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orthodoxydaily · 3 years

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Wed.,Apr,7, 2021: Annunciation

THE ANNUNCIATION (BLAGOVESCHENIE) OF OUR MOST BLESSED LADY MOTHER OF GOD AND EVER-VIRGIN MARY

Commemorated on March 25_ by the newcalendar

Sermon of Saint Proklos, Patriarch of Constantinople

Our present gathering in honour of the MostHoly Virgin inspires me, brethren, to say of Her a word of praise, of benefit also for those come unto this churchly solemnity. It comprises a praise of women, a glorying of their gender, which (glory) is brought it by Her, She Who is at one same time both Mother, and Virgin. O desired and wondrous gathering! Celebrate, O nature, that wherein honour be rendered to Woman; rejoice, O human race, that wherein the Virgin be glorified. "For when sin did abound, grace did superabound" (Rom. 5: 20). The Holy Mother of God and Virgin Mary hath gathered us here, She the pure treasure of virginity, the intended paradise of Second Adam, – the locus, wherein was accomplished the co-uniting of natures, wherein was affirmed the Counsel of salvific reconciliation. Whoever is it that ever saw, whoever heard, that within a womb the Limitless God would make habitation, Whom the Heavens cannot circumscribe, Whom the womb of a Virgin limiteth not!? He born of woman is not only God and He is not only Man: This One born made woman, being the ancient gateway of sin, into the gateway of salvation: where evil poured forth its poison, bringing on disobedience, there the Word made for Himself a living temple, bringing in thither obedience; from whence the arch-sinner Cain sprang forth, there without seed was born Christ the Redeemer of the human race. The Lover-of-Mankind did not disdain to be born of woman, since this bestowed His life. He was not subject to impurity, being settled within the womb, which He Himself arrayed free from all harm. If perchance this Mother did not remain a Virgin, then that born of Her might be a mere man, and the birth would be no wise miraculous; but since She after birth remained a Virgin, then how is He Who is born indeed – not God? It is an inexplicable mystery, since in an inexplicable manner was born He Who without hindrance went through doors when they were locked. When confessing in Him the co-uniting of two natures, Thomas cried out: "My Lord, and my God!" (Jn. 20: 28).

The Apostle Paul says, that Christ is "to the Jews indeed scandal, and to the Gentiles yet folly" (1 Cor. 1: 23): they did not perceive the power of the mystery, since it was incomprehensible to the mind: "for had they understood, they would not have crucified the Lord of Glory" (1 Cor. 2: 8). If the Word had not settled within the womb, then the flesh would not have ascended with Him onto the Divine Throne; if for God it were disdainful to enter into the womb, which He created, then the Angels too would have disdained service to mankind. That One, Who by His nature was not subject to sufferings, through His love for us subjected Himself to many a suffering. We believe, that Christ not through some gradual ascent towards the Divine nature was made God, but being God, through His mercy He was made Man. We do not say: "a man made God"; but we confess, that God was incarnated and made Man. His Servant was chosen for Himself as Mother by That One Who, in His essence did not have mother, and Who, through Divine foresight having appeared upon the earth in the image of man, does not have here father. How one and the same is He both without father, and without mother, in accord with the words of the Apostle (Heb. 7: 3)? If He – be only a man, then He cannot be without mother – but actually He had a Mother. If He – be God only, then He cannot be without Father – but in fact He has the Father. And yet as God the Creator He has not mother, and as Man He has not father. We can be persuaded in this by the very name of the Archangel, making annunciation to Mary: his name – is Gabriel. What does this name mean? – it means: "God and man". Since That One about Whom he announced is God and Man, then his very name points beforehand to this miracle, so that with faith be accepted the deed of the Divine dispensation. To save people would be impossible for a mere man, since every man has need in the Saviour: "for all, – says Saint Paul, – have sinned, and come short the Glory of God" (Rom. 3: 23). Since sin subjects the sinner to the power of the devil, and the devil subjects him to death, then our condition did become extremely hapless: there was no sort of way to be delivered from death. There were sent physicians, i.e. the prophets, but they could only the more clearly point out the malady. What did they do? When they saw, that the illness was beyond human skill, they summoned from Heaven the Physician; one of them said "Lord, bend the heavens, and come down" (Ps. 143 [144]: 5); others cried out: "Heal me, O Lord, and I shalt be healed" (Jer. 17: 14); "restore Thine power, and come yet to save us" (Ps. 79 [80]: 3). And yet others: "For if God truly be settled with man upon the earth" (3 [1] Kings 8: 27); "speedily send before Thine tender mercy, O Lord, for we are brought very low" (Ps. 78 [79]: 8). Others said: "O woe to me, my soul! For the pious art perished from the earth, and of the upright amongst men there is none" (Mich. 7: 2). "O God, in help attend to me, O Lord, shield me with Thine help" (Ps. 69 [70]: 1). "If there be delay, endure it, for He that cometh shalt come, and not tarry" (Hab. 2: 3). "Perishing like a lost sheep: seek out Thine servant, who doth hope on Thee" (Ps. 118 [119]: 176). "For God wilt come, our God, and wilt not keep silence" (Ps. 49 [50]: 3). That One, Who by nature is Lord, did not disdain human nature, enslaved by the sinister power of the devil, the merciful God would not accede for it to be forever under the power of the devil, the Ever-Existing One came and gave in ransom His Blood; for the redemption of the race of man from death He gave up His Body, which He had accepted of the Virgin, He delivered the world from the curse of the law, annihilating death by His death. "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law", – exclaims Saint Paul (Gal. 3: 13). Thus know, that our Redeemer is not simply a mere man, since all the human race was enslaved to sin. But He likewise is not God only, non-partaking of human nature. He had body, since if He had not clothed Himself in me, He then likewise should not have saved me. But, having settled within the womb of the Virgin, He clothed Himself in my fate, and within this womb He perfected a miraculous change: He bestowed the Spirit and received a body, That One only indeed (dwelling) with the Virgin and (born) of the Virgin. And so, Who is He, made manifest to us? The Prophet David doth point it out for thee in these words: "Blessed is He that cometh in the Name of the Lord" (Ps. 117 [118]: 26). But tell us even more clearly, O prophet, Who is He? The Lord is the God of Hosts, says the prophet: "God is the Lord, and hath revealed Himself unto us" (Ps. 117 [118]: 27). "The Word was made flesh" (Jn. 1: 14): there were co-united the two natures, and the union remained without mingling. He came to save, but had also to suffer. What has the one in common with the other? A mere man cannot save; and God in only His nature cannot suffer. By what means was done the one and the other? Wherein that He, Emmanuel, being God, was made also Man; both this, that what He was, He saved by, – and this, that what He was made, He suffered as. Wherefore, when the Church beheld, that the Jewish throng had crowned Him with thorns, bewailing the violence of the throng, – it said: "Daughters of Zion, go forth and behold the crown, of which is crowned He of His mother" (Sng. 3: 11). He wore the crown of thorns and destroyed the judgement to suffering from the thorns. He Only is That One both in the bosom of the Father and in the womb of the Virgin; He Only is That One – in the arms of His Mother and in the wings of the winds (Ps. 103 [104]: 3); He, to Whom the Angels bowed down in worship, at that same time reclined at table with publicans. Upon Him the Seraphim dared not to gaze, and at the same time Pilate pronounced sentence upon Him. He – is That One and Same, Whom the servant did smite and before whom did tremble all creation. He was nailed to the Cross and ascended to the Throne of Glory, – He was placed in the tomb and He stretched out the heavens like a skin (Ps. 103 [104]: 2), – He was numbered amidst the dead and He emptied hell; here upon the earth, they cursed at Him as a transgressor, – there in Heaven, they exclaimed Him glory as the All-Holy. What an incomprehensible mystery! I see the miracles, and I confess, that He – is God; I see the sufferings, and I cannot deny, that He – is Man. Emmanuel opened up the doors of nature, as man, and preserved unharmed the seal of virginity, as God: He emerged from the womb thus as He entered through the announcing; the same wondrously was He both born and conceived: without passion He entered, and without impairment He emerged, as concerning this doth say the Prophet Ezekiel: "He returned me back the way of the gates of the outer sanctuaries, looking upon the east: and these had been shut. And saith the Lord to me: son of man, these gates shalt be closed, and not open, and no one go through them: for the Lord God of Israel, He Only, shalt enter and come forth, and they wilt be shut" (Ez. 44: 1-2). Here – it clearly indicates the Holy Virgin and Mother of God Mary. Let cease all contention, and let the Holy Scripture enlighten our reason, so that we too receive the Heavenly Kingdom unto all eternity. Amen.

Luke 1:24-38

24 Now after those days his wife Elizabeth conceived; and she hid herself five months, saying, 25 Thus the Lord has dealt with me, in the days when He looked on me, to take away my reproach among people. 26 Now in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, 27 to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin's name was Mary. 28 And having come in, the angel said to her, "Rejoice, highly favored one, the Lord is with you; blessed are you among women!" 29 But when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and considered what manner of greeting this was. 30 Then the angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. 31 And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a Son, and shall call His name JESUS. 32 He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Highest; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David. 33 And He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom there will be no end. 34 Then Mary said to the angel, "How can this be, since I do not know a man?" 35 And the angel answered and said to her, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you; therefore, also, that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God. 36 Now indeed, Elizabeth your relative has also conceived a son in her old age; and this is now the sixth month for her who was called barren. 37 For with God nothing will be impossible. 38 Then Mary said, "Behold the maidservant of the Lord! Let it be to me according to your word." And the angel departed from her.

