#pontifications and creations

[queenlucythevaliant]

Can't believe that people will give whole talks on suffering to rooms full of Christians and not once reference the Actual Biblical Book About Suffering ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

#it wasn't a BAD talk #but it was shallow idk #I'm still a little bit irritated and this was a week ago #pontifications and creations #theodicy

[meme-sauce]

The Defunctland disney documentary is true artistry and I love every way Kevin went about it. But also the moment where that first person who is interviewed moved his camera to demonstrate the notes? The genuine joy you see in him just sitting down at the piano?

It’s beautiful. It’s why artists create. We think about making our legacy survive but that’s long term. That’s for the ‘established’ artist. When you get to the roots, it’s becomes about why we keep returning to this medium! It’s because it sparks joy! Because we can’t think of ourselves doing anything but that. Because even if it’s “bad,” it’s creation. And creation is worth everything.

It also says something about the digital age, and how art has been commodified to an unprecedented extent. The video shows the true joy behind creating, whether that creation gets one persons attention or a million peoples attention.

Create, create , create!! I promise it’s worth it to someone, even if that someone is just you.

#pontifications on creation #defunctland #Disney channels theme #a history mystery #kevin perjurer #documentary #beautiful #like just gorgeous as an art piece

[vestaignis]

ХУДОЖНИК CESAR AYLLÓN

ARTIST CESAR AYLLÓN

Mis barquitos / oil on canvas / 100 x 80 cm. / year of creation 2020

Eva / oil on canvas / 100 x 100 cm. /year of creation 2020

Mi nube / oil on canvas / 120 cm x 80 cm. / year of creation 2019

Inalcanzable / oil on canvas / 180 x 80 cm. /year of creation 2019

Jaula / oil on canvas / 100 x 80 cm. / year of creation 2019

Sueños de Otoño / oil on canvas / 120 x 100 cm. / year of creation 2020

La niña del espejo / oil on canvas

AMAPOLA  / oil on canvas /100x80 cm/(2023)

TARDE DE OTOÑO / oil on canvas /120x100 cm/ (2023)

LA VIAJERA/ oil on canvas /70x50cm/ (2021)

Сезар Айллон — современный перуанский художник. В своих картинах он выходит за рамки очевидного, чтобы обнаружить символизм в человеческом аспекте повседневной жизни. Идея Айллон состоит в том, чтобы изобразить сказочный мир с помощью шутовских, одиноких, созерцательных и в определенной степени драматичных персонажей.

Сезар Айллон родился в 1959 году в Перу, где изучал пластические искусства на художественном факультете Папского католического университета Перу и в мастерской рисования Кристины Гальвес.

Cesar Aillon is a contemporary Peruvian artist. In his paintings, he goes beyond the obvious to discover symbolism in the human aspect of everyday life. Ayllon's idea is to depict a fairy-tale world with characters who are clownish, solitary, contemplative and somewhat dramatic. Cesar Aillon was born in 1959 in Peru, where he studied plastic arts at the Faculty of Art of the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru and in the drawing workshop of Cristina Galvez.

Источник:https://www.artmajeur.com/cesar-ayllon?view=grid&collections%5B%5D=1541014,

//art.kunstmatrix.com/en/artist/cesar-ayllon,

//www.liveinternet.ru/users/4262933/post501300470/,

//gallery.edgeofhumanity.com/portfolio/cesar-ayllon/

#живопись #картины #искусство #масло и холст #художник #Сезар Айллон #женщины арт #птицы арт #кошки арт #цветы #art #painting #artist #Cesar Aillon #oil and canvas #women art #flower art #cats art #birds art

[many-sparrows]

I'm not the original anon, but please do share more about how you can be Christian without being a part of a church. I'd love to hear your thoughts! ☀️

So, if church isn't right for you, or is inaccessible, or isn't right right now, here are some tips:

- Lean into the curiosity. Learn about your bible, read books written by pastors and theologians and stuff. Learn about church history of you're into that. Even if things are wrong or strangely interpreted, it opens up your thinking, which helps you grow.

- I found ritual really important. For me, I find a lot of God in nature, so I would turn off my phone and take a long, secluded walk on Sunday mornings. Setting up a prayer ritual can be nice. When I wasn't in church and found myself also in a depressive moment, I would take really long, ritualistic showers on Sunday night. Self-care because you are part of God's creation, you are part of the body of Christ and so loving + caring for those things means loving and caring for yourself.

- Reflection. Giving yourself time to really think about faith stuff since you don't have the time blocked out by a church service.

- Serve. Serving others (whatever that might mean in your life) is a really important directive in the gospel and should be part of our spiritual practice for all of us. It takes on a different importance and a different kind of value when it is one of the anchors of your faith (and I think that should be the case for every Christian everywhere).

- Don't hide your faith. This one sounds a little weird but hear me out. A lot of us are quite hesitant about advertising Christianity in this day and age. And you shouldn't be an asshole with how you do it, you shouldn't be calling yourself a Christian to show off or pontificate or to convert. However, it can be a real difficult line to be sensitive and hiding that light under a bushel. And you shouldn't be hiding this part of your life. If people ask you why you do certain things or care about certain issues, be upfront with the Christian part of it. I think especially if you're not going to a church or scheduling your life around church, wearing a cross or something can keep that front and center in your life, both for you and for the people who are watching you live your life. Keeps you grounded and makes sure that it's something you're open about.

- Keep wrestling. Like Jacob and the angel, it's all about engaging and wrestling with god instead of walking away. Don't put it down when it's difficult or there are questions. Hold your doubts and keep exploring.

Rb with more fellas!

[olicrosse]

Fr. Stanley L. Jaki | 17 August 1924 - 7 April 2009

Fr. Jaki was a Hungarian-born Roman Catholic priest of the Benedictine order, and a distinguished professor of physics at Seton Hall University

• In 1957 he earned his Ph.D. in physics from Fordham University in NY, having at his dissertation advisor, Victor F. Hess, the Novel laureate who discovered cosmic rays

• In 1966, Fr. Jaki published his first important work, The "Relevance of Physics", and then "Science and Creation" in 1974. Later, he published more than 40 books covering a wide arrange of topics, dealing with the history of science, crosmology, theology, ethics, philosophy, and biblical studies

• In his books, he argued that the scientific enterprise did not become viable and self-sustaining until its incarnation in Christian medieval Europe, and that the advancement of science was indebted to the Christian understanding of creation

• In 1990, he was appointed an honorary member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences by St. Pope John Paul II

• He was among the first to claim that Gödel's incompleteness theorem is relevant for theories of everything (TOE) in theoretical physics

#catholic #catholicism #christianity #christian #CatholicScience #religious #roman catholic

[askultimatedirk]

if not heart, what other aspect would you like to have been assigned

Really making me crack open a few textbooks, aren't you? Buckle the fuckle up, chucklefucks, this one's going to be a dissertation. I'll even be so kind as to split it off so as not to disturb your precious tumblr feed.

First of all, let's get something out of the way. I'm answering this question more in the context of what I think would fit me, not what I think would be the most useful or conducive to the grand scheme. If I were going with that idea, the answer would be Space, full stop. That's a rather undramatic and not very interesting answer, though, so instead I'm taking the initiative as usual to do what I want to do.

The first step is to eliminate some obvious choices. While Void matches my creativity and skepticism, most of it completely undermines my lust to know literally everything at all times. Life would imply that I am anything but destructive to other people, intentionally or not. Hope is laughable. I've given some thought to Blood and Breath, the prophet and the protagonist, but neither holds much weight when the rest of the aspect is considered. I'm sure a case could be made for each of these, but I will not be doing so.

