disorder. The Psychopathology of Crime by Adrian Raine of the University of Southern California claims that recidivism is a mental disorder like any other, often accompanied by cerebral dysfunction. Addicted to Crime?, a volume edited by psychologists working in one of Britain's few institutions for the criminally insane, contains the work of eight academics. The answer to the question of their title is, of course, yes; addiction being—falsely—conceived as a compulsion that it is futile to expect anyone to resist. (If there is a second edition of the book, the question mark will no doubt disappear from its title, just as it vanished from the second edition of Beatrice and Sidney Webb's book about the Soviet Union, The Soviet Union: A New Civilisation?—which included everything about Russia except the truth.)

Is it surprising that recidivist burglars and car thieves now ask for therapy for their addiction, secure in the knowledge that no such therapy can or will be forthcoming, thereby justifying the continuation of their habit? "I asked for help," they often complain to me, "but didn't get none." One young man aged 21, serving a sentence of six months (three months with time off for good behavior) for having stolen 60 cars, told me that in reality he had stolen over 500 and had made some $160,000 doing so. It is surely an unnecessary mystification to construct an elaborate neuropsychological explanation of his conduct. Burglars who tell me that they are addicted to their craft, thereby implying that the fault will be mine for not having treated them successfully if they continue to burgle after their release, always react in the same way when I ask them how many burglaries they committed for which they were not caught: with a happy but not (from the householder's point of view) an altogether reassuring smile, as if they were recalling the happiest times of their life—soon to return.

…

Since criminologists and sociologists can no longer plausibly attribute crime to raw poverty, they now look to "relative deprivation" to explain its rise in times of prosperity. In this light, they see crime as a quasi-political protest against an unjust distribution of the goods of the world. Several criminological commentators have lamented the apparently contradictory fact that it is the poor who suffer most, including loss of property, from criminals, implying that it would be more acceptable if the criminals robbed the rich. (In a radio discussion about the seasonal riots that break out in poor areas of British cities, a left-wing academic, now a cabinet minister in the present government, said that one of the tragic aspects of these riots is that they caused damage in the rioters' own neighborhood. She didn't answer my question whether she'd prefer the riots to take place in her neighborhood.)

…

Moreover, the very term "dispossessed" carries its own emotional and ideological connotations. The poor have not failed to earn, the term implies, but instead have been robbed of what is rightfully theirs. Crime is thus the expropriation of the expropriators—and so not crime at all, in the moral sense. And this is an attitude I have encountered many times among burglars and car thieves. They believe that anyone who possesses something can, ipso facto, afford to lose it, while someone who does not possess it is, ipso facto, justified in taking it. Crime is but a form of redistributive taxation from below.

Or—when committed by women—crime could be seen "as a way, perhaps of celebrating women as independent of men," to quote Elizabeth Stanko, an American feminist criminologist teaching in a British university. Here we are paddling in the murky waters of Frantz Fanon, the West Indian psychiatrist who believed that a little murder did wonders for the psyche of the downtrodden, and who achieved iconic status precisely at the time of criminology's great expansion as a university discipline.

…

No one gains kudos in the criminological fraternity by suggesting that police and punishment are necessary in a civilized society. To do so would be to appear illiberal and lacking faith in man's primordial goodness. It is much better for one's reputation, for example, to refer to the large number of American prisoners as "the American gulag," as if there were no relevant differences between the former Soviet Union and the United States.

[erisinspace]

The Cost of Owning One's Life

It takes a painful, oftentimes gruesome death of your former self and a gradual rebirth into a new creature to truly own one's self. I fondly remember this quote I read some years ago that "man cannot create himself without suffering, for he is both the sculpture and the sculptor." Though as a believer, I'd also like another version where God is constantly refining His people through the fire of trials in order to purge, cleanse, and purify them into Christlikeness. I believe it is a delicate and perfect balance of two realities—where God exercises His sovereign will upon mankind, and where man is responsible for the consequences of his own choices.

I won't make the case for the Sovereignty of God for a single reason that is very obvious—God is God, who am I to explain the mysterious ways of the Almighty?

But I would make the case for the latter, the responsibility of man to sculpt his own self into a masterpiece that he would approve, that he would respect, and—if humanly possible, without a hint of conceit—even admire and find noble.

What does it take to own one's life?

What does it mean to own one's life?

I believe those are fundamental questions that our Being demands to be answered. What is my life? Am I a slave to my past? My biological makeup? My family? My memories? My environment?

Who am I? What is my life? What am I here for?

One must consistently ask these things, and I believe all of us do, as we go on in our lives. And these are no doubt a shattering set of questions that seem to rock quite violently the bedrock of our identity. It shakes us, depresses us, disturbs us, unsettles us. It is a source of a great deal of anxiety. Unless you have perfectly figured yourself out, in that case, good for you.

Around 2018, I became engrossed with the works of Dr. Jordan Peterson, I learned about him through an exceptionally brilliant online peer who eventually became a dear friend of mine. Dr. Peterson is highly interested in the psychological study of individuals, from their biological tendencies to varying temperaments, to the study of history (especially World War II), even to the study of religion and its underlying archetypal values which human beings hold sacred since the days of old regardless of whether we deem ourselves religious or not.

Dr. Peterson believes that responsibility gives life meaning. To be able to bear one's existence despite the unavoidable tragedies and miseries of life, one has to carry his own cross, so to speak, and not just carry it but to bear one's own life with dignity and fortitude. To always speak the truth. To not lie nor partake in falsehood. He believes that speaking the truth and voluntarily taking responsibility will help us earn a sacred sense of dignity and respect in our existence—perhaps, even happiness.

I would love to share this quote from the timeless Dostoevsky from his book The Brothers Karamazov,

“Above all, do not lie to yourself. A man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point where he does not discern any truth either in himself or anywhere around him, and thus falls into disrespect towards himself and others. Not respecting anyone, he ceases to love, and having no love, he gives himself up to passions and coarse pleasures, in order to occupy and amuse himself, and in his vices reaches complete bestiality, and it all comes from lying continually to others and to himself. A man who lies to himself is often the first to take offense. It sometimes feels very good to take offense, doesn't it? And surely he knows that no one has offended him, and that he himself has invented the offense and told lies just for the beauty of it, that he has exaggerated for the sake of effect, that he has picked on a word and made a mountain out of a pea--he knows all of that, and still he is the first to take offense, he likes feeling offended, it gives him great pleasure, and thus he reaches the point of real hostility.”

I am meaning to write this blog to organize my thoughts. To see if I have learned anything at all over the course of the years of my personal study. To see if I truly spoke the Truth and lived by the Truth. To see if I have finally shouldered my responsibility of being alive, and have owned my life as a consequence.

I have been through a lot of death and dying within me. From dying to self, dying to my own pre-held principles, dying to my own emotions, dying to my ignorance and arrogance, dying to my past, dying even to my own father and mother's approval (definitely not literally, but in a psychological sense that they are the primal authority whose approval little children yearn to have, which grown up men and women like myself no longer have to be bound upon. After all, one must walk his own path, not the path laid out for him by someone else.) But, perhaps, that which died had to die, in the hopes that a better Being must come forth. Some days I didn't know if I will survive the refining, the dying. But I kept trusting God. I trust in His Blessed Name. I only have my mustard seed of faith with me, and maybe that's all He needs. I have nothing else in me but withered roots waiting for the fire of purging. I must only surrender to His Truth. Veritas Dei Vincit. His Truth shall always conquer.

Suffering is agonizing. The cost of owning one's life is to die constantly, daily. Yet in my dying, I became more alive. More and more, my life became something real to me. I now walk in Liberty which was a strange concept to me before. In my dying, I no longer became a byproduct of my environment, of my past memories, of the things that happened to me. Those things died in the refining fire. They were chipped off in the process of sculpting. My soul is being made into a clean slate, a new sense of sight that is able to look at the world in the light of Truth, no longer stumbling blindly in the dark. There are days I do not recognize my old self, it is like a stranger looking from a blurred glass window. But always in my life, I see the gracious, merciful, ever-faithful hand of my God changing me from being an unbeliever to a believer; my own personal, difficult journey of unlearning and learning the foundational values and meaning of being a human, a created being—meeting halfway to reveal who I have now become. A new creature now walking in the newness of life.

To take ownership of one's own life, one must die first. And when he dies, he must be born again. And when he has been born again, he must surrender solely to the Truth, and the Truth shall set him free.

[jumanacandraw]

Guest -Laiba Niaz Paracha 

Podcast Script

The Odyssey- the epic form and women

The Odyssey does give Odysseus the privilege of sharing the tales of exploits and misfortunes, but it ensures that his character fulfills its preordained role in accordance with the overarching chronology of the epic. The transition from the bardic third-person to Odysseus’ own first person accounts of events is seamless; even a story located in a distant past, such as the memory of Odysseus’s scar, occurs with little linguistic or tonal divergence to differentiate the temporal shifts from one other, and in maintaining this homogeneity, the narrative prevents Odysseus from existing outside its larger framework. In his essay “Epic and Novel”, Russian literary critic and theorist Mikhail Bakhtin writes of the epic as a literary form which by virtue of the definition of its genre is “walled off absolutely from all subsequent times”,-  writes of the epic as a generic form “whose constitutive feature is the transferral of the world it describes to an absolute past of national beginnings and peak times”, it’s features:

designated in the present

located in ancient time (Odyssey, Illiad, Aeneid) (an inaccessible past- “ended”/fated time- complete, congealed, fossilized)

“the world of firsts and pasts, of fathers and founders” (a world ordained by men, through the reverential eyes of a male descendant)

Within the epic, characters are absolute- the hero of the epic is incapable of change, incapable of resisting his own fate, which as I mentioned, is pre-ordained. Odysseus will indeed suffer the punishment of being lost at sea, and he will return home too. Achilles will suffer the consequences of his own wrath, his rage and his subsequent death are unavoidable. It has been argued, then, by theorists such as Bakhtin and Eric Auerbach, that the epic is static and lacks evolution. It follows therefore that it’s female characters are also locked into their roles- and that is those women who exist within the domain of humanity. Those figures that are inhuman or monstrous in some way have barely any “voice” at all, and definitely no morality. 