Proverbs 8:22-30

22 “The Lord possessed me at the beginning of His way, Before His works of old. 23 I have been established from everlasting, From the beginning, before there was ever an earth. 24 When there were no depths I was brought forth, When there were no fountains abounding with water. 25 Before the mountains were settled, Before the hills, I was brought forth;26 While as yet He had not made the earth or the fields, Or the primal dust of the world. 27 When He prepared the heavens, I was there, When He drew a circle on the face of the deep, 28 When He established the clouds above, When He strengthened the fountains of the deep, 29 When He assigned to the sea its limit, So that the waters would not transgress His command, When He marked out the foundations of the earth, 30 Then I was beside Him as a master craftsman; And I was daily His delight, Rejoicing always before Him,

#orthodoxy #orthodox christianity #ancientfaith #originofchristianity #spirituality #holyscriptures #gospel #sacredtexts #wisdom

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rebuiltbionicle · 4 years

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Kraata and Rahkshi

The Kraata and their Rahkshi exosuits have been a ubiquitous sight where ever the Brotherhood of Makuta ever set foot; the most dedicated servants of the dark lords. Though many assumed them to be a form of war Rahi, the truth of the matter is that the Kraata are spawned from the very essence of the Makuta themselves. The Rahkshi were not just the servants of the Makuta, but part of them. Loyalty guaranteed not just by kinship but by recognition of self.

One of the inherent powers of the Makuta is being able to form Kraata from their essence, literally pulling them from their own bodies. This process takes considerable effort, but became significantly easier when the Makuta transformed into a fluidic state. The Makuta did make attempts to increase Kraata production further, but as Kraata require antidermis the Makuta had to manually create them. Theoretically the antidermis pool from whence the Makuta species originated could have been used, but the Makuta’s knowledge of that pool was sketchy at best. Essentially, the Makuta resorted to “Kraata shift” in which one of their members was asked to spend a full day doing nothing but churning out Kraata.

Kraata are small slug or snake like creatures, about a foot long each. They have the ability to infect Kanohi masks, placing them under the Makuta’s influence, and are weakened by light. Each Kraata has one of the 42 lesser powers of the Makuta. Makuta can choose which power the Kraata has, but only with increased concentration. These powers become more potent and focused as the Kraata grow. Kraata have seven known stages of growth, affecting their power and intelligence. Stage 1 and 2 are mere animals, Stage 3 and 4 have a vague understanding of the world, and Stage 5 and 6 are fully fledged servants of the Makuta. Stage 7 Kraata, or Shadow Kraata, are fully sapient beings unto themselves. Further stages are unknown, as the Makuta never allowed Kraata to evolve to that point. The amount of Kraata capable of reaching Stage 7 is minuscule, so the amount that could theoretically reach a Stage 8 must be even smaller than that. 99% make it past Stage 1, 80% can reach Stage 6, but only 7% are even capable of achieving Stage 7.

Rahkshi are biological exosuits created from and able to be used by Kraata. When a Kraata is exposed to Energised Protodermis, they will transform into a semi-humanoid serpentine suit of armour with a staff. The armour has no mind, so the Kraata is effectively dead. The vast bulk of Kraata undergo this transformation; only a tiny fraction are destroyed or transformed into something else. Rahkshi also contain antidermis-based neural structure so they cannot be replicated by Rahi-synthesiser. However, they are able to be modified afterwards. The Makuta have modified Rahkshi into several variants, including airtight aquatic variants, variants with spider legs, or gigantic carrier Rahkshi. Rahkshi cannot form Kaita, but fusion-like modified Rahkshi that require multiple Kraata are well known.

Each Rahkshi inherits the power of the Kraata that formed it, and must be piloted by another Kraata of that power. Once piloted, the Rahkshi is able to enhance and focus the Kraata’s power. A Stage 6 or 7 Kraata in a Rahkshi has as much strength in their power as a Makuta does. Most Rahkshi require their staffs to use their power. Some powers require their a staffs to focus it, otherwise the Kraata cannot extend the power beyond its control chamber.

Kraata are compelled to obey the telepathic will of any Makuta exerting their influence. If two Makuta compete for control it’s a battle of wills; who spawned the Kraata has no baring on their allegiance and its impossible to tell them apart. Falling outside the will of the Makuta, the Kraata and their Rahkshi become “wild” and begin behaving like animals. They will cluster together in underground colonies where they haul food down to feed themselves. They’re actually pretty cooperative with each other. They rank themselves in accordance to what stage they’re in, but its not so much subservience as much as guidance, with higher level Kraata leading packs of their lessers. The Makuta enjoyed having Rahkshi colonies across the universe for use as impromptu armies. A few Makuta, namely Mutran and Tridax, liked to study the behavioural dynamics of the colonies.

The Rahkshi served the Brotherhood of Makuta from its inception to its dissolution. In fact, Miserix had several Rahkshi operational before the rest of the Makuta were created. To recite Kraata history would be to recite Makuta history. Full understanding of the Kraata and Rahkshi was never made public but not suppressed either, so it slowly spread amongst more knowledgeable people. The uninformed assumed they were a form of Rahi.

Since the Reformation, the Rahkshi and Kraata populations have become wild and are being directed by the Shadow Kraata to flee the Matoran Universe. They have created several temporary colonies to shelter from sunlight while they search for someplace in perpetual darkness. Their current ideas are either the depths of the Great Jungle, or the shadows of the Valley of the Maze, or perhaps just find a good spot to manually dig out a cave network underground.

#bionicle #bionicle rebuilt #makuta

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tazzytypes · 4 years

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Apocalypse: Sanctuary - Chapter 1

EDIT (6/10/2020): I know this is unprofessional as hell, but I added more because the ending didn’t sit right with me. Was too excited too hurry up and post and forgot there was a reason I plotted things out in a certain way. Hope you all can forgive me.

Finally! Chapter 1! I hope you guys enjoy it. I loved reading your comments and every kudos made me more excited to keep writing. Also, I apologize for the weird spacing throughout the post. I had to copy it from scrivener to AO3 to here and it just made things messy, but it’s 1AM rn and I’m tired.

Read on AO3 or Fanfiction.net!

click here for: Prologue |

Emily shifted in her seat, head rebelling after spending a week in the dim light of candles which cast everything in an orange hue and made the shadows dance on the walls. Even her large circular glasses did nothing to ease her sight… it was a wonder she wasn’t already legally blind. Either way, she had the mother of all headaches.

The constant fires always left E uncomfortably hot and the layers upon layers they were forced to dress didn’t help. First thing the wardens did when they arrived was strip her down and burn every shred of fabric… her favorite shirt nothing but ash. Clothing standards were non-negotiable. Evening wear on the left side of the armoire. Don’t mistake it for your daily clothes or you won’t receive dinner. Cocktails before-hand at 6:30 sharp. Lucky for Emily, she was always early for everything and had yet to find out what the punishment was for that particular faux-pas. She wished nothing but to grab the t-shirt and shorts she had arrived in just to find some relief.

“Be careful what you wish for,” Her mother had always told her.

At first, she had been relieved when the others arrived. Now she had to wonder if she would have been better off on her own… the supplies she had counted in storage would certainly have lasted longer. Small little cubes with all the nutrients they needed. They probably would have been better with non-perishables, but she doubted the wardens would risk a venture outside to hunt for some… not like they would be able to eat it, anyway.

Another stabbing pain pulsed at her temples, hands going to smooth it out as she listened to the chattering around her that sounded more like white noise than coherent sentences. Waiting out the apocalypse in solidarity would have driven her insane, humans being the social creatures they were. However, she doubted any of them would survive the end of the world with their sanity intact.

Not that one could guess it was the end of the world by the conversations of her fellow residents, most of them rich and most of the snobby. Gallant and Coco were thick as thieves… their personalities almost comically matching that of Regina George from Mean Girls. Evie, Gallant’s washed-up film star of a grandmother was almost repulsively republican — so homophobic and racist that most of the residents hoped she’d have a heart attack and die. The Stevens, a mother and son pair along with the son’s boyfriend, were tolerable. Andre liked to throw shade, but he was balanced by his witty counterpart, Stu.

She couldn’t help but smile to herself as she thought of their earlier conversation.

“It’s like Satan’s Spotify playlist,” Stu had joked in response to Gallants endless complaining, making Andre nearly choke on the water he had been drinking.

“For the amount of times I’ve been told I’m in league with the devil, I’d have expected him to have better taste.” Emily had joked in return.

Stu laughed and Andre only sighed, “don’t even get me started on the clothes.”

“Well at least you don’t have to wear a corset,” Coco had snipped, hand going up to pat at her hair in an attempt to keep it in place.

Emily tugged at her own, something poking her in her stomach, “These are not historically accurate.”

“Let me guess,” Stu said, gesturing to her glasses, “history major?”

“Insomniac.”

The pounding returned to her head and she leaned on the table, pressing at her temples with the hope of some relief. Maybe she could ask a Grey to get her some ice… she doubted Venable had a stash of ibuprofen in the reserves.

It had been 14 days since they had gotten here. 3 of which she had spent on her own, wandering the halls with a candelabra like a damsel from a Victorian novel. She tugged at the high collar of her shirt. Whoever designed this hole in the ground was determined to have them living in a corset-laced wet dream.

“Are you okay?” The girl beside her asked, a gentle hand placed on Emily’s arm. She had just arrived at the outpost, 2 weeks after the bombs dropped, with a boy around the same age. They had barely been able to introduce themselves before Venable cut in, ringing a bell obnoxiously to usher them to dinner.

The few words the pair had said still haunted her.

“It’s all gone,” The brown-haired boy had told them at Gallant’s insistence, lips pressed into a thin line as he tried not the let the emotions that came with those words to overwhelm him.

“Everything,” The girl echoed, voice hollow.

Gallant fell back as if he had been shot, panic threatening to overtake his lungs after it was done squeezing the life out of his heart.

“What…” Emily had stuttered out, trying to calm herself, “What did it look like?”

Andre’s voice had cracked and spat out like venom, “who cares about what it looks like?”

Stu had placed a hand on his lover's shoulder. His brows were furrowed and there was a slight shake that came over his body. Andre curled into him, Stu wrapping his arms around him as if he could somehow shield the man from the world.

Her anxiety spread through her like a wildfire, the attempted facade of strength cracking, “It matters because it could tell us how fucked we are!”