Rage would be among those immediately discarded, except for the fact that inherently, the core of the aspect is destruction. While I have devoted myself now to the prospect of creation and new life, it's not a forgotten fact that destruction runs in my veins as a Prince. I would implore that you simply imagine an Ultimate Prince of Rage. Kurloz could never. However, I eventually settled on this being an impossibility due to the connection Rage shares with madness, because fuck knows I would never get anywhere if my head was full of stupid clown shit.

Another that I likely would have discarded is Light, though it holds more weight than Rage. It's the opposite of Void, the hunger of knowing all and seeing all, to understand the very fabric of the universe. Of course, a Seer of Light would be an extremely handy player to have in their Ultimate form. This ended up not going further after some speculation and pontification, mostly because Light players are heavily associated with water and absolutely fuck the ocean.

I'm sure you expected Doom to be on this list, and it is. Fate's chosen sufferers and all that. A Prince would turn this notion inside out, the essence of self-destruction and fatalistic overwhelming. It's funny, really, the fact that I could just as easily been assigned as a Doom player if one were needed. Sacrifice and judgement are also two words reminiscent of myself, of course. In actuality, though, I don't have the social skills or empathy to stick it out as a Doom player. It wouldn't come off right.

I've already mentioned Space, of course, so let me get a little further into that. Without defaulting to the obvious point of Space players pulling the strings for extremely long periods of time without needing to make this information known, I find the power and responsibility to be something that not only would I be able to handle, but I would most likely be given in any session spawning a Space player. It's all about delayed gratification and understanding that while the little things may not be important to others, and they may not even be important now, they will absolutely be important later and should go correctly the first time. Unfortunately, Space players have a strong connection with life and I don't see that fitting in with me, or a Prince at all for that matter.

So now we get down to my two choices - surprise, I won't be making a concrete decision between these two.

Let's go with the obvious first, Mind. While it might seem counterintuitive to even consider the counterpart of my current aspect, given that each pair are generally complete opposites, I've come to the conclusion that Mind is something I've already quite often affiliated myself with. It may speak to my nature that I have done my best to conquer the shortcomings that being a Heart player naturally gifted me with, but I am a planner, a thinker, and a decision maker. Logic is core to my person. The only reason I'm not entirely certain about this one is because of the sense of justice that Terezi has bled all over the understanding of the aspect itself, but that's not concrete and may in fact not be an issue.

Lastly, of course we have to consider Time. I respect Dave, but if I were to borrow his aspect, I don't doubt for a second I wouldn't give it back. While I believe Space powers are more helpful for what I'm currently looking to do, Time powers would be my personal choice. It's true that time-hopping takes a toll and briefly causes chaos, but with the proper setup and someone who actually understands the fabric of time from the get-go, it's extremely powerful. Not only that, but the aspect itself suits me as well. Goal-focused and a problem-solver, struggling because everything needs to be just the way I want it to be. The issue is again the empathy, but that's not a core part of being a Time player.

So to conclude, I think either Mind or Time would fit me quite well. Not as well as Heart, of course, which is why I believe I'll stick with that, but this hypothetical scenario was fun and interesting to write a little essay for. Have fun analyzing it.

#homestuck #homestuck epilogues #homestuck 2 #homestuck art #homestuck fanart #dirk strider #ultimate dirk #ult dirk #asks open

[pangurbanthewhite]

I have been thinking a lot about Haurchefant Greystone lately.

(But then again, when am I not?)

I have a theory that the positive reception to Haurchefant before Heavensward even dropped could have, to some extent, inspired some of the improvement we see in the game’s writing and characterization once Heavensward begins.

I can’t be the only one who was surprised that, during the final battle with the false Inquisitor, that Haurchefant doesn’t just promise to show up later to help you, but actually does show up later to help you.

It’s such a simple thing but it stands in stark contrast to so much of ARR up to that point. Up to that point, you’re treated both by the characters and the writing as a glorified errand runner. I know that is to some extent the nature of videogames in general and MMOs in specific - the devs think that all that matters is that the player be involved in the plot, often without care for how that gets accomplished.

And broadly speaking, in ARR up to that point, how it gets accomplished is that you do everything and everybody else does basically fuck-all except make apologetic noises about how you’re the one who has to do everything. I know I’m not the only one who found that to get intensely aggravating. 

Such a simple thing as someone promising to show up and help and then actually doing so - not turning up five minutes after the fight’s over to go “oh darn, you killed everyone without me” - was a breath of fresh air. Someone who’s so dead set against us fighting alone that six people have to hold them back, someone who is vocal about how unfair and not-right it is that we have to do everything, perversely makes it easier to be the one having to do everything.

And, after being run all over creation to fix everyone else’s problems only to have it all blow up in your face by the end, to have someone show up with a hot drink for you and say “rest now, you’ve done enough, let me help you and look after you”...yeah! It makes me emotional!

And it feels to me that, once the Scions reappear at the end of Heavensward, it’s with that fact in mind. I feel like you get more of them making contributions to the plot, more scenes of “you investigate here, I’ll investigate here, we’ll reconvene later to discuss our findings” which makes them feel a lot less willfully useless, a lot more like friends and allies. You get more of them fighting bosses and enemies offscreen that yes, were written in for the sole intention of giving them something to fight, but it still makes it feel like they’re contributing.

And you get a lot more of them raging over how unfair it is that you have to do everything, that you’re the one carrying the weight of the world on their shoulders, that no just world would expect so much of you. Which makes it feel a lot more meaningful that you’re still often the one left to stand and fight alone.

IDK! This is just me pontificating. But I feel, with Haurchefant, the writers accidentally hit on the solution to a writing problem that they might not even have known at the time was a problem. And I think they did a good job propagating that “fix” throughout the rest of the story.

#final fantasy xiv #final fantasy 14 #ffxiv #ff14 #final fantasy 14 heavensward #final fantasy xiv heavensward #heavensward #haurchefant greystone #haurchefant my beloved

[romanceyourdemons]

andrei tarkovsky’s stalker (1979) is in many ways a return to the theme of solaris (1972), stylistically and conceptually. stylistically, both films are among his most straightforwardly linear; although the film does hold its information very close to the chest, it nonetheless reveals that information piece by piece as events unfold, weaving a narrative rather than only crafting an atmosphere. conceptually, it returns to the theme that so fascinated tarkovsky in solaris (1972): if an unknowable cosmic force granted people their deepest desires, would people use that potential for evil? could they help but use it for evil? could they use it for evil? how would the proximity of such power change them, physically and spiritually? unlike solaris (1972), however, this film takes place on earth twenty years after the creation of the zone; the novelty has worn off, as has an expectation of communicating with the alien intelligence behind these phenomena. the central questions of this film—explored in depth, through tarkovsky’s signature pontification—are questions of belief. in a modern, scientific, boring world, the film asks in typical postmodernist fashion, can people still believe? although the zone is established as a new, alien, scientifically founded phenomenon, the processes of guidance, trial, abasement, meditation, and self-knowledge needed to access the heart of the zone are explicitly religious in form. despite the zone ostensibly only representing a pushing back of the final frontier of human knowledge, the characters entering in must accept that they will never know or control everything, least of all what they want to know or control; the cinematography echoes this lack, with frequent frames within frames cutting off information from the audience. ultimately, what the film has to say is expressed far more eloquently and succinctly within the film—through scenarios, characterization, and most of all through its monologues—than i could recreate here. all i can say is that stalker (1979) absolutely deserves its reputations as one of the great films of history, and i would highly recommend it

#the mirror was my first tarkovsky film and it almost killed me so whenever i watch a tarkovsky now i’m pleasantly surprised by how #easy it is to watch #anyways disappointed to find out that annihilation was not based on this film #i really thought i was onto something there #ryddles

[blessed-by-umbral]

OOC:

