#you owe nobody anything that is beyond your capacity

[hussyknee]

⬆️ This ⬆️

i'm so confused rn, can you explain the goncharov thing?? i get off tumblr for five minutes

(This post will be kept pinned & periodically updated until 28 Nov)

Lmaoooo

Nah I getchu. So this post has been circulating for like a year:

Link to post.

But yesterday, it had inspired someone to do this:

Link to post.

Next thing I knew there were fake Letterboxed reviews.

Goncharov moodboards. Really good ones.

Link to post.

Meta analysis. So many fake meta essays. Disturbingly good ones. And of course the memes. (Edit: HAVE I SAID THIS SHIT IS DISTURBING)

As you can see, the myth just started to grow, characters and ships and tropes being added one after the other, almost bizzarely without contradiction, until there was enough of shape to the whole thing for people to start posting fanfic about it on AO3. "No beta we die like ice-pick Joe" is already a tag.

Link to post.

It was hilarious in the beginning, but the way it's developed within less than a day, kind of like it's being willed into existence, is freaking me out a bit. We're toying with powers beyond our comprehension. 😂😂😂

Link to post.

Of course, there could be an ulterior motive as well.

Link to post (tags mine).

Edit: guys, please tag these posts "unreality" so people with disassociation issues can filter them out (not this one, this is an explainer). <3

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Edit 2: Aparently the boots in the original post are actually referring to a movie called Gomorrah that came out in 2008, directed by Mateo Garrone, based on the Scampia Feud. And other people had also been making posts about the fake movie for a while before the poster took off.

found by @thepotch

Edit 3: Explainer: why did those boots have this movie on them anyway?

Edit 4: Alt text added to all images courtesy of @valentineish ❤️

Edit 5: Turns out tumblr has done this kind of thing before. Nine years in this hell place and I had to have "Squiddles" and penis smp explained in the replies.

Edit 6: This post collects the Lore so far.

Edit 7: Lynda Carter (real one)/ earns more/ Tumblr cred.

Edit 8: Holy shit y'all we have the theme music. With sheet music. And it's on Spotify!

Edit 9: THERE IS A TRAILER WITH THE THEME MUSIC

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I made this post 18 hours after the movie poster went up. Closed edits 27 hours after first posting. So all of the above happened within 45 hours of the movie poster going up.

Edit 10: Google document live-compiling all the lore so far (Day 3)

Edit 11: Masterpost of Goncharov soundtracks (Day 3)

Edit 12: Entertainment news articles covering the Gonch-posting (real) (Contd from yday)

Edit 13: The music from the masterpost all compiled into a 31-minute original score with video edits on YouTube (edit: unfortunately taken down)

Edit 14: Staff's Goncharov art showcase for Tumblr Tuesday

As of closing on Day 3 there are 371 works in the AO3 tag.

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Updating with Day 3 shenanigans I missed yesterday:

Edit 15: Goncharov TV Tropes page

Edit 16: Ethics of Gonchposting

Important PSA 1 (how to reduce harm to Tumblr's neurodivergents)

Important PSA 2 (reality affirmation, anti-bullying)

Important PSA 3 (why you should stop trying to vandalise legit information sites)

Edit 17: Character lore from beezlebub whose poster they originated from

Edit 18: What we know about/ Director Matteo JWHJ0715 (#unreality)

Edit 19: Link to post with screenshotted and described NYT article (scroll down) and this golden exerpt from BuzzFeed: 💀

(alt text included)

End of Day 4 there are now 485 works in the Goncharov tag on AO3

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Didn't get to update this on Day 5, so these are the Day 5 doings:

More trailers!

Trailer 1 (My favourite)

Trailer 2

Trailer 3

Trailer 4

I also just found out about the Goncharov Game Jam.

It appears this opened a day after after the meme took off.

Goncharov was first entered into Wikipedia between Day 4 and 5 (attempts to vandalise it with fake info don't count, incidentally – please knock that shit off) under List of Internet Phenomena. This was then expanded into its own Wikipedia page at the end of Day 5 because, according to the talk history: "the topic now meets the notability threshold for its own artice due to significant coverage in The New York Times and other sources cited." We're on Wikipedia, people!

And then we made The Guardian half a day later. So while the meme is definitely dying down to embers by now, it still stays winning.

YouTube channels with episodes on the meme:

InformOverlord (4:30)

Lessons in Meme Culture (2:43)

End of Day of 5 there were 511 works on AO3, and End of Day 6 (today) there are 556.

--

🚨BREAKING 🚨 from Martin Scorsese's daughter's TikTok (real actual)

tw: unreality:

We did it you guys!

Clarification: Francesca Scorcese asked her Dad about the meme and Martin played along. Please reblog this PSA to help Tumblr people with psychosis. Thanks.

[meanwhileinstasiville]

But before that...

Today, I’d like to talk a little about so-called generational wealth. Because all crime is organized here, I got to “wait” at every single intersection walking across town from here, because a chorus from Phil Collins song was playing in Ashland Safeway. Waiting because someone had *decided* gang notification style, to return no less than about $100 worth of bottles around collection closing time. 

I got to “wait” (in quotations because gang style) at every single intersection on the way here, the Ashland library, too. Minus the two different -337 variant license plated cars on the way to nowhere in particular. Amidst the crowd sourced mini coopers. Drunken “jaime” expy currently watches something “bullet train” themed on 9″ for me to see walking in (because same gang). REALLY crazy old guy sits on 2 watching “when I had my newborn” in red and white lettered subtitles (while wearing headphones) for me to see and read. Yeah, he drives a white van with a red stripe. All the same gang. 1, this terminal, was open because I sat down at 1:32; a minute before a 1:33 lee reference. Computer augmented gang activity within consolidated cartel power is fun.

So...*deep breath* generational wealth is everything you don’t need to buy, from hand-me-down clothes, to dishes, to books, to eating utensils, to furniture, all the way to houses, cars, land, corporate interests and the like, and anything beyond. We have food at home. Saying this means that “eating at home is cheaper” but only if you happen to have a fridge/freezer/cooktop, non-perishable food storage that’s secure, and safe commutes to and from where food can be obtained with some sort of shelf life intact. Without generational wealth, as in the projects, you’re going to be living out of convenience stores (for liquids with calories), fast food places, because even with markup, it’s cheaper than all the appliances you’ll never afford (I should mention that I grew up *on the other side* of the rich poor gap; so I’ve seen both sides). Childhood obesity/diabetes is when you don’t have generational wealth.

Sports cost money and couch potato-ing conserves caloric content and nutrients that would otherwise require replenishing; a life that orbits a coffee table between a couch and TV in modern times, is no coincidence. Pep-boys! Oil Stop! Drive through 50-point inspection! Exclamations referring to continuing inability to afford a mechanic; meaning you can’t afford the currently mechanically sound car you have recently driven from a used car lot. Having at best a several month window of drivability (You were wondering why cars parked in the yard on blocks are an Oregon staple, now weren’t you?)

College is never going to happen sans scholarship, because you have neither credit nor equity or financing. Where will you stay? How will you afford books? How will you relocate to where the college is, which happens to always be just outside redlining range? Where will you make the time between the multiple jobs to support all the siblings owed to limited healthcare and non-existent birth control? Street prices for handguns hovered around fifty US dollars for a long, long time. Will you hunt your way from poverty in the inner cities? A silencer to subsist on pigeons? This is really really important because most Americans now have no generational wealth, and moreover, no wealth generation capacity in sight for the foreseeable future. 

An important curiosity for the Latino contingent: You get to keep cartel proceeds, you get all the slave labor subsistence jobs where blacks aren’t welcome, you ABSOLUTELY must continue to live in the barrios (which are considered dangerous by non-latinos, to non-latinos, meaning nobody will ever visit), and you can’t buy white privilege which could make you feel more naturalized as Americans. So when you vote, what does that mean to you guys personally?

(Curiosity overlaps with the Japanese mappo problem; you can’t afford to follow traffic laws like speed limits because of where you have to live vs where you have to commute to, and what that window looks like. *They* have to be ever vigilant for *you specifically as singled out* by your necessity to speed, in order to career on by meeting quotas (that make them look busy enough to take care of them financially the rest of the time)

[sohin-ace]

Doppio - Frog Princess

Fairy tale AU and lots of love for my small man.

Doppio dragged his feet across the garden, restless and desperate. He sighed and whined to himself, taking the opportunity of being all alone to voice his pain and concerns, something he was never allowed to do.

"Aww jeez... This prince life isn't made for me..."

He huffed again and tugged at his very uncomfortable, gold adorned collar that was almost suffocating him.

Doppio looked around him, sure enough, the tall trees surrounding him did a great job at hiding him from the potential workers on the castle grounds that could possibly be looking for him.

He could finally have a little moment for himself and sneak out, maybe to cry to himself a little bit.

"O-ow... That still hurts..." The boy whined and rubbed on his bruised fingers, the results of angry professors punishing him for each mistakes he made. "I'm no good, I can't do anything right..."

That's right. Prince Doppio was a clumsy and anxious boy who lacked capacity in every domain. He always tried his best and obeyed every and each order, he wasn't undisciplined, oh no, young Doppio was a good boy.

He was just bad. He hardly managed to keep the required straight stance for more than ten seconds, was better at petting the horses than at riding them, couldn't follow etiquette at all, or protocol, was extremely forgetful and sadly, mother nature did not grace him with the strongest physical traits a young man his age was expected to have.

"Tch... Trish was so popular everyone courted her and she was so easy to marry, but me... No one would want to marry a good-for-nothing like me..."

He angrily kicked some rock and held his back that cracked at the movement, in pain, squeezing his eyes shut and sobbing at the sore feeling. That last lesson of fencing went so terribly wrong, how did the others do it?

"I'm so tired... Why meee...?"

"Ribbit!"

"Huh?" Doppio was startled at the very sudden but intriguing croaky sound and approached its direction near the pond.

He couldn't see anything at first, but then a tiny little creature jumped out of its hiding place. Doppio's honey eyes widened and he quickly wiped his warm tears, crouching down towards the animal.

"A frog!" He exclaimed happily, almost like a small child, new to the world. "Hi! You're so tiny, what's your name?"

"Ribbit!"

He knew very well the animal couldn't respond to him with actual words, but just the feeling of having even a one-sided conversation soothed a bit of his loneliness down. He cupped his hands together to invite the frog in, and the animal obliged by jumping on them.

He looked down and observed the chubby little creature. It had the cutest, roundest eyes, almost sparkly in the dim forest light, its green color was so bright and homogenous, there weren't any marks or patterns that frogs usually had on their skin. Even its limbs were tiny and soft, Doppio couldn't help but pet it with one careful and shaky finger.

"O-ooh! Oh my god!" He squealed uncontrollably. "You're so squishy!"

"Ribbit ribbit!"

The quiet and high-pitched croak felt so pleasant to his ears, it meddled with the sound of the water next to him and made him feel so much at peace. He loved to hear that cute sound and how the frog's belly puffed up like a balloon with each croak.

"What are you? A boy or a girl? I'd say you're a girl because you're super pretty and have a tiny voice."

"Ribbit Ribbit! Ribbit Ribbit!"

Doppio gasped loudly. "D-did I get it right?! Oohh yes!! That's so cool! Well... Not like I would have minded if you were a boy... Or both... Wait, do frogs have genders? Oh it doesn't matter."

The young prince felt like this frog was currently the only thing keeping him sane. He had no one else to talk to, there was no one who actually cared for his own well-being and he had no friends.

The only real person to actually show him some kind of recognition and love was none other than the King Diavolo himself. But even his sweet words and affection seemed somewhat back-handed and laced with pressure and severity.

"You know, you're lucky, little thing..." Doppio started with melancholy. "You don't have to worry so much about your life... I'm bad at everything and I'm all alone... I don't know what to do..."

"Ri-rib, ribbit!"

"Even if a nice princess wanted to marry me, I would turn her down because she would deserve better... Sometimes I wish I could disappear..."

"Ribb-ribbit!"

Doppio's eyes softened on the small frog. That's how sad and pathetic he was. Talking his problems out with a frog.

"Why do I feel like you actually understand me...? Thank you for listening to me and being my only friend."

Without even thinking, he lifted the small frog and brought it towards his face, giving it the tiniest of pecks. He smiled at how weird the feeling was, the animal was cold and slightly humid, a bit sticky too which he did not mind surprisingly.

He sighed and looked up mindlessly before his eyes were suddenly striked by a blinding flash of light.

"Wh-what the hell?!"

The light flashed brighter and brighter, coming from the frog in his hands. What was going on?

Doppio could only drop the creature and shield his eyes with his arms desperately as the frog sparkled like a thousand fireflies and grew in size.