Within the Odyssey, a running theme of marital disloyalty and the fear of female adultery pervades the narrative, although Odysseus enjoys the company of many many, many women over the course of his journey. The focus of his preoccupations, his paranoia and resentment, are focusing specifically on the morality (or lack thereof) of the women who are unfaithful to their husbands. This occurs initially when Telemachus meets Helen and Menelaus in Book 4, where Helen embodies the repentant sinner, blameworthy for a war she never initiated. She rejects accolades and titles accruing to her beauty and grace, choosing to accept the blame for a war she never initiated and calling herself a “shameless whore”; thus securing for herself a place within Achaean society. It occurs again and most directly in Book 11, where the given passage details a conversation between Agamemnon and Odysseus regarding Clytemnestra, Agamemnon’s wife, who plotted to kill him in his absence, and carried out the plan with her lover, Aegisthus. This essay will attempt to establish and examine how Clytemnestra is systematically stripped of her femininity, and humanity as a result of her independent actions. 

Now, Jumana, I recall that you studied a great variety of mythical traditions in your previous work- how have you found the representation of women as non-human entities, I am curious about that.

Where Odysseus, for his plotting and scheming ways is referred to as “cunning”, “worldly” and a “mastermind of war”, Clytemnestra is “deadly” for her disloyalty and “monstrous” deception. She is dispossessed, even, of her existence as a human being, becoming nothing more than the action she has committed, a “bestial” entity. Any analyses regarding her possible motives and any justifications or explanations for her actions are avoided, as they would present her with the chance to reclaim her humanity once more. She is instead immortalised as both “accursed” and a curse befallen upon “the whole breed of womankind”.  The shadow of her characterisation carries over till the end of the epic, in tandem with the idea that “even the honest ones” have been “bathe(d) in shame” through the arguably justifiable actions of Clytemnestra. 

South Asian Writers of note + their writing and representation of the world:

Ismat Chugtai:

“I didn’t write what you’d call ‘literarily’. I wrote and do write as I speak, in a very simple language…I used to write grammatically incorrect sentences, because while speaking, you sometimes speak incorrect sentences…it was not my language that gained notice. It was the way I wrote that did, the frankness I wrote with.” (Chugtai, Mahfil Interview 169).  

In her essay Chugtai furthers emphasizes a disharmony in her relationship with language, as her spelling errors are noted by the calligrapher who is implicated in the trial alongside herself and Shahid Dehlavi. This disharmony is characteristic of feminine dissatisfaction with the imposition of a structure and order on the act of writing which is inherently “phallogocentric” in nature, a term coined by Jacques Derrida which combines a phallocentric and logocentric system of language and thought. Such a system privileges an exclusively masculine form of self-expression, insisting on cohesive, progressive, linear narratives as absolute. Woolf writes of this impediment; “To begin with, there is the technical difficulty—so simple, apparently; in reality, so baffling—that the very form of the sentence does not fit her. It is a sentence made by men; it is too loose, too heavy, too pompous for a woman’s use.” (Woolf 308). She further writes of this as a reflection of a reality which similarly accommodates a masculine order through the oppressive hegemony maintained by legal and social patriarchies; women writers must confront “the order imposed upon them by convention. And as men are the arbiters of that convention, as they have established an order of values in life, so too, since fiction is largely based on life, these values prevail there also to a very great extent.” (Woolf 309). 

Feminine writing has itself been a widely contested issue even within Western feminist circles, since its inception as a literary concept and textual practice by the French feminist philosopher and theorist, Helen Cixous. There is perhaps no text more influential for its advocation of “woman’s writing” or “l’ecriture feminine”, than Cixous’ 1976 essay, “The Laugh of the Medusa”. It makes a rousing case for the exploration of women’s experiences through a reconstruction of the feminine identity, i.e., femininity, and female sexuality through “writing the body”; “By writing her self, woman will return to the body which has been more than confiscated from her, which has been turned into the uncanny stranger on display,” (Cixous 886). She makes a case for the necessity of literature which detracts from the “phallogocentric tradition” through the “invention of a new, insurgent writing”, as she argues “with a few rare exceptions, there has not yet been any writing that inscribes femininity;” (Cixous 878-880).

 Her text, radical and insurgent in its inclusive definition of l’ecriture feminine, in so far as it states in no uncertain terms; “It is impossible to define a feminine practice of writing, and this is an impossibility that will remain, for this practice can never be theorized, enclosed, coded-which doesn't mean that it doesn't exist…It will be conceived of only by subjects who are breakers of automatisms, by peripheral figures that no authority can ever subjugate.” (Cixous 883). Shakir’s work, in this conception of feminine writing, both aligns with and contests the text- while Cixous states “Almost everything is yet to be written by women about femininity: about their sexuality, that is, its infinite and mobile complexity,” she excludes from this definition the “classical representations” of women in the Western literary canon i.e. as “sensitive, intuitive, dreamy, etc”, (Cixous 878, 885). Further, she details that the embodied writing she speaks of is necessarily sexual, masturbatory in nature (Cixous 883). A woman writer “‘must write herself, her body must be heard,’ she should explore and discover and exhibit her sexuality in writing and describe the pleasures or ‘jouissance’ (Lacanian term) of sexuality,”

Final comment by Audre Lorde:

As they become known to and accepted by us, our feelings and the honest exploration of them become sanctuaries and spawning grounds for the most radical and daring of ideas. They become a safe-house for that difference so 

necessary to change and the conceptualization of any meaningful action. Right now, I could name at least ten ideas I would have found intolerable or incomprehensible and frightening, except as they came after dreams and poems. This is not idle fantasy, but a disciplined attention to the true meaning of "it feels right to me." We can train ourselves to respect our feelings and to transpose them into a language so they can be shared. And where that language does not yet exist, it is our poetry which helps to fashion it. Poetry is not only dream and vision; it is the skeleton architecture of our lives. It lays the foundations for a future of change, a bridge across our fears of what has never been before.' 

[talabib]

How To Turn Failure Into A Valuable Experience

If you’ve ever had to do anything creative, you’ve experienced failure. It’s a necessary part of the creative process. But there’s more to it than that.

It turns out that when you look at how some of humanity’s greatest minds think of failure, they don’t think of it as an event to be overcome. They see it as a necessary part of the journey towards mastery.

This post explains why failure isn’t something to fear, but rather something to understand. How can it propel us forwards, to our successes?

Mastery has nothing to do with avoiding failure; rather, it’s about relentlessly striving for more.

When people speak about artists and athletes, they often use black-and-white terms, like “good” or “bad,” “success” or “failure.” Well, that kind of hierarchical language is deeply misguided, because failure can actually help you achieve mastery.

To understand why failure can be such an advantage, first we need to understand mastery. Mastery is about endurance, not perfectionism (which is bound up in how we want others to perceive us) or success (related to particular events). In other words, mastery is the unrelenting pursuit of a goal. Think of it like chasing something that can never be caught; it’s about striving for the impossible.

Digging a little deeper, consider the Archer’s Paradox as a metaphor for the process of mastery. The Archer’s Paradox refers to the idea that the archer will draw her bow and point her arrow in a way that's intended to account for elements that are outside of her control, like weather.

So, in a sense, the archer is constantly striving to control things that cannot be controlled. And like the archer, those of us who seek mastery also try to hit the target despite facing enormous trials over which we have no control

And since mastery is borne of this continual process of unrelenting striving, we shouldn’t even use the word “failure” to describe the difficulties we encounter on the path. Because as long as you keep working past the moment of “failure,” the event becomes a learning experience.

Not to mention, these difficulties (i.e. “failures”) can also be a form of motivation. As playwright Tennessee Williams said, “The apparent failure of a play sends me back to my typewriter that very night, before the reviews are out. I am more compelled to get back to work than if I had a success.”

For most of us, there’s a gap between what we have achieved and what we want to achieve.

Since failure is a misguided concept, how can we talk about unrealized achievement? Well, there’s The Gap, a term which refers to the fissure between what you have achieved and what you can achieve.

For instance, a young Hart Crane encountered The Gap when the esteemed poet Ezra Pound deemed Crane’s work “all egg” and no incubator. He meant that Crane’s poetry didn’t match his high potential. In other words: Crane was in The Gap.

Since anyone can fall into The Gap, what can be done to close it? Well first, start by creating a safe haven, a mental or physical space that protects you from criticism and allows you to take risks.

The playwright August Wilson created his safe haven in a restaurant. One time, while he was scribbling away, a waitress asked whether he was writing on napkins “because it doesn’t count.” In fact, that was precisely the case: Wilson wrote on napkins because it felt safe; it allowed him to keep striving without worrying about criticism.

As you can see, a safe haven can be immensely valuable for unleashing creativity, but this protected space also comes with risks. Because after all, when you shield yourself for too long, you often lose touch with reality.

That’s what happened to Pontormo, a sixteenth-century Florentine fresco painter who spent eleven years working on a portrait in isolation. After the work, neither he nor the painting survived.

The risks of isolation are one reason why, after creating a safe haven, you have to find a way to incorporate criticism and pressure. Composer Leonard Bernstein valued having the pressure of limited time: “To achieve great things, two things are needed: a plan, and not quite enough time.”

For example, the author and neurologist Oliver Sacks was desperate because he hadn’t written anything for months. So, he gave himself an ultimatum: write a book in ten days or commit suicide. Nine days later, guess what happened? Sacks finished his book.

Near wins compel us to confront our limitations and push past them.

Have you experienced that sinking feeling that sets in when you miss the bus by just a few seconds? It can be extremely frustrating, especially if you have somewhere important to be. Although these near wins are excruciating, they’re also necessary, because they push us forward

This has actually been proven by psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, who found that near wins have a profound effect on our thinking, leading us to obsess over “what might have been.” The psychologists even found that the more frustrating the failure, the more it affects our behavior, motivating us to work harder.

For instance, consider Jackie Joyner-Kersee, who was one-third of a second away from winning gold in the 1984 Olympic heptathlon. Her near win had such a motivating effect that when she returned to the Olympics in 1988, she set a record nobody’s beaten since.

But a near win not only motivates us to achieve great things; it also shifts our perspective, focusing our attention on the process of striving and not the end goal.  