( The act of eradicating a substantial archive, spanning over a year and a half, of engrossing dialogue that contained damaging particulars about the extensive complaining that occurred regarding individuals who have consistently supported and defended you is so very telling. Should you have been so expeditious in expressing your thoughts about them in such a manner, it aroused my curiosity to ponder upon the words that might have been uttered about me in clandestine conversations. Should you truly possess the innocence you so fervently declare, one cannot help but question the motive behind your compulsion to expunge segments of our discourse and the discourse you had with others. It is with great disappointment that I acknowledge your knowledge of the detrimental impact your words possess upon those individuals whom you refer to as 'friends'. I cannot help but perceive the act of eliminating your words from our conversations as an act of cowardice, displaying a lack of courage and integrity. Moreover, the individuals encompassed within your social sphere deserve to be enlightened about the utterly unkind and heartless remarks you have expressed concerning them through the years. I chose to remain within my own realm, refraining from stooping to your level of hasty and hurtful behavior. It is quite evident that you possess a remarkable talent for contradicting yourself incessantly. Your words lack any semblance of substance, rendering your pontifications utterly hollow and devoid of meaning. It is with great certainty that both you and I are well aware of the statements you have made, the information that has been divulged, and the venomous disdain you have expressed towards those whom you claim to be your friends. To be candid, I find solace in the realization that I am no longer subjected to your scrutiny, as I now comprehend, more profoundly than ever before, that you were never my friend. I shall persist in my unwavering dedication to the creation that has been nurtured by our words for countless years. It was solely your hand that dared to erase the fruits of my labor, the tales that flowed from the depths of my soul, and the profound affection I bestowed upon the cultivation of House Cress in this universe and others. Your words and actions, though a painful affront, are but a mere droplet in the vast ocean of my benevolence. In the face of your spite, I steadfastly choose the path of kindness, unwavering in my commitment to honor grace and compassion. As I extend my heartfelt wishes, I implore you to continue nurturing your own well-being and that of your cherished kin. May the elusive tranquility you have yearned for throughout the passing years finally find its way to your weary soul, for the burden you carry, my erstwhile companion, is one that surpasses my humble capacity to alleviate. -Claudia )

#ffxiv balmung #ffxvi #balmung #house cress #ooc

[miloscat]

[Review] Panzer Dragoon Saga (Sat)

Maybe they should have stuck to rail shooters...

My perfectly sensible journey through the Panzer Dragoon series: Mini, then Orta and the OG, then Gamera 2000, Remake, Zwei, and now finally this, the one that's not actually a rail shooter. Apparently development on Zwei and Saga both started at the same time but being an RPG spread over four Saturn discs, Saga took a few more years to cook. It's also one of the more pricey games in existence due to its release right when the Saturn was imploding and overall poor sales; its reputation as a rare and expensive title comes with a vaunted hidden gem status, but the reality... well...

Saga (or as it's known in Japan, Azel: Panzer Dragoon RPG) certainly is experimental. Like the monsters that populate the world's wastelands and forests, it's a mutant creation, a strange hybrid of Panzer Dragoon mechanics in an RPG framework. Or if not mechanics then surface trappings: four-quadrant perspectives in battle, aiming a lock-on cursor, three-dimensional dragon flight... but the gameplay experience is nothing at all like the arcadey rail-shooters that constitute the rest of the series. Saga is very much a departure, and I don't think that works in its favour.

The world of Panzer Dragoon was always so evocative, the unknowable but hostile technology of a lost era (with its cool techno-organic designs) littering a devastated landscape, folk struggling to eke out an existence while empires battle overhead. Digging into the setting seems like something the series was crying out for... yet somehow, by nailing things down in Saga you do end up losing some of the mystique. Sure I understood the lore more clearly from in-game texts and characters pontificating, but is that what the series really needed? Maybe they explain too much, and since this is a Japanese RPG you of course end up travelling through space and time to kill God. Ho hum.

Panzer Dragoon has always had cinematic moments, but again Saga goes to excess by having all dialogue be fully voiced, with mocapped cutscenes and long conversations. (The VA is all in Japanese as well, even in the international releases, with the series' trademark made-up language only used for the intro and outro cutscenes; another choice that removes a layer of mystery from this world.) It really slows the pace down, which is a theme for the on-foot sections, battle animations, and the speed of the overall plot.

After the inciting incident where Edge the bland protag-kun meets the dragon who befriends him for no reason, almost nothing happens to advance the plot for two whole discs. Although Edge is a defined character with a voice and backstory, he was designed to take a backseat to the eponymous Azel in story terms. Congratulations Team Andromeda, you created another boring RPG protagonist. Azel herself has potential to be interesting and has her moments but ends up underdeveloped, as often a plot device as a character, and literally not present for maybe half the game.

Although four discs sounds big, each one has just a handful of areas, and there's only two and a half towns in the game world. As an RPG and a story the scale is relatively small which works just fine for Panzer Dragoon, and the inhabited areas you do explore are dense and lively, with a day/night cycle and lots of interaction with the blocky Saturn people who live there. Controlling Edge in these areas is kind of clunky and slow, with the lock-on cursor being an odd way to interact and observe the world, but it results in lots of flavour text for background details even if a lot of it feels like filler.

When on the dragon, the world is understandably scaled back. An overworld map takes you between discrete zones, which are usually big open spaces broken up by tight corridors, or dungeons absolutely riddled with repetitive hallways and lifts. The dragon movement mechanics seem impressive but feel ultimately shallow and limiting, the technology and dev realities clearly not fulfilling the ambitions of open-roaming dragon-flying exploration. There's only a couple of occasions like the assault on a flying warship or the stealthy infiltration of an Imperial facility where these sections actually approach compelling gameplay; most of the time it's just busywork flying around and locking onto things to interact with them.

Finally, the battles. There are random and set encounters in the flying zones which take you to the battle screen, your dragon occupying one of four cardinal positions around the enemy. You or they can choose to move, which affects the ATB gauges that determine your actions but more importantly your relative positions put you in safe or danger zones from enemy attacks, and likewise enemy weak points are only revealed in certain spots. This positioning mechanic gives battles a unique feel, and turns most encounters into puzzle battles as you figure out how to respond to certain enemies. Your actions include the traditional PD single-target gun shot, a multi-target homing laser, and Zwei's Berserk technique is now the magic spell system. It's an amusing way to convert PD conventions into RPG ideas but it works well enough in theory. The problem is it felt to me that battles eventually became just slow and punishing until you learn the trick to them, at which point they're easy and time-wasting.

Saga is full of little secrets and such, the sort that compelled me to follow a guide so I didn't miss any obscure sidequest or missable treasures. One interaction requires you to talk to an NPC twenty-six times for crying out loud! Many of these rewards are relatively inconsequential but if you want your dragon to reach its final form there's a few hoops to jump through. By the end I found my inventory full of unused items and unspent money, so maybe I was too thorough. I also followed the guide's advice to seek out rare enemies to grind levels on, which may have reduced the difficulty but I'd rather that than the tedium of getting destroyed in late-game battles and having to replay sections. Saga is old-school in that way but it is from 1998 after all.

Panzer Dragoon Saga is such an unconventional RPG that I can't help but admire it, but at the same time it's clearly held back by the technology of the time and development pressures that result in it feeling messy and clumsy. There's no denying it has atmosphere and ideas and ambition, but it just didn't translate to the transcendent masterpiece that it's been built up as for me. Moreover, as a Panzer Dragoon game, it has almost nothing of what I really want out of a series that is otherwise stylish and inventive rail shooters. If telling a deeper story is what you want, then Orta was much more successful at it just by having a little more cutscene between levels! Even the rich world and visual design of the series is compromised rather than enhanced here as a result of the combination of gameplay styles/scales. I'm glad I played it but it's firmly the black sheep of the series as far as I'm concerned.