“We’re well past fucked!” Coco had snapped.

The girl with ebony hair focused on Emily, eyes welling with emotion she all too well understood.

“No sun…” She said, forcing the words from her mouth, “just green… smog.”

“Does that mean anything to you?” Stu had asked her, eyes betraying his own fears.

“Hiroshima happened in the… 50s? Chernobyl happened in the 80s,” Emily began to say, too in her thoughts to notice the side-eyed stares of her companions, “and that was still radioactive before it was radioactive… again.”

The comment seemed to stir something in the new girl’s head, “I heard about that… people were able to take trips last year… once in a lifetime opportunity.”

Coco scoffed, “so is dying.”

“Wait, so like… this can go away?” Gallant asked.

The girl looked to Emily, “People were living on Hiroshima before all this.”

“Possibly,” Emily mused, “Then again, we’d have to multiply that incident by… well, a lot.”

“We’d have to find out where and how many bombs were dropped.” The girl added, “as well as the area affected by it.”

Coco frowned, still more focused on her hair than the literal end of the world, “could you stop talking like that? You’re seriously freaking me out.”

“We’re all freaking out,” Dinah snipped.

“Just tired,” Emily reassured the girl, leaning back in her chair. She realized she had yet to ask the girl her name, but the Grey’s entered with their meal before she could — one Grey for each purple at the table. The large black plates were almost amusingly large in comparison to the singular small cube that sat at its center.

A full table-set was spread out before them, silver soup spoons, teaspoons, knives, and a salad fork mocking them every day. They stood out against the dark wood and reminded them that they were doomed to a life of tasteless jello for the rest of their lives. Emily finally understood how her pets felt, fed the same food day in and day out… at least she had bothered to change up the flavor. Her body rebelled against her after the third day, gagging whenever she brought the cube anywhere near her mouth. A few days of starvation quickly rectified the situation and greatly amused her jailer who was all too happy to put the food back from whence it came.

Venable chose the seating arrangements, naturally. Emily was sat beside the two new arrivals, positioned as far from the woman as possible. It was an arrangement neither of them minded. Emily didn’t hold her tongue in moments such as these and she didn’t like placing her wellbeing in the hands of another. Venable expected complete and total control over her residents, enforcing strict standards of order that were almost as tight as her hair, tightly pulled together in a double french twist at the back of her head. Emily was the stray hair that wouldn’t lay flat no matter what she did.

The new arrivals stared at their plates as the Greys placed the cubes before them, sending each other confused glances and waiting to see what the rest of them did. It hardly looked appetizing, brown and having a texture reminiscent of a health-nut’s chia-seed protein bar.

Emily poked at her own food for good measure, feeling her throat clench at the mere thought of eating again. It didn’t listen no matter how many times she tried to reason with it. You’d think the body would behave and finally realize that this was as good as things would get.

Gallant turned towards the girl to his left, “Don’t be too disappointed.”

“Darling,” Evie sighed from the other side of the table, spreading a napkin across her lap, “You don’t know what disappointment is until you’ve slept with Yul Brynner.”

The mere thought of the old woman having sex was enough to make Emily’s lips curl in disgust… maybe she didn’t need to eat after all. For once Dinah was amused by the old crone, chuckling as she cut apart her cube like it was a five-course meal instead of the science project of Elon Musk.

“I want to die,” She could hear Gallant mutter a few seats over, head in his hands as he contemplated his decision to bring his nana along on whatever this adventure was.

Dinah was quick to explain the cubes to the new pair, “The cube on your plate contains every vitamin our body needs…”

Across from Emily, Coco ungracefully shoved the entire cube into her mouth with one fell swoop, cheeks puffing out. Dinah continued to speak, pretending to have not seen Coco, words coming out rushed, “…or so they tell us.”

“Whether or not it aids in our caloric intake is up in the air,” Emily added, following the woman’s lead and gently cutting into the cube.

“The fewer calories the better!” Evie proclaimed from down the table, waving her fork in the air to accentuate her statement.

“Until you become a skeleton.”

Emily had learned from Dinah’s example to take small bites, savor it. She hoped it would fool her body into thinking it was eating more. Either way, her stomach still growled and she was grateful to her handler for taking her to Chick-Fil-A on their way to the Outpost. The mere thought of that last meal made her mouth water.

Coco’s silverware clattered onto her plate as she closed her eyes and whined, “I’m still hungry… I am so tired of the hunger.”

A fist to the table made Emily jump, dropping her own silverware in turn. The girl next to her looked to the other residents as Coco stood up abruptly, letting her chair screech against the floor as it was thrown back. She looked to Emily and all she could do was offer a half-hearted shrug that said, “same shit as usual.”

… God, she missed John Mulaney.

“Fuck! This! Bullshit!” Coco continued, “With all the thought that went into this they don’t have a single bag of Pirate’s Booty in the pantry?”

Evie sat back as if watching a soap opera while the rest of the residents braced themselves for another tantrum. Coco raved on, unaware of the sudden looming figures coming up behind her, “For a hundred million dollars a ticket, I expect goddamn Gordon Ramsay in the kitchen cooking us real food!”

Then she stopped, a tap of a cane on the floor signaling the arrival of Venable, Miss Mead on her heels like an obedient dog. They braced themselves for another, self riotous lecture on appreciating what they had as if none of them mourned for what was. Slowly, head bowed and aware of her impending doom, Coco turned.

The slap rang in everyone’s ears, causing a collective gasp to fill the room. The brown-haired boy beside Coco caught her as she fell back, her hand going instantly to her cheek. As she stood once more she took it away and examined it. Emily could see the barest hint of blood on the blonde’s fingers. A growl threatened to rise in her throat and her lips curled in a disgusted snarl.

It was hard to keep calm as she addressed the woman donned in black, “we’re all adults here. We can use our words… I hope. At least some of us have mastered that much.”

Venable turned to her. The black-haired girl beside her shifted uncomfortably. One could cut the tension between the two women with a knife.

Finally, Venable pulled her eyes away and turned her focus to the spoiled girl before her, her hand resting back on the cane she always carried, “Let me be very clear so there will be no misunderstanding. We have enough nutrition to last for the next 18 months and if our situation doesn’t improve, you can count on less and less.”

Slowly, Coco sat. Shaking hands pulled away from her cheek as she reached for the chair. She was so scared that her movements were stiff. Yes, she had been yelled at before. God knows she was a stubborn woman with a temper, but no one had ever slapped her before.

Venable retreated into the only exit of the room, slithering back into the shadows. Venable’s tone bordered on the overly-theatric, playing the part of a woman burdened by knowledge she dare not speak lest it disrupts the peace.

“You could have told us that from the very beginning.” Emily blurted out.

The woman didn’t even bother to look at her as her lips curled into a mocking smile. When she finally turned to Emily, her tone was thick with condescension, “and cause unnecessary panic?”

“You know what they say about communication and relationships.”

“ Situation ?” Gallant asked, waving a hand to get their attention, “What is our situation ?”

Miss Mead looked to her boss whose face glimmered with uncertainty and surprise, but only for a moment. Venable was debating whether or not to tell the truth or keep them in the constant state of unknowing, easy to control. If she were still in college, Emily could have written an essay on the ways Venable reminded her of the worst sort of people in their history books.

“We had a perimeter alert this morning,” She finally told them, less than pleased with the fact the words were leaving her mouth at all, “Something penetrated the grounds. It was a carrier pigeon delivering a message from our benefactors.”

Coco gasped, “Wait! A pigeon! Can we eat it?”

Emily sighed and leaned on the table, resisting the urge to hand her head in her hands. This place was going to be migraine city the moment she tapered off her medication.

Miss Mead’s tone echoed her feelings, brows scrunching at the pure idiocy of the question.

“It was contaminated by the fallout .”

Her response didn’t phase Evie, who made it abundantly clear she had never made a meal for herself in her entire life, “Can we boil it?”

Venable reached into her pockets and pulled out a small sliver of paper and began to read, “There are no more governments. Only rotting mounds of corpses, too many to bury.”

Emily’s hands fell to her lap and curled into fists until she could feel her fingernails embed themselves into the flesh of her palms. All she could hear were the voice-mails, each and every last plead for life. She could still hear her brother’s voice, cracking in a way she hadn’t heard since their grandmother’s funeral. It was etched into her brain to the last breath. To his last breath, he took his role as an older sibling seriously, trying to soothe her fears instead of his own.

“I don’t want to die. God, I don’t want to—”

Venable continued reading, “Starving people kill for a piece of bread.”

“I love you… I… You were… are a good sister.”

“Three outposts have been overrun.” Venable’s voice droned on, voice cracking ever slightly as she reached the end of the letter, “We are the last vestiges of civilized life on the planet.”

“I… I know you would have made a difference… I wish I could have seen the life you would have created.”

Venable looked to them all as she read the last line, “be vigilant.”

Emily was pulled from her thoughts by a squeeze to her hand, instinctively pulling it back until she realized a hand covering her own. When Emily met the ebony-haired girl’s gaze she offered a reassuring smile, Emily nodded in a small message of thanks before brushing away the single tear which had begun to roll down her cheeks.

“Everything we know is gone,” Mead summarized, eyes blank. It was nice to see that even the Warden and Venable felt fear. Made them feel… human.

“In two weeks ?”, Andre shook his head, staring blankly at his hands, “That’s all it took?”

In a rare show of empathy, Gallant reached out and squeezed the man’s hands. Emily noted the way Stu watched the interaction, eyes watching the hands as if it were a snake slithering in his direction.

“They made you think the system was a rock,” Mead explained, standing at attention with her hands locked together in front of her, “It was a water balloon. One prick of the needle and —”

She made a popping noise, “that’s all it took.”

It wasn’t as if Emily was surprised. One of the first things she learned in a college psychology class was that the only reason the world didn’t fall into chaos was due to people putting faith in a system that would protect them… conventional. The bombs had scattered them, left them weak to the chaos that ensued. It reminded her of the way roaches scattered when sprayed with Raid. Lawlessness was the antithesis of reason, mob mentality was evidence enough of that. It was textbook horror.