Triathlete Julie Moss may be one of the best examples of this phenomenon. During the 1982 Ironman race, Moss had a six minute lead, but then she collapsed during the last half-mile. Although she could barely control her limbs – much less stand up – she still crawled through the last yards of the race, willing herself to push past the pain.

In other words, Moss’ focus shifted from her original goal (winning the race), to the how of the race – that is, how was she going to push past her pain to cross the finish line?

These kinds of near misses define our lives, because the path to the finish line is rarely a straight one. So we learn to keep moving forward, even when it’s a struggle.

In order to reach your potential, you have to surrender yourself to pain.

Near misses motivate us to push past our frustration and accomplish great things. Pain is another difficulty you may have to overcome on the path to mastery: That is, you have to accept and surrender to pain to reach your potential.

Since everyone experiences tragedies, setbacks and disasters, pain is inevitable. A lady was forced to face this sad fact head-on when her seven dear friends all died within a year.

This was obviously a deeply painful experience for her, but eventually she accepted that death is unavoidable. And once she accepted the fragility of life, she was inspired to find more meaning in each moment she had.

That’s how surrendering works: Once you accept your pain fully, you can finally begin to understand it – and then move forward.

The martial art Aikido is a great metaphor for this process. Aikido is all about using your opponent’s force against them, by absorbing their energy and redirecting it back towards them. Wendy Palmer has mastered this technique, making her one of the most powerful and fearsome Aikido fighters, despite being only 5’5”.

Just as Aikido literally trains participants to absorb hostile energy and transform it, we have to learn how to accept setbacks, surrender to their pain and transform the energy or emotions they provoke.

To that end, it’s remarkable how many great leaders faced painful adversity on the path to mastery. For example, Martin Luther King Jr., now renowned as a great orator, had to overcome a speech impediment. In fact, his verbal tic was so noticeable, he was penalized for it when he studied oratory in Seminary.

How did he overcome his impediment? As MLK put it, “Once I’d made my peace with death, I could make my peace with all else.” In other words, once he accepted the fact that life is fragile and painful, his speech impediment simply disappeared.

To get creative, embody the amateur.

If you want to accomplish great things, you have to allow yourself to experiment and play! This idea gets right at the amateur’s advantage – that is, the benefit of having more experience than a novice, but less than an expert. So, why do amateurs have an advantage over experts? Well, amateurs act for pleasure, not money or career-related reasons – and pleasure goes hand and hand with experimentation, leading to truly original new ideas.

To understand the benefits of experimentation, consider scientists Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov, who created the world’s first two-dimensional object (a layer of carbon found in graphite) and consequently won a Nobel Prize. This groundbreaking invention was a product of their “Friday Night Experiments,” which consisted of ludicrous experiments with low probabilities of success.

By stepping into the role of amateurs, the scientists had the freedom to play with ideas – eventually leading to a major breakthrough.

And this playfulness is why amateurs have an advantage over experts. The latter are burdened by the Einstellung effect: once someone has developed rigid routines, they are less likely to rethink what works and come up with new ideas. But this is a faulty mindset, because what worked once might not work again

We’ve seen that experimentation results in innovation, and so can playing in a childlike way. That’s why companies like Mattel encourage employees to play in the office, whether on carpets that look like grass, or in chairs that stimulate space shuttles.

There’s even a scientific connection between creativity and play. One study gave two groups of four-year-olds a toy. The researcher showed the first group how to use the toy, but didn’t show the second group. In the end, the second group spent more time playing with the toy and even discovered hidden features.

Ultimately, the study showed that playing intensified the second group’s curiosity, leading them to find more innovative uses for the toy.

On the path to mastery, cultivate grit.

Grit is the final piece to understanding the way failure and setbacks can lead us to mastery.

So what is grit? It’s having a thick skin in the face of defeat. Grit ties together ideas we’ve already discussed, like surrendering to pain and striving for mastery.

Taking a step back, it’s important to note that grit is different from persistence or self-control. Persistence is rugged steadfastness towards an end goal – like studying hard to pass your medical school exams and become a doctor. Self-control is more temporary – like resisting temptations.

By contrast, grit is endurance displayed over years. It’s about continuing to strive for mastery despite apparent failure, over and over again.

For example, the director of Iowa University’s world-famous Writing Program noted that the most successful writers were those who most wanted to become great – not the ones with the most natural talent. So in the case of the most ambitious writers, grit is a matter of continuous, unrelenting effort over time.

But grit isn’t only about making a continuous effort, it’s also about applying it towards mastery. And that’s why art is one of the best ways to learn grit. After all, art teaches us to constantly reassess ourselves, our work and our ideas – even as we continue to strive.

Consider that artists have to deal with criticism all the time. Well, successful artists have figured out how to use valuable parts of the criticism to improve their work, and discard the rest.

Imagine standing next to a painting you poured your soul into, while dozens of critics figuratively tear it apart. How would you respond?

In the end, having the grit to face that kind of criticism is what you truly need to succeed. So find a way to absorb all the criticism, pain and difficulties you encounter, and incorporate them.

Failure, as we know it, doesn’t really exist. When we confront what looks like failure, instead of bowing to it, we need to see it as it really is: a valuable learning experience. Because after all, if you want to accomplish great things, you have to find a way to transform your setbacks into motivation. In other words, you have to continually strive for more in order to achieve more.

Action plan: Next time you think you’re at rock bottom, tell yourself: “Great, I can only go up from here.” After all, although being at rock bottom might feel like a failure, it isn’t! It’s part of the path towards achieving your goals.

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

If you are still doing book reviews, could you do one for the departure?

Short opinion: I admire the hell out of #19: The Departure, and I’d put it on every summer reading list in the country if I could.  I also find it unbelievably annoying.

Long opinion:

I agree with all the people who point out that K.A. Applegate does something incredibly daring and complex and real-world important with #19, through showing that the Evil Empire of Evil can still have a ton of residents who just kind of ended up in Evilstown through the bad luck of being born there and can’t really be held responsible for (initially) believing the poison they’ve been fed their entire lives.  Aftran 942 is arguably the most important character in the series because her greatest sin is simply not questioning the beliefs that she grew up with—and as a result, she horribly enslaves and violates at least three or four people (including children) and commits at least one murder.  We come to understand that what Cassie asks her to do—to reject everything she was raised with and believes and cares about—is not only incomprehensibly difficult, but nearly ends up being deadly.  Applegate deconstructs the idea that entire groups or belief systems can be “evil” and simultaneously shows that the actions of an entire group can be so evil that the only moral choice is opposition.  She makes it clear that many of the yeerks fighting the war against humans are doing so because of false or distorted beliefs, and also shows that rebellion against those beliefs is possible.

But in order to accomplish this effect, #19 awkwardly uses everything from an enraged black bear to a fucking random-ass leopard to herd the characters around the plot.  How about just a bear, but maybe one that is humanized or has rabies?  How about a more straightforward survival story with no random-ass leopards, maybe one in which Cassie’s major moment of saving Aftran’s life is instead giving up all of her found mushrooms so that Karen can eat?

Regardless of how it happens, Aftran and Cassie together make this incredible, radical choice to trust each other, and they do so specifically because of their forced empathy for one another.  Cassie thinks of yeerks slugs and slavers, but never as individuals, until she and Aftran end up forced to spend two nights sitting around in a cave whining about their respective difficulties with the ongoing war.  Aftran dismisses gedds, hork-bajir, and other non-yeerks as “lesser” species in need of domination for their own good until she ends up unavoidably forced to take Cassie’s perspective as she is literally seeing through Cassie’s eyes.  It’s not that Cassie is anything all that special; it’s just that Cassie is a unique individual with fears and dreams.  Cassie’s a scared kid thrust into a war too big for her to handle, just like Aftran.  Cassie’s an animal nut and an only child who thinks shopping with her best friend is silly and has a crush on her CO.  Cassie deserves to live her life free from controllerdom, even if that means Aftran isn’t allowed to use her eyes.

However, in order to have that moment of empathy, CASSIE FIRST HAS TO BECOME A FUCKING VOLUNTARY CONTROLLER.  Just to be clear, I am 100% with Marco: once that happens, the other Animorphs have a duty and an obligation, albeit an unpleasant one, to kill Cassie and Aftran.  Forget letting Tom have the morphing cube; that decision right there is the most unforgivable thing Cassie ever does to her team.  Letting the yeerks morph is a bad idea.  Letting the yeerks know the names, addresses, faces, and personalities of every one of the Animorphs is a far bigger betrayal.  Worse still, it’s one that Cassie commits out of sheer carelessness: she seems to be suffering from temporary amnesia because she genuinely does not realize she is dooming all of her friends and her entire family to the same fate when she lets herself become a controller.  It is canon (according to Tom, Eva, Chapman, Allison Kim, Alloran, and John Berryman, all on different occasions) that being an involuntary controller is LITERALLY a fate worse than death; if not for Aftran, Cassie would dodge that bullet while allowing everyone she loves to take it in her place.  The only alternative would be forcing someone she loves (Rachel or Marco) to kill her in order to save the other people they love.  I cannot think too hard about this moment without despising Cassie as a human being. Anyway, would it have been that hard just to have Aftran abandon Karen and infest Cassie one of those times Cassie was sleeping next to her?

However, Applegate does an absolutely amazing job of showing that the moral choice—to give up on having a host—is the unbelievably difficult choice for Aftran.  She explains the rhetoric of “look out for oneself” and “fight to get what you and your group need” very clearly—and then utterly takes it down, not just on a societal level, but also on an individual level.  Cassie and Aftran draw strength from one another, saving each other’s lives several times until there’s no doubt that each one would be dead without the other.  Cassie’s whole character arc is about the importance of drawing on others for strength and about the power that comes from vulnerability, and her willingness to rely on Aftran to save her is an even more important part of her development than her willingness to save Aftran.  The lesson that Aftran takes from Cassie’s dependency as a form of strength is also really important: that it doesn’t have to be either-or, a matter of the yeerks having the humans’ strength or the humans having the humans’ strength.  It is possible for the two species to work together, and the moral solution to the power imbalance is definitely not one in which the yeerks punish the humans for the andalites’ bad choices and their own bad luck through using children as livestock.