#panzer dragoon #panzer dragoon saga #team andromeda #saturn #review

[haggishlyhagging]

Contemporary scholars, such as McKenzie, reject the idea that the story of the later creation of Eve intends to teach the subordination of woman. Rather, it is maintained that what is being conveyed is her original equality. Moreover, the old arguments for feminine inferiority which were based on the use of the word translated 'helper' to describe Eve do not stand up against linguistic studies, which demonstrate that the original word employed does not carry any implication of subordination. Today, both the Genesis accounts, whatever their relative merits, are understood to teach that man and woman are of the same nature and dignity and that they have a common mission to rule the earth.

All of this does not change the fact that for thousands of years theologians and preachers have dourly been grinding out assurances of divine approval of woman's secondary place in the universe, 'as known from scripture'. Thus, Pope Paul's recent statement to Italian women that 'perfect equality in their nature and dignity, and therefore in rights, is assured to them from the first page of sacred scripture' comes too late for the millions of women who lived and died with the 'religious' conviction of their divinely ordained inferiority and subordination. A psychoanalyst has written: "The biblical story of Eve's birth is the hoax of the millenia." Unfortunately, the theologians who grimly pontificated about Mother Eve down through the centuries displayed little sense of irony and humor.

-Mary Daly, The Church and the Second Sex

#mary daly #adam and eve #female oppression #anti christianity #patriarchy

[queenlucythevaliant]

See, I don't think that the Pevensie kids were uncanny and dangerous upon returning to England so much as just like. Cool weirdos.

Lucy talks to animals sometimes. She doesn't expect responses or anything; it has the same energy as a person talking to their dog, except it's the squirrel she spotted on the quad or the racoon in the garbage. But she's super friendly in general so after the initial "what the heck" everyone shrugs it off because like, yeah, of course she does. She also went with me to a scary doctor's appointment having known me for like five minutes and gave me an incredible pep talk. She's cool like that.

Peter joins the fencing club and day one it's like he's never held a foil in his life and day two he loses to a kid half his size but then after like a month he just absolutely annihilates the instructor. But he's super humble about it and afterwards he helps everyone else out without being condescending at all. And while it's a little weird that he's just Suddenly an expert, people are like, "he's a fast learner, that's cool." He's really industrious in class too, just Peter being Peter. He probably practiced a whole bunch after hours.

Edmund gets extremely weird food cravings sometimes, like "wow, I could really go for chicken liver with raisins right about now" or "you guys know what's great? Gooseberry trifles." And his friends say, "I've never heard of that before but it sounds weird." So Edmund learns to cook and starts making all these vaguely antiquated fancy dishes with weird berries and organ meats and things and shares them around during study breaks and everyone's like "Yo! Pevensie brought food. Cool, thanks Pevensie." And he shares it with everyone, even the kids nobody likes, and it kinda brings people together.

Susan, who was always the Mom Friend, seems to have gotten a power-up because now she Everyone's mom and weirdly people actually listen to her? But she only uses those powers for good. Girl in her dorm not eating enough? Susan's here with snacks and look at that now she's eating. Those guys arguing look like they're about to throw down? Susan says "knock it off" and glares and they do. And her friends are like, "how do you do it???" and she says "You just have to act like you expect to be obeyed." It's very cool, though it can be a bit Much sometimes.

And they're all into mythology now? Like ancient Rome and King Arthur and stuff? That's kinda weird, but not off-putting; lots of kids have mythology phases. And Peter named the tree outside his dorm, but everyone kinda laughs and says "yeah okay." Edmund is adamantly anti-bullying now, it's nice. Susan and Lucy wear a lot of lion-themed jewelry and people definitely Notice, but that just means that they start getting more of it for Christmas/birthdays.

And of course whenever two or more of them are together it's like they've got a conspiracy going on. They're always fervently whispering back and forth, giggling an the million inside jokes they've got, giving each other Looks. And onlookers are mostly just like, "Man, it's cool that those Pevensie kids are all so tight; I wish I was that close with my siblings."

#*banging cymbals together* THE PEVENSIE KIDS ARE NOT MAGIC #they lived in a magical world but fundementally they're Just Kids #every time i see a Narnia post i don't like i feel the compelling need to make a counter -post #sometimes i resist sometimes i don't #pontifications and creations #narnia #once there were four children

[thepastisalreadywritten]

SAINT OF THE DAY (July 11)

On July 11, the Catholic Church celebrates the feast of Saint Benedict of Nursia, the sixth-century abbot who gave Christian monasticism its lasting foundation in Western Europe.

For his historic role as the “Father of Western Monasticism,” St. Benedict was declared a co-patron of Europe (along with Saints Cyril and Methodius).

St. Benedict is also the patron saint of Pope Benedict XVI's pontificate.

In a 2005 general audience, Pope Benedict XVI said St. Benedict was a “powerful reminder of the indispensable Christian roots of Europe."

He cited the monk's instruction to “prefer nothing to the love of Christ and asked his intercession to help us keep Christ firmly at the heart of our lives.”

Born to upper-class parents in modern-day Italy during the year 480, Benedict was sent to Rome to study the humanities.

However, he soon became disgusted with the loose morals that prevailed among the students. Withdrawing from the city, he lived briefly with a group of monks, then as a hermit.

The young man spent three years in solitude, facing and overcoming severe temptations through prayer and asceticism.

Only after doing so did he have the confidence to emerge as an organizer of monastic communities. His first monasteries were established in the Anio valley outside Subiaco.

Benedict's monasteries in Subiaco became centers of education for children, a tradition which would continue in the order during his lifetime and beyond.

His monastic movement, like its forebears in the Christian East, attracted large numbers of people who were looking to live their faith more deeply.

During 529, Benedict left Subiaco for Monte Cassino, 80 miles south of Rome.

The move was geographically and spiritually significant, marking a more public emergence of the Western monastic movement.

Benedict destroyed a pagan temple atop the mountain and built two oratories in its place.

It was most likely at Monte Cassino that the abbot drew up a rule of life, the famous “Rule of St. Benedict,” which emphasised prayer, work, simplicity, and hospitality.

Though known as a rule for monks, it is addressed to all those who seek “to do battle for Christ the Lord, the true King.”

Benedict's life was marked by various intrigues and miraculous incidents, which were described in his biography written by Pope St. Gregory the Great.

One of the most remarkable was his meeting in 543 with Totila, King of the Goths, in which the abbot rebuked the king's lifestyle and prophesied his death.

St. Scholastica, Benedict's sister, also embraced religious life as a nun. She most likely died shortly before him, around the year 543.

In his final years, the abbot himself had a profound mystical experience, which is said to have involved a supernatural vision of God and the whole of creation.

Around the age of 63, Benedict suffered his final illness. He was carried into the church by his fellow monks, where he received the Eucharist for the last time.

Held up by his disciples, he raised his hands in prayer for the last time, before dying in their arms.

Although his influence was primarily felt in Western Europe, St. Benedict is also celebrated by the Eastern Catholic churches and Eastern Orthodox Christians on March 14.

#Saint of the Day #Saint Benedict of Nursia #Father of Western Monasticism #Rule of St. Benedict #Saint Scholastica

[crisishaven]

Crisis Haven, Part 2

Vee, otherwise known as Artemis Fowl the 5th, is not as human as he appears. Returning to Haven after a decade of unfulfilling surface life, all he wants is for the fairy people to accept what he has known about himself all along: that he is truly one of them. There is a new kind of evil walking the streets of the underground city, something that lashes out in the dark and has been leaving a trail of bodies behind it. This fic plays out much like a police procedural or a detective novel that interrogates the book series’ kind of weird and binary views of race and gender. Lots of canon is ignored, almost no named characters in the original books appear in this fic. Consider this more of a spiritual sequel than a traditional fic.

CWs for this chapter: Mention and discussion of child abduction, mention of a car crash, brief mention of medical institutionalization.