“We will only survive if we follow the rules,” Venable emphasized.

Emily scoffed. Some of Venable’s rules she understood while others were a blatant overreaching of power. She could understand the “no sex” rule to a degree. Copulation could result in the creation of new life which they had no means to sustain, but even the Victorians had condoms and you couldn’t walk into a 7-Eleven without finding a rack of Plan B. Not to mention half the residents were gay which made her rules pointless.

“Rules are the basis of order,” Venable said, clearly addressing her despite staring at the wall above them, “unless you find yourself to be above the rules? Too special for them to apply?”

She hadn’t a moment to voice her thoughts, quickly distracted by the army of wardens that quickly began to fill the room. They all watched with bated breath as The Fist bent down to whisper in Mead’s ear, her lip twitching and eyes flitting to the ground as she gave the other woman her full attention.

“There’s a problem.”

Those 3 words were enough to break Venable’s gloating, head snapping to the side like Coco’s had a moment ago. They all watched the pair, unsure of who to keep a better watch on — Venable or Mead.

“We’ve detected a spike in the background radiation, centered in this room,” Mead informed her boss.

Gallant was quick to point fingers to the new pair, whatever empathy he had shown with Andre gone like the wind as he moved from them as if they had the plague, “It’s them! They just came from the outside!”

“No!” The girl exclaimed, shaking her head vigorously and sitting forward in her chair, knuckles white around the wooden arms, “No! We were checked when we got here! We’re clean!”

She looked to Emily for aid, brown eyes wide and pupils dilated. Her eyes glimmered with confusion and panic, searching for an unspoken question. Emily’s brows knitted and she bit her lip, eyes flickering between the girl before her and the wardens preparing a device that looked like a microphone attached to a larger box.

“No,” the boy echoed, “we went through decontamination.”

His eyes also went to Emily as he continued to speak, begging for her to understand, “we were cleared.”

Emily opened her mouth but could find nothing to reassure them. Mead addressed the room before Emily could utter a word. “Place your hands on the table… and don’t. Move .”

Shaking her head at the girl, Emily did as she was told. This hadn’t happened before. She didn’t know what to expect. As the device clicked from her left, she edged her pinky towards her knife. It wasn’t sharp. It didn’t have to be sharp to cut through jello. With enough pressure, it could cut through skin. The rest of the room faded away as she kept her eyes on The Fists' hands, a second device in her hands as well. Emily’s heart hammered with each step closer.

“Radioactive contamination,” Mead spoke, devices crinkling like static as they hovered over each person, “is a grave risk to our entire community.”

The Fist, a giant of a woman with blonde hair pulled back from her face, towered above Emily when she was standing. Sitting down made her feel like a child in the presence of a giant. She held her breath as she felt the device get closer, clicking sounds falling silent as soon as it came above her hand. The Fist repeated the motion a few times more, making Emily’s heart go haywire in her chest, before moving on to the new arrival next to her, the clicking resuming once more.

“The clean rule is there to protect all of us,” Mead continued, now going over the boy who sat stiff as a board, eyes following the woman’s every move, “A single stray gamma particle can cause skin lesions. Your DNA breaks apart, your body disintegrates. You’ll wish you died in the blast.”

The residents weren’t sure what to make of her speech. It wasn’t as if any of them graduated with a degree in radiology. They had learned it in high-school, sure, but that was ages ago… before there was colored TV for some of them.

“But someone here decided,” Mead went on, circling the table for a second round of testing, “that their individual needs were more important.”

Emily tensed once more as the stick was waved around her, Mead pausing momentarily to look down at the box she held in her hand to see if it had somehow turned off. Finding nothing, she continued. “Someone went outside. Touched something dirty .”

The room was holding their breaths. They all knew they were innocent, but didn’t trust their companions as far as they could throw them. Their gaze followed the device, then to the person next to them, then to the person in front of them. They searched for a sign of guilt. It was easier to point fingers when someone looked shifty.

“Makes me sick to think that this person,” Mead spit as she made it to gallant, “to risk contaminating all—”

A wild crackling filled the room. They all jumped in their seats, eyes focusing on the hairdresser. Emily’s heart leapt into her throat, paralyzed as the vultures began circling, donned in leather and stronger than any of them could hope to be.

“No,” The man said after a moment, shaking his finger as he looked to the Wardens, “nononono. That’s a mistake because the only thing I’ve touched is Coco’s hair.”

The Fist stood over Coco and shook her head. Mead gave the final order, voice lacking any pity, “she’s clean. You’re dirty.

The wardens grabbed at Gallant, claws latching onto him as he began to struggle.

“No!” He cried, “this is impossible! That machine is wrong!”

Fingers dug into his shoulder and Gallant cried out in pain, dragged to his feet and across the floor. The warden closest to him placed him in a choke-hold, Gallant letting out a fearful sob as he clawed at the man’s arm. Evie stood, chair screeching across the floor as she reached out towards her grandson with trembling hands.

“This is outrageous! Stop! Please, stop! Bring him back!”

Coco gasped and let out a cry, hands moving to cover her face as her eyes welled with tears. The girl beside Emily looked between herself and the boy in front of her, chest rising and falling rapidly as she began to hyperventilate.

Gallant scream pierced the air, “Evie!”

The crackling filled the room once more. In their panic, they had failed to realize Mead making her way towards Andre and Stu. The couple could only stare at each other, the seconds dragging on like hours.

“No way!” Stu chanted, refusing to look away from Andre, “No! No way!”

“No,” Andre sobbed, reaching out towards the man and trying to pry him from the grasp of the warden pulling him away. He was thrown away with a shove.

“Get your hands off me!” Stu screamed, another warden now going to carry him by his feet.

Mead’s voice rang out from the chaos, followed swiftly by the marching of footsteps.

“Take them to the decontamination room!”

They could hear the groans of their fellow residents echoing down the hall. The sounds resonated long after the steel doors had closed.

Emily reached out for the hand of the girl next to her. Her face was frozen in a gasp, eyes wide with terror. Her hand rested on hers which still sat on the table. She squeezed back and held on for dear life.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

For once the saloon was quiet. Evie had gone to bed. Emily currently sat next to a crying Andre, Dinah opposite her. He hadn’t been able to stop crying since dinner, now unable to do more than hiccup.

“How could he have been contaminated,” He sobbed, a horrible epiphany crossing his mind as he turned to Emily, “do you think they—?

Emily gave him a look, “Did you forget Gallant’s little hand-squeeze during dinner? He was coming on to you, not Stu.”

Andre had a fleeting smile before anxiety overtook him once more.

“What we need to do now,” Dinah said, running a hand up and down her son’s back, “is make sure Stu comes back safe.”

Her words were less than comforting, Andre shoving away her arm and staring at her with an emotion Emily couldn’t quite place… somewhere between distress and anger.

“Why wouldn’t he be safe?” he demanded, looking to the brunette when his mother offered no response. Emily opened her mouth, hoping something would pop into her head, but she was at a loss for words. She couldn’t reassure him of anything. It would be a lie.

The man scoffed, stepping back and shaking his head, “I can’t believe you.”

He turned on his heels, breath hitching once more as another fit of sobs threatened to take over him. Why Stu? Why not them? Of all the residents Stu was the least deserving of—

Emily rose, hand held out to stop him, “Andre—”

A gentle hand was placed on her shoulder. Dinah took a step around her, hand trailing down her purple-clothed arm until she held her hand, the other coming to rest on top of it.

“Let me talk to him,” the woman tried to reassure, the events clearly have shaken her as much as Stu.

Emily pressed her lips together and nodded, pulling back and watching the woman hurry towards her son, heels clicking down the hall. The door clanged shut behind her and silence filled the room.

… but only for a moment.

“What’s going to happen to me if they find out Gallant is —” Coco started to ramble, “I mean I was the only reason he was here in the first place.”

“You were clean,” The brown-haired boy pointed out, face twisting in confusion.

“Well, I know that!” Coco exclaimed, turning on the couch to face him, “but who’s to say there won’t be a second investigation. I mean there had to be a reason they were tainted.”

She went quiet for a moment, hands held out in front of her as if she was having a revelation, “oh my gosh! If they kill Gallant who’s going to do my hair?”

Emily sighed and sat next to the new girl who was wringing her hands and staring into the fire.

“I never did ask your names,” Emily noted, looking to the girl and the boy.

“Timothy,” He said with a nod of his head.

The girl was pulled from her thoughts, turning from the fire and to the people behind her, “Emily.”

Emily chuckled, “You’re joking.”

“What?”

“It’s the end of the world and I can’ escape the fate of having a basic girl name.”

A smile curled at the other Emily’s lips, then a laugh, “really?”

Emily extended a hand, “Hi, Emily. I’m Emily.”

“There’s two of you now?” Coco groaned.

“I was named after my grandmother,” The other Emily said, taking her hand and giving it a shake, “you?”

“My parents looked in a baby book and picked a ‘less common’ girl name. 21 years later and there’s at least three Emily’s in each one of my classes.”

“God, this is going to be confusing,” Coco sighed, pressing her fingers to her nose in a praying motion, “Oh! I know! Emily 1 and Emily 2… no... That’s too wordy.”

“Middle names?” Timothy asked.

“No way in hell,” The two replied.

“I can always go by ‘Em’,” she said, “god knows I’m used to it by now.”

“M?” Coco asked, “that’s original.”

“Well, we can’t all be named after a brand of cereal.”

“I was named after Coco Chanel!” she snapped, turning to Timothy with crocodile tears, “You get it, right?”

“…yeah?” he answered, an eyebrow quirking up in confusion, “The clothing brand.”

He looked to the two Emily’s as he spoke like he was part of some hidden camera show. The two could only laugh and shake their heads as he was quickly rounded into another one of Coco’s monologues.