The boy squinted his eyes shut and fell back right onto his butt before he felt a strong weight pressing on him, the mass eventually pinning him down onto the ground.

"U-uughh..." He groaned and rubbed his head, a sharp headache from the harsh light hitting his sensitive eyes still slowly fading.

He looked down only for his eyes to widen like saucers. He couldn't believe what he was currently witnessing and thought that maybe he went blind from the flash and was hallucinating right now.

The weight on top of him revealed to be the figure of a girl laying unconscious. He couldn't see her face buried in his chest, but he could make out her beautiful hair, smooth skin tone and the very frilly green dress she was wearing.

And that wasn't just any dress either, the golden ornaments, the tulle, the silk, the lace, the satin... That was an expensive dress, was she...could she be... A nobleswoman? A baroness? A...

...A princess?

"A-aah..." The girl moaned quietly before pushing herself up, not without struggle and Doppio gasped.

"A-are you okay signori-..." The boy could barely finish his sentence and only mumbled open-mouthed nonsense.

He was beyond mesmerized at the beauty who had just ever-so-slowly lifted her face up to look at him. Her shining wide eyes, her innocent glossy lips, her rose dusted cheeks and her hair framing her perfect face made him believe he just stumbled into some sort of forest Goddess.

"Ah-I... U-uuhm.. Y-you...uh.. W-ah-...eh... I-I'm..." He stammered awkwardly, his brain melting like ice in summer as his face and ears burned a crimson red, his breath catching in his now dry throat.

"Ah! My stars!" The girl gasped as she hovered over the immensely flustered prince. "I am so sorry! I must be crushing you!"

The young girl fretted anxiously before trying to scramble over on her knees and straighten herself up to give the poor man some much needed space, but as soon as she did, she was hit with a wave of dizziness and lost balance again. Doppio was quick to sit up and catch her against his chest, wrapping careful arms around her.

"A-are you okay, miss? What happened to you? What's going on?" The boy asked worriedly, regaining his composure slowly.

"Ah y-yes... It's just... It's been so long since I've been glamoured..."

"You've been... Glamoured?" Doppio couldn't be more confused than this, but the girl explained further as she leaned back slightly.

Her name was Y/N L/N, daughter of the King L/N. Many years ago, she had been the victim of a curse cast by the one and only sorcerer Dio, who was overcome by fury and rage against anyone affiliated with the Joestar Empire, or those who refused to become one of his pets, casting spells after spells, and curses after curses.

"He turned me into a frog and swore to me that nobody would ever come to save me from my demise... But you..." Y/N looked up at Doppio's honey eyes and couldn't help the tears pooling at her eyes.

She was free, at last.

"I was all alone... And you came here... My savior..."

Her soft voice cracked with thick emotions and she stared into Doppio's golden eyes with soft ones, her vision blurred by warm tears. Doppio gasped lightly, moved by her story and she shyly wiped her tears.

"A-ah, forgive me! How shameful of me, to weep in front of a prince like this... I'm just.. So..."

"No, princess, don't apologize." He gently held her wrists to pull them away from her timid face. "You have the right to be overwhelmed... Nobody's here, besides... I cried too, earlier, in front of you. Nothing wrong with showing your emotions."

She sighed dreamily at his gentle words and soft touches, the now more confident boy stirring her heart. "What is your name, my prince?"

"Doppio." He gulped, stiff as a rock at her saccharine gaze and tone. "Doppio Vinegar."

"You're a good person, Doppio..." She breathed out, her words dripping with warm sincerity. Doppio's heart could only skip beats at each and every one of her actions.

The boy may be clumsy and bashful, he surely wasn't dense. He well knew he was deeply falling in love with this frog princess, but something in him told him she may not be completely disinterested in him either, despite his overall appearance and personality.

But maybe, just maybe, it was because she didn't know him enough. She didn't know this extent of his foolishness, how worthless of a man he truly was. This was the perfect opportunity for her to just push him away and run back home, only to never see him again.

But against all he could have ever expected, he was completely shaken out of his low self-esteem filled transe when he felt her leaning her delicate hands and head against his chest, closing her eyes and relishing in his warm hold still on her.

"Prince Doppio... I feel so safe when I'm in your arms... I'll forever be grateful for granting me my deepest wish..." She lifted her head just enough to look at his blushing freckled face, his mouth agape. "How could I ever reward you?"

Was she... Really serious? Nobody has ever told him they felt good around him. Nobody has ever felt safe around the small and skinny man that was Doppio. Could he be strong enough for her?

Well one thing was positive, he didn't want to let her go, and if he had to eat razor blades to protect her, he would do it without batting an eye.

She actually wanted to, or at least seemed to, stay with him. She felt grateful, for him, of all people!

He hoped she wouldn't hear his heart go feral in his chest. She would do... Anything for him? Could he be selfish? Could he ask the inimaginable? Would she say yes? He wouldn't force her but... He would love to think about himself only, just this once in his life.

He had nothing to lose.

He gently grabbed both her hands in his surprisingly big ones, squeezing gently and rubbing his thumbs over her soft skin, as if to want to imprint his love onto her.

"Ma-... Marry me, Princess Y/N!" He confessed with loud yet clear determination. "Please, be mine! I will cherish you like my most prized treasure, you will never be alone and feel unsafe again! I promise my entire life to you, please promise me yours!"

She widened her eyes at his sudden assertiveness and his strong, meaningful words. The pink boy in front of her shook her heart in so many ways, and she had already lost everything to Dio in the past. She had absolutely no reason to deny, now did she?

The girl smiled bright and slowly pulled her hands out of his grasp, only to immediately wrap her arms around her hero's neck, nuzzling her face against him lovingly.

"Yes! I accept... my sweet Doppio."

[stupidsexyfandom]

Sed Libera Nos A Malo

@helsa-summer-event

Rated T // Drama, Medieval AU

Brother Hans finds something suspicious about the abbey’s newest novice. 

Written for Prompt #6 of Helsa Summer: Letting off steam.

They were in the midst of the coldest winter anyone could remember. There were whispers in the village that this was Queen Elsa’s doing. Perhaps, angry at being driven from her home, she had laid a curse on the land. This speculation was frowned upon inside the abbey. There they condemned talk of magic as heresy. If there was anything unnatural about this winter, they said, it was a sign from God. A sign of what, they did not say.

Hans did not hold these murmurings in high regard. Magic was the stuff of myths and fairy stories, and he very much doubted that one girl held the power to plunge the country into a deep freeze. At this point, he doubted whether Queen Elsa was even still alive. He knew her parents had been slaughtered early in this conflict when his father, King Harald of the Southern Isles, had decided that Arendelle rightfully belonged to him. She had been hastily crowned, but she and her sister had disappeared soon afterward. Her supporters claimed the queen and princess had fled to Corona to gather an army, but Hans was not so sure. The Southern Isles’ attempted invasion was not popular among the Arendellian nobles, and he suspected their cause needed a figurehead.

He held the Church’s explanation in equally low esteem, despite being destined to take holy orders himself. The Church had thrown their weight behind King Harald’s claim to the throne, likely persuaded by the Southern Isles’ ample coffers. If this frigid weather were a sign of anything (although he was sure it was not), it might be God indicating that they had backed the wrong side.

But Hans had not come to the abbey because he felt called to God. His father had followed the cardinal rule of succession: an heir for the crown and a spare for the priesthood. But then there had been another spare and then another. Soon, the king had thirteen sons, each competing for wealth and influence. Several had climbed their way through the Church’s ranks, and several others had been promised lands throughout the Southern Isles and Arendelle. Hans was the last, and it was decided that he was not worthy of becoming a bishop or cardinal, or even a priest. He was relegated to being a simple monk.

Not even a full monk, at that, he thought with only a tinge of bitterness. He was still only a novice, and he thought it would be a long time before he took his final vows. For now, he was at the bottom of the pecking order, just as he had been at home. At least his position assisting the herbalist gave him a measure of freedom not accorded to the other novices. The work was varied and stimulating, and his superior, though a keen man, was not as strict as some of the other brothers. This left Hans able to move around the abbey with some degree of autonomy.

He knew the true reason his father had sent him to a monastery in Arendelle, aside from wanting to be rid of him. The king’s forces were moving through the country, laying siege to any towns which would not submit. But opposition was fierce, and the people had fought back with tooth and nail at every opportunity. The Southern Isles’ progress had been slower than King Harald would like to admit. Hans was not considered good enough for a place at court, but he could certainly feed the king information from behind enemy lines. He had not yet been called upon, but he knew the day would come. He did not relish the prospect. After all, what loyalty did he owe his father?

So he toiled away behind the monastery walls day after day. After so much time, he had become used to the routine of prayer and solitude. It was almost enough to make him a believer. Although it was not the life he would have chosen, he had accepted the path that was his to walk. Perhaps, if he were lucky, he would someday reach the rank of prior, or even abbot.

This morning was colder than most. Hans stood in the abbey stable, breaking the ice so the horses could have fresh water. He had always had a way with horses, and he was lucky that his tasks allowed him to work with them. Some of the other novices were being loudly berated in the courtyard. Not only had they spoken out of turn, but they had been gossiping about the Snow Queen, as she was called in the village. Hans was grateful to be hidden inside a stall. He was certain their odious superior would have found a way to include him in the punishment, despite his innocence in the matter. The loathing he harbored for that man was deeply un-Christian.

His musings on whether murder was really a sin if the victim was extremely annoying were interrupted by the sound of hoofbeats. The novices and their lecturer scattered as Hans peered into the courtyard. Two horses burst into the courtyard, a black stallion of nearly eighteen hands, and a smaller gray that looked to have Arabian blood. A man dismounted from the first and a smaller figure, either a youth or a woman, from the second. The prior came out to meet them. He did not look happy to see them, but then again, he always looked like that. Hans could not hear what they were saying. When he heard footsteps approaching the stable, he hastened to look busy. But only the prior appeared.

“Brother Hans, are you in there?” Hans stepped out of the stall. The prior beckoned, and Hans followed him out into the courtyard. He was eager to get a closer look at such fine animals, even if it meant stepping out into the cold. The man had already started toward the abbey doors, but the other rider stood holding the horses. Ah, so it was a youth.

“Elias, this is Brother Hans,” said the prior, “He is one of your fellow novices.” Hans nodded in acknowledgement, appraising his new brother. Elias was extremely slight, with fair hair and round blue eyes. His face had not yet lost any of the softness of childhood. He seemed on edge despite the safety of the abbey. There was something off about him that Hans could not place.

“Brother Hans, take these horses to the stable and see that they are fed and watered. Boy, come with me.”

“Right away, Brother Prior,” said Hans, taking the reins. His attention immediately shifted to his new task. The horses must be tired and in need of hay. He could tell that they must have galloped a great distance from the way the steam rose from their sweaty flanks. That was it! As he walked toward the stables, he exhaled softly to test his theory. Steam rose from his lips into the chilly air.

He turned back to look at the abbey doors where the prior, Elias, and the other man were preparing to enter. Sure enough, the man and the prior both breathed out condensation when they spoke. But the air in front of Elias was perfectly clear. His lips emitted no such steam.

-

Over the next several weeks, Hans began to forget his strange realization. Elias seemed to integrate into monastic life easily. There still seemed something odd about him, but spending so much time together had made his quirks part of the status quo. He was quiet and easily startled, but he was also a hard worker who never caused trouble. He did nothing else to call attention to himself.

Hans had been seeing a lot of him because he was also assigned to work under the monastery’s herbalist. The unusually cold winter had brought with it famine and disease. The infirmary was full to capacity, creating more work than two people could handle. They were grateful for the extra set of hands. Brother Elias applied himself to the work with zeal. He seemed to have a particular talent for soothing fevered patients. Hans began to think himself silly for having any doubts about his fellow novice.

But a chance incident brought all his doubts, and many new ones, roaring back with a vengeance. The herbalist was away for several days tending to a patient far from the abbey. Hans and Brother Elias were managing well enough to distribute balms and poultices to their regular patients. Although they lacked expertise, they were both quick studies and worked well together.

Hans had been working in the infirmary when he had realized they were running low on a few supplies. He decided to walk down to the herbalist’s shed to replenish them. He opened the door without knocking, assuming nobody to be inside. Then came the sound of shattering glass. Looking inside, he saw Brother Elias kneeling on the floor, attempting to pick up shards of a vial. In his characteristic jumpiness, he had smashed the bottle in his hand when the door had opened unexpectedly. The mess was awful, but Hans was more concerned about the blood streaming from his palm.

“Leave it,” he said, picking his way across the floor to avoid the broken glass, “Let me have a look at that hand.” Brother Elias ignored the directive, continuing his vain efforts to clear up the mess.