Part 2: Beryl

The fairy council met nine times over the course of the week, and Officer De’nan had to be present for every meeting which was really cut into her “me time”. She’d recently taken up pottery after being gifted a little pinch pot kit and some clay by her mother for her birthday. Her first pot was a mess, but the feel of the clay and the concentration required to make a vessel that could actually serve a function in her daily life filled her with a sense of accomplishment and purpose. Over the last week of the tribunal, De’nan spent a total of thirty minutes working on her latest creation, a tiny watering can for her plants.

“You can just buy a watering can, it’s not like they’re expensive or anything.” Stoic dug into his lunch beside her. The two of them had been frequenting a ramen shop across the street from the Police Plaza two to three times every day since the tribunal began. 

“It’s not about just having a cute watering can, I want to make a cute watering can with my own two hands! I’d think someone like you could relate.” She pierced a fishcake with her chipstick. Stoic twisted his face up in mock offense.

“Someone like you, what’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means,” She slurped her noodles between words, careful to keep the broth from spilling on her only remaining clean dress shirt, “It means that you’re a geek. You build those little models, yeah? The ones that come in the big box with all the little pieces and you’ve gotta paint it yourself and everything?”

“Hey, shh! Keep it down!” He lowered his head and hid himself behind a menu, which seemed to actually draw more attention to their booth than divert it. “Gunpla aren’t exactly eagle anymore, alright?”

“Eagle? The hell are we talking about now?” A single noodle fell from her chin into her lap, splattering a red stain on her pants leg. 

“Eagle means legal, it’s rhyming slang. Really common among the offending types, how does a cop not know this?” The elf frantically dabbed a wad of napkins on the ever growing stain in her lap.

“I’m not a cop.”

“Why the hell am I calling you ‘officer’ then?” De’nan looked up at him, her eyelashes catching the ends of her grown-out fringe.

“Because I asked you to.” The centaur huffed, crossing his arms, blushing. He changed the subject.

“Well, uhm, how about the council today, huh? Your uncle sure was making a scene. Is he always like that, with all the verbose pontificating and grandstanding? Gotta be insufferable around the holidays.”

“He’s always loved giving a good long speech, that’s for sure.”

“Does it bother you?”

“What, the speeches? No, I mean, the one he gave at my sisters first wedding was actually quite beautiful–”

“I mean does it bother you how he seems to be very very against your position on this. I can tell this isn’t just a fun little ethical debate for you anymore.”

“It never was,” She gave up trying to clean the stain and accepted that she’d have to use whatever free time she could squeeze in out that evening to finally do her laundry. “And no, it doesn’t bother me. Uncle Forge has a political position to protect, he can’t always speak his mind the way I know he wants to. He’s got constituents to answer to, and he’s trying to speak for them, you know, like a councilman should.” 

The two of them fell silent for a time, watching the afternoon rain fall on the crowded street outside. It wasn’t real natural rain of course, but above ground it was springtime, and the fairy people hadn’t felt real raindrops fall on them in centuries. Simulated rain, recycled from tunnel runoff and processed clean before it was piped into tubes on high cave ceiling, complete with rolling thunder and holographic clouds. De’nan couldn’t think why Vee would give up surface life, even if he was a fairy. Any fairy would give anything for a chance just to feel real rain for the first time.

“Today is supposed to be the last day, right? How do you think this all ends?” Stoic asked, following a drop of water as it crawled down the window into a puddle that was gradually forming on the sidewalk below.

“I dunno, but I’ll be glad when it’s finally done.”

______________________________________________________________

“So it’s done?”

“Yep. Just coming out of Atlantis now, be home soon.”

“If I’m not there when you get home give me a call, okay? Lotta folks been turning up dead lately, I worry.”

“I know you do. Love you, bye.” Beryl DeGrit slipped the cellphone back into his breast pocket, sparing a glance to the stack of milk crates full of textbooks beside him in the car. Each textbook was actually hollowed out and stuffed with a piece of name-brand human clothing. Adidas, Nike, Lululemon, the kind of stuff that sold well at the flea markets in backstreet fashion districts. Beryl worked out a deal with a pixie friend of his from Atlantis to cut him in on a small-time smuggling operation, nothing major, just a few pieces here and there that happened to fall off the wagon as it were, just enough to help him put his husband through grad school.

The operation was simple, every few months Beryl’s pixie friend would give him a call and invite him to spend the weekend in Atlantis. He would drive down on the analog lanes, keeping off the autodriving roads, meet up with his buddy at a little comedy club in the Lavender district, then drive back to Haven with some mudman fashions disguised as various school supplies. Beryl DeGrit, was after all, an elementary school teacher. Nothing suspicious about a teacher working in an under-funded school going to such lengths to acquire materials for his class. That sort of behavior was practically expected of teachers, and Beryl DeGrit was just the kind of elf who always went above and beyond.

He turned the car off of the intercity highway and onto one of the rural backroads where the checkpoints into Haven were always more relaxed. There he passed by farm after farm, hydroponics and synth-growing operations. Eventually he arrived at the parking lot where he’d planned to meet his distributor, a businessman who owned several backstreet shop stalls catering to the city’s rebellious youth. Beryll turned the car off and waited, nervously checking his watch. Sitting in a parking lot for too long would look suspicious. What if someone has already noticed? What if they’re watching the cameras? No, no, everything is fine, Beryl reassured himself, you’ve done this a dozen times before, this is fine. But with his contact still not arriving, Beryl got antsy.

He left the car, deciding that it would be a good cover if he pretended to be having engine trouble. This was a good cover, he thought, because it wasn’t even a lie. He was having engine trouble, this damn car was always having engine trouble. These three-wheeled analog abominations were built to fail, everyone knew that. Just a cheap option for people who didn’t want to have to rely on Haven’s spotty public transportation and couldn’t afford an expensive auto car. He popped the hood and leaned inside, fiddling with the coolant caps and the timing belt. And then a wire wrapped around his neck.

______________________________________________________________

When the cuffs finally fell from Vee’s wrists he felt lighter than air, as if the cold iron was all that had been tethering him to this Earth. Vee also felt that he had aged rapidly, and despite being only in his mid twenties he believed that he could feel the cold hands of death already chipping away at the joints in his shoulders and his weary spine. One entire week of debating the validity of your identity in front of a council of angry politicians would do that to anyone. Commander Kelp was the one holding the key to his freedom.

“Don’t blow this, kid, or you’re going to make a lot of nice people look like assholes.”

“Of course. Thank you, Commander.” Kelp gave the young man a clap on the arm, which was as close as the elf ever came to a public display of affection. 

“Don’t thank me yet, we still need to go over the conditions of your probationary period. De’nan will be your probation officer, you will report to her on time, every time, or you’re getting a full wipe and shipped off back where the sun shines.” Vee nodded in the affirmative, following the commander down the corridor of the LEP holding facility. So much had changed in the years since he was a consultant here. There were hundreds of new faces for one thing, new technology, new uniforms even. Vee imagined this was what it might have been like for those astronauts returning to earth after their two year mission to Mars.

Officer De’nan’s office was essentially a closet wedged between the much larger and more grandiose mailing office and the custodial suite, but at the very least she had a window. One window, one desk, three chairs, and two massive filing cabinets that lined the walls of the already cramped space. Commander Kelp entered without knocking.

“De’nan, present for you,” He said, ushering Vee inside before promptly taking his leave and closing the door behind him. De’nan was in the middle of sorting through her filing cabinets when the pair arrived and didn’t even have the chance to address the commander before he left. Like a damn lightning strike that elf, she thought. 

“So,” She started when she had finally located the file she was searching for, “You’ve won a nine month probationary period. Rather generous, I think, all things considered.” She let the heavy file fall onto her desktop with a thud. It had sticky notes and colorful tabs and all manner of odd papers jutting out from the sides like some kind of eldritch tome. “This,” De’nan continued, drumming her fingers on the tome, “Is your LEP file. As you can see, It’s rather large.”