And yet this lesson gets somewhat lost in that Cassie’s whole oops-I’m-a-controller fuckup miraculously works out for her.  She does not allow Aftran to infest her in the hope of changing Aftran’s mind; she does it because she’s unwilling to get Karen’s blood on her hands.  And then she not only avoids consequences for her mistake but ends up being better off for having made it.  I’d be less annoyed with Cassie doing something stupid and then the universe rearranging itself to make that stupidity okay if she didn’t do it four or five other times in this same damn book (quitting the team, using a horse to attack an angry bear, allowing a controller to see her morphing, becoming a nothlit) and if the universe didn’t accommodate her every damn time (Jake being way too understanding that she’s leaving her friends to die, the horse fending off the bear, the controller being one of the few on the planet who is wavering about the idea of involuntary hosts, caterpillars resetting as butterflies).  I’d be even less annoyed if the series as a whole didn’t demonstrate this pattern again and again and again.  Cassie risks her life to save some baby skunks, only for the skunks to become the key to stopping Visser Three from destroying Ax’s forest (#9).  Cassie thinks that the gang should trust George Edelman (#17) and Mr. Tidwell (#29) only for them both to prove to be trustworthy; she doesn’t think that they should trust Taylor (#43) but still manages to come out of nowhere to save their butts after she proves to be right yet again.  Cassie stops Jake from killing Tom because she doesn’t want Jake hurt; that decision ends up working itself into the morph-capable yeerks rebelling and Cassie claiming she knew it all along (#50).  Cassie just “knows somehow” that stopping John Berryman from ever being born will bring Jake back (MM3), just like she “knows somehow” that the Animorphs can trust Ax but not Tom (MM4).  It’s sloppy characterization, it’s awkward plotting, and it’s just bad writing.

AND YET this book is also incredibly important as an SF* story in general, because (I will be the first to admit, as a huuuuuuugggee SF geek from about age six on forward) SF specifically has an ethics problem.  No other genre promotes ideas such as “they were urgals so it’s okay for us to slaughter several thousand of them and then go have a party,” “we often shoot/stab/torture humans to hurt the demons inside them because, dude, they’re demons,” or “my dad being mean to me is a valid excuse for destroying a planet.”  The yeerks get a raw deal right from birth—but being born without eyes isn’t a valid excuse to steal someone else’s body in order to use their eyes.  Cassie is only trying to defend her home and her family from invasion—but defending one’s own isn’t a valid excuse for cruelty or capricious murder.  Applegate doesn’t allow the reader the luxury of an easy story with a simple moral; she shows how the right choice is neither easy to find nor easy to make once one finds it.  She also shows that the “heroic” gestures SF worships are often as harmful as they are helpful, and that making the truly right choice to care for others and avoid harm is a years-long commitment to exhausting and unrewarding selflessness.  In the process she also heroicizes both Cassie and Aftran for making that choice.  There are not enough SF stories that humanize the alien villains, and there are definitely not enough SF stories about strength that doesn’t come from fighting ability.

Nonetheless, I’d like to count off the freaking plot holes in this freaking book.  The leopard’s presence is never properly explained, and its behavior doesn’t make much sense: sometimes it’s frightened enough of a wolf to run away, and sometimes it’s willing to fight a wolf and a gorilla in one go.  The yeerks just let Karen go at the end for no really good reason, when they go through heroic lengths to kill other ex-hosts who know too much in #8 and #31 especially.  Cassie picks up the Idiot Ball at a couple different moments in a way that is frankly uncharacteristic of her.  Aftran manages to hunt Cassie down and follow her home while in the body of a seven-year-old child without morphing and apparently without using any public or private transportation, when none of the other yeerks succeeded in doing this with any of the Animorphs after any other battle.  A panicked horse, an angry bear, a flooded river, and a badly-placed rock manage to conspire to get Cassie and Karftran stuck out in the woods in a string of bad luck worthy of a Charles Dickens novel.  While they’re out there, five super-competent teens who can (among other things) see for miles, track scents, and run at 30+ MPH remain unable to find them for days.  Ax doesn’t feel the need to mention the whole “metamorphosis resets the nothlit clock” thing during the several days that Jake et al spent worrying about Cassie.

NONETHELESS, this book shows the awe-inspiring degree of courage needed to face down one’s entire society and systematically reject every aspect of it and its damaging beliefs.  It also shows that the Karens of the world need the Aftrans of the world to make that radical decision, because although it is heroic to choose to act in the face of one’s society committing atrocities, it is equally reprehensible to choose not to act in the face of those kinds of atrocities.  #19 is a clear example of what makes K.A. Applegate a writer like no other, in that it rejects the easy choice of writing YA SF with all-bad villains or all-good heroes in favor of the right choice of writing an emotionally exhausting but deeply thought-provoking war epic with no simple answers.  The fact that Applegate does so in a book that also has gutwrenchingly accurate descriptions of depression (Cassie feeling unable to care about anything, even her loved ones), uncontrollable-giggle-inducing moments of humor (Marco announcing that he has to be excused from class to go buy a nicotine patch because he feels the urge to become an adolescent smoking statistic coming on), and stick-in-your-brain imagery (Aftran struggling to describe blindness as she and Cassie stand in a field of wildflowers) is just another credit to her freaking amazing ability as a writer.

So YOU’D THINK she could come up with a better way to get this plot moving than a fucking random-ass leopard.  Le sigh.  

*SF ≈ speculative fiction ≈ science fiction, fantasy, horror, modern myth, etc.

[wisestudentninja]

June 2018 Featured Creator

What is a Featured Creator?

Write Way Studio’s “Featured Creator” segment is my way of showing appreciation for the creators of the world.  Creative outlets are limitless, because there is no end to human imagination.  Every month shows the succeeding featured creator.  If you would like to be a part of this collaborative project, contact me at studiowriteway@gmail.com!

  My ninth guest creator is the artist known as PonPox!

Introduction

Known on the Internet by their username PonPox, they also go by Pon!  They are twenty-four years old with their birthday landing on March 16th.  Their astrological sign is the Pisces, better known as the twin fishes!  They have earned a bachelor’s degree in video game design with a focus on 3D art.  At the moment, they are part of an internship with a mobile game company as a 3D/2D artist for a vocational university.

Although they are a 2D artist at heart with both traditional and digital media, PonPox also works with 3D.  They create fan-art for a variety of fan-doms they are currently interested in.  When they have spare time, they adore experimenting with digital art.  With the digital come the opportunities with colored pieces and more advanced work.  In comparison to traditional work, digital has become so much easier because of Ctrl+Z and able to freely move pieces around as desired.  Programs like Photoshop and SAI help them practice even more with all artistic elements and experimentations.

However, because of their current schedule, most of their creative drawing time occurs on their commute to and from work, an estimated three hours per weekday, and lunch breaks.  In concerns to the consequence of the impending time crunch, they elaborated that their artwork was bits of “messy sketches, cleaner lead drawings and sometimes inked pieces.”  The minimum of their supplies are sketchbooks, mechanical pencil, and an eraser.  At the moment, they possess an interest in coloring, so they also bring along color pencils in order to satisfy the urge.

The most common subject matter for them is fan-art.  Original pieces are a close second, particularly folklore and fantasy creatures.  Fauns, harpies, centaurs and Scandinavian-styled trolls name only a few.  They like to place them into a modern setting with creative narratives attached.  The chronicles even develop into full blown backstories during their commutes.  The ideas may even develop into something more in the future.  But right now?  They are just ramblings to them.

What Sparked the Creator Passion?

How It All Started

They started drawing around the same time as everyone else would, in kindergarten.  The only difference is that they did not want to stop.  They admitted that a huge artistic milestone for them had been the introduction of manga and anime into their lives.  They were about nine or ten when they first started reading manga.  They later would try to mimic the manga styles they encountered.

All about the Art

The Epiphany

PonPox recalled some sort of news coverage a couple years after they had been introduced to the world of manga.  The topic of discussion?  “How to draw manga” tutorials, of all things!  They then remembered paying very close attention to the instructions the news provided.  A new development occurred to them from the experience that never registered before, that “you can learn techniques to draw better.”

Their parents later gifted them with a “how to draw manga” book that actually managed to do a decent job in jumpstarting their journey as an artist.  They learned so much in a short time as well as lucked out with the book being one of the decent tutorial texts.  It provided a bit of everything for artists, from color wheels, basic anatomy, and even shading rules.  It even shared multiple drawing styles and artists, revealing how manga is just one kind of style that happened to originate in Japan.

Manga and Anime

Manga and anime continue to be PonPox’s biggest inspirations.  It’s the main reason they started to focus on their art more versus simply aimlessly drawing.  However, a clarification is in order:  they are not a manga artist.  The term implies that the artist is creating manga in Japan and they definitely do not like being labeled with that assumption.

Experimentation

Fantasy and folklore creatures interest them since the beings can freely break away from the norm.  People-watching heightens their creativity and curiosity.  Humans fascinate them so, just like the creatures.  They began to tinker with various body modifications, from body hair, wrinkles, body fat, muscles and body types as a whole.  Part of the experimenting is due to them trying to escape from the typical anime/manga body imagery.  For the mythical creatures, they feel that “you can bend the rules more . . . [since] their beauty standards and physiques can be very different than what humans are used to.”

Future Projects

At the moment, there is no definite answer.  PonPox does know, however, that they will never stop drawing.  They sometimes works with their girlfriend on comics of an AU (alternate universe) for the character Leorio from the anime series Hunter x Hunter on a side-blog.  They are always creating more art for their blog, though!

There may be the possibility of prints, keychains, and other products (that is the hope anyway).  They are simply creating art and completing commissions at the present time.

Where to Find You? Support You?

PonPox is available on the Interwebs, from looking at their artwork to business purposes.  To satisfy your curiosity, look at the information provided below!

  Two sides of Tumblr house their art!

Main Art Blog

Side-Blog (that also focuses on art)

Portfolio for their 3-D work!

Support their work or even request a commission!