“Don’t worry, it’s not that bad. I can take care of it myself.” But Hans could see that the cut ran deep. He knew a wound like that could cause serious trouble if left unattended. Men had survived worse, but they had also died from much less.

“Not with one hand you can’t. It’s too deep.”

“Really, I’m fine.” Hans carefully crouched down. He could not understand why Brother Elias was so intent on refusing his help. But as he watched, he could see the boy was growing frustrated. Finally, he presented his hand for Hans to examine.

Hans gave no outward sign that anything was amiss when he took Brother Elias’s hand. He cleaned and treated the wound with as much care and attention as he would give any patient. But in the back of his mind, he felt something was very wrong. Brother Elias’s flesh was completely frozen. This went beyond the feeling of someone who had been out in the elements for hours. This was the chill of death.

That night at Compline, Hans prayed. This should not have been unusual, for all the monks spent several hours a day in prayer. But this night was unique for Hans in that he meant it. He knew not what he had stumbled upon, but he had to hope God would protect and guide him through it. In stories, demons were always red hot like the fire and brimstone whence they came. But what if that was wrong? What if, in order to withstand the licking flames of hellfire, demons were cold as ice?

Hans thought of reporting what he had seen, but the idea was unappealing. In truth, he found the monk who oversaw the novices so obnoxious that he would rather risk his immortal soul than talk to him unnecessarily. He wished desperately that his mentor were there. He knew the herbalist would have known what to do. But he was away from the abbey and would be for several days yet. Hans did not know if this would keep until then.

He could barely focus on his work in the infirmary the next day. His mind raced with thoughts of angels and demons, each twisting into the other until he could no longer tell them apart. He paid only the slightest attention when a fevered patient was brought in. There had been many cases like his in this hellish winter, and Hans set about mixing the preparation the herbalist had found was most effective. Brother Elias sat at the side of the fevered man, soothing him through his delirium.

As he watched, Brother Elias put one hand on the ill man’s forehead and the other at his neck. His fevered thrashing stilled, and he seemed almost at peace. Hans thought back to holding that hand in his own, cold and corpse-like and covered in blood. How unnatural the cold had felt then. But here, it had been a tool of salvation, bringing down the man’s body temperature. Would a demon use its unholy power to save lives? He very much doubted it. He found he could no longer stomach the idea of giving Brother Elias up to the authorities. Perhaps he would continue on as normal until the herbalist returned. He knew the older man would come up with a plan as kind as it was wise.

It turned out there was no need to wait for his mentor’s return. All would be revealed well before then.

Hans and Brother Elias were spending the night working in the shed, distilling herbs over a flame that must burn for countless hours. Exempt from Matins for the night because of their work, they had decided to sleep in shifts. Hans was surprised by how easy it was to go on working together as if nothing had happened. He had volunteered to take the first watch, tending to the fire while Brother Elias slept on the straw palette.

At first, all was well. Brother Elias retired, and Hans sat staring idly into the flames. Eventually he had trouble keeping his eyes open, slipping into a stupor. He only became alert when he felt something cold touch his face. Then for a moment he thought he must be dreaming. Snow seemed to be falling inside the herbalist’s shed.  He turned to see Brother Elias thrashing in his sleep, caught in the throes of some nightmare. Hans attempted to awaken him, but the dream’s grip was too powerful.

In his sleep he began to call, “Anna! Anna! No! I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!” in that clear, youthful voice. Hans wondered who Anna was. Brother Elias seemed too young to have such passion for a lover. In any case, the pain in his voice seemed to point to a more tragic tale. Hans had little time for contemplation, for the snow began to fall thicker and faster. An icy wind threatened to extinguish the flame necessary for their task.

“My fault! It’s all my fault! No! Please!” At his wit’s end, Hans reached out and shook Brother Elias violently. His eyes snapped open and frost crawled up his arms, coating his habit and Hans’ alike. Hans broke away, staring at the frozen fabric in terror. The first thought through his mind was ‘begone accursed demon’, followed by several swears. But he mastered himself quickly. He had already established that Brother Elias could not be a demon, so what else was left?

“You… wield power over ice and snow?” Brother Elias stared at him like a cornered animal, round blue eyes wide with terror.

Finally, he murmured, “I was born like this.”

“Born like this?” said Hans slowly, “I can think of only one other said to have been born with this power.” He could feel his mind turning like the machinery of a mill wheel. To his surprise, Brother Elias barked a laugh.

“You know one of my secrets. You may as well know all. Soon it will not matter. I was once Queen Elsa of Arendelle.” From the hood of her habit, she revealed a que of fair hair. Hans gaped in shock. It seemed at once so unlikely and so obvious. Looking at her face, he could see now the femininity that he had mistaken for youth. He was so entranced that he nearly missed her next sentence.

“I know your secret as well, Prince Hans of the Southern Isles. My advisors told me Harald’s men would be everywhere. I knew what to look for.”

“That title is no longer mine,” he said, his mouth suddenly dry, “I renounced it when I came to the abbey.”

“Ah. It is a shame, then, that I shall still have to kill you for it.” She produced a dagger from under her habit and advanced toward him. Although she had him in her power, he could see fear in her eyes.

“Wait!” he cried, “I have no intention of revealing your secret!” She stopped short, although her dagger was still raised.

“Oh? Why should I believe you?”

“I knew something was wrong from the very first day you came here, but still I said nothing.”

“How did you know?”

“Your breath was cold. No steam in the winter air.” She considered him for a moment. Then she lowered her dagger. Hans thought he glimpsed relief in her eyes.

“I must go tonight. I had hoped to lay low until the spring, but this place is no longer safe for me. It is a shame that I could not send word ahead of time, but it cannot be helped now.” She turned as if to walk out the door at that moment.

“Wait!” he said again, “What’s changed? I will not breath a word of your secret, and nobody else knows. Please, at least wait until the herbalist returns. He is a good and wise man, and I know he will advise you rightly.” He knew she saw the sense in his words. Silently, she sat down on the palette. Together they stared into the fire. Hans had a feeling neither of them would sleep tonight.

-

For the next few days, things returned to almost normal. The harsh cold showed no signs of abating as they continued their work in the infirmary. Elsa was as kind and patient as she had been when she was Brother Elias, calming their patients with her cooling touch. Hans continued to mix herbs as his mentor had taught him. In a way, they were more in sync in their work than they had ever been. Perhaps their newfound understanding had allowed them to communicate better.

Has would be lying if he said the tenor of their interactions had not changed slightly. How could he go on as he had, knowing that his companion was not a scrawny youth but a beautiful woman? He found himself thinking things that would make his confessor’s hair curl. Maybe I was wrong, he thought wryly, and she really is a demon sent to tempt me, specifically?

But he had other reasons for avoiding the confessional, not least of which was his dislike for the novices’ confessor. He could not risk anyone learning their secret, especially a busybody such as him. And he could not bring himself to lie before God. If he were to be struck down and be sent to Hell for dying without absolution, so be it. It would be worth it to protect her.

Their newfound peace was to be short-lived. Hans was at the riverbank fetching water when he spied a familiar horse. He would know that bay anywhere, and he knew its rider could not be far away. Before he could turn around, he felt a blade at his throat.

“Hello, dear brother,” came a voice.

“Sweyn.” His oldest brother and his father’s favorite. The King would send him on any business he could not attend to himself.

“Now, now, what kind of a greeting is that for your future king?” He removed the blade and spun Hans around to face him.

“What do you want?” he ground out, “I take it this is not a social call.”

“Good guess, little brother. Father’s troops are three days march from here. He’s heard rumors that the Snow Queen is in these parts. He wants to know if they are true.”

“How should I know? I’m cooped up in that monastery all the time. I haven’t seen a woman for weeks. And even if I had seen her, why should I help Father? He’s the one who sent me to this place to rot.” Sweyn smiled a toothy grin.

“Because if you don’t, I will kill you and dump your body through that hole in the ice. And if you do, Father will carve out some of Arendelle just for you. I’m sure we can find some land for little Hans.” The offer was tempting. All his life, he had dreamed of being somebody important, of having something that was just his. If he had lands of his own, he could realize that dream. But as he considered, he realized he could not trust anything Sweyn said. This was the man who had once claimed to see a comet and then tried to push him out of a third-floor window. Hans had been lucky to be able seize a shutter to prevent the fall. He hoped a similar lifeline would come to him now.

“I cannot help you. Like I said, I haven’t seen a woman in weeks.” If there was one thing Hans knew, it was how to lie.

“Surely you must have heard some talk?”

“Gossip is strictly forbidden for monks. We are punished harshly for breaking silence. I know nothing.”

“Some spy you turned out to be. Even here you cannot escape your penchant for failure.” Hans did not let the words rile him.

“If you want my opinion, the queen and the princess are both dead and have been for a long time.” His brother snorted.

“Wrong as usual. I know for a fact that the princess is in Corona. She waits there for her sister as she raises an army. That is why we must strike fast.” Hans was surprised his brother would admit to feeling any pressure from the princess of Arendelle.

“See, you know more than I do.” Sweyn was suspicious by nature, but Hans could tell that he believed him.

“It is a pity you speak the truth, brother. I would have so loved to leave your body under the ice. Perhaps I still shall. But no, father will want an inside man when he lays siege to the city. Such a pity, but there will always be another opportunity.” It spoke to their relationship that these death threats neither shocked nor upset Hans. He knew his brother would not hesitate to make good on them, but he also knew his father would never allow Sweyn off the leash like that. Not while he was still alive, at least.

“Goodbye, Sweyn.” And like that, his brother had vanished, melting back into the barren forest.

-

He met Elsa in the stables, where he was certain they would not be overheard.

“My father’s troops are only a few days march away from here. We must flee tonight.”

“We are not going to do anything. I will leave on my own.” Hans could not believe his ears.

“Are you insane? It’s much too dangerous for you to travel alone. The roads are a lawless place, and anything could happen.”

“You forget, Brother Hans, that I have a unique weapon in my arsenal. Any who tried to cross me would find himself much the worse for it. No, I will not let you leave behind your vows for my sake.”

“Forget my vows!” said Hans, wishing he could use stronger language, “I did not choose this life of my own free will. I would gladly abandon it to travel with you to Corona.” He would gladly travel with her for as long as she would let him. Elsa was silent for a long moment.

“Very well. It seems you have made up your mind already. I will send word ahead to ready a ship for us.”

“How?” As far as Hans knew, Elsa had no contact with anyone outside the abbey.

“I have my ways. You must only concern yourself with readying the horses.”

-

They sneaked out directly after Compline. With any luck, they would not be missed until Matins, and a search party would not be sent until the next morning. Hans led them to an abandoned barn near a field where they used to gather herbs. They could wait there until true nightfall when they could travel on the roads more covertly.

In the gathering darkness, he asked the question that had been on his mind for the last week: “Were you dreaming about your sister?”

“Hm?”

“That night in the herb shed. You called out for Anna. It must have been a pretty unpleasant dream.” He could hear her shifting her weight uncomfortably, and he thought maybe he shouldn’t have asked.

At last, she said, “I was dreaming about the night our parents died. The two of us managed to escape from the castle together, but we were separated in the commotion. We were being attacked from all sides. I tried to use my ice to protect us, but I’ve never had very good control over it. It was all I could do to hold them off while Anna fled. I don’t know what happened to her after that. If I could have just made a stable barrier, we could have fled together. I could have continued to protect her. As it stands, she’s probably dead because of me.” He could hear that she was trying not to cry and probably failing. He reached out to wrap an arm around her, surprised when she did not pull away.

“The princess is not dead. According to my brother, she’s waiting for you in Corona with an army.”

“What?” Elsa sniffed, “Do you believe him?”

“Not as a rule, no. But he would have no reason to lie about that particular fact, especially because it makes my father look bad.”

“That’s… wonderful!” said Elsa, still sounding slightly shocked, “I can’t believe—” But her elation was cut short when they heard the snap of a branch outside. Hans was immediately on his guard. He hoped it was not someone from the abbey, or worse, the sheriff. Would he be able to kill if that were what it came down to? Yes, he decided, he would. He hoped his swordsmanship had not suffered too much from lack of practice in the abbey.

“Brother Hans?” called a voice, and Hans immediately relaxed.

“Brother!” he shouted, “In here!” A silhouette appeared in the doorway and he felt Elsa tense next to him. But the light of the lantern he carried soon identified him as the herbalist.

“Is the queen with you?”

“How did he know?” hissed Elsa in his ear. Hans wanted to reply that he somehow knew everything, but the older man beat him to it.