“Right, well, I was a consultant for a number of years. I actually expected it would be a bit larger.”

“Disappointed then?”

“No,” Vee waved his hand, “Just trying to see the bright side of things.”

“Ah, that’s a good attitude. Okay, well, my first task will be to help you re-integrate back into fairy society, and the best way to do that, of course, is by finding you a job.” Vee raised an eyebrow.

“You think anyone in this city is going to hire me?”

“Well,” De’nan tried to keep the apprehension in her voice at bay, “Maybe not just anyone will hire you, but I’m sure someone will. You mentioned you were an LEP consultant, for how many years were you at that position?”

“Five, I believe. Yes, it must have been five years, I remember I started out when I was ten.” De’nan paused.

“Ten? Ten years old?” Vee’s only response was a single curt nod. “Right,” the elf sighed, “Of course you were. Okay so from age ten to age fifteen, LEP consultant.”

“Consulting detective was the title, to be exact.” De’nan’s pen stopped scribbling, her perky mask of optimism falling into a dead-eyed look of incredulity.

“Consulting detective. Like Sherlock Holmes.” Vee nodded. “Right, okay, consulting detective, ten to fifteen. Anything after that?”

“Well I was moved back to the surface after that.”

“Yes? And?”

“And…” Vee wasn’t certain that he understood the question De’nan was trying to ask.

“What did you do for work up there?” She responded slowly.

“Lots of things. I wouldn’t call them jobs.”

“Help me out then, what would you call them?” Vee, somewhat embarrassed, folded his hands on the end of his crossed leg and took a deep breath.

“I was in and out of various institutions. I struggled to find any meaningful work and provide for myself. I never completed any degree and barely graduated from high school. I made music and sold it on the internet, but that hardly generated a respectable enough revenue for me to call it a job.” De’nan’s head fell onto her desktop, making impact with Vee’s LEP file.

“This is bad,” she groaned, “You get that this looks bad, right? This is, like, really really really bad.” Vee closed his eyes and nodded silently. He agreed, this all did look very bad, on paper at least. But he had five years of on-the-job LEP experience, a formative five years in fact, when his brain was still developing. The skills he honed then were still second nature to him now, he was sure of it. 

De’nan rubbed her temples. This had to go well. Her career was practically riding on Vee’s success now as a functional Haven citizen, and even beyond that she just fought very hard in a tribunal to set an enormous and possibly quite dangerous precedent for re-defining fairy kind as it had been understood for thousands of years. This was going to work. She would make this work, no matter what.

“Okay,” She said finally with her head still resting on the desk, motioning with her hands above her, “So here’s what I’m thinking. You’ve already got five years of LEP experience and what I believe to be a decent relationship with the Commander–”

“Yes, I agree, let’s do it.” De’nan’s head shot up.

“Why did you interrupt me?”

“You were going to say that you think we should ask the Commander about reinstating my position as a consulting detective.” Getting his old job back was, of course, always Vee’s intent. He was never happier, never felt more fulfilled or in his element, than he did during his time as a consulting detective for the LEP.

“I mean, yes, obviously, but you don’t have to interrupt me in the middle of a sentence.”

“Sorry. I’m terrible about that, I know.”

“Right,” De’nan rose from her desk and squeezed past the towering filing cabinets to reach the door, “Let’s get this over with.”

______________________________________________________________

Redwood Kelp’s inbox was full. It was always full, no matter how many urgent notifications he addressed or routine email security checks he confirmed. That’s why it was taking him so long to sort through everything he’d received during the tribunal week. His most trusted lieutenants were in charge of running the Lower Elements Police operations in his absence, and it seemed they’d been kept very busy. 

Just in the past 24 hours there was a major traffic collision on the auto car highway into Atlantis was under investigation, three smuggling operations out of Haven’s low street district were busted, and a massive investigation for a missing pixie child broke new ground when the little girl was discovered to have been falsely reported as missing by her parents who were seeking media acclaim and probably some book deals. The last case left a particularly sickening feeling in Kelp’s stomach. Over a century on the job and he still had a hard time pushing everything down when kids were involved. He figured that might’ve been some long buried paternal instinct worming its way out. Having children was especially difficult for fairies, not like the mudmen who seemed to breed like rabbits in any season. For fairies there were so many rules, governed by ancient magical codes, which prevented fairies from having more than one or two children every hundred years or so. Even beyond the magical limitations, Haven City’s own rule of law for its citizens required a hefty tax to be paid annually by parents for every child they chose to bear.

Kelp lit his next cigarette with the dying embers of his previous one. He’d been doing so well cutting down until Vee showed up again. Old habits dying hard, eccetera. But he was happy to see the boy again, in his way. To Kelp’s mind the world above was a slowly collapsing wasteland of ecological mayhem and pointless petty warfare, a haunting image of Haven’s possible future at the rate thighs were going. But Haven wasn’t quite there yet. Hopefully the city’s name would not remain the hilarious misnomer that it had become, and so long as Vee was underground Kelp was reassured that at least he could keep an eye on the boy. Keep him safe, or safer in any case.

And then, galloping at full speed, Stoic Young crashed through the Commander’s door with no sense of decorum at all.

“Commander! Commander!” He yelled, his hooves hardly stopping before he collided with Kelp’s antique walnut desk. “Commander, I need you to–”

“I need you to go back outside and knock on that door!” Kelp bellowed, thoroughly offended by the intrusion during a moment of very private reflection.

“But this is–”

“One.” Kelp started counting, just the way his father did when he was acting disobedient. “Two,” He continued. As hurriedly as he’d barged in, Stoic trotted back outside and slammed the door before rapping his knuckles frantically. Thank gods, thought Kelp, I don’t actually know what’s supposed to happen after three. “Come in,” he announced.

“Commander, I need you to look at this.” The centaur shoved a rather vintage looking cellphone into Kelp’s hands, scrolling through a series of text messages between himself and a contact in his phone with a name that was framed on both sides with strings of different emojis.

“What am I looking at?”

“This is my friend, the one I was going to have apply for R&D, remember? Well, he says that his husband has gone missing and the last time they spoke he was on his way home from Atlantis.”

“Atlantis…” The commander scratched his stubbly chin, “You don’t think–”

“It could be that he was one of the unidentified bodies from the crash. What the hell am I supposed to tell him?” 

“Tell him to get down to the morgue, see if he’s there.”

“Fucking hell, Commander,” Stoic sunk down onto a bench beside the commander’s desk, head in hands. “This is just, it’s just too real, you know?” Kelp took a long drag on his fungal cigarette, cursing now more than ever that he didn’t have any real tobacco. He put a hand on Stoic’s shoulder.

“These things happen, Young. Sooner or later.” The centaur looked up at him, white as a sheet, pain and fear in his eyes.

“He’s my best friend, Commander.” His voice was barely a whisper.

“Then you’re the best person to tell him. You can help him. Be there for him, you know.”

“I think,” Stoic sniffed, but his tone was lighter and more playful than before, “I think this is the most you’ve ever actually spoken to me, personally.” There we go, thought Kelp, that’s the kid I know.

“Go make the call, the sooner the better.” Stoic gathered himself up from the bench and left the office, passing De’nan and Vee on his way out. Stoic never quite looked professional, but De’nan couldn’t help but notice how wet his cheeks were.

“Is everything alright?” She offered, pausing in the hall. Stoic gave her a small but thankful grin.

“No, but I’ll catch you up later. Got a phone call to make. Thanks, Nan.” He trotted off, the rest of the Plaza Station giving way to him. De’nan shook her head and sighed, this was quite the stressful day already and it wasn’t even lunch time yet.