Ko-fi

Commission Details

Last Tidbits

As crazy as it may sound, PonPox had no clue narwhals were real animals!  Somewhere they heard about narwals being the unicorns of the sea and it just stuck.  It wasn’t until they were about thirteen or fourteen that they stumbled upon a photograph of one.  It completely blew their mind!  To this day, they still think narwhals are “some of the most magical creatures out there.”

Important Notice

Please understand that some information will not be shared by the creator’s request.  If you cannot understand that, there is not much more I can do to help you.  Safety is a top priority here, and I am here to help the creators, not instigate negative behavior.

Collaboration Disclaimer

The information provided in my Featured Creator articles is, in fact, from the real people, not some random Internet bot.  I do not use random stock photos to fill an imaginary photo quota.  Any photos in the Featured Creator segment are provided by the creators with permission to use them in this manner.  I want to support the original person behind the work, not a random online copycat creeping around.

To PonPox,

Even though we could not work on this as much as I would like, I hope you enjoyed the collaboration as much as I did!  I know that it was hard to consistently connect for the collaboration, especially when some unavoidable occurrences happened on my end and you having work as well.  It was definitely not easy and I cannot apologize enough for my lack of professionalism when the situations continued to arise.  It also provided me with a painful reminder of the unfortunate reality my technology presents me (since I had to rig it so much just so we could work on the rough drafts – long story!)

We beat the odds!  This finished product you’re reading right now is proof of that!

I appreciate this opportunity you gave me and hope we can work together again soon!  As crazy as it may sound, you are the first person on Tumblr I have actually asked to work with me (and answered back!)  I love your unique art style and quirky personality.  You are one of the people I look up to, especially when it comes to art.  Until next time, I wish you the best of luck!

Sincerely,

Jasmine Love

{Write Way Studio creator and blogger}

MLA Citation (8th edition)

PonPox.  Personal E-mail Interview by Jasmine Love. June 2018 Featured Creator Collaboration, 20 May – 5 June 2018.

[xfulmen]

&& Are you proud of me?

↯ █ 全能ライトニング

      Another war is taking place at this moment. Another war that would bring fatal consequences. Another war that manifests calamity, bestowed upon the lands of Fiore. Another war were mages have to fight for survival. Another war that those who wield the insignia of Fairy Tail will bring victory to. Conflicts of great similarity to thise have transpired in the past and overtly will happen in the future. Those who live to fight, have become accustomed in such confrontations. Quite unfortunate, in actuality. But that was the truth.

      The Alvarez empire was reputed for their grand prowess. Power that could bring ultimate destruction. Each single member of the Spriggan 12 has proven to be commendable to write a book about. And Laxus was able to face one of them, and easily bringing him in a verge-of-death state. However, it was the lightning user who merged as the conqueror. It was him who was standing. It was him that brought to an end to one of his opponents.

                                               However, nothing was over yet. 

      In fact, far from it. Not only all the Guilds had to face those who belonged in the Alvarez Empire, but also they had to deal with an army of a gargantuan number. Incomprehensible, if more so. But inevitable as well. Such was the reality bestowed upon them. A scenario displaying horror at excellence. From a first glance, it seemed impossible to defeat such enemy. The possibilities of the fairies, alongside anyone who was fighting by their side, appeared to be below zero.

                                     THIS WAS THE INCARNATION OF DESPAIR.

      Despair. Hopelessness. Terror. All of those sentiments combined in one scenery, demonstrated in front of everyone’s sight to behold. Cruelty personofied right upon them, disallowing them from getting a glimpse of hope. A glimpse of the future. The future where everyone seeks to obtain and write it on their own way. Such task appeared to be out of question, at least for the time being.

      Everyone was fighting. Counteract against those recognized as foes. Amongst them, there was a dragon slayer, with lightning as the prime element. Laxus was also fighting alongside with his comrades, focrcing his way to grasp victory and a better future. Notwithstanding his current physical condition, this was not an excuse to lay down and let the rest do what needs to be done. The mere thought of him staying in the sidelines, was making his blood boil. He had to fight alongside with everyone else, and that’s what he was doing. And his dinstictive element engulfing his broad body, was the perfect illustration of what he was doing at this exact moment. Returning the said calamity to those who dared to place it upon him.

                  However, it was not enough.

      He had acknowledged the fact that it would take more than just a variety of onslaughts to neutralize the enemy. This time, the number held great importance. It was overwhelming, for certain. From average lightning attacks to his potent dragon slayer magic. It was definitely doing him a favor, but it was enough. 

                                                    Then, an idea crossed his mind.

      An idea that he never expected to appear in his mind. It was the reason for his expression to alter momentarily, atempting to accumulate a miscellany of contemplations, trying to figure out a plan as well as the perfect execution. But time was also a big issue here. Every single minute, every single second counts. He had to act fast, whilst still being collected.

      But he couldn’t help himself but wonder whether this was indeed, a good scheme to perform or not. Last time he attempted to do such a technique, it resulted to a failure. Undeniably, back then he wasn’t as strong as he considered himself to be. Not to mention that such attack is not to be done against those considered as allies. That was the causation for its failure. The fact that in his heart he couldn’t eviscerate those that he had a bond with, whether he would tacitly admit it or not.

      But this time, things were different. This time there was no sentiment towards the enemy apart from animosity. This should be the type of emotions that will benefit this particular technique to be executed at excellence. For the better and desired result. 

      Even so, such ability possesses a great consequence that could be proven to be fatal for his case. The cost of his life is something at stake, and losing a powerful comrade at such circumstance could be a grave mistake done from his part. But Laxus was already aware of this. He had recognized the fact that this is his resolve. And he would make sure to carry out such technique with the best of his skillset. Even if it costs his own life, he will make sure to turn his life as a stepping stone for a better and brighter future.

      Perhaps this is what he needed to do. Perhaps this was the ultimate way to demonstrate his redemption towards those that he had once harmed at great extent. Perhaps this was the best way to showcase to his grandfather that he has indeed changed; that he has grown into a better human being. He has become someone that people can rely to. Somebody that people can depend to. A person that people can feel protected and safe. And if the vanquishment of his soul is gonna meliorate the circumstance for his fellow companions, so be it.

                      And that would be by using one of Fairy Tail’s great three magics. 

                                                                   FAIRY LAW.

      And so, without hesitation, the lightning mage started releasing an immense amount of magic pwer, then shaping it into the form of bright light between open palms. The bright light was emitted from his existence, illuminating the atmosphere, the locality--- everything that surrounds him. Ineluctably, numerable individuals glanced at his direction, portraying bewilderment with their current face expressions. Some of them were even horrified that Laxus would go unto such lengths. But he paid little attention to such details. He had already made up his mind. He had already accepted his fate. Whether this was what he wished for his future or not, it held little significance. 

      However, if there’s one person that he wishes to unveil any final words, that would be his grandfather. As much as he values the Thunder God Tribe, this time the senile figure known as Makarov Dreyar, was standing on a higher pedestal. Not in terms of value, but in terms of sentiment.

      He couldn’t recall upon his reminiscences the last time he recieved an approving look from the elder. All what he could remember ever since his attitude took an alteration, was an expression portraying disappointment. An expression showing diisapproval. Nothing positive, not even at the slightest.

      But the lightning dragon slayer couldn’t blame him. In fact, he could understand the reasonings behind those expressions. Laxus had gained quite a rebellious persona. He had become an individual that could demonstrate arrogance at a grand level. His way of contemplating things, his beliefs and life was different from the current Master of Fairy Tail. And his actions spoke in the same manner as well. His reputed ‘Battle of Fairy Tail’ event was a detestable remembrancce that he wishes to extinguish. A memory that shall remain engraved in his mind, reminding him what kind of a man he used to be. 

          Reminding him why his grandfather stopped showing any traces of approval.

      Maybe--- just maybe, by doing this, he might be able to obtain a sign of appreciation. A beck of approval. How much he wished for such a sign, God knows. For once, he knew he was doing the right thing. For once, he was aware that he was going to be of great assistance. For once, he was doing something that would help him achieve his grandfather’s approval. 

      And so, giving a final look at the shorter figure--- the one that the Thunder God held much respect to, he took a deep breath, ready to yell in appropriate chant for the said technique to be accomplished. 

                                                          ❛ Fairy Law. . .                                                                 ACTIVATE!! ❜

      Instantaneously, blinding light enveloped the entire area, forbidding anyone from being able to see anything. Several people were heard screaming out of hopelessness. After all, this legendary magic inflicts massive damage on whoever the caster perceives from their heart as an enemy, leaving friends and bystanders completely unharmed. The choice between friend or foe is decided by the user's heart, and they cannot lie to this Magic. No question as to why it  is considered one of the most powerful Magics and is one of the rare legendary spells. Not to mention why Laxus failed the usage of such ability.

      The next thing to notice after several minutes that have passed, was smoke surrounding this place, and a significant decrease of number of the enemies. Now, those that were standing tall and ready to bring this war to an end, were those that the incarnation of thunder considered as allies. The tables have been turned. This was the greatest opportunity to strike. The biggest chance that they have gotten thus far.

      His pattern of breathing was growing heavy. He could feel his lungs unable to serve the common act of respiring. His body felt numb--- immobile. The capability of moving appeared to be the toughest task to transpire. However, it was unavoidable. He was well awared of this. Hence, he has no regrets. He could hear the voices of his fellow comrades screaming his name out of fear and despair due to what took place at this moment. Most of them were easy to decipher. The Raijinshuu were included, ineluctably. However, it didn’t matter at this point. It was too late.

                        HE DID THE RIGHT THING. 

                                             FOR ONCE, HE DID SOMETHING TO BE PROUD OF.

                   HE SECURED EVERYONE’S CHANCE OF WINNING THIS WAR.

      If there was one thing that he regret doing is not being capable of looking at his grandfather. Not out of shame or any sentiment like this. But merely, because his structure was failing him. Thus, in a few seconds later, his body made contact with the dirty ground. Only a few respirations left. Irises of fire opal ready to be shut for an eternity. And yet, one thought; one question was occupying his-- now frail-- mind. He was capable of perfoming such feat. But did he secure the so-desired approval? Or even a mere approving look from Makarov Dreyar? Who knows. Deep in his most susceptible flexor, his heart, he believes that he secured such a spot. But even so, the same question was still lingering in his mind, as he was about to have his final exhalation.