“I knew from the first that you were not a young man. No one but a monk who had spent his whole life cloistered away from women would ever believe your disguise. As for the other, did you think I would not notice the way the oil bottles froze when you touched them? God has given you a rare gift, your Majesty. I hope you will someday grow to love it.”

“Thank you,” Elsa spluttered. The herbalist turned to Hans.

“And you will be her steward on the journey to Corona? I trust you will not take advantage of your role.”

“Of course not. But her Majesty has little need for a steward. She has power enough to foil any who might wish to harm her.”

“Very good, very good.”

“You’re not going to turn us in?” asked Elsa, sounding slightly incredulous.

“The Church may have chosen to support King Harald, but I myself prefer to remain neutral. They have not missed you yet at the abbey. In the morning, the sheriff may receive information that you are making a break for the North Sea. The road to the southern ports should be clear at least until then.”

“How can we ever thank you?” said Elsa. The monk smiled.

“The best thanks you can give me is to live safely and well.”

Night had truly fallen. They led the horses out of the barn and mounted near the fence. Hans relished the feeling of riding again. He had missed it after all this time. The herbalist turned to say goodbye. Suddenly Hans felt a wave of sorrow wash over him, for the loss of the abbey and his vows and all the other things he had thought he never cared about before.

“Brother,” he called, “I’m sorry to be leaving you. I know the oath is supposed to be for life.”

“The purpose of the novitiate period is to determine one’s suitability for monastic life. Clearly you are destined for other things. Go in peace, my children.”

They waved goodbye to the herbalist and set off on the southbound road. As they road through the wood, Hans felt freer than he ever had in his life. Within a day, they would be at the sea. After that, he knew not what lay in store.

When they reached a crossroad, Elsa called to him, “Which way, Brother Hans?”

Indicating the path, he said, “I don’t think you have to call me ‘Brother Hans’ anymore.”

“Oh, what should I call you, then? Have you decided to go back to your old title?”

“No, just ‘Hans.’ ‘Hans’ is fine.”

“All right then, Hans.” He felt a little thrill at the way she said it.

As they rode through the night, Hans found himself imagining his future. He could see Elsa once again on the throne of Arendelle, himself a fixture at her side. Maybe someday, she could even grow to love him. Or perhaps that was just a fantasy. But whatever the future held, he knew his father would rue the day he had sent his youngest son to an abbey in Arendelle. Hans, on the other hand, had never been more grateful for anything in his life.

***

Author’s Note: I heard the Helsa fandom has a thing about priests, so I... wrote something totally unsexy about monks instead? Truly the fanfiction equivalent of when you order a Coke and the waitress asks, “Is Pepsi okay?”

Any fans of Brother Cadfael will notice quite a few Easter eggs sprinkled throughout. (And by Easter eggs I mean blatant plagiarism.) I considered cutting out some of the world-building of how Frozen maps onto The Anarchy, but I left it in because I liked it. It’s my sleepover, and I get to choose the movie! And hey, it worked for Victor Hugo. 

I can’t express how much I appreciate my readers and the response you’ve given me! Enjoy! <3

[elsewhereuniversity]

Names have power and meaning, and what you pick says something about you. People tended to avoid commenting on Pandora’s name, as they only understood the surface of the myth and only knew that because of Pandora’s curiosity she unleashed suffering on humans. Fae however, as well as some more historically knowledgeable humans, knew a different myth.

Pandora- the myth- had been explicitly created to open the box and unleash the contents within. Given to the god of hindsight as a gift after the whole fire incident with Prometheus, she had been designed to be a beautiful and cunning opposite to man- Zeus’s revenge. Judgment for the wrongs. She was never curious, she was a weapon.

Fae initially avoided Pandora the student because of the myth, and because they sensed she knew full well what she had picked. But Pandora proved to be a magnet for the strange, and was open to the deals that came with it.

She was better at making deals than initially given credit for. Fae who thought they were clever usually got manipulated out of what they really wanted while Pandora walked away with everything she’d set out for.

What Pandora traded for was considered erratic at best, if you didn’t know her or were unobservant as to what she was currently doing with her time. Large amounts of metals traded at times she was doing large smithing projects, lots of plastic reels for the 3d printers, designs for projects made of wood, hair dye, gems, and at once point just a touch of Sight were known things she’d traded for. (Just a touch, wouldn’t want to see too much)

Pandora liked knowledge best of all, but you’d only know that if you were a fae trading or were someone very very close to her. She came to the school knowing how to 3d print, shape metal, and create wooden projects. She did not come to the school knowing how to conjure items, enchant items, or how to cook. She rarely traded for all desired knowledge to be given in one fell swoop though. She knew better than to lock herself into a path she might find out she doesn’t actually want.

On the side of personality, she was undoubtedly kind, giving luck charms out freely, and giving iron rings out freely like they were candy, but wouldn’t hesitate to throw you to the wolves if you proved dishonest. Understandingly patient, but unabashedly persistent. It was often joked that if you owed her something she would haunt you after her death to get it from you. Nobody was actually certain if she would. Nobody wanted to find out. Even less appealing was to find out was what she’d do to you if you broke a deal. (“Where did she get the knife who’s cuts burn for days after?” “I don’t know, and I don’t want to find out.”)

Her deals slowly went from normal(ish) to what one may expect when someone mentions deals with fae, though they were still largely related to her hobbies and interests. For a hammer who’s strike would never miss, she gave a luck charm specifically enchanted to help prevent injury. For a drill who’s bits would never snap or dull and who would always drill straight she gave a tube of hand cream that would temporarily enhance natural beauty and health. She’s not sure where the gloves that aided in cleaning but would force one to finish the task before anything else no matter what came from. It helps with dishes though.

For all her all her trading and all her cunning and all her skill, what made her powerful was her kindness. The unspoken debts she was owed ranged from her having lent notes on a difficult test to leaving the crows fresh muffins every morning to all the useful gifts she gave. Everyone knew her name and knew that she’d at least listen to a request if you needed to make one. Whether or not she’d do it was determined by her capacity to, and her availability. To a lesser extent what you could do in return was also a factor.

The debts added, and added, and added. It seemed everyone owed her something unspoken because of her kindness, and to other students she seemed oddly content to leave it unspoken and unpaid. She cursed her own kind nature, and knew she was walking a dangerous line. She just didn’t know what line.

And she knew when gifts started appearing that she was stepping over that line into a new realm. A hairbrush that would help keep the color of her hairdye, pretty stones, pretty pins, a new pair of shoes when she’d offhandedly complained about hers being on the way out, the crows bringing her a magic focus as an unsaid thank you for the fresh muffins she gave them every morning, the crows bringing her lots of things in general because they liked her, and so many other things. All non-crow gifts given with a post-it note attached saying “For your kindness”

Her kindness didn’t end, and neither did the gifts. It reached a tipping point when she saw a creature in danger.

A frame made of iron had mysteriously dislodged, onto a fae creature. Its pitiful screams didn’t go unnoticed and she tore it off the form. This was not a debt that would or ever could be politely overlooked. She’ll never admit she immediately regretted lifting the frame if only because that meant she must be paid.

“What would you like? I cannot promise I can give it, but request and we’ll see.” The fae asked, looking at her anxiously. She knew better than to say ‘nothing’, but she couldn’t think of anything appropriate to ask for. So with hesitation she said “I don’t know what to ask for. I’m not even sure what could be considered equal.”

Her hesitation read relatively clear to the fae, a boon for that situation. The fae agreed that it required thought and sat with her for a few minutes, trying to think of a gift to clear the debt.

It looked up at her with a grin. “To clear the scars of past and to prevent scars anew.” It declared. It’s lucky she held no ill feelings towards that gift as it went ahead without further warning. A bright flash, and the fae was gone, as well as every scare, big or small, on her skin.

With hesitation she rubbed a ridge right under her chin. Or at least, there was supposed to be a ridge right under her chin. The slightly puckered flesh from when she’d split it open was flat.

She stood there for a while after, considering the implications. To prevent scars anew…

She didn’t pretend the implications were anything grand. Days later it was proven that her skin could be pierced, confirming that she could be injured. It just wouldn’t scar.

It was a gateway to many other favors. It was like the school sensed it could trust her with such things now, as fae in need of a hand appeared in droves. Fae tangled in vines, fae trapped by cruel students with salt circles, and many others.

Gift after gift after gift. Always glad to save a creature but despising each gift that took her a little further from ‘human’.

Radiant beauty, straightened and whitened teeth, silent footfalls, improved literal eyesight (she admits she needed that one), and far more magic items than she would ever need. And that was on top of the gifts from the unspoken debts.

She would walk and heads would turn. Hushed voices would explain to the newbies who she was. Hushed voices would ask back why she was… like that. Nobody human knew why she radiated beauty, nobody human knew why she could only be detected if she didn’t care enough to hide, and everybody human knew there was something unnatural about her and all the items she carried with. But her name preceded her, and nobody was scared of her. Just cautious. Careful to never be ungrateful or rude, but willing to ask and give.

Isolated in the sea of humans, a goddess among mortals. Nobody dared get too close to her. Even friends kept their distance, leaving only a couple of people who ever knew what was really going on in her head.

There wasn’t one mysterious day where she snapped. It was many days where she was slightly father gone than the previous days. She probably wouldn’t have even started the path if students hadn’t been so cautious to interact with her.

Slowly even her last two friends drifted away. And slowly it was only ever the changelings, the fae-touched, and the outright fae who would interact with her on a level beyond “Do you have notes for the homework?”

These were who she hung around. They’d laugh they’d joke they’d play and they’d watch the newest episodes together. What humanity she’d held tight in spirit only by this point started to unravel.

She was still kind and would help, but cold calculation lay in her eyes. Rumor had it she was rationalizing the value of you and your offer and comparing it to how much she cared, like one calculates a budget. She would disappear and return at random. Taken and Returned at her command, for far too many owed her to Take without permission and to not Return her once she desired to leave. (One brave student asked what fae parties were like. Beyond onlookers amazement that she didn’t smite them right there, they were stunned to hear her laugh and say “Wilder than you can imagine!”)

The final tipping point in the line of dominoes was passing by an argument about a deal. Curious, and having nothing better to do, she got involved. The sides were explained and she came to a decision about the situation. They asked for her opinion, and she gave it.

The argument was immediately resolved. She was right, or at least had a point, and nobody was brave enough to argue anyways. A small enough event, or should have been assuming it had remained isolated.

This time it was the students who decided it. One with such power and outright knowledge was better suited to call the shots. She would hear the argument and her diction was law. Even with her humanity left in shreds she had enough kindness to remain fair. The students knew this too whenever they heard her verdict. Even if they were bitter about how it turned out for them, the could feel it in their bones that this was what was deserved.

A few questioned if it was right, or healthy, to rely on her words. They were ignored. Complicated problems were set before her and then were solved. The gifts never stopped, as it was just common sense to pay the she who solved your problems and came to your aid.

None of the students realized 'it’ until someone finally snapped at her. Her call was very lopsided to one person, though that was for the person being innocent and actually trying to be a kind and understanding person while the other had played an unfair game.

The other had lunged for her, their scream of profanity drowned out by the gasping and then screaming students. Any further words were stopped before they even started as almost every student in sight went to pry the bastard off of her. Days later he would be Taken, but for right then her response shook the school.

She laughed. “You think you can take down Judgment!?” She’d hollered. And as one every heart in the area skipped a beat.

“To tip the scales, to say you’re better than rationality? To attack the one in charge of the outcome? By all means, once they release you, I dare you to attack me again and see how long you survive. See just how many people will pry you off once more!” She shouted, twirling as she motioned to those surrounding her.

“I am but a creature of flesh, this is undeniable, but I hold more power than you ever will because I earned it through my deeds. And through my reason, the students have deemed me their Judge! I am the hammer calling for order, I am the scales of which the values are weighed, I am the Judge who decides!” She screeched.

“I saw your lies all through your Case, and each and every one of them was tallied against you and used to determine the Truth! Your life is ultimately not my business; but I pity those who’d call you 'friend’, for you twist your narrative until you are the victim, knowing you are the culprit.”

“We’re done here. Whatever comes next isn’t my doing, but I’m certain that you’ll deserve it.” She said, turning away and simply walking off with confidence in her step.

And the students watched their Judge walk away in silence, and even the animals had stopped making noise in the presence of her power and truth.

Later that night the one who’d attacked her sat in his dorm, waiting in terror for the invariable Pandora’s Box of horrors he’d unleashed upon himself for challenging powers greater than himself.

x

[wisdomrays]

Turtledoves of the Metaphysical Realm and the Expected Revival

QUESTION: What factors allow someone to be open to spirituality and the metaphysical realms?