“Okay, well,” She spoke to Vee, who appeared to be fixated on the tiles of the very high arch ceilings, “I guess I’ll be dealing with whatever that is later. What are you looking at?” she squinted upwards, sure that there must be a bat or something trapped in the building again.

“New tiles,” Vee stated simply, “But only on this floor. The renovations in this building are a bit sporadic, don’t you think? Quite showy, less functional. The railings on all the ramps and stairs are still the same despite most of them being only one good tug from total collapse.”

“Yeah,” De’nan agreed, “I think I see what you mean.” The two of them stood there for a moment looking upwards, the only sound between them the constant chatter and ambiance of the Plaza’s main office floor.

“Your friend is going to the morgue, by the way.”

“What?” The elf nearly choked. 

“I saw his phone, only a glimpse, but they were messages from a friend. Not a work friend, work friends don’t usually get emojis beside their names in contact lists. I also saw the word Atlantis,” He pointed to a far wall where a massive television screen broadcasted a local news network currently covering the Atlantis crash, “Seems like he knows someone who might’ve been involved in the crash.” De’nan’s eyes lingered on the television screen, but her gaze lacked focus.

“I see,” was all she could think to say, suddenly feeling a tad guilty for thinking that she was the one having a bad day.

“Do you want to go to your friend first, or should we talk to the Commander while we know he’s likely to be in a sympathetic mood?” De’nan bit her lip.

“You speak to the Commander, I’ll go catch Stoic and make sure he’s alright.” She rushed off, squeezing her way through the crowd with a chorus of excuse me’s that got quieter the further away from Vee she got.

Vee loomed large over the regular inhabitants of the police plaza, but it seemed that very few of them really took notice of his presence. Perhaps they were already used to me, I’m old news, he mused. Gnomes, elves, goblins, dwarves, fairies of all shapes and sizes bustled about the open office floor, their desks pushed together, people sneezing and talking and some even laughing. Phones buzzing, papers tearing, pencils tapping. What a nightmare, he thought, just like the human world. If only they knew how horrifyingly mundane the similarities between fairies and humans actually were.

Vee knocked in a rhythm three times on the Commander’s door until he heard the old elf grumble to come inside. The Commander stayed seated, typing away at lightning speed on his keyboard.

“Busy day, can’t handle any more interruptions.” He spoke through the corner of his mouth, the opposite corner occupied by the nub of a dead cigarette.

“I will be brief,” Vee ducked inside and closed the door quietly behind him. “I’d like my old job back.”

“No,” Said the Commander plainly. 

“Could you elaborate on that?”

“I could.”

“But you don’t care to?”

“Bingo.” 

The Commander’s attention stayed on his computer, fingers still furiously clacking away. Vee took a seat on the bench where Stoic once sat. A bench of that style was an elegant solution to the anatomical diversity of the fairy species. With so many body shapes and sizes and so many variables to account for when it came to physical mobility, a comfortable low bench was an elegant solution. Granted it was significantly too low for someone of Vee’s height, but with his ankles crossed and stretching out in front of him it was quite pleasant. Vee stayed there, fingers absently picking at one another, enjoying a comfortable silence between himself and Commander Kelp. After half an hour of answering emails, Kelp cracked.

“One case. A small one.”

“Do I get to choose?”

“No.” Kelp pressed a button and his printer produced a mostly empty police report. “Dwarf in the low streets. Her apartment caught on fire while she was sleeping. Her brothers are in Howler’s Peak for smuggling, neighbors reported seeing some unfamiliar goblins in the area that night.” Vee studied the very minimal report.

“Are there investigators already at the scene?”

“No, fire patrol was dispatched last night, but with this Atlantis business and the pixie girl thing everyone’s tied up. Her body was removed last night, should be in the morgue for processing.” Vee rose and stretched his legs, already making strides toward the door. “Not so fast,” Kelp stopped him, wheeling his chair back and pulling something from his desk drawer. “You’ll need this.”

The badge clattered on the polished walnut desktop. A single silver acorn the size of Vee’s palm that was specially made for him nearly ten years ago, printed with his name in Gnomish characters and pinned to a small wallet of weatherproof synthweave. Vee made no mention of the fact that Kelp clearly kept the badge with him all these years, a fact that Vee was certain of due to how polished the surface of the silver still was and how the synthweave wallet smelled strongly of the Commander’s favored brand of fungal cigarettes.

“Take De’nan with you,” Kelp grunted, returning to his sisyphean email crisis. “I don’t want to see your face on the news again.” Vee nodded.

“Of course, Commander.”

______________________________________________________________

De’nan arrived at the morgue before Stoic and waited for him by the entrance. Despite the noise above, this floor of the Police Plaza was quiet, too quiet for her liking. De’nan was an enjoyer of ambiance, the sounds of life, people talking or walking or laughing. Living underground, it was rare to find yourself ever in a place that was totally quiet. Everything echoed, every sound bounced, there were always signs of life around her. So she found herself flicking through social media apps on her phone. Atlantis was all anyone was talking about, it was either Atlantis or that pixie girl’s parents who apparently had her locked up in a storage unit for two weeks while they went on all the local talk shows and got flowers and lovely heartfelt cards from concerned strangers sent to them. De’nan scoffed, scrolling an article from the Haven City Herald that first broke the story, her thumbs tightening a dangerous grip on the little device.

Was life always like this, she wondered, were things always this bad and I was just too young or too stupid to get it? And how could anyone do that to their own child? They had to be insane, the both of them, or just somehow altogether a different kind of animal than she was to be capable of such an act. But that wasn’t the truth, and deep in her heart, thought it pained her to acknowledge, she knew it. Fairies, even fairies who did terrible and inexcusable things, were still fairies. They were still like her, part of her, part of the world. But it was much easier to close herself off from that truth, to isolate them, make them something else so that she could believe that if she only became good enough at spotting the signs of a wolf under the sheep’s wool that she would never be taken advantage of like that little girl. 

Is that fair to the little girl? Aren’t I then, in some way, just blaming her for not seeing the wolves? And what could I do then, if I were that little girl and I was afraid of my parents? Well, I would go to the LEP, of course, she reasoned. But the police need physical evidence, we can’t just act on hearsay, and we’re stretched thin already as it is. Maybe she did go to the police and they couldn’t help. Maybe she did see the wolves around her, or maybe she didn’t because she is a child and children shouldn’t have to suspect that their parents might take their life away at a moment's notice. De’nan chewed her lip to bits, a single bead of blood forming before a blue spark of magic sealed the wound. That’s about all her magic could do these days, about all anyone’s magic could do aside from the demon warlocks, and even they, in their small numbers, grew weaker by the year. Her ears twitched, suddenly aware of the sound of hoofsteps descending the stairs, accompanied by a murmur of two voices. 

Stoic led Lamont DeGrit, his dear friend of many years, to the morgue. Lamont, or Gritty as he was known to his loved ones, wore his short dark hair in a slicked back professional fashion, his beard trimmed to a manageable length, the tendrils bristling with nervous tension. Stoic stopped at the end of the stairs, surprised to see De’nan was waiting for him. The elf looked up from her phone, attempting to appear casual, but her eyes betrayed her.

“Nan, you didn’t have to wait for me.”

“I know.”

“Is she the one you told me about?” Asked Gritty.

“Er, yes, but maybe this isn’t the best time for an introduction.” The three of them entered the morgue together, Stoic and Gritty leading the charge, with De’nan following closely behind.