“My parents named me Coco because they knew I was destined to make it big. So it was only natural that I…”

Timothy looked ready to face nuclear winter. His guilt over the previous dinner altercations made him feel guilty for wanting to run away, but the boy always had a hard time saying, “no.” The Emily’s watched on, sparing him pity-filled glances when he looked to them for help.

“So did you pay your way in here or are you here for your superior genetics?” Emily asked.

“Genetics,” Emily… Em replied, “I was supposed to be on the east coast but someone paid for me to be transported all the way out here.”

“Who?”

She shrugged, “no idea. Some rich snob wanted their dog to go with them… at least that’s what Venable tells me.”

“I’d hardly call her a trustful resource.”

Em laughed, “That we can agree on.”

“How long do you think we’ll be here?”

“More than we have rations for,” Em sighed, reaching for a glass of water, “Fallout could last up to five years and we’ve talked about Chernobyl… but nothing on this scale has ever been recorded.”

Emily stared blankly ahead and nodded, trying to recall all she had learned about the matter in school, “we could be here for 30 years… maybe more.”

“Sorry,” Em offered, “anyone here can tell you — I’m not one to speak to for optimism or reassurance.”

“No,” The other girl shook her head, “I’d rather blatant honestly than pretty lies.”

“If we had anything more than water I’d toast to that.”

Emily laughed and shook her head. She reached for a glass of her own and held it up.

“Let’s toast anyway.”

Em smiled and leaned her glass forward, a dull clinking sound filling the air.

“What were you doing?” Em asked, leaning back and taking a sip of water, “before the bombs hit?”

“Protesting. It sounds minuscule now… climate change, minimum wage.”

“Everything is minuscule in the presence of death.”

“Poetic.”

“I sure hope so,” Em jested, “or all the money I wasted on an English Major was worthless.”

Emily laughed, “Is that what you were doing before the bomb’s dropped?”

“Nah… I was at home… enjoying summer. I was working on our campus’ literary magazine and selling art prints online as a side-hustle.”

Em shook her head, silence sitting for a moment before Emily spoke.

“I don’t know what to do with myself now.”

“I don’t think any of us do, but at least we’re not alone.”

“I wouldn’t call this particularly good company,” Emily admitted.

“It’s not,” Em blatantly admitted, earning a short laugh from her companion, “but you and timothy seem alright.”

“And you?”

“Well…” Em said, side eying Coco who was still avidly speaking without a sign of ever stopping, “I’m no influencer.”

Emily snorted and shook her head, “that may be for the best.”

------------------------------------------------

“All I’m saying is Stu was boring and using up our food, and that lesions won’t work with my complexion.”

Em rolled her eyes and looked to Emily who once again sat beside her as Coco’s tirade went on. The blond-haired woman once again was patting at her hair like she was on the red carpet. They looked to Timothy across from them who just sat looking blankly ahead of him. Em smiled at shook her head, not able to blame the man for pretending he was anywhere else but here. If not for the mandatory cocktail hour and communal meals, Em would have stayed as far away from the others as possible.

Days had passed since Gallant and Stu had been forced into decontamination. Gallant refused to speak of the incident and… well… they knew where it got Stu. One would have liked to have said that Coco had shown some respect for the deceased, but the farthest she got was initial shock followed by contempt towards their fallen comrade.

“Fuck you,” Andre spat, murder in his eyes, “I hope they come for you next.”

“If they don’t,” Em noted, Coco’s eyes glaring into her own, “I will.”

She gaped at her, nose curling as her expression turned into one of disgust, “Is that a threat?”

“A promise.”

Emily gave her a look like a mother trying to get their child to behave among strangers.

It’s not worth it!” She hissed under her breath. Em was far too annoyed to pay her any mind. She could forgive selfishness and vanity, but her complete lack of sympathy for those in pain? It didn’t matter if it was genuine. All she had to do was shut up, give Andre space to grieve.

Lucky for Coco, their jail-keepers arrived at the table before Em could follow out her threat. Venable’s cane sounded like the tik of a clock with each step she took, reminding the brunette of a horror story her friends and herself would tell around Halloween.

“Nobody is coming for anyone,” Mead told them as they both rounded the table to their respective seats at the head of the table, “unless you break the rules.”

She looked to Em, “which includes murder.”

Em paused as she took a sip of water, raising a brow at Coco, “I never said anything about murder.”

The older woman looked into her lap and shook her head, trying to hide the amused smile threatening to show on her face. Coco scoffed.

“This is harassment!”

“This is a difficult time for everyone,” Venable spoke, failing to address Coco’s claims, “as a small consolation, we have a special treat.”

Em could smell the food before she could see it, the salt and the meat, she could taste it in her mouth without even touching it. She felt like a dog, smelling things with such detail she had never been able to notice before. It was incredible what desperation could do to the body. The whole table buzzed with excitement, grins brightening faces and hands going to silverware before the food could be set on the table.

Emily was unable to hide her shock, “no cubes tonight?”

Venable’s lips curled into a smile, the expression doing nothing to ease the woman’s continuously angry expression, “enjoy the bonne bouche.”

Bowls clinked together, the Greys hurrying to place food on the table.

“Don’t get used to it.”

“Yes,” Emily sighed beside her, looking over to Em with an expression of relieved joy.

The brunette didn’t care. If she was being honest, she hadn’t exactly paid much attention to the woman’s words after she saw the soup on the food trolley. It was much like a cat seeing a bird at the window, green eyes widening and pupils dilating as if Em had found her true love. While her companions were much more graceful, at least attempting some decorum, Em quickly dug into the meal.

Her mother used to chide her for this as a child, sitting next to her brother at the dinner table and seeing who could finish first. She couldn't explain to the woman that she had to eat fast or else her brother would steal her dessert. Such things didn’t make sense to an adult, but a child’s reasoning was elaborate and honest. For a life so short, every little detail mattered.

Usually, she wasn’t a fan of stew. Something about the floating meat and murky broth didn’t sit right with her. Now she wondered why she didn’t enjoy the delicacy more often. The meat fell apart like well-buttered bread in her mouth, the broth warmed her from the inside out. She could feel it burning down her throat like a shot of Bourbon, somewhat painful but none the less satisfying.

“You think bribing us with a hot meal’s just gonna’ to make everything okay?” Andre asked, voice sore with grief. A white handkerchief flourished with the wave of his hand. It had been somewhere on his person since Stu was pronounced dead. Em was too caught up in her hunger to realize the weight of his words or the sudden stillness of the girl beside her, an unspoken conversation between herself and Timothy. She would take the bribe happily if it meant being spared from the tasteless cube she had become accustomed to. It wouldn’t win her over, but only a fool refused something readily given with no strings attached.

By the time Emily swatted at Em’s arm the brunette had already finished most of the stew, the bottom of her bowl visible through the broth. She sent Emily an irritated glare, gesturing with her hands as she swallowed her last bite.

“What?” she hissed.

Emily only rose her brows and sent a pointed glance towards Timothy. Turning towards him she was meant with an equally suspicious gaze and a shake of the head. With a sigh, she sat back in her chair, looking between the two and waiting for an explanation.

“I think my mouth just had an orgasm,” Coco moaned with a full mouth, quickly shoving more food into her mouth in fear it would turn out to be a cruel mirage. Em looked at her and embarrassment made her flush a pale pink. Is that what she had looked like?

“Andre,” Venable sighed, settling in her seat and arranging her silverware before she took a single bite, “We’re not trying to bribe anyone, but there is something we all need to understand.”

With a thud of her cane on the floor, the residents turned to her like raccoons being caught in a garbage can. Em prepared herself for a show of saintly-hood the uptight woman so adored.

“There is no ‘us’ and ‘them,’ We are in this together,” Venable proclaimed, “No individual is greater than the group. We did what we had to do. This is, quite simply, a tragedy.”

Em held her tongue for once. While Stu and herself hadn’t been close, she respected him more than she respected most of her fellow purples. The old world may have died, but the power games still presided — a strongman was still a strongman even when draped in fine clothes and laced in a corset.

It wasn’t as if any of them were paying her any mind, too enthralled in the smell of salt and meat like Hansel and Gretal in the witch’s house. Dinah sighed as she took another bite.

“Where have you been hiding the meat?”

Venable’s pause waved over Em like a bucket of cold water, the slight twitch of her lip as she looked down at her plate louder and more illuminating than any sermon she had given them. “We have resources… for special occasions.”

Em could only stare at her as she ate, trying to work at the puzzle which was Miss Venable. There were moments where she swore the woman showed regret or perhaps anxiety, but they were small and fleeting. Everyone had a tell, even the most stoic of society. Em just couldn’t figure it out and it drove her up a wall. It felt like she was staring at a brick wall, waiting for it to crumble.

Gallant pulled something out from his mouth, cringing as his teeth dig into something hard. It was white and square, but he couldn’t tell what it was? Gristle? Bone?

“I’ve never tasted anything like it.” He murmured, examining the object further as he twisted it in the light.

“It’s chicken,” Mead told him a bit too insistently.

“That’s not a chicken bone,” Timothy spoke, looking from his untouched bowl to the object the hairdresser was holding. His lips pressed into a thin line. Venable took a spoonful to her lips, then another, and then another.

Andre spoke from the other end of the table, voice wavering as he stared at yet another hard piece which had made his teeth hurt, “tell me this doesn’t look like a finger.”

Em looked to her plate, stomach twisting as she poked at the remains of her meal. A piece of white glimmered to the surface. Damning polite behavior, she reached in with her hand and pulled it out. Her mind went blank as she stared at it, rectangular with two prongs reaching outward from the body. It was a tooth. There was no doubt. Chicken didn’t have teeth. A frog gathered at the back of her throat, threatening to leap from her mouth.

“Oh, Jesus Christ,” Andre sputtered out, breath coming out in wheezing gasps as he flew back from the table shrieking, “The stew is Stu!”