ANSWER: As some people see materialistic considerations as everything, they lead a life closed to metaphysics. Although character plays a certain role at these people’s remaining closed to spirituality, the point that really needs to be considered is their making no serious effort in this respect, not giving their willpower its due. Even if they say they also believe, people immersed in materialism, whose reasoning is reduced to their eyesight, condemn themselves to a severe narrowness in terms of their thoughts and opinions. For example, they do not believe in the miraculous happenings we term as wonder (karama), whose number amounts to thousands, reported in different centuries by trustworthy people with no probability of lying. Some even go as far as not wishing to accept miracles. Even though they become obliged to accept them owing to the soundness of the narrations, they try to make explanations based on material causes. People who limit their world of thoughts with materialism over time blunt their ability and capacity to understand the metaphysical aspect of phenomena. As a consequence, they cannot see beyond apparent things and occurrences, cannot grasp the wisdom contained in seemingly negative happenings, and as they are not imparted the “inner meaning of happenings” (ta’wil al-ahadith), they cannot understand the different meanings in unfolding events.

Transcendental reality beyond occurrences and the tongue of wisdom

Actually, occurrences hold different meanings for people with respect to the way they take place, as if each of them were a manifest sign. However, in order to be able to see that, it is first necessary to see occurrences through latifa ar-Rabbaniya—the spiritual intellect—and to have the ability to synthesize. In other words, a person should read not only religious affairs but also other phenomena and occurrences, such as a book, trying to catch the connection among occurrences with a holistic perspective, and trying to see the cause and effect relationship among them.

Even if some occurrences seem to be a coincidence and it is remarked that their chance of realization is one out of hundred, when other relevant occurrences are considered, it will be seen that the calculations of probability begin to fall as low as one out of a thousand, a million, or a billion... If individuals live by “sieving life,” if they evaluate the occurrences that come to their mind, catch their eye, and strike their feelings and senses with a holistic perspective, they will then be able to draw very deep meanings from them and from the connections among them. In the same way, with every occurrence they will see, by personally witnessing it, that there is no place for blind chance in this universe, even in the slightest degree. If they consider occurrences as separate entities, however, as some philosophers do, they will fail to see that every letter in this universe indicates and points to the truth of faith in God.

In this respect, in order to open up to spirituality, a person must give his or her willpower its due, sieve occurrences well, and believe from the beginning that nothing is meaningless—so much so that one must know that even a glass that falls from our hand and breaks has a meaning with respect to the “inner meaning of happenings.” Let this not be misunderstood: this perspective does not mean thinking too positively or too negatively in the face of occurrences and becoming spoiled with one and hopeless with another. On the contrary, it means comprehending that there is a certain meaning every occurrence tries to convey with its own tongue.

The mysterious key to opening to metaphysical realms: Supplication

Secondly, a person needs to deepen his theoretical knowledge through worship and obedience in order to be able to see that metaphysical dimension of existence. Doubtlessly, supplication is the foremost among the most important acts of worship, because it is the title for sincere devotion to God. Since supplication is an act of worship that transcends causality, it is the most important ladder making the person reach meta-causality horizons.

So what is the most important and greatest demand a person should ask from God when supplicating?

For example, in our morning and evening recitations we express our wish to be saved from Hell and to attain Paradise. Keeping away from Hell and entering Paradise are essential matters for anyone. However, a person must have a demand of much further importance than these: that is the demand of knowing God correctly and never being heedless of Him.

This must be the highest target believers wish to attain in their prayers with a deep concentration and consciousness. When a man raises his hands in supplication, he must first ask for God’s forgiveness and good pleasure and be so insistent in this demand that he must feel a tingling in his hands with the blessings from God and virtually feel some spiritual effulgence showering down. When maintaining such a state of alertness from head to toe, one must pray: “My God increase me in faith, knowledge of You, love of You. Make me enraptured with yearning for You. Fill my inside with Your love. And make me a person crazy for Your path!”

And if you rise at night and ask for these a thousand times from God with a sincere heart... then see how God Almighty tears apart the veils of the physical realm, opens new metaphysical horizons for you, and awakens you to spiritual realms beyond time and space. It should not be forgotten that whoever pursues a certain goal and strives seriously towards it, what he or she seeks will be granted. Nobody cares about and gives anything to a beggar with hands behind the back and saying in an offhand attitude, “Are you giving or not?” In the same way, acceptance of a person’s prayers depends on his turning to God in utter devotion, putting his head down on His doorstep, knocking on His door insistently, and believing that his prayers will be answered.

Although supplication is so important for a believer, let me sadly express that the act of worship that is given least importance in our time among Muslims is supplication. Unfortunately it has long been a victim of formality and formats. Even the supplications in mosques are victimized to formality, caught in a web of familiarity and heedlessness.

It should not be inferred from these words, however, that the worship and supplications made by people filling mosques are not accepted. I would never dare say that. God Almighty counts even the pettiest good deed to the advantage of a person and gives a reward even for the slightest of them. But it should not be forgotten that a person bears a value in direct proportion with what he values. If you value a worldly property, a mansion or a villa, for instance, then you attach your value to it. If you value Paradise, your value is worth Paradise. But if you have attached your servanthood and desires to love of God and yearning for Him, since He is unlimited, you also reach an unlimited immensity.

If you glorify Him with your remembrances (tasbih, tahmid, and takbirs), and say, “O God praises be to You to the number of the particles in the universe!” and can feel this within, and shiver every time you remember Him, then Your place in God’s sight will be accordingly. As it is stated in a hadith, whatever God’s place is in your sight, thus will be your place in His sight. Ask yourself: How much value do you attach to Him? How much do you think of Him? How much time do you spend with Him? How often do you spell His name, and how much are you with Him? Each question is very important.

People are not closed to metaphysics; they close themselves to metaphysics

God Almighty may bestow extra graces on a person without his making a strenuous effort. This is another thing. But the objective and essential criterion is a person’s giving his willpower its due. God Almighty states, “And that human has only that for which he labors...” (an-Najm 53:39). If we express it the other way around, a person does not gain anything but the reward of his working, giving his willpower its due, and running on the path of God.

Thus, a person who says, “I cannot open to metaphysical considerations. I do not know the World of Representations or Ideal Forms (Alam al-Mithal). I cannot see occurrences with a holistic perspective, make a connection between them and reach a synthesis... ”, first needs to see whether he really did what he should have done concerning this issue. I wonder whether that person—in addition to his scrupulous care at offering the obligatory acts of worship—rose up for the Tahajjud Prayer for forty consecutive nights, prostrated himself and asked for what needs to be asked for? A person’s not doing these indicates how much value he attaches to spirituality. This person’s horizons of spirituality will be accordingly. So even though it is true that some people are closed to spirituality, it isn’t God who condemned them to this closed state. On the contrary, they closed themselves to spirituality. To put it more correctly, as they do not do what needs to be done for the sake of opening to metaphysical realms and do not give their willpower its due in this respect, they remain closed to spirituality.

Even though it was not included in the question, I would like to point out one more fact about the issue: The continuation of this assembly of revival which has taken start and presently promises hope to the entire earth and placing it on its right ground will be realized by capable people who not only know sciences and religious disciplines but are also open to metaphysics. At this united point of physics and metaphysics, if we can raise heroes of willpower who will carry out the requirements of these realms, humanity will awaken to a new spring by means of those heroes of spirituality, who are friends of God and who prefer Him over everything else. If so, the face of the world will smile again and the entire earth will witness a new revival throughout.

[delistylehardcore]

random brain farting about n. gin and his thoughts on morality n good n evil n working for the bad guys

ive long determined, going by the fact that gin went to EVIL SCHOOL and so probably his parents sent him there, that n. gin comes from a long lineage of igors. EVERYONE in his family is a sniveling, hunchbacked, one-squinty-eyed, peter lorre-voiced sycophant. because that’s fucking hilarious. to be a respected and accomplished member of the gin bloodline is base your career around groveling at the feet of a reviled evil genius. n. gin COMES from an evil-aligned family. it was made clear to him that he needed to help make the world a worse place in order to make his folks proud. but if you put the canon tidbits of “went to evil school” and “was always considered a disappointment by his parents” together, you get... "probably sucks at being evil.” hell, he probably flunked out of amberly’s eventually.

n. gin is not really a good person, and he was never hero material even as a Nice Little Boy, but he is thoughtful, mild, and gentle by nature. he’s not very empathetic, but he can’t help but take note of people around him and find himself analyzing them and their actions. he’s very observant and decidedly not self-centered. he doesn’t know what all of it means, but over time he’s learned to connect certain symptoms he observes to certain causes, just through experience. he’s very good at reading people, and inferring what’s probably going through their head. combine that with the fact that he also has an immense capacity to take pity on those who strike him as truly suffering, and you get something approximating compassion. he cares because he understands. he notices, observes, and understands too much around him to be able to ignore it.

he never wanted to be an igor to some big-shot bad guy. that never interested him. as a child he was interested in physics and astronomy. he wanted to work at NASA when he grew up and design the rocket that would bring the first humans to mars. that never ended up happening, but he did end up a rocket scientist. just... not one making the kind of rockets that go into space. rather, the kind that, uh, kill people.

it’s really tough for me to make any kind of call on how he actually feels about directing his research towards military purposes. he made a name for himself there, and it’s entirely possible that he was happy there. in my own anti-militarism bias i just want to believe that he would’ve rather been working in astrophysics lmao. i can believe that he loves things that go boom, and has a deep interest in firearms and artillery and thinks that stuff’s interesting, but yeah entirely out of personal bias i’m inclined to hc that he always wanted to do bigger, grander things but this is where he ended up, and he ended up being successful here, so he stayed.

then the accident happened and everything started rapidly going downhill. his employers let him go pretty soon after, deemed him disabled and unfit for the job, probably mostly just an excuse to not have to shell out obscene amounts of cash for his medical insurance as per company policy. those hospital bills were SKYROCKETING (no pun intended). and of course nobody will fucking hire him. his resume would make anyone jealous, he’s an accomplished physicist anyone would be proud to call their employee, but nobody wants to have a walking bomb in their offices and nobody wants to have to spend all day looking at THAT. he’s unemployed, he’s swamped in debt, his health is incredibly fragile, things are looking really bad. and he’s so fucking mad. it’s not fair. it’s just rejection everywhere he turns, well, because ableism essentially! fantastic cartoon ableism, but that’s basically what it boils down to! he’s a freak, nobody wants to give him a chance, nobody wants to even LOOK at him, he’s always been a prime target for dickheaddery - sensitive, total type B personality, kind of inherently pitiful despite his accomplishments - but this is a new level. it’s just mindblowing to him how cruel people are towards him now. he couldn’t fathom that kind of absolute absence of compassion until he’d had it pointed at him.

he’s at a complete dead end, he can’t find anywhere else to turn, and then cortex shows up with an offer he can’t refuse. he’s literally gonna fucking die if he doesn’t find a job that will cover his medical expenses. 

and to be honest, when cortex first tells him ‘okay, so here’s the deal, we’re going to take every single human being on earth, seven billion people, and take away their free will, destroy their minds, make them not people anymore, we’re going to turn all life on the planet into vegetables’, he’d kind of rather die than help something so horrific come to fruition, to destroy billions of innocent lives like that. he has enough blood on his hands from the job he just lost.

but he’s been so terribly wronged and he knows it. he’s heartbroken and he’s livid beyond words. he had never felt hatred like that before. but there’s a big part of him, impossible to ignore, that wants more than anything for everyone to just know what it feels like. he wishes he could just somehow bounce everything he’s feeling back onto everyone who inflicted that on him. he wants them to know and understand intimately what they did to him. and cortex uses that to just play him like a damn fiddle. promises him the opportunity to punish the entire society that wronged him, promises him the opportunity to pave the way for a whole new world where that will never happen again, where he’ll be treated like a human being. and the proposition is just fucking intoxicating to him. he doesn’t have the brain power to say no. he takes the bait like an idiot. combine that with the fact that he now literally owes his life to cortex for taking him in when no one else would and giving him the means to literally keep himself alive and you’ve got hook line and sinker. he’s in.

and he’s being strung along nice and smooth for a while, not questioning anything, doing everything he’s told like a good igor, it’s all gonna pay off soon he’s sure, but then a humble little human cloning project codenamed “nina” comes along and starts changing everything. 

[avallcnis]

I think there’s a lot of reasons why Merlin says he’s emotionless, chiefly because I think he believes at this point that he is. If you tell yourself something is true for long enough then, sadly, you tend to start believing it and this is something Merlin has been telling himself for a very very long time.

Fair warning this will be a long post.