The Police Plaza’s morgue was not designed to hold more than twenty cadavers at a time. Even twenty was, thousands of years ago when the Plaza was constructed, considered to be a considerable overestimation. In the current day, chief forensic pathologist Sameth Ba’kor had a caseload of thirty six cadavers. Some were overflow from other precincts, putting the Plaza’s cold storage infrastructure to the test as the aging goblin struggled to find physical space in the deep freeze locker to store every cot while still leaving enough room to navigate the space and do his job, like a massive morbid slide puzzle. Luckily, Doctor Ba’kor had a lot of patience for puzzles. Most fairies couldn’t even stand to be in the deep freeze locker for more than a few seconds, but goblins were uniquely suited to withstand the freezing temperatures. Whenever his fingers got a bit nippy, Doctor Ba’kor simply breathed a low, steady stream of fire into his hands to warm them back up.

Backing out of the deep freeze after a long half hour or so of puzzling cadavers into place, Doctor Ba’kor was surprised to see that he had guests, thought he already suspected he knew why they were there. Still, he asked the question out of courtesy.

“What can I do for you, officers?”

“I’m, er, that is, we’re here to, uhm–” Stoic struggled to find the professional way to say we need to look at all the dead bodies and see if one of them is this guy’s spouse. Luckily, Gritty interjected.

“My husband may have been a victim of the Atlantis autohighway crash, I’m here to try and identify his body.”

“Yes,” Stoic added, “That.” The doctor ushered the two of them into the cold deep freeze where what remained of the unidentified bodies were draped over by clear vinyl sheets. De’nan couldn’t help but take notice of the fact that Lamont DeGrit seemed to be very much in control of his emotions, which struck her as odd given the severity of the situation. But perhaps, she thought, I’m wrong. I never met the man, maybe he’s just… odd. Like Vee.

The doctor led Gritty and Stoic around the room. Gritty stopped at each slab, some mangled and missing identifying features like limbs or bruised badly in the face, but with each elf body he passed over Gritty was utterly confident that none of them belonged to his husband.

“He’s not here,” the dwarf said finally after he’d seen every elf in the room. “He’s not here, thank gods he’s not here.” He breathed, deeply and for a long time, as if he’d been holding his breath for the entire process. “Get me out of here, It’s fucking cold as a witch’s tit in here.”

“You’re sure? Totally sure?” Stoic asked.

“Positive. Now I need a drink.”

The two men departed with few words, just a thank you to the doctor and an offer to De’nan to perhaps meet up for dinner later that evening. Once again, Vee saw the two of them only in passing, this time on his way down the steps to the morgue. De’nan leaned against a wall, arms crossed, brown knitted in concentration.

“He wasn’t in there.” Vee nodded to the morgue.

“Go on,” De’nan urged, “Tell me how you know, Sherlock.” He shrugged.

“People who’ve just seen their spouse’s dead body usually cry about it for a while. Coming to a conclusion like that hardly requires a Sherlock Holmes level of deductive reasoning.”

“Yeah, well, doesn’t stop you from bragging about it apparently.” Vee tucked his hands into his pockets and leaned against the wall beside her.

“Sorry, I wasn’t trying to brag. I just talk like... this. I know it can be grating, but I hope you don’t think I’m being callous on purpose.”

“No, I don’t think that,” De’nan sighed, her shoulders dropping, arms unfolding. “Sorry, I’m just feeling a bit snippy at the moment. Rough day.”

“In that case, I’m not sure if this will improve your mood or make it worse.” He produced the police file given to him by the commander, one single slip of paper with a brief description of the apartment fire and the single sentence statement that the fire patrol took down from a neighbor. Suspicious goblins spotted just before the sister of two known smugglers dies in a fire? Clearly an open and shut case, but it was a case.

“So this means the Commander had you reinstated?”

“For the time being,” Vee flashed his badge before tucking it back into his overcoat. The clothes he’d been arrested in were for caving and did not suit his personal style or sense of comfort. Kelp had held onto his badge all those years, but he considered it unlikely that any of his other belongings received the same treatment. Not that any clothes from ten years ago would still fit him. He made a mental checklist: first item: solve this crime, second item: get a new suit, third item: find Soul.

#crisis haven part 2 #artemis fowl #af fic #fanfiction

[rahleeyah]

Elliot talking about how he hates bullies this week made me think again about Rafael and how out of line he was at the end of last season. Calling Elliot a bully and saying Olivia loves him because she has daddy issues just felt like Rafael almost willfully choosing to see their relationship in a vulgar way. It reeked of self-pity and I can't decide if it was out of character or not. He's feeling hurt and maybe a little petty, but Rafa can do petty sometimes. I'm also irritated with the idea that Rafa had really been doing what was best for Liv whether she wanted it or not. She set a boundary and he chose to ignore it and instead of apologizing is just getting pissed at her for not being over it. If it was just that, I could see them getting past it, but I believe the Stabler family is going to become Olivia's family and even if they never get married, the Stabler kids will be something like her stepchildren and I have a hard time seeing Olivia asking any of them to share company with their mother's murderer's lawyer which would put him on the sideline of her life in a best case scenario. Anyway, I actually was meaning to ask your opinion. Did you feel like Rafa was out of character in the season finale? Did you think he was saying he was in love with Liv? What do you think their path forward looks like and/or what do you want to see? Feel free to answer any or none of those questions.

rafa can be petty, and he is always quick with a sharp remark, warranted or not; the man's trademark in court is saying absolutely outlandish things and then saying "withdrawn" before he gets in trouble (which no lawyer would get away with for very long it must be said).

i think that the rafa scenes at the end of last season were less about rafa as a character and more about the character of the men putting the words in his mouth. they want us to believe he was doing the right thing for liv - bc they either do not realize or do not care that he violated her boundaries, they think that violation is justified which is. uh. telling. they want us to sympathize with him, even when he's saying fucked up stuff like "when you're done feeling betrayed by me", which smacks of a fucked up attitude towards women that i don't think rafa holds. rafa knows next to nothing about elliot but dubs him a bully - that is not about rafa's beliefs, that is about the walrus's longstanding grudge against elliot as a character which frankly has no basis in canon.

now, that being said. we have seen rafa react to seeing olivia with other people before. he handled the cassidy reveal pretty well, but at that point he's fairly new to the squad. when he found out about tucker he got angry, reported her, and got her kicked out of svu (not necessarily his intention, but a foreseeable consequence of his actions). it isn't entirely out of character for rafa to be moody and petulant about olivia's connection to another man who he believes isn't good enough for her. that is very much in the category of things rafa might do.

but again the way he did it felt Wrong, to me. and the daddy issues thing! oh my god! that was so out of bounds. even for him that felt like a bridge too far, a sort of "wait, what?" moment that i haven't really reconciled.

rafa says that olivia loves elliot unconditionally; did he never wonder why? did he never wonder what elliot had done to deserve it? rafa didn't listen to olivia, but at the end of the day rafa is not real. rafa is the creation of real people, who also chose not to allow olivia to speak for herself. they chose to keep that character quiet and pontificate about her feelings from another, much more patronizing, point of view. and that shit is never gonna sit right with me fam.

rafa deserved better.

#anonymous #e.o asks #s.vu

[eternal-echoes]

“The Catholic Church is conscious of the importance of promoting friendship and respect between men and women of different religious traditions – I want to repeat this: promoting friendship and respect between men and women of different religious traditions – a sign of this can be seen in the important work carried out by the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue. The Church is likewise conscious of the responsibility which all of us have for our world, for the whole of creation, which we must love and protect. There is much that we can do to benefit the poor, the needy and those who suffer, and to favour justice, promote reconciliation and build peace. But before all else we need to keep alive in our world the thirst for the absolute, and to counter the dominance of a one-dimensional vision of the human person, a vision which reduces human beings to what they produce and to what they consume: this is one of the most insidious temptations of our time.”

- Pope Francis, AUDIENCE WITH REPRESENTATIVES OF THE CHURCHES AND ECCLESIAL COMMUNITIES AND OF THE DIFFERENT RELIGIONS, 20 March 2013

#Catholic #Christianity #quotes #Pope Francis