                                                     Gramps... are you proud of me?

[donveinot]

To Error is Erhman: Randal Ming and Randall Birtell Examine the book Misquoting Jesus

(Originally printed in the Fall 2006 Issue of the MCOI Journal page 16) Truth and Meaning As It Relates To History Bart Ehrman, in Misquoting Jesus,(( Bart Ehrman, Misquoting Jesus; San Francisco: Harper Collins, 2005)) intends to explain New Testament textual criticism. One theme Ehrman uses to explain textual criticism is that the scribes, copyist, and the people of power who controlled the early Church did not preserve the New Testament but slanted the New Testament texts to read as they believed and collected the books that agreed with the theology of the people in power. For Ehrman, there is no true theology and no historically true Christian doctrine. He alleges the New Tes­tament is a collection of books preserved and collected because the group of people who controlled the early Church agreed with the theology in these texts. Ehrman believes the New Testament canonical books are not the work of God and so preserved, distinguished, and used by the early Church because they were true and corresponded with the teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ; nor were the writers directed by the Holy Spirit to teach, in­struct, and rebuke the Church. According to Ehrman, the Bible is not based in his­tory, because there is no history. The Evangelical world traditionally has held a particular view and understand­ing about the fact of history. Evangelical understanding is that history is what corresponds to the facts about events of the past. This idea does not rule out people twist­ing the facts they recorded to make themselves look good or the fact of people being blinded by their sin nature. Most historians would agree that many of the inscriptions made by the Egyptians about their battles and conflicts were intended to make the pha­raoh look good even if the pharaoh had lost the battle. But, we must remember that we only can make such a statement about the Egyptians historians if there really are historical facts that do not line up with what the historian has recorded. A true base of what really happened must exist in order to state that people have changed the facts to suit their purpose. History must have a factual foundation before anyone can say recorded history is true or false. Ehrman’s history is defined to be a collection of people’s per­spectives about what happened with no foundation for historical truth to say this happened and this did not happen. No truth exists to be recorded about the events of Christ’s earthly ministry. Thus, the Gospels are personal opinions about the events recorded in them and what the Gospel writers thought motivated Jesus to do what he did. As well, any event may be modified to suit the pur­pose of the writer to build a “moral truth” as they saw it. Ehrman comes to this conclusion because his understanding of meaning and reality has been shaped by agnosticism. Having no basis for truth and meaning, Ehrman’s hermeneutic cannot help but be skewed by postmodern thought.((What if we have to figure out how to live and what to believe on our own, without setting up the Bible as a false idol—or an oracle that gives us a direct line of communication with the Almighty?; Ehrman, 14)) For Ehrman, the only truth is personal belief. Truth must be redefined to what one believes is history rather than what corresponds to the reality of history. In Ehrman’s world, the Bible only can be a collection of religious thoughts about God by various people and at various times. Ehrman explains: Just as human scribes had copied, and changed, the texts of scripture, so to had human authors originally writ­ten the texts of scripture. This was a human book from beginning to end. It was written by different human authors at different times and in different plac­es to address different needs. Many of these authors no doubt felt they were inspired by God to say what they did, but they had their own perspectives, their own understandings, their own theologies; and these perspectives, beliefs, views, needs, desires, understandings, and the­ologies informed everything they said.”(( Ehrman, 11-12)) Any person left to employ personal truth as the gauge for truth will end in relativism. The consequences of this are moral deconstruction, historical deconstruction, literary deconstruc­tion, and biblical deconstruction. Scripture soundly renounces these positions: “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God” (John 1:1). As Creator, Jesus has not only defined the physical world, but He—as the Word—has also defined Scripture. Jesus is the connection be­tween words and actions. Jesus—as Creator—has defined truth and meaning. The philosophical movement—Post structuralism (PS)—has gathered steam over the past 40 years. PS removes any certainty to the reading and meaning of a text. This can be termed the “death of the writer” and “the birth of the reader.” The reasoning is: Time, social situations, and a host of other elements change the meaning of a text. Thus, when a reader comes to the text, they come with a list of their own interpretive ideas. Each reader has a personal hermeneutic. The intent of the author is trumped by the understanding of the reader. Listen to Columbia History of Western Philosophies examination of the French philosopher Jacques Derrida: Given Derrida’s assertion of the radical indetermi­nacy of all signification that follows from his investiga­tion of language, his proclamations of the inevitable and unavoidable instability of meaning and identity portend the evisceration of metaphysics. He mounts this radical critique of metaphysics, identity, and meaning by pushing it to the very level of signification and challenging the possibility of stable meanings or identities on the basis of their reliance on a metaphysics of presence … “Deconstruction thus purports to expose the problematic nature of any—that is to say, all—dis­course that relies on foundational metaphysical ideas such as truth, presence, identity, or origin to center itself.(( Richard H. Popkin, Columbia History of Western Philosophy; Columbia University Press, New York: 1999; 739)) Ehrman’s position is similar: And so to read a text is, neces­sarily to change a text.((Ehrman, 217)) Ehrman’s problem is, thus, threefold. First, there is no true history to be record­ed, so the New Testament is a record of people’s “truths.” Second, the New Testa­ment as we have it today has the theologi­cal view of those people and scribes that collected and edited the New Testament. So, orthodoxy is not a reflection of truth. Lastly, were there a true history to be recorded and were that history to be handed down to us in the New Testament, we still would have no idea of what is true because we—the reader—and not the author are lord of the meaning of the text. However, all meaning is lost without God. God has given all men the light of Creation, the light of conscience, and a basis for understanding of truth (moral and otherwise).(( Romans 1)) This allows men to think, make sense of reality, and draw closer to God. Man, in his depravity backs away from this moral calling of God to renew the mind (Romans 12:2) in favor of becoming his own god and having his own truth. Orthodoxy Is there any truth in religion? Is there any truth in Christian orthodoxy? Or, as with “history,” the group who ultimately wins the battle of supremacy gets to define “orthodoxy” as Ehrman explains. The Christian understanding of orthodoxy is no differ­ent than her understanding of truth. Orthodoxy must correspond with reality. Orthodoxy is not a matter of taste or feeling. Ortho­doxy is the foundational truths of the Christian faith as taught by the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and the writers of the New Tes­tament as they were inspired by the Holy Spirit to remember the teaching of Jesus or lead by the Holy Spirit to record the nature of God, man, and the Church. Ehrman contrasts this understanding of truth and orthodoxy: Each and every one of these viewpoints—and many others besides—were topics of constant discussion, dialogue, and debate in the early centuries of the church, while Christians of various persuasions tried to convince others of the truth of their own claims. Only one group eventually ‘won out’ in these debates. It was this group that decided what the Christian creeds would be: the creeds would affirm that there is only one God, the Creator; that Jesus his Son is both hu­man and divine; and that salvation came by his death and resurrection.((Ehrman, 153)) Ehrman also states: The group that established itself as ‘orthodox’ (meaning that it held what it considered to be the ‘right belief’) then determined what future Christian genera­tions would believe and read as scripture.((Ibid. 154)) The idea that there is one God, as Ehrman explains, is not based on what is true but on who won the struggle for power. The ideas recorded in the Christian creeds are not true but are a literary snapshot of the political situa­tion in the late Roman Empire. Orthodox teaching is a record of what group outwit­ted their rivals for power and in so doing preserved their theological ideas as well. Ehrman’s usage of the word proto-ortho­dox((Ibid. 169, 171, 173)) helps us to understand his twist or definition of the term orthodoxy. Paul and all the New Testament writ­ers, in the eyes of Ehrman, did not write about truth but about what they believed. This is in complete contradiction to what Scripture has to say about itself. “All Scripture is inspired by God and prof­itable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.” (2 Tim. 3:16) The position of Ehrman and Scripture are in logical opposition to one another—both cannot be true. Inspiration Scripture is authoritative because it is divinely inspired—another idea Ehrman rejects. The ideas found in the pages of the Bible came not from man, but from God. An important point in the orthodox understanding of inspiration is that inspiration refers to the original writings. Manuscripts whether written in Hebrew, Greek, Latin, English, or any other language are copies of the original inspired works, and as such, most contain minor errors.((It is possible to have a manuscript that is an exact replica of the origi­nal. However, we are aware of no current consensus of scholars who claim to have such a copy.)) Ehrman traces his loss of faith in the Bible as he left Whea­ton College and began studying at Princeton. His own words speak how his view of inspiration changed: … I began seeing the New Testament as a very hu­man book. The New Testament as we actually have it, I knew, was the product of human hands, the hands of the scribes who transmitted it. Then I began to see that not just the scribal text but the original text itself was a very human book. This stood very much at odds with how I regarded the text in my late teens as a newly minded ‘born-again’ Christian, convinced that the Bi­ble was the inerrant Word of God and that the biblical words themselves had come to us by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.(( Ehrman, 211)) His critique of the orthodox view of inspiration can be summarized as follows: Meaning only can be found in the original language. (p.7) We do not have the original manuscripts. (p.7) We do have “error-ridden copies”. (p.7) The authors also made errors. (p.11) The Bible originated in the mind of men. (p.11) Ehrman hardly gives a logical argument. For instance: In point four, he gives no defense for his conclusion that the origi­nal authors made mistakes. How does he know they error when we do not have the original writings—the very thing Ehrman points out again and again! Ehrman suggests that a simple cough during the recitation of the original author to a scribe could have occurred, and thus, a mistake in the original would have resulted. He gives no evidence to support his theory. Ehrman seems to have faith in events for which there is no record. Further, point one is false. Objective meaning is transcen­dent of any particular language. Language only describes real­ity; it does not create it. As an example, let’s say my daughter Kayla tells a young Mexican boy, “Jesús te ama.” I turn to ask her what she said to the boy. She tells me she said, “Jesus loves you.” I do not have to understand the originating language to understand what Kayla meant. All I needed was a translator. That is precisely what Hebrew and Greek linguistic scholars aim to do—translate the original language into the common vernacular without losing the meaning. Inerrancy A deduction made by Ehrman, as he looks at the manuscript evidence, is that the Bible is not inerrant. He states that some scholars claim 400,000 or more variants.((Ibid. 89)) He uses this evidence to support his idea that the Bible is error-ridden. But is this the case? It should be noted that when textual critics count errors, they are looking at a multiplicity of manuscripts.