Merlin has always known exactly what he is, and whilst his mother can be inferred to have loved him/done her best by him she was the only one. Merlin was bullied as a child because of this, and I really do doubt that it was only children being like this to him. He was essentially treated like a monster as a young boy;

In the dispute Dabutius said to Merlin “You fool, do you presume to quarrel with me? Is there any equality in our birth? I am descended from royal race, both by my father’s and my mother’s side. As for you, nobody knows what you are, for you never had a father.

I don’t think altercations like this were uncommon, especially if we take into account the fact Merlin is actually a Prince himself given his grandfather was a King. It’s obviously inferred here that Dabutius is also royalty, but even then you don’t usually casually run around insulting the grandchildren of Kings. The fact no one bats an eye to this or suggests Dabutius not being an asshole is.... also fairly telling. People past his mother didn’t care about him, arguably they didn’t want him near them and were by on large cruel to him. People are generally unpleasant to what they don’t understand, and I really do think Merlin is lucky to be alive more than anything. Especially being that he is half Demon in an era which is really quite heavily Catholic.

To say he spent most of his formative years treated like a monster is fair, which to a child would unquestionably cause so much damage. It becomes easy to believe the majority telling you this/treating you that way, especially when your father was a ‘monster’. Sadly he is a product of this treatment, finding it easier to take their words at face value than continually end up distressed trying to argue with them on the matter.

It’s hard to say exactly how old Merlin was when he met Vortigern, the illustrations being in that old style that makes everyone (even cats?) look like 50 year old men. From his stature though it can be inferred he was probably about 15.

Vortigern obviously wanted to kill Merlin, told him as much when they met, stating he wanted to use his blood because his tower wouldn’t remain standing. By this point I think Merlin already believed his own inhumanity and, as a result, was grappling already with a repression of emotions. We see him bursting into tears when he gives Vortigern the prophecy of the two dragons (and you can argue that could just be for dramatic writing effect, something I agree with. However in the application of this to a character which is being written ‘dramatic effect’ isn’t a solid explanation to such an emotional reaction from a child), which i think is largely due to the fact he’s really struggling to cope with it all.

Merlin obviously ends up in the service of Vortigern, a man who was notorious for his cruelty as an individual. When Vortigern dies he ends up in the service of Aurelius, and from him Uther. All of these men were often described in bestial and animalistic ways, being people who inspired fear before respect. Merlin survived because he was useful to them, because his ‘inhumanity’ made him something of an asset. Exposing weakness to men like that would have been foolish, showing emotions giving them a leverage he was scared to offer. If Merlin hadn’t managed to shut himself down on an emotional level before these 3 he certainly managed to do it during his time under them.

Then comes Arturia, someone Merlin ends up loving. His dialogue in FGO when paired with her is indicative, expressing what I really think is a genuine happiness for being near her again; he has no reason to lie here, there is nothing to be gained by him acting happy if he is not. Merlin loved her, but I think he was and is far too damaged to do better than he did. Yes he has his clairvoyance and knew how things would end, but clairvoyance of the future is shown to show the individual many possible futures and does not always give a complete picture. Merlin thought he knew what he was doing and objectively he did, but she made him feel for her and suddenly he’s faced with the fact he’s caused all kind of damage to this girl and now there’s nothing he can do. His realisation is too late, and it’s crushing.

When she ends up stuck in that awful limbo of hers this is made worse, his guilt consuming as he makes himself watch because it is the least he can do. The least he owes this girl. When she is summoned to fight he hides Excalibur, doing what little he can but knowing it’s not enough. He watches her torture for a millennium and a half, watching someone he loves tortured essentially because of him. This, for someone who has 0 emotional intelligence for all he has the capacity for emotion still, is so far beyond what he is able to deal with or reconcile with. Garden Of Avalon goes on to describe how awful he finds the entire thing, but that he cannot look away due to his own guilt.

It is not until the end of the fifth grail war that we see a shift in Merlin, the conclusion spurring him to kick Cath Palug out of Avalon to go and find ‘beauty’ such as that he himself had seen. Before this point I think Merlin had truly lost sight of how beautiful the world was, falling into a state probably best described as depressive. With the end of that war he found beauty, found the worth in things again, and wished for Cath Palug to go and find these things too.

In the years between the end of of that grail war and the events of FGO Merlin took to a more positive outlook again, one catalysed by Ritsuka. But... this got very long so that’s a headcanon for another day.

[shuga-hill]

If We Made Life in a Lab, Would We Understand It Differently?

Rebecca Wilbanks

Aug 19, 2018

What is life? For much of the 20th century, this question did not particularly concern biologists. Life is a term for poets, not scientists, argued the synthetic biologist Andrew Ellington in 2008, who began his career studying how life began. Despite Ellington’s reservations, the related fields of origins-of-life research and astrobiology have renewed focus on the meaning of life. To recognize the different form that life might have taken four billion years ago, or the shape it could take on other planets, researchers need to understand what, in essence, makes something alive.

Life, however, is a moving target, as philosophers have long observed. Aristotle distinguished “life” as a concept from “the living”—the collection of existing beings that make up our world, such as the neighbor’s dog, my cousin and the bacteria growing in your sink. To know life, we must study the living; but the living is always changing across time and space. In trying to define life, we must consider the life we know and the life we don’t know. As the origins-of-life researcher Pier Luigi Luisi at Roma Tre University puts it, there is life-as-it-is-now, life-as-it-could-be, and life-as-it-once-was. These categories point to a dilemma that medieval mystical philosophers addressed. Life, they noticed, is always more than the living, making it, paradoxically, permanently inaccessible to the living. Because of this gap between actual life and potential life, many definitions of life focus on its capacity to change and evolve rather than trying to pin down fixed characteristics.

In the early 1990s while advising NASA on the possibilities of life on other planets, the biologist Gerald Joyce, now at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in California, helped to come up with one of the most widely used definitions of life. It’s known as the chemical Darwinian definition: “Life is a self-sustained chemical system capable of undergoing Darwinian evolution.” In 2009, after decades of work, Joyce’s group published a paper in which they described an RNA molecule that could catalyze its own synthesis reaction to make more copies of itself. This chemical system met Joyce’s definition of life. But nobody wanted to claim that it was alive. The problem was, it hadn’t done anything new or exciting yet. A New York Times article put it this way: “Someday their genome may surprise their creator with a word—a trick or a new move in the game of almost life—that he has not anticipated. ‘If it would happen, if it would do it for me, I would be happy,’ Dr Joyce said, adding, ‘I won’t say it out loud, but it’s alive.’ ”

Joyce seeks to understand life by trying to generate simple living systems in the lab. In doing so, he and other synthetic biologists bring new kinds of life into being. Every attempt to synthesize novel life forms points to the fact that there are still more, perhaps infinite, possibilities for how life could be. Synthetic biologists could change the way life evolves, or its capacity to evolve at all. Their work raises new questions about a definition of life based on evolution. How to categorize life that is redesigned, the product of a break in the chain of evolutionary descent?

An origin story for synthetic biology goes like this: in 1997, Drew Endy, one of the founders of synthetic biology and now a professor of bioengineering at Stanford University in California, was trying to create a computational model of the simplest life form he could find: the bacteriophage T7, a virus that infects E coli bacteria. A crystalline head atop spindly legs, it looks like a landing capsule touching down on the Moon as it grabs onto its bacterial host. The bacteriophage is so simple that by some definitions it is not even alive. (Like all viruses, it depends on the molecular machinery of its host cell to replicate.) Bacteriophage T7 has only 56 genes, and Endy thought it might be possible to create a model that accounted for every part of the phage and how those parts worked together: a perfect representation that would predict how the phage would change if any one of its genes were moved or deleted.

Endy built a series of bacteriophage T7 mutants, systematically knocking out genes or scrambling their location in the tiny T7 genome. But the mutant phages conformed to the model only some of the time. A change that should have caused them to weaken would instead have their progeny bursting open E coli cells twice as fast as before. It wasn’t working. Eventually, Endy had a realization: “If we want to model the natural world, we have to rewrite [the natural world] to be modellable.” Instead of trying to make a better map, change the territory. Thus was born the field of synthetic biology. Borrowing techniques from software engineering, Endy began to “refactor” bacteriophage T7’s genome. He made bacteriophage T7.1, a life form designed for ease of interpretation to the human mind.

Phage T7.1 is an example of what one synthetic biologist has called supra-Darwinian life: life that owes its existence to human design, rather than natural selection. Bioengineers such as Endy approach life in dualistic terms: a physical structure on the one hand, a pattern of information on the other. In theory, a perfect representation of life would enable a seamless transition between information and matter, intention and realization: change some letters of DNA on your computer screen, print out an organism that looks and behaves just as you intended. With this approach, evolution threatens to corrupt the engineer’s blueprint. Preserving one’s biological designs might require making your engineered organisms unable to reproduce or evolve.

In contrast, Joyce’s desire for his molecules to surprise him suggests that the capacity for open-ended evolution — “inventiveness, pluripotentiality, open-endedness” — is the critical criteria of life. In accordance with this idea, Joyce now defines life as “a genetic system that contains more bits [of information] than the number that were required to initiate its operation.” But according to this definition, given two identical systems with different histories—one designed and the other evolved—only the latter would be considered alive; the rationally designed system, no matter how complex, would be just a “technological artifact.”

Design and evolution are not always opposed. Many synthetic biology projects use a mix of rational design and directed evolution: they construct a host of mutant cells—variations on a theme—and select the ones that work the best. Although Joyce’s new understanding of life still involves evolution, it evokes the abrupt temporality of emergence rather than Darwin’s longue durée. Emergent life fits a culture of disruptive innovation whose ultimate ideal approximates something like the magic of pulling a kidney out of a 3D printer: the enchantment of joining together familiar things with new and surprising results. Design and evolution are also compatible when bioengineers look at genetic diversity as a treasure trove of design elements for future life forms.

For some synthetic biologists, the path to what the mystics called life-beyond-life—life that exceeds the living as we know it—now runs through biological engineering. Endy describes his vocation in terms of a desire to contribute to life by generating new kinds of “improbable patterns that continue to thrive and exist.” Joyce imagines life and technology joining forces against the fundamental thermodynamic tendency towards disorder and decay. What new forms life will take, only time will tell.

This article was originally published at Aeon and has been republished under Creative Commons.

Image Credit: nobeastsofierce / Shutterstock.com

[jimgim-blog]

Striving

As always, I begin with an apology. It doesn’t matter who or when. “Sorry, but--” is how I always begin any dialogue, whether it’s with my best friends who I haven’t called in over 2 months or with me, because everybody has to figure out which version of himself he wants to side with.

First, prose. Paul Kalanithi in “When Breath Becomes Air” sparked again, my love for literature. Perhaps unfounded, based on the fact that I’ve tried to read “Crime and Punishment” over five times, but still, a love that remains. His prose can only be described as leaping off the pages. It’s music. Especially towards the later chapters, when the “urgency of racing against time” is evident. He really poured his life out in the face of certain death. Although the vocabulary, syntax, structure and fluidity of his sentences elude my Reddit-level capacity to really appreciate them, I can tell its potential, similar to a tone-deaf drunkard happily sounding out half-flat drum beats because he can attest to the feeling the music produces.

There’s a list of quotes that I bookmarked but two that carry importance.

You can’t ever reach perfection, but you can believe in an asymptote toward which you are ceaselessly striving - pg. 115

Lucy and I both felt that life wasn’t about avoiding suffering...Darwin and Nietzsche agreed on one thing: the defining characteristic of the organism is striving - pg. 143

During COVID-19, one prominent lesson I’ve learned is that life hangs in a precarious balance between suffering and pleasure and that our job is to find out where that tipping point is for us. If you’re good at reading people, you can see where their limit is and can carefully guide them there (that’s what a good manager does). It came at a point when I was watching an episode of The Top Gear with a glass of beer. I thought it well-deserved since I had just finished a coding project that took way too long of a time. But by the time I had finished it, it was 2 AM. And I just felt this tremendous wave of sadness. It’s as if I had crossed the point a tad too much and the yin-and-yang of my personal universe was whipping me back into shape.

But, I argued back. Didn’t I deserve it? Isn’t the whole point of crunching numbers to relax afterwards? I mean, who actually likes writing out reports to projects that have no real value? (The premise that engineering at the Master-level study program has no real value, I probably should confront at some point, preferably before I delve into a career). Isn’t life all about the reward?

Besides the rush of dopamine which evolution has carefully produced to enable the continuation of the human species, I’m starting to realize the answer to the question lies in my upbringing. The Christian life to any person with a basic knowledge of the Bible is a life of delayed gratification. Confess now and you can go to heaven. Resist the temptation and you shall receive reward in heaven. Well, that’s incorrect. The Bible reveals the Christian life as one lived with Christ, in Christ and out of Christ. It’s a life of loving Christ, having Christ love you more than you can possibly imagine, and simply telling that to anybody else you know. But, to realize that--and even the more, live that out--requires maturity. 