The table erupted in panic. Gallant spit out whatever was in his mouth, leaving a dripping dark stain on the tablecloth. Andre wailed and Coco shrieked to a Grey named Mallory to make her throw up. Em could only stare at the near-empty bowl in front of her, the reality not quite sitting with her. Morbid questions filled her mind. It had tasted like… she didn’t know what it tasted like other than meat. Salty, maybe? Sweet?

A firm hand squeezed her own, Emily once again there to pull her from a spiral.

“You didn’t know.”

Amongst the screaming, the gagging, and the retching Venable sat, unmoved by the fires of fear rising around her. She didn’t smile, didn’t frown, didn’t show any reaction at all.

“For heaven’s sake,” she spoke with the same amount of annoyance she always addressed them with, a touch of boredom in her tone “Don’t be ridiculous. There are lines which can never be crossed.”

Something was glinting in Venable’s eyes, something that Em had seen many times before but could never properly place. The woman looked to Mead, “not eating people is off the first rank.”

Em’s voice sounded hollow as it left her, “Yet it is always the first taboo to be broken among the desperate.”

The thought of cannibalism wasn’t what alarmed Em. Cannibalism was deeply ingrained in human history — from burial rituals to a final stand against starvation. No. What frightened her was realizing she would do it again in an instant if it meant her survival. A fire burned in her as she looked to Venable, sitting there with a smug glow of victory. She had hated Venable before, but this made her blood boil at the sight of her. A revelation she did not want had been forced upon her and Venable’s eyes glinted as they met her own.

Her message was clear: Don’t rebel or you’ll be next.

#ahs fanfic #michael langdon #michael langdon x reader #michael langdon x oc

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rwmhunt · 3 years

Text

Leviticus, Chapter 26

1. It's my training- I find With polarizing factors- In essence, they are Attentional. And lo, we're on to how pandemics End, And where I say that I find it normal To see false flags on everything. The victims Are disseminators In isolation stasis, As believers are cast into many Disparate factions- desperately seeking Their own audience and fracturing Reality in their processes. They plead the cause of a deepening iniquity As to a factor for relief, But maketh of ye here, no idols, no bones about it; And rear thee up no columns, No analogue that might measure or mock me with restraint; No feat that might inspire ye to fall, For tis ME. And all of you Need fear More Than hope Now.

2. And here Moses might only be seen In the reflected beam Of his own headlamp, As by it he travails into The little that it casts, For, tis about time we said Goodbye to Sinai, And, having toyed with the pretence, Admit that it is no place to biggeth of a home. But, let us first cut our losses With the aforementioned, spurious Sacrifice.

3. Then walk in My statutes, And in effect, I will take the lot. From Exodus through Numbers, Leviticus Shall appear in the role of Mose's malignant, Functioning as something of a priest in prototype, Here, used for example of what is otherwise superfluous.

4. Thus shall he chafe, at first, against the thing at work- Twas the people who provoked him into the begetting Of a golden idol, whence he went before them and said, - For whom does it end, and who as so doth get to decide? I'll give ye the reigns to such a season as they be deigned for, And hence hath he tapped into some rural frustration, By atleast pretending to pay an attention Unto those who'd’ve had it That they were deserving of an attention, And hitherto presuming That they were getting not of it, Because it was a given that it be going unto others.

5. And, warming- Threshing Shall verily reach unto the vintage, No timescale shall lie upon our dessert, And thence, that it should there suffice And be so furthered of a surfeit also- Sick and tired of winning. There’s an uncertainty about the path That goeth forward, which was always there, But masked By Mose's exceptional approaches from god, With troubling things to report From the frontiers of the rhyzome As dictated by him from a distance; Be it tented or from way up on Sanai. More to the point, with Aaron found in a position Where the idol he created is out of his control, Mose is perhaps more eager now than ever To retain his grip on the base, so To the top of the Mountain, where he again Is lolling with a god who has legacy to defend, And from where he’s tolled upon the god, Who now hath a record of statutes Which need be ramified over time to maintain The same supplication from the base hereunto- By a means that looks increasingly precarious;

6. And still he blew- I can cause evil beasts to cease your path, And slope away, out from the land, So be it a safe space for thinking, yet, Even before Mose had left Egypt, Aaron was charting a course that would bring his horn to clash In conflict with the legacy his brother hath sought As that from up on the mountain. - He, without standing- Made Manifest Destiny As Aboriginal Calamity; Lo, that He should speaketh Only through ol' measly Mose, It’s sick. It’s a sick joke- that’s what it is, And it’s not a joke as far as I’m concerned, It's April the first.

7. And Mose, as responding to winds only when forced to, Is always leveraging to give away the wiggle room For people to interpret his position however they would. He’ll say things vaguely enough to send one message Unto his base while maintaining deniability when questioned By Dr Moloch, with, - we were able to pivot, _, But here, defending himself publicly against his former compatriots, Who had criticized him as a “rogue” and a selfish coward- And of Denver Riggleman hath he chastened as an enemy unto the good, That he shall fall before you as from a sword; where swords believe not... Because sometimes a little bloodletting...

And he trails off...

8. But, as marketing hath recently divined unto Me, In allowance that there shouldst be For a different kind of people to be present at storytelling- The national need for experts in critical languages and other regions- Go thither - that it shouldst not always be Mose, As effective a spokesperson as he fairly is- - We wouldst be able to pivot, deep Into a different frontal cortex and through The past year, shew how powerful our mind could have been, So Denver giveth five of you wriggle room to chase a hundred, And a hundred of you are now chastening of ten thousand; As so shall I up thee thy ante, And my enemies will fall before you as by a sword, For I thought it funny- that there could be no room For anybody who should come As would be so dumb as to think it real, But, lo... it's complicated. When ideas are swords, there broods a tribal metaphor, Absorbing the recondite and thus blooming the tribe, trained To a stream of algorithmy on a fact-immune, ignorant, Analytic white paper.

9. Lo, and compliant with the photograph, I shall have respect as unto you, And make a fruitful of you, and multiply the effect of you; And shall establish My covenant as parley with you; However, with you there, shall I stop- And if you shouldst know of an influencer, That goeth as amongst you, It is upon you, to cut them off, And cast them from the convention, To leave them afloat In the void of their influence; Know me, you are not missing out. And they looked at each other

10. And carried on through A buildingsite for hackers, unto The streaming platforms, as linkethed up Among these sealed back channels, deep In amid online influencer culture, As aideth escape from our antibodies Who deeply infringe into the working of others, Which I see no incentive in trying to dispel, Saying- ye shall eat old-store pottage long kept, And ye shall bring forth such vintage from before the new; The seed shall be my seed and my seed only; me a monothe, find There are plenty of such who want this pandemic to continue; - 'Exactly.' ...But it's not us. - 'Exactly. Thanks to you, Dr Moloch.' And away I rode As quick as I could.

11. Lockdown is as a low gloss and of loss- Gratitude, thank you, thank you, 80 neg 95 from the day before, My soule shall not abhor you In these toxic patterns thrash, For even though there's darkness, Let it be as such that is found exhilarating; For there's nothing like a sword to save us.

12. I will walk among you, And lo will I figure the triggers That allow keeping it alive in a tiny form. A worldly preserve from a range of exotic, begotten In order to find what goes on in the yard; As without ever leaving The bold tent of meaning, Where the project itself shall take care of me. I must not run out; The shelf of ideas must not be let empty.

13. When people ask, ‘When will this end?,’ They are asking about the social conclusion, Where the real answer Is very close To the wrong answer. But you’ve all been doing it, in various ways, And that's evinced as an important reminder Of what we are yet culpable for. Go upright- the answer Affects us all; Differently.

14. But! lo, A better question might be About the so-called-end, Dr. Moloch, he sayeth, - For withdrawal Is a-talkin' 'bout affect- Oh, pay no attention to changes.

15. If, enervated in heat, Wounded with guilts, Stained with sins, An image without a caption, so advanced That all she could offer were comfort care; An hour later, declare the epidemic as so over- Here, as memories are going to be difficult to archive; For the seed hath been sewn by the hackers, Where hackers had shewn a new level of stealth, For they had bade a solitary star, As softly warn on solar winds, To infiltrate networks, take The footprint far, far from Babylon, Raise columns and fresh idols- With such malware attached As may still be working.

16. Then I will appoint terror, same, Death be a-killing people- Catenated, then moderated, then killed off: Lost in the entropics of cancer That so maketh the eye to fail And the soul to languish; Thus, this incident with the Golden Calf , The incident as so nearly brought God To deracinate intrigue, where nobody new Walked in on our room for all our wide length of time; Who- who would escape the crime for a role in the affair ? Aaron was not the teflon idol-maker his resilience, Built, as of an impossible Self-reliance, should determine him to be; Aaron is eroding. And he shall sow your seed in vain, For my enemies shall maketh a relish of it; Then needst I seek for your polluted replacement; Catenated, then moderated, then killed off: The human condition shall not save itself, Ellis said; I find it normal.

17. We are told to use a common inference to decide Whether an aggadah be taken as lateral or vertical; And once you've come to smelt the rood, Drempt of the chundering of swords, Quietly dumped the lot that was- The wild dream, thus superseded With a totem dream- you turn, bearing An unforgotten, felt as a missing, As so make you up to grab of it back- Loss.

18. The calvary the calvary- To characterize this away from me, If amorality be light years over the sky-effort of casting an opinion onto everything, As all be bedraggled before the judgment Of its own rhyzomic scruples, Then I'm not passing nothing; I don’t do horses, ok, Should the fox be all of one beast You me, as the cavalry Charge Decidedly, then seven times worse- Know of our own action, a fiction; I wouldn't say we'd be comfortable In the skin of it today, or ever. If.

19. And I will bust the pith of your power; And I will glove your heaven with iron, And your earth will be rung like brass. Why not? Nobody’s coming round my house. We kept moving, flashing in at the high post. Sparks of titanium came over in a shower, Mose was feeling plangent And understood that the rituals of hegemony Were both ridiculous and necessary; filled, If pulled and scrubbed of reference to _, It was a lot to deal with- Open it, he said, whatever it is. - Did not convince them.