((The very thing that brings increasing accuracy to our translations, namely the vast and growing number of manuscripts available, Ehrman uses to point out inconsistency and error)) Drs. Norman Geisler and William Nix note in their book A General Introduc­tion to the Bible that: There is an ambiguity in saying that there are some 200,000 variants in the existing manuscripts of the New Testament because those represent only 10,000 places in the New Testament. If one single word is misspelled in 3,000 different manuscripts, it is counted as 3,000 variants or readings. Once this counting procedure is understood … the remaining significant variants are surprisingly few in number.(( Norman L. Geisler and William E. Nix, A General Introduction to the Bible (Chicago: Moody Press, 1986), 468)) Ehrman, himself, seems to concede this point: To be sure, of all the hundreds of thousands of textual changes found among our manuscripts, most of them are completely insignificant, imma­terial, of no real importance for anything other than showing that scribes could not spell or keep focused any better than the rest of us.((Ehrman, 207)) However, Ehrman gives many examples of passages that he believes supports his conclusion of an error-filled text. We shall choose three of those passages to examine. First is the passage Luke 11:2-4. Ehrman suggests that this passage was originally truncated and at a later time scribes “harmonized” the passage by adding length and content to make it similar to Matt. 6:9-13.((Ibid. 97)) We shall look at this from two sides of the inerrancy coin. On one side we must ask, “Is inerrancy challenged if Matthew recorded the entire prayer of Jesus and Luke penned only a portion of the prayer? Did Luke make an er­ror?” To suggest that Luke errored in not recording the en­tire prayer of Jesus would be to misunderstand inerrancy. Inerrancy does not necessitate that all Gospel writers record an event in the exact same words, for to do so would make three of them unnecessary. Inerrancy only necessitates that what is written is true. Authors today have different audiences and themes they write to and about. Take, for example, the topic of steroids in baseball. A sportswriter might focus on whether Barry Bonds should be credited as passing Hank Aaron on the all-time-home-run list if he used steroids. A medical writer would be interested in communicating the details of the dif­ferent types of steroids Bonds allegedly used. And a legal writer may investigate if Bonds did anything illegal. It was no different for Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Each had a unique audience and a specific focus for their writings. Mat­thew may have chosen to include “… Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Matt. 6:10), because it was important to Matthew’s goal of explaining the Kingdom of God to his Jewish audience. In particular, His Kingdom has a heavenly aspect and an earthly one. The other side of the inerrancy coin is that not all English versions of the Bible handle this passage in the same manner. The KJV and the NKJV do, indeed, contain the lengthened ver­sion. However, the ESV, NASB, and NIV chose the shorter ver­sion. This shows that since we have an increasing number of manuscripts our translations are continually improving in their quality. It may be the case that certain scribes—those producing the Majority Text—added to the original writings. But, one does not need to conclude, as Ehrman does, that Scripture is in error. As we have already noted: If Luke did record a few less words of our Lord’s Prayer, it does not make him wrong. Further, if we accept Ehrman’s hypothesis that the Alexandrian manuscripts are more accurate, albeit fewer in number; isn’t it plausible to conclude that the KJV and the NKJV reading is less preferred since they tend to give priority to the Majority Text rather than the Alexandrian texts? Applying textual criticism rules suggested by Professor Gleason Archer further supports the original Lukan reading as to containing the “shortened” version of the Lord’s Prayer. Archer notes that the older and shorter readings are to be preferred.((Geisler and Nix, 478)) Older manuscripts are preferred, because they are closer to the original; and in the case of the Alexandrian manuscripts, they were transcribed by better scribes. The shorter reading is pre­ferred because scribes tend to “add to” the text rather than reduce it. So, Ehrman may be correct when he says that scribes “added to” Luke, but he gives no evidence to support his assertion that Luke made a mistake. Second is the passage Mark 1:2a where Mark writes, “As it is written in Isaiah the prophet … .” Mark has made a mistake according to Ehrman. That mistake is that Isaiah did not write the quoted Old Testament words that follow in Mark 1:2b-3. And according to Ehrman: “… there can be little doubt concerning what Mark originally wrote: the attribution to Isaiah is found in our earliest and best manuscripts.”((Ehrman, 95)) What Ehrman is sug­gesting is that Mark got it wrong, and the scribes got it right by correcting Mark 1:2 to attribute the Old Testament sayings to “the prophets.” A suggested resolution to this apparent mistake is giv­en by John Grassmick, contributor of the Bible Knowledge Commentary: Mark prefaced this composite quotation from three Old Testament books with the words: It is written in Isaiah the prophet. This illustrates a common practice by New Testament authors in quoting several passages with a unifying theme. The common theme here is the ‘wilderness’ (desert) tradition in Israel’s history. Since Mark was introducing the ministry of John the Baptist in the desert, he cited Isaiah as the source because the Isaiah passage refers to ‘a voice … calling’ in the desert.((Walvoord, John F., Roy B. Zuck, and Dallas Theological Seminary. The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures. Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1983-c1985; Emphasis in the original.)) It also should be noted that when referencing the thoughts of another individual, ancient writers, as well as modern writers, do not always quote verbatim. Different words may be chosen to convey the same idea. It is a mistake to hold New Testament writers to a standard that was not present then nor today. While it is the case that exact quotes are often used in research work such as what you are presently reading, it is not necessary to do so. Mark need not quote Isaiah verbatim and, yet, still attribute the saying to Isaiah. Concerning this passage, the authors of Hard Sayings of the Bible agree: When we accuse him of inaccuracy, far from pointing out a reality in Mark, we are exposing our own lack of knowledge about how he and other ancient authors used Scripture.(( Walter C. Kaiser and others, eds., Hard Sayings of the Bible Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1996, 404)) Third is an apparent discrepancy as to where Paul went after his conversion on his way to Damascus.((Ehrman, 10)) Galatians 1:16-17 tells us that Paul went to Arabia, while Acts 9:26 states that Paul went to Jerusalem. Galatians 1:17 clearly states, “nor did I go up to Jerusalem … ,” but that he went “… to Arabia … .” In contrast, the Acts narrative places Paul in Damascus, and then describes that he “… came to Jerusalem …” in verse 26. However, this is not a contradiction. It is like the husband who tells his wife that he went to the local hardware store after work, and he tells is son that he went to the golf course after work. Do his stories contradict one another? No. It is perfectly reasonable to assume that he stopped by the hardware store to pick up some materials, and then he continued on to play a round of golf. He did both after work. A similar reconciliation can be given to these two passages. Paul went to Arabia and Jerusalem after leaving Damascus. It is important to note that the charge leveled against Scripture by Eh­rman is that “the first thing he did after leaving Damas­cus” was to go to Jerusalem. The narrative of Acts does seem to indicate a quick progression of Paul’s locality from Damascus to Jerusalem. However, in Acts 9:23 Luke uses the phrase, “When many days had elapsed … ,” which indicates a span of time oc­curred between verses 22 and 26. What happened during those “many days?” Concerning this passage, the late Oxford Profes­sor and Archaeologist Sir William M. Ramsay offers this: Moreover, Luke divided Paul’s stay in Damascus into two periods, a few days’ residence with the dis­ciples (9:19), and a long period of preaching (9:20-23). The quiet residence in the country for a time, recover­ing from the serious and prostrating effect of his con­version (for a man’s life is not suddenly reversed with­out serious claim on his physical power) is the dividing fact between the two periods.((William M. Ramsay, St. Paul the Traveler and Roman Citizen, Revised and Updated, ed. Mark Wilson; Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2001, 47)) Paul, himself, gives us some insight in his letter to the Gala­tian churches. In recounting the days and years after his conver­sion, he notes that he did not “… go up to Jerusalem …” (Gal. 1:17) but rather he “… went away to Arabia …” (Gal. 1:17) and then “… returned once more to Damascus” (Gal. 1:17). So, it seems a reasonable conclusion to understand Paul’s post-con­version sojourning to include an initial trip to Damascus pro­claiming in the Synagogue the identity of Jesus as the Son of God (Acts 9:20). From Damascus he traveled to Arabia (Gal. 1:17) for some unknown amount of time, and then he returned to Damascus for “many days …” (Acts 9:23). His second stay in Damascus ended with him being lowered over the wall in a basket (Acts 9:25). From there, he traveled to Jerusalem (Acts 9:26). So, Luke and Paul were both correct. After his conversion, Paul went to Arabia and Jerusalem. Contrary to Ehrman, this is not a case of a mistaken biblical author. The Bible once again shows that it can be trusted. In Ehrman’s vigor to find errors in the Bible, he overlooks a very plausible explanation to the text. Conclusion While many of the facts Ehrman records are true, it is the conclusions from these facts that we reject. His spiritual situa­tion—agnosticism—causes truth in all forms to cascade into a deconstruction of meaning, history, and orthodoxy. This leaves him with no basis for truth beyond personal experience. This un­derstanding of truth and orthodoxy has modified his ability to look objectively at the text. Commenting on orthodoxy Ehrman writes: Each and every one of these viewpoints—and many others besides—were topics of constant discussion, di­alogue, and debate in the early centuries of the church, while Christians of various persuasions tried to convince others of the truth of their own claims. Only one group eventually ‘won out’ in these debates. It was this group that decided what the Christian creeds would be … ((Ehrman, 154)) Commenting on hermeneutics, Ehrman writes: For the more I studied, the more I saw that reading a text necessarily involves interpreting a text. I suppose when I started my studies I had a rather unsophisti­cated view of reading: that the point of reading a text is simply to let the text ‘speak for itself,’ to uncover the meaning inherent in its words. The reality, I came to see, is that meaning is not inherent, and texts do not speak for themselves. If texts could speak for them­selves, then everyone honestly and openly reading a text would agree on what the text says.((Ibid, 216)) Is this how Ehrman wants his reader to approach his text? If Ehrman’s conclusions about text and meaning are to be accepted, then the reader is perfectly justified in concluding Ehrman’s acceptance of orthodoxy to be true and inerrancy of Scripture to be real. But, this is precisely what Ehrman rejects. This view is logically inconsistent. As an example of the incompatibility of Ehrman’s idea, think of the automobile driver. Would we drive our cars if traffic signs were under­stood at the discretion of the reader? Chaos would most cer­tainly follow. Ehrman’s idea is completely unlivable. Ehrman may confuse the existence of truth with the diffi­culty of discovery of truth. When looking at a biblical passage, there are possibilities of disagreement. For instance, if person A and B disagree on the understating of a text there are several possibilities. Both A and B are wrong, A is right, and B is wrong, or B is right and A is wrong. What is not possible is that A and B are both right. This goes against the Law of Non-Contradiction. The book does not live up to its billing. Inferred within the title—Misquoting Jesus—is some factual knowledge of Jesus’ own words—the exact idea Ehrman rejects! He cannot consis­tently claim that Jesus was misquoted and say that we do not have the original text. How can one know that Jesus was mis­quoted if we do not know what he actually said? There must be a real, objective truth before one can claim something is false. He has rejected the basis necessary to claim that Jesus was mis­quoted. Something is only false if it does not correspond to re­ality. Christian orthodoxy was God-inspired and revealed through Jesus. If Jesus is misquoted, there was a truth in what he taught.Ω