It helps that I went to a Bible seminary, but there are stages to a Christian life. In the initial stages, you find out what it means to deal with outward things like sins, the world, unrighteousness--things that most people can easily identify as those evil in the eyes of a Christian. But, at some point, you read Romans carefully and discover that God never expected you to perfect your resolve to never sin again. In fact, that was never His intention at all. His intention is that you would get to know Him more. To love Him more. To care about Him. The end game is when you realize that there’s really nothing more that pleases Him than Him giving Himself to you, and you allowing that.

There’s many obstacles like, your thoughts about what God is doing, who God is, or why God made things the way they are, but the point of the Christian life is to let those things go so that you would know Him.

That’s why the Bible doesn’t have any explicit answers to the problems of world poverty, hunger, unfair suffering and general illogical and incomprehensible ways that each individual life turns out; that’s not His focus. Neither does He actually owe it to you to solve all those things.

And here comes the point. Suffering is a part of human life because Adam fell. Christians suffer (arguably more than the unbeliever because of the fact that now he’s aware of not just one person, but several persons who lives within him--Satan, God and himself) and it’s just a part of life. Whoever came up with the idea that the good Christian goes to heaven has probably given Christianity a lot of thought. Philosophically, it's a satisfactory explanation for the impossible lives certain Christian biographies attest to. Politically, it’s a great tool for crowd control (Caesar Augustus). But it fails to hide the meaninglessness of it all that cloaks its happy ending. And look at the consequences! It’s become categorically almost taboo for a Catholic priest to be convicted of child molestation or some other gross sin for which he would be by the Catholic addendum to the Bible, responsible for help purging at the confession altar. The walls of Sardis and Thyatira echo with words of twisted teachings. How frustrated God must be that we’re just not getting it!

I think I’ve arrived at the cusp of understanding it. Not the point of it all, but why it’s meaningful to live in the faith. And what part suffering has in all of it. Because it’s not dissimilar to what I consider a life worth living outside of the bounds of Christian law. It’s exactly what Dr. Kalanithi wrote. Striving. That’s the whole point. Or, in layman terms, the pursuit of happiness.

When I watched Will Smith explain it to his kid (oh please, that scene was basically made for him and his actual kid) that nobody should strip his dreams away, I could resonate as an immigrant because that’s what my parents embodied in their ever-sacrificing life for me. They never said it, but I could tell. And striving was simply a part of it. They never questioned why they should strive because it was ingrained into their bones as they did everything they could to survive in the teenage stages of the miracle on the Han. But me, I have the pleasure of enjoying the fruits of their labor, never having to worry about having enough to eat. Instead, I have to re-discover why I should strive at all to find a meaning in life that they never had to question (presumably. I never asked them). But, it’s finally start to click: the pursuit is the happiness.

Like donkeys, we need the carrot at the end of the stick. I generally agree with the capitalist notion that humans need incentive to progress (or to work, for that matter). North Korean defectors have the hardest time integrating into South Korea because working is purely a status from 9 to 5, not a gateway into a better life. And look where North Korea is today; isolated, whining and throwing a tantrum every couple of months so people would notice them. So, we desperately need the idea of perfection. We admire those who have seemingly achieved it. We cling to the ideals and lift them up because it incentivizes us. “A perfect life exists and I’m going to get after it.” And, that’s really what the economy thrives on. Without grandeur ideals of a large house by the lakeside with a collection of supercars in the garage, Wall Street would collapse. Sure, some are more driven by the fact that their childhood was deprived of any sense of normalcy. I can’t say anything to that. But, the point is that normalcy is the ideal of “perfection”.

But if you see any interview of the person who’s “done it all”--I recommend for all the Asians, Johnny Kim (it hurts because my name is so similar)-- you never get the sense that they are exuberant beyond measure. Least of all, there is rarely a sense of absolute pride that they’re done it the way they wanted to and that was the end of it. The common thread is sacrifice and a bit of luck. The more they gave for their goals, the less they had time to think about if they’re happy at the moment. It’s in that precise moment of the present, when no thought of anxiety over the status of their happy-barometer is looming, that they’re actually, happy.

Perfection doesn’t exist. But if you don’t strive for it, there’s hardly any meaning at all. A perfect Christian life isn’t a life without suffering. It’s a life with, in and through Christ. But it’s unattainable, impossible. And maybe that’s the whole point. 

p.s. There’s another dimension to the concept of “striving” in the Bible. It’s usually in a negative light because the entire medium through which we can live the normal Christian life is through faith and striving, on the contrary, implies work of our own merit. Here, striving is meant in a positive way, in the sense of pressing forward, of devoting serious energy into a matter that is near to the heart. Instead of a perfectionist foolishly striving for a goal that to him is naively reachable, I think of Luganksy playing Rachmaninoff Concert No. 2 in a recording that undoubtedly is one of the greatest performances of his life but riddled with miss-hits and asynchronous crescendo into the cadenza. It captures the beauty of irony; that only imperfection can bring solace to the troubled soul, keeping it afloat amidst the chaos of life. There is no perfect anything, but striving for it, whatever it may be or to whom the conceived idea belongs, is undoubtedly the greatest blessing to life.

[graymalkyn]

WOW DUDE, I LOVE YOUR WRITING!! You dont have to do it now or anything! Im more than happy with this resting in your inbox if requests arent open, but... How would V react to seeing Yoosung hurt? Like idk, if one of V's coworkers said something mean to the blonde boo, or someone else? And Yoosung just feels really bad. IdkaboutyoubutIreallywanttoseeanangryV I hope youre having a good time!

Aahahaha, thanks! ^^ I’m sitting here laughing because at first I was like, “What requests? *insert confused face*” So I’m afraid I’m going to disappoint you, because angry!V just doesn’t happen in my headcanon. Nope. V is a ball of sunshine. I guess. Maybe. Anyway, here it is, longer than I expected OTL (It takes place during the Christmas event.)

Drawing the curtain behind him, Yoosung tiredly rested hisback against the cold concrete wall and let out a sigh. He rubbed his sweatypalms over his stomach – he hated that bubbling sensation that he sometimesgot, starvation and satiation at the same time. But it had been a long week. Itwas chilly outside, his legs were tired, and he’d barely had anything to drink,and…

A tear rolled down Yoosung’s face. He quickly wiped it offwith the back of his sleeve.

“Yoosung?” Jihyuncalled from beyond the curtain.

Yoosung swallowed hard and pinched his cheeks. Smile, smile! “I’m here!” he saidmerrily. “Merry Christmas!”

Jihyun grinned. “Merry Christmas, love. Sorry I’m late, butthe traffic is terrible. I’m glad it was Driver Kim at the wheel, otherwise we’dstill be stuck there.” He closed the distance between them and kissed him onthe forehead. “It’s so cold here! Are you on a break? Let’s go and get yousomething warm.”

Yoosung shook his head. “It’s okay, I don’t think I can eatanything right now. Oh? Ah, you’re wearing the gloves? Jihyun!” he whined. “We were supposed to exchangepresents tomorrow morning, why did you open it today? It’s so unfair, now what are we going to do…?”

“I really wanted to wear them, sorry! Just as I was leavinghome this morning I thought it would be great if I could wear them, since I’dbe working on location…” Jihyun tilted his head. “Are you mad at me now?”

Yoosung looked down. “No,” he replied jadedly. “No, it’s okay.That’s why I got them, I guess. Sorry for snapping.”

With gloved fingers, Jihyun lifted his chin and gazed intohis eyes. “Yoosung?”

A frustrated sigh escaped the young man, but he bit his lipsand looked away.

“Awww, was that a pout?” Jihyun teased him. “Are you goingto start sulking? We cannot really get all lovey-dovey right now, thefundraiser’s still got a couple more hours before it’s over.” He was about tonuzzle him, but Yoosung pulled away. Jihyun’s smile faded away. “Love?”

“It’s nothing serious.”

“Just tell me.”

“There’s nothing you can do about it. Damn, there’s nothing I can do about it,” Yoosung snapped. Hecovered his eyes, his jaw clenched tightly.

Jihyun pressed his forehead against Yoosung’s and strokedhis shoulders in a comforting way. “Do tell me. It might make you feel better.”

The VIP area was at full capacity. Considering thedemand from the year before, Yoosung had prepared a plan to make the packagemore desirable, which had resulted in the tickets being sold out in recordtime. As he was passing by the area filled with glasses with warm cider andplates with exquisite delicacies that Jaehee had supplied them with, he overheard some of the people on the firstrow.

“Even if it’s an RFA event sponsored by C&R, I’m suremost of us are here for Zen, not for Jumin Han.”

“Either of them is more than fine, and it’d be especiallygood if they came together. Too bad they’re all slated to appear at the end,together with V.”

“The photographer? Tell me about it – I’ve been dying tomeet him for a year now! That’s why I got these tickets this time.”

“I know what you mean. Even if it’s a 30-secondmeet-and-greet, it could be totally worth it. He’s so handsome!”

“Ah, but nobody’s more handsome than Zen.”

“Excuse me? Have you seen Jumin Han’s back in those tightsuits? He’s the most perfect man - he and his millions.”

“They’re all perfect. This event is a blessing, truly.” Asthe woman turned around to get another glass of cider, she bumped into Yoosung,who had finally managed to get hold of some hot chocolate. “Ow!”

“I’m terribly sorry!” Yoosung bowed politely.

“You’d better be! You could have spilled that drink on me,sheesh!” The woman angrily snatched the glass of cider and turned her back onYoosung. “Can you believe that guy? He almost ruined my coat!”

“He did? Who is he?”

“That little guy? Just an employee.”

“How plain; he’s just probably lucky to be here.”

Yoosung left the mug on the table practically untouched ashe walked away, trying not to bump into anyone else.

“I know it’s stupid to feel this way,” he said softly, “butI can’t help feeling that they’re right. I mean, next to you guys, I’m still—”

“No.”

Yoosung looked up, surprised. If Jihyun’s warm hands weren’tstill touching him, he could have sworn that there was an ice statue standingbefore him. He was once again reminded that turquoises were stones, cold andhard. But that was not what the man before him had always shown him. “Jihyun…”he called gently. “It’s okay…”

“It is not okay.” He grabbed Yoosung by the back of his headand pulled him into an embrace. “You… Why is it always so easy for you toignore your own worth? Don’t listen to those people. They don’t know you. Whywould it matter?”

“It doesn’t!” Yoosung exclaimed. “I know it doesn’t matter!But I don’t know, it’s also true—”

“Yoosung!”

“But isn’t it? Everyone loves the catering Jaehee prepared.Since she left C&R, she’s made a name for herself. Zen is fully booked forthe next couple of years. Jumin is Jumin. And you…! I can’t be objective aboutyou anymore. Seven is invisible and he’s used to it, so then it’s just me beingonly me – a personal assistant who’s still in college. It’s easy to feel likeI don’t matter.”

“Oh, Yoosung,” Jihyun sighed, rocking him gently. “There’s alot I could say about you, and I will, once we get home.” A chime let them knowit was time to proceed with the introductions of the guests. “Will you stillpoint out the ladies for me when they come to greet me?”

“No way!” Yoosung said, taking a step back and grabbing hisearpiece and iPad. “I know you always have good intentions, but I didn’t tellyou about it so that you could find a solution. This is my problem,” he said,before he walked away briskly.

“May I have your attention, please?” Jihyun smiled as hegrabbed the microphone from the stand.

“What on earth…” Yoosung muttered. He turned to Jumin, whohad just arrived. “Forgive me, but Jihyun seems to have mistaken his turn to speak—”

“I allowed it,” Jumin replied. “He was visibly upset aboutwhat those ladies said about you.”

I’m going to kill him,Yoosung thought.

“Good evening, everyone. Thank you for coming to the annual RFAall-charity fundraiser sponsored by C&R. My name is V, and I’m glad towelcome you, especially in this time of the year and in this weather. As westand in this tent, surrounded by the warmth of friends and family, we takemany things for granted: those who have no home to go back to when the day isdone, or those who need a helping hand or a friendly ear but cannot have it.How lucky are those of us who have someone like that?” The silence was brokenby a general murmur of consent. “We the people at RFA are especially lucky, forwe have someone who is all of that and more, and his name is Yoosung Kim.”

Oh no.

“Oh. I didn’t realize this could become somewhat embarrassing,” Jumin said, folding hisarms across the chest and noticing that Yoosung had hidden behind him.

“What’s this all about?” Zen wondered, standing by them.

“Someone spoke ill of Yoosung,” Jaehee murmured.