20. Entropy. A runner with beautiful legs- Unsure why I was called here: I can't see any questions You haven't attained a ransom for; Is there reason to speak If it isn't with answer or question?

21. And if ye walk cater-cornered unto Me, And will not hearken to My rune; I will bring seven times more plague Upon your, as-yet-unvisited, doom, Each according to your ills in the manner apt as I see them; Why, lo! Me? Sanctimonious? Is it a sin? - It's ridiculous That you should think To hear the voice of god, Opined Leviticus, - When you don't even know What I've come to mean. - If I am deluded, And I am speaking counter-wise to my meaning, Then who is it who is speaking? And if I walk contrary as to myself, And I am deluded, Who is it that should so moveth, as within me? Nae, you are deluded- You were not deluded, and You have not reached the threshold of paradox; Someone is coming to help.

22. As i stood on Bilston roundabout, No chance of a crossing- Cars Fast revveth they past- I smelt the sting Of their kind of damage; I looked into their eyes, They had an inkling To what's going on. The Golden Calf- Loss.

23. But they're just hire vans Picking up wood and what have you. So Belisha was a beacon on the road to captivity, I fear for the understanding and the regard Of increment and consequence, Now endentured within the culture, And exhibiting an inordinate amount of animus To conventionally pollute the landscape; I too have proved dependent On lorry drivers. Still no?

24. Then I'll do the crab, And I'll drop you again, A fulle seven times deeper in, Among the analogue of what Streamed out of the book of Leviticus- Manifest Destiny, Aboriginal Catastrophe, Rout the field; the rave plague- Widescreen monoculture; No one's coming for us.

25. So hear The horror At harvest time- Of produce Being plunder, A proof Upon the alter That poses itself As a given Which isn't to give.

Your past is unintrudable. Until that they come.

26. By suggesting an invalid value As to the nature of the work, I pool you into the conceit via the threat of its loss; There, lost, found budded and blossomed, Producing the taste of ripe almonds, It's base near the solar wind farm, Whispering soft that shepherd is a crook. And, woe is me! but, worry not, I aim to set it up as something, for a while. Where bread of bread be broken and never enough, Even though all women bake forever at once. Exodus hath let his rod turn unto a snake, Then stretch itself out in order To bring on the first plagues; May hey go pound sand.

27. Still? Really? I defy you, Creeping normally over Hebron In fear for the understanding and regard -As I told you- Of consequence and increment, Endentured in the culture; An inordinate amount of animus exhibited- And a swordly sword upon you- saying you're gone When you're not even off the sacremount. A vengeance of a covenant I'm unsure that you've ever agreed to, But the veil has been bought over- Pestilence and loss.

28. Furious, me, Seven times seven times seven times worse. i.e. as optimized to amplify outrage, unearthed, although, I'm not sure I've invoked enough dimension to illustrate All of what should be press-ganged unto the frontal lobe.

29. Eat your children. There- that's me. I'm my own actress.

30. And I will devoid your high places, And cut down thy sun-pillars, Leave you a skeleton crew to a ghost ship, Intemperately adrift.

And so the carcass wore on, And so hath foundered against the carcasses of idols; And so His soul hath fairly abhorred me.

31. Loss, loss, I'm not sniffing. Slowly go back, A little bit broken, Caution is the easiest option; A draggyness will reinforce a positive While performing an unintended habit; It’s not enough to treat either of us with the end of the week- Make sure the reward is something i experience as of when you are amid your behaviours. No, I'll say it, Die at the tent of an open market, Between repetition and habit formation, I shew correlation, that is not causation — Not with the repetition, for lo, I'm emotion- I will always be idiopathic- Think it a divine dispensation. So tired of the restrictions I declare the end over, And, that the virus continue to smoulder, All characteristics in being so mutable- Then Moses stood in the door of the tent, Amid multiple failed predictions, - I deserve the ability to return to my life.

32. There is a number we can all be comfortable with. Have it then, So bad as to make your enemies feel some for you. And who goes looking for replacement? Speak, and he spoke, That "something big" would partake; That a truth would emerge "next week". Some of those watching the mountain from afar Came to consider, at the end, - That, looking back, we have a weak narrative. - We have a weak narrative.

33. Scattered among the nations- waste-spaces. Some say a prediction of entropy is as the general theory Of a safe bet. What may be looked upon from within The tent of meaning to be a magical, Mystical voice of secret wisdom, As sayeth we needst people push'd unto an inflection point, Where that they pick up a stone, find another and thither lay hands- That, as a weird snake, goeth crazy and kill Itself, Aaron became spokesperson for a fish oil supplement Made up of sophisticated spies who spoke foreign languages and travelled, Which, when filled, if pulled and scrubbed of reference to a golden calf, Could descry my covenant of such that We're determined not to be, By our psychological nor pathogenic ends, But by the primary given of our socio-political twin-set, As ever, we, ridiculous, replacement and necessarily, Can go pound sand.

34. It's all about sevens, in sabbaths- I warned you, you owe me a desolation, Old saying, “Spy one, ring one, leave one.” For a sabbath is my parle with dust. Should you push back against the notion of endings, What are you thinking to be, as thus pushed back against? What are you claiming when you say, No, no it isn't ending?

35. Desolation is rest, Even the rest of a draggyness, And like most things will be, Twas named twice- Once in ignorance And once in knowledge, Which it got not on your busy weekends, when ye dwelt, While otherwise engaged, upon it. If the Act gets signed, It’ll be today; Or tomorrow. Not a day later; Before we hang up, he mutters, - Twas a smuggler what done it, And needst be taken out In the name of Babylon;

36. For I shall send a faint unto the heart of the remainder In the lands of those jaded by you; and the sound of the driven leaf Shall give chase; so away do you flee, as one fleeth from ideas of a sword Or a satellite-controlled gun in the sky, Where no terrorists are present on the ground. And so shall fall they, when none pursueth, as by the draggyness Of where we're OK with a god watching over us, Because he might maketh protection of us, By shewing no incentive as to try and dispel, And by this, the virus hath gained Our blueprint for its future, Where Dr. Moloch just said - This is this sort of conflict now- That each epidemic amplifieth the next, From where all epidemics begin, anecdotally- In China.

37. And they shall stumble, one upon the other, And so through a very depressing time, when Everything is read about, and only of how Everyone's at loggerheads And nobody's cooperating with anybody. So hie, on Trump Time? But! That’s then, The suspected culprit, be it Hackers and their alleged paymasters, The smuggler what hath done it Or more malign actors- it's No reasonable person. No reasonable person should be found liable. No reasonable person should be found liable to believe it. - Did not convince them.

38. Here Aaron hath a parting message for those who might still be caught upon the roiling forums of this sort of carcass, as he once was, - Don’t leave your habits to chance, To be a derision among My enemies— It is not real- I did not think, until the very end, that it was necessarily for me to maketh the call On whether to blow it all; lo, Tiny Habits. Twas a wonderful opportunity to be deliberate. Easy, it is, to fall in line with peace and society and be so mindful. Where the lights returneth to the eyes, That at this moment, remaineth dormant. Perish, and I shall eat you up.

39. No, pine away; with thy fathers pine inside of a tree. There's a need here, so be ok With a god that watcheth over, because he, Before he role-played the insurrection and ransacked the seat of the tent of meaning, Said that the human condition cannot save itself, That our memories are going to be difficult to achieve, So now we're lost to workshops, listening sessions, A training in equity, inclusion and cultural awareness- As unto the host, the producers and the skeleton crew, And here the real answer Is close within The carcass of the other; The parody to the tragedy, Closer than is comfortably recorded By the ummim, the thurim, The uncomfortable fascinator- The wriggle out Did not convince. Focus on the wrong.

40. So to the Sacrifice, Which is short, and for a sacrifice of well-being, Sins of the father and of their own as, finally, confessed- - You’ve been killing yourself for the rest of your lives By going after the big calf, even in jest; I don’t think we’re meant to do a life alone, While community support can be really empounding. Then Aaron invoked the analect of What was hitherto only alluded after- Lord shew mercy o'er the soule Of poor olde Martin Elginbrod, As He would do, as He is god and You, but Martin Elginbrod. Nae, no sacrifice- god can furnish himself.

\/\/\...Major disruption expected until end of service... Someone is coming to help.../\/\/

41. If your intelligence... Doesn't move... At the speed of your lips... ... Then... That's not to say... And so ... won't be said... I suppose... It's not hard to... Overflow... U's address- - It's outrageous; who gets To claim the end? As Dr. Moloch skewered, - Where U's Without wiggle room; then Why would you release this information if it wasn't true? - It intrigues my botherance and no more.

42. There's a vacuum at the top that can always Be rendered to the service of sociopathy- So Aaron had reached the merrye age of 123 when on his back, Forking it over, he remembered the covenant; How transacting with God had always left him feeling dubious- At once on the bum-end of a raw deal and at the same time, A confidence trixter; that he was present only as a matter of course, As would allow for the whole to happen and what else? I got a shot of the obligatory handshake- it looked obligatory. I will remember the land.

43. Lo, for the land, the land as she lie Forsaken, shall late enjoy, in finding Return on her sabbaths in desolation; And they shall repay of the crime by iniquity- A draggyness, and then an emptiness, A peace and a solemnity. Oh my sabbaths, my covenant of sevens, Leave you me memories, On remember the land, How pandemics End, For they who to decide, And as go pound sand, Because, even because of thee and thy Rejecting of My ordinance, and then all souls abhorred, All lost, for The attention economy Where holes get called into question, Then provoked, Beyond their outskirts Flash.- I used to run. Leave me you memories. And the land- lyrical several hundred miles westward went we. Where failed mechanisms Are left to turn as ever Then, by the cypher, Reprise to page one, But my sky bolts- They are not regular And cannot be relied upon With your imperfectly leaky recall, Unqualified insight and inadequate processing- Tis an inapt power.