Randall Birtell and Randal Ming were the Scranton, KS Branch Directors of MCOI and they also were completing their Master’s Degrees in Apologetics at Southern Evangelical Seminary in Charlotte, NC at the time this article was published. © 2020, Midwest Christian Outreach, Inc All rights reserved. Excerpts and links may be used if full and clear credit is given with specific direction to the original content. Read the full article

[1801664]

Jekyll and Hyde themes

Jekyll and Hyde contains many different themes throughout and a way of adapting this story and turning it into my own futuristic interpretation was to use these themes as inspiration.

Good vs. evil is one of the novella’s biggest themes. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde can be viewed as an allegory (a story interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning) about the good and evil that exists in all men, the struggle of these two sides of human personality.

In the book, there is a notable battle between good and evil within Jekyll and it questions which is superior. As the book goes on, Hyde takes over and it could be argued that evil is stronger. However, Hyde ends up dead at the end of the story which could suggest a weakness of evil. The overall question is whether good and evil can be separated or if they are forever intertwined.

https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/jekyll-and-hyde/themes#appearances-theme

https://exploringyourmind.com/jekyll-and-hyde-duality-between-good-evil/

Robert Stevenson always believed that humans had a good and an evil side, essentially existing in everyone. He suggests both versions live inside of us and that the evil one is always repressed by society, this was a thought that lead him to write The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

It is speculated that this duality is what makes us human as perfection doesn’t exist and therefore absolute kindness isn’t a real thing.

History, culture and religion have tried to show us what’s good and what’s evil. Religions as a whole they all define and defend good behaviour and believe in punishing bad behaviour, explaining the consequences of acting in one way or another.

The idea of goodness however is completely subjective and depends on the way the individual sees it. Aristotle believed the ultimate good is happiness since all other goods are intermediate whilst happiness is final.

One could not live without the other and the idea that they both coexist in humans is what Stevenson explored in his novel. Each individual grows in a society and adapt to he appropriate behaviours.

In my screenplay i have decided to explore this idea of good vs. evil. My first draft I couldn’t recognise enough links to the original set text and I felt like my story was lacking shape and meaning. I played off the idea of Doug using this crystal that turned corrupted his father for good, which fit into my story line quite well. Inevitably, Doug was trying to do the right thing all along and was trying to fit into what he thought was acceptable, but as Stevenson suggests “One could not exist without the other” and so the repression of Doug’s feelings unavoidably turned into something evil; the feelings towards how people treat him because of his father’s actions.

In the book, the battle between good and bad is internal, Jekyll feels remorse for the acts he committed as Hyde and good defeats evil by the end of the book as Hyde dies. This is where I had a clear idea of where I could incorporate this into my screenplay. Doug has faced battles of good vs. evil first hand with his father and wants to put it right by using this ‘evil’ crystal for good and to save the human race and by doing so Doug comes out on top and good wins.

It was essential that my plot had a transformation somewhere in it, due to the arc of the story and how humans are searching for a second planet to live on, the transformation is what makes that possible. This is also where the theme of Duality comes into play.

The themes of violence are prevalent throughout the book for example, Hyde trampling a young girl in the street, beating people to death and punching people in the face and as we learn, Hyde has no remorse for this. The sole reason for violence in the book is because Mr. Hyde finds it pleasurable. In my screenplay by using the themes of good vs. evil i felt that there needed to be a theme of violence. I thought about how I could portray this in a way where it wasn’t extremely violent but there were references to something violent happening. To give my story shape I decided to include a tragedy that happened in Doug’s life, which is where the flashbacks come into it. The idea being Doug’s father died at some point in his life due to the crystal which is why no one puts any trust into him. Doug is obsessed with trying to redeem his father by proving the crystal could be used for good.

The good vs. evil and violence themes fit well with each other in Jekyll and Hyde purely because it’s Jekyll trying to fight these feelings with the evil side of himself. In my screenplay i’ll be referencing the crystal to feelings of violence and it ultimately leads to the battle of good vs. evil, the crystal once being used for evil and corrupting people but Doug wants to prove that the good in us is far stronger and the object can be put to better use.

[kelasparmak]

garashir for the ask meme? :)

full disclosure i don’t remember which ask meme this was because as has been established i’ve been a Mess, but i’ll assume it’s this one:

Fake dating/marrieds: it is COMPLETELY unnecessary. there is no need for them to pretend to be dating or married at all, but julian suggests it because that’s what happens in Spy Books, and garak goes along with it because a) he’s pining and/or b) this is bound to be hilarious. then they both realise they’ve signed up for more than they intended to, but of course they are fucking stubborn as hell so they just keep making it worse for themselves (and, though they’re probably completely oblivious to this, each other). if this were a fic i was writing, i would end it with them not getting together and just having the bluest balls in the world, because they’re fucking idiots. (but maybe i’d write an epilogue a few weeks later, where jadzia and kira are loudly rolling their eyes about how those dumb fucks who are now dating didn’t realise they were in love with each other despite unnecessarily making out in front of an ambassador to ‘prove’ they were married even though said ambassador had had no reason to doubt it and didn’t give a shit until they started with the pda on the bridge and sisko had to pull them apart because it was just making the situation less believable)

Bodyswap: julian is THRILLED - cardassian doctors are super secretive about medicine and anatomy so this is a great way for him to find out things like how a cardassian body reacts to penicillin! garak is initially worried about being super fragile and squishy in a human body but then realises that actually he is much safer in julian’s body than his body is under the care of Excitable Knowledge-Hungry Pupppy Dr Julian Bashir. the episode is basically everyone trying to stop julian from killing himself and garak by performing medical trials on himself.

Telepathy: again - it’s sad. it’s unavoidably sad. they probably just go get drunk and have sad sex. boohoo.

OH NO only one bed at the hotel: julian probably volunteers to sleep on the floor (and probably puts his foot in his mouth by implying that garak is old and will hurt his back if he doesn’t take the bed) but fortunately garak is used to him being a doofus and convinces him that it is in everyone’s best interest if they share the bed. the room has a thermostat which julian has considerately already turned up, but garak ignores this in order to make the body heat argument. they end up both being too warm and uncomfortable. they’re disasters.

Accidental time-travel: BISEXUAL DISASTER TEEN GARAK. always my fave. alternatively, i kinda like the idea of them meeting as kids - like, before jules’s engineering, before garak finds out tolan’s not his dad and he doesn’t get to be a gardener when he grows up. it’d be super poignant, esp if the time travel incident was fixed within the episode but they both remembered it afterwards and had a tiny little piece of ‘before the world happened to him’ of each other to hold onto.

Their first kiss: awkward, uncomfortably positioned, probably in a near-death scenario that they definitely could’ve avoided. julian says something dumb.

Meeting the parents: well, again, julian has met tain and that was…. something. probably better than most would manage with tain. i like to think that garak subtly made richard bashir’s life difficult, not so much because of the engineering (which i personally, as a Real Life Autistic, think is awful, but garak, as a Fictional Cardassian, might understand the motivation behind) but because of his attitude when he talks to julian. if this child is your legacy and you really just want the best for him and will break the law and do immoral things to give him the best opportunities in life that you can, at least do it in such a way that he appreciates it, you idiot. (or, going off garak’s own experiences: if you’re going to give your son horrible lifelong trauma for your own purposes, you have to at least go through with making sure those purposes work, or it’s just a waste!). garak’s perspective is fucked up but ultimately, even if it’s largely for different reasons, i can see him being just as disgusted w richard bashir as the fandom is.

Moving in together: again - a disaster. they’re both very particular about their living space, but julian at least has a very meticulously planned chaos sort of thing going on. ‘yes, i know all my clean shirts are under the left cushion on the sofa, that’s where they’re supposed to be, it keeps them pressed just right’. ‘yes, i know there’s been a half-eaten scone on my datapad for six hours - i’m saving it for later’. et cetera, et cetera.

A crossover of my choice: fuck. uhhh - all i can fucking think of (and i don’t know why) is jane austen novels. semi-canonically, garak adores them, and i think they fit really well. the only question is which of them fills the plucky and a tiny-bit-obnoxious heroine role, and which fills the awkward and extremely obnoxious hero role. i think maybe neither of them are either one. i think maybe they’re background/side-characters who have their own thematically fitting adventure and love story while the main drama is going on.

An au of my choice: i’m always a sucker for section 31 julian! whether the semi-reluctant, taking-it-down-from-within version that we get in the eu, or an initially-idealistic ‘i’m a spy! wow! so cool! … fuck, my actions have consequences!’ version, or a full on ‘ends justify the means’ version. this could be the only change from canon, or garak could still be with the order, or it could be a situation swap where julian’s an outcast spy and garak has a Big Secret about his childhood but actually never got involved with the order.

If you like, another trope/scenario of your choice: predictably, i’m gonna go with polyamorous domestic bliss on post-canon cardassia. just let my middle-aged disaster son be happy with his idealistic traumatised doctor husbands! …. no but for real, please let this happen, it’s all i want in life.