“Eeeh? Who would? Yoosung’s the best of all of us,” Sevensaid.

“When this organization lost direction and we questioned itscontinuity, it was Yoosung who inspired us to continue with its legacy. When wewent through hard times, he was there to support us in any way he could around the clock.” Jihyun made a pause.

“Oh, he’s angry,” Jumin said, frowning.

“Huh? Excuse me? How can you tell?” Zen asked.

“How can you not?” Jumin wondered.

“Because people express emotions with their bodies andvoices, and I see no anger there, you jerk!” Zen exclaimed.

“Must you resort to name-calling?” Jumin sighed. “I supposeit can’t be helped if you don’t see it.”

“Shush, you two!” Seven said, slapping them on the back.

“He’s our youngest member, and in spite of having tomaintain a scholarship to finish his PhD, he works full time, and hevolunteered to organize this event.” V gripped the microphone a little tighter,his voice slightly trembling. “He inspires us to become better just by being himself.We are the ones that have to keep up with him on a daily basis. And to me…”

“Oh God, I can’t hear this!” Yoosung said, covering hiseyes.

“That’s not what you’re supposed to cover if you don’t wantto hear,” Jumin noted.

“Jumin Han, you idiot!” Zen hissed. “Can’t you see he’s embarrassed?”

“To me, he’s the reason I’m standing here. It is because ofhis encouragement that today I can share my view of the world with you, and letme tell you: the world is a most wondrous place because people like Yoosung Kimlive in it.” He took a step forward and looked at the crowd defiantly. “Thereare many Jumin Hans, and many more like me, and yet, without someone like him,we could have no idea of the daily struggles people go through. It is peoplelike him that we need so that in the future, useless things like VIPclassifications will no longer matter. We must learn who is worth gold, and whois only gold-plated.”

“Okay, I think it’s time to stop him now before he starts offending people,” Jaehee saidalarmed, trying to get Seven to stop cackling. “Yoosung, go out there rightnow!”

“What?! No!” Yoosung cried. “After all that, I’ll never beable to show my face in public again!”

“Just… Just get him to stop talking,” Jumin said, his voicetrembling.

Zen grabbed Yoosung by the wrist and dragged him out to thestage. “Hello everyone!” he shouted, flashing a smile. The crowd startedcheering, but they soon turned to wondering the identity of the young man withthe crimson face that was being towed. Zen took the microphone from V’s hand ratherunceremoniously and handed it to Yoosung. “Introduce yourself!” he hissed.

Yoosung’s eyes opened wide and turned to Jihyun, who wassmiling charmingly. He gave Yoosung a little wink that only the two of themcould see, which made Yoosung chuckle. He looked ahead and bowed. “He-Helloeveryone… My name is Yoosung Kim.”

For a moment the crowd remained silent, but then franticclapping and cheering erupted from all corners of the tent.

As he clapped, V moved closer to Yoosung and whispered inhis ear, “Never doubt yourself.” He stepped back for a few seconds but then heseemed to remember something. “Oh, and when the meet-and-greet comes, kindlypoint out the ladies that said those things about you.”

“Like hell I will,” Yoosung hissed under his breath.

“Shall I do something more embarrassing in front of allthese people, then?” Jihyun teased.

Yoosung shuddered as he replied, “The four ladies wearingfur on the first row.”

“Thank you, love,” Jihyun grinned, gently patting him on theback and waving to the crowd.

[virtuosinovel]

Ch 48 - Expansion

“Welcome back Benjamin. It’s good to see you again and know this time we’re on the same team. Please sit down,” Victor said as he motioned to the chair in front of his desk.

“Thanks, it’s great to be back. So where do we go from here? You guys don’t exactly have a need for an international spy, do you?” Benjamin asked.

“Well, it’s not like we don’t do any intelligence whatsoever. We do quite a bit, but it’s mostly high tech and mostly counter-intelligence to make sure we don’t get blind-sided. We don’t go into other countries to conduct operations,” explained Victor.

“Great. I’m a dinosaur here. Depressing,” said Dudley.

“Don’t feel bad. So am I,” Victor laughed. “But I may have just the spot for you, at least for a while until you find your own niche.”

“Great, what do you have in mind?” asked Dudley, sitting forward in his seat.

“Well, I usually wouldn’t trust a newcomer with the information I’m about to give you. But hell, you already blew the whistle on the world’s biggest superpower so I guess that’s good enough for me. Come over here for a minute,” requested Victor. He waved Dudley over to his side of the desk so they could both see Victor’s screen. Victor hit a few buttons and the screen started dialing an international number for a video chat.

The call was answered from the other side. All Dudley and Victor could see were several people wrapped from head-to-toe in arctic outerwear: heavy coats with fur-lined hoods, snowboard masks, goggles, and gloves. The one who answered held up a finger to the camera as if to say “hold on a second” and then pointed at a steel building a few yards away, indicating they were going inside to answer the call.

The camera on the other computer spun around and led the person into the steel structure. The computer was set down on a table and the screen shot stabilized. The receiver came around to the other side and pulled down the fur-lined hood. Black, curly ringlets of hair emerged with some snow on the ends. It was a female evidently. She continued removing her mask and goggles. Her cheeks were rosy from the outdoor elements even though she’d been bundled up.

“Hey baby,” Victor said cautiously. He apparently didn’t expect to catch the woman in this state. And who was he calling baby? This wasn’t like calling his nieces “someone special to him” or “sweetie.” This was clearly a romantic interest.

“Yeah, save it. Do you have any idea how cold it is here?” the woman retorted with her face frozen in incredulity.

“Well, I’ve read the weather reports, but if you are asking me to get a point across then no, I have no idea and I feel really bad about it. But hey, Copenhagen is nice, right? You haven’t spent all of your time up there in the tundra, have you?” Victor asked, frowning.

“Copenhagen is charming, but that doesn’t help me at this very moment now does it?” she continued, pouring herself a warm drink out of a thermos, still slightly shivering.

“Honey, this is Benjamin. Benjamin, this is my wife and the best sport in the world, Lira Freeman.”

Lira Freeman? She’s alive? What the hell?

“Nice to finally meet you Benjamin. I’m glad you didn’t succeed in killing my husband,” she said. Like the others, she was very nonchalant when discussing Dudley’s aborted mission. It was as if nobody thought he could’ve pulled it off even if he had tried.

Benjamin finally managed a “Nice to meet you too, I thought…..”

“Oh, you thought I was dead? Yeah, well you can’t believe everything you read on the internet Benjamin. Although I’m not sure my current circumstances are much better than floating lifeless in the South China Sea,” she said, glaring at Victor.

“I’m sorry baby, but who else was I going to send? I owe you one or ten or…..”

“You can’t count that high so don’t bother,” she interrupted, seemingly in a better mood after warming up a bit.

“How were the Danes? Any final word?” Victor prodded.

“The Danes are absolute peaches. The negotiations went just like I planned. It helped a great deal the yugi-kroner exchange rate kept skyrocketing as we discussed all the details. By the end, they were so glad to get rid of this piece of ice they almost threw me a ticker tape parade.”

“Oh, excellent news!” Victor said. He was genuinely pleased about his new acquisition, whatever it was.

“Great, I’m glad you’re happy. What you’re going to do with this place is beyond me. Now can I come home please?” she asked, going from sarcastic to almost pleading now. “I miss the island.”

“Sure baby. The jet will be there tomorrow morning. Only one more night away from home.”

“Thank God! See you when I get there. You can start thinking of ways to make this up to me. Farvel, min elskede,” she said in her newly acquired Danish as she blew Victor a kiss and signed off.

Victor closed the computer and looked at Dudley, whose head was cocked in contemplation.

“So, that’s my wife. You know, the one who fell overboard on a cruise ship and was never heard from again?” Victor started.

“Yeah, so about that,” Dudley said, fumbling for words.

“Well, first of all, the footage was doctored. Lira never jumped or fell overboard, she stayed in Macau when we were in port and flew to Copenhagen from there.” Victor explained.

“Okay, I’m following the story so far. But why fake her death?”

“To keep our negotiations with Denmark a secret of course. Lots of people freaked out when they heard we were buying this island from Australia. They wanted to stop the deal but couldn’t. It was too late. But if they got involved earlier they may have succeeded. We needed a head start, so we had to make people believe Lira was dead. Once we convinced the world of that, she was free to conduct negotiations without too much hassle or publicity. The Danes also agreed to keep it secret. They didn’t want to piss anyone off until the time was right.

“I’m still lost,” said Dudley. “Negotiations for what?

“Greenland,” Victor said straight-faced.

“What? Why? Greenland?”

“Lots of reasons. First of all, it’s the biggest country we thought might be for sale if we asked nicely. I use the words “for sale” very loosely here. It’s a lot more complicated than just buying Christmas Island and moving here, since the Danes and the Greenlanders have a complex set-up. But Greenland has an enormous amount of natural resources and there’s more livable space than people think, especially with global temperatures rising.”

“Are you planning on moving your operations to Greenland?” Dudley asked. “Why would you leave the island? Didn’t you see the footage? It’s freezing there.”

“No, not moving, just expanding. This island had a population of about 1,000 people when we got here. Greenland has between 50 and 60 thousand. We can make a real impact. Start another society based on our ideals. And there’s also something to be said about not putting all your eggs in one basket. We may be doing great here so far, but one tsunami or cyclone and we’d be hurting. We need another place to call home, or at least be able to call home if we need to. Incidentally, the southern part of Greenland is beautiful a good part of the year. We just happened to catch Lira when she was scouting up north a bit.”

“I don’t know. Seems silly to me. Couldn’t you just buy another island?”

“Yeah, but another island wouldn’t have the sheer potential of Greenland. Few places do. We’re talking hydrocarbon galore, hydro-electric power, iron, uranium, platinum, copper, titanium, rubies. The place is a gold mine, literally and figuratively, but the locals have never had the technology or the financial resources to do anything about it. They’ve sold most of their mineral rights and other valuable assets to foreign companies or countries and are now getting screwed out of hundreds of billions. We outlined a way to stop the bleeding by making a paper purchase of the country. Unlike Christmas Island, we won’t assume control of the government there. Instead, we’ll be there in more of a consulting capacity. But we’ll have enough power to start playing hardball with some of the people taking advantage of the place,” said Victor, getting into his dreamer groove.

“A little white knight action with plenty of benefits to Virtuosi?” asked Dudley.

“Yes. Most of us will still have Christmas Island as our permanent address and just travel there as our skills are needed. We’ll offer jobs to Greenland’s current citizens if they’re qualified or can be trained. Then, the market will bring people from all over: Russia, Scandinavia, Eastern Europe, and Canada.

“That’s the great thing about a market economy. We’ll make it worth their while to come, and they’ll come. No need for me or any of my top managers to go there and run things. Some might go on short details, like Lira did for the negotiations, but new leaders will be created there by necessity and convenience. Of course, Wilbur and Eve will need a deputy to go there and oversee the initial security of the place for a while,” explained Victor, staring at Dudley.

“Me?” asked Dudley.

“I know it’s cold but hey, you should be in jail for the rest of your life, right? What’s a little cold?” returned Victor.

“Is this your version of banishing me to Siberia? What makes me qualified to go there and manage things?” Dudley asked.

“Lots of your agent training is transferable. You’ll report straight to Wilber and he’ll give you guidance as needed. I think it’ll be good for you to see how this works from the ground up instead of coming in after a couple of years like you did here. Think of it Benjamin, this is like our gold rush. It’s literally the Wild West up there; or the Wild North if you prefer to be literal. It’s like a Jack London novel. You could be our trusty sheriff,” Victor said, getting more animated as he talked.

Dudley frowned and fidgeted in his chair. He wasn’t big on the idea, but it was hard to say no to Victor.

“What if we agree you split your time between there and the island? We’ll make Randall the co-sheriff and you guys can work out a schedule. Come on, it’ll be fun. We’ll make it a two-year assignment and then we’ll find something else for the two of you to do. Who knows, maybe one of you will want to stay there.”

Dudley had no choice. He was already getting a second chance most people didn’t get. He would get bored staying in one place for too long anyway, so why not take the job and make the best of it?

“Okay, it’s a deal,” Dudley relented. He and Victor shook hands. Victor reached into his bottom desk drawer and pulled out a bottle of bourbon and two crystal glasses. He poured a double shot in each and handed one to Dudley.

“To new beginnings,” said Victor as he raised his glass.

“To new beginnings,” repeated Dudley. They tapped glasses and emptied the contents. The liquid warmed Dudley all over as he thought about his new mission. This one wouldn’t end with him trying to assassinate someone he respected. This time he had a good idea of what he was getting himself into. Or so he thought……