44. Still, for all that, I'm with you, yeah- Why, if I sell you a pipedream That will last you out your days; Which, smiled at, across your ashes, As with a wink, so with a nod, And then that, with a fondness, thus wains;- Will it not do? A 'freewill', as a given, unto you, As also upon the universe, Whereby bestowed Within a periodic Doubling to chaos, As might interpret the efficiency Of its instruments and Deny you the myths; Let to live among bad ones. Might.

45. The weight of a human collapse Is quite light, And leaves not a trace in the ground. I lie on the bank, benign Beneath the long, lean, slantage of the sun. So Moses disposes Of my properties from here; It's good bye to the Umim and to the Thurim. My brother writes my will best, As he once bade sacrifice of me; So smite him, for I'm still a grudgeful god, Still, mostly, I'll be thinking about Egypt, I find it my Culloden, In other words, An end can occur not because We grow tired of the mode And learn to live with the damage, But, In moping that fate should be The brighter star, Get on.

46. The cave closed behind Mose On his retreat from Aaron's bier, through the thickening air; And what of the Urim and Thummim- stripp'd When he wenteth so, as before the store? Aaron's memory was left for people who came after him, The pillar of cloud which proceeded in front of the van As god disallowed, disappeared with Aaron's death. Coincidences of events form the structures of time-space and give, In inference, to the retched conundrum Of how to respond- the 'you are the same of a different Stage in the only narrative there goes to tell' notion- Sinai. At another site gazelles were found At the feet of several burial mounds- - Why'd you bury them there? Enriquez enquired. - Has to be a reason. But a hypothesis is An implicit bias to begin; Hard as it be To set off without one; a return to the rushes, To the brushes- Been moiled among words For a little too long. The angel's death march On the day of revelation; the path of obsolescence To an end of ministration; god actively bows, And then obliterates the lot of them.

Why bow? He ponders. Ponders? Never. Sorry.

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beardangora3 · 3 years

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<h2>The Probable Of Manifestation 7 Strategies to Manifest Your Concentrates on</h2>

In instances similar to this, I do believe that it's important to dwell our total every day daily life to the maximum? Soul Manifestation Examples Are you currently planning to discover the actuality with regards to Soul Manifestation's Tailored Soul Route Document by Soul Manifestation as well as does it genuinely exhibit its people precisely how to figure out the exact lifestyles that they can happen to be born to dwell?

She really is a entertained plan to supply for regularity upgrades in addition to direction on the most beneficial solution to create a productive along with profoundly satisfying existence. Yeah every single time you listen to individuals communicating relevant to alignment, it sincerely all earnings to consistency. In addition your soul is out there within your maximum frequency… each on the decreased atmosphere things will most likely be your individual acquiring inside of the way. Though Batiste’s jazz function dominates the earlier phases while in the video, the Reznor and Ross rating concerns the fore in excess of these metaphysical segments of SOUL and following that since the supernatural encroaches into living in the world. You'll find ambient passages that perform like far more serene variations within the NIN duo’s pay attention to many other video clips, but additionally bright, jaunty, busily blippy synth instrumentals that pleasingly evoke an ’80s instructional video soundtrack. The region-age noise characteristics appropriately to delineate the restrictions somewhere between Joe’s daily lifestyle and also the higher actuality he’s located him self in, as well as regardless of just how intensive or hyperactive the credit score gets to be, it never ever distracts through the graphics. I failed to even comprehend just exactly how a lot the songs was shaping the surroundings in the movie until finally a pirate deliver of mystics showed up bumping Bob Dylan’s “Subterranean Homesick Blues” along with punctured the feel.

Their compelled, unnatural conversation gracelessly outs them as hailing from distinctive avenues of life-style, heading just brief of superimposing the words “it could afflict you, as well! Kristin Davis positions a perfectly-hydrated encounter throughout the scourge of voluntourism turning into a lady consuming, praying, as well as loving her method to Zambia to obtain a new commence, and in addition in a more true perception, for income tax uses. It's there she falls for aviator-artist Deprive Lowe, in addition to reenergizes herself by getting her vet knowledge to conduct in a elephant sanctuary. Aside from its tough stance that ivory poaching is negative, the film evinces no being familiar with of the optics of your respective white-colored girl actually most likely to “find herself” in Africa.

is really superior that it need to be “cut away externally planet,” which generally is Tau acting related to your total dumbass frequently. While I am steadfast within my idea that “The Summertime That Changed Everything” is amid a single of cinema’s most dependable subgenres, William Bindley did his darndest to influence me usually with this soulless imitation.

They need to discover considerably increased than to issue an innocent little one for the volley of poop jokes, era-improper burst-tradition personal references, as well as pathos-as-afterthought positioned in this sub-Minions cartoon abomination. Jim Gaffigan voices a lighthearted goose bachelor who winds up in custody of two defenseless little one ducks divided off their head. (DUCK. DUCK. GOOSE. DO YOU Get It?!) Five Strong Points of Soul Manifestation They have no variety but to consider them below his wing plus give them again from whence they came, learning various threadbare training associated with responsibility along just how.

#manifest #manifesto #manifesting #manifestation #money manifest #attract money #love manifest #manifest money #manifest laws #law of manifestation #law of attraction #manifest desire #manifest dreams #manifests

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seldnei · 3 years

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What? The?

Is it the plane? Is that why people are moving away? That cannot be true, because a good 80% of the people in this state would totally be on that plane if given the chance (one of them being Mr Seldnei).

Is that the plane people are using to move away? Then to whence are the Florida Men™ flying, pray tell me: what other place in this country—nay, this world—would accept this plane full of Floridians doing their Floridian Thang?

#the strange vagaries of tumblr #what the what now?#seldnei lives in florida

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krispyweiss · 3 years

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Album Review: John Hurlbut and Jorma Kaukonen - The River Flows

Having worked together at Fur Peace Ranch for a couple of decades, John Hurlbut and Jorma Kaukonen play together as an acoustic duo on the River Flows.

A collection of covers by such songwriters as Roger McGuinn, Curtis Mayfield, Gene Clark and Spencer Bohren, the LP is spearheaded by rhythm guitarist Hurlbut, who delivers the tracks in a Dylanesque vocal style.

Highlights come early, as on the lengthy instrumental intro to McGuinn’s “The Ballad of Easy Rider,” a 10-minute tour-de-flow from whence the album’s title comes and the tone is set for the subsequent 30 minutes.

Clark’s “Kanas City Southern” is another highlight and serves Hurlbut’s vocal style better than Mayfield’s “People Get Ready.” And Kaukonen shines on the country blues of Bohren’s “Travelin’,” which Hurlbut delivers with Jimmie Rodgers-styled phrasing so convincing you expect him to yodel.

He does not yodel.

The LP take a melancholy turn in the homestretch as Hurlbut sings, I’d give everything I had just to hear my mom and dad/sing those old songs they used to sing together, on “The Old Homestead,” a particularly poignant line from a couple of players who just turned 65 and 80, respectively.

This is followed by the record’s lone original, Hurlbut’s “Someone’s Calling.” It’s a reminder that departed loved ones’ voices are carried on the wind and closes the River Flows on a hopeful note.

Grade card: John Hurlbut and Jorma Kaukonen - The River Flows - B

1/14/21

#john hurlbut #jorma kaukonen #jorma kaukonen’s fur peace ranch #jefferson airplane #hot tuna #roger mcguinn #gene clark #the byrds #curtis mayfield #spencer bohren #bob dylan #jimmie rodgers #the river flows #2020 albums

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wisdomrays · 4 years

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RAMADAN: Part 2

The Relation Between Fasting and God's Self Sufficiency

Even if it is only temporary, fasting is a way which helps discern the meaning of 'God's Self Sufficiency'. God is 'The Self Sufficient One' (Samad). He does not need anything, He never eats or drinks, throughout time and throughout space. God is He on Whom all depend. Believers leave the material world by fasting, leave behind even the necessities of life. By acting in such a manner, as if they do not need anything, and as if they were angels, they educate themselves in the manner of God and become closer to God. This attitude is the resonance of the true care and mercy, acting like a receiver to the breeze that comes from the world of care and mercy at the same frequency.

The Relation of Fasting and Thanksgiving

In the Qur'an it states, 'He gives you all you ask Him for. And were you to count God's favors you will never be able to exhaust them.' (14: 34)

Fasting helps us to see the true face of favors, the value of which we are unaware. The fasting believer is a person who lives in poverty amongst riches. He is hungry and keeps himself from eating until iftar, yet there is food in the home. The believer understands that one drop of water or one crumb of bread is a bounty. Ones who only give thanks for occasional 'extra' blessings realize that even the things they take for granted, like bread and water, are great blessings in reality.

Fasting is a form of prayer that helps us to understand what true thanksgiving to God is.

Another concern about thanksgiving and fasting is that if a believer experiences deprivation, even if it is only temporarily, they will then know what deprivation is. This is not knowledge, rather it is a deep interpretation. One who fasts will desire to help the poor. The wealthy believer, after giving thanks, will share his wealth with love and mercy. Fasting is a form of social worship, even if it appears to be an individual worship.

Another practical benefit of fasting concerns health. Fasting is often suggested as a form of protection from illnesses. Overeating is an invitation to many illnesses. Fasting is an asceticism of the spirit and a diet of the body. The soul takes advantage of the empty stomach and makes itself open to development. When a fasting believer is able to fast with his whole body, then the soul lives true asceticism. Eating less helps to talk less and sleep less. If a believer can complete the Dhikr (Remembrance of God) then they are able to leave the material world.

Believers are aware of all these benefits that are provided by fasting. That is why they fast before the month of Ramadan, during the months of Rajab and Shaban. After Ramadan, during the month of Shawwal, they fast for six days; this is considered as having the same reward as fasting for a whole year. This period is called 'ayyamul 'biyz' the 13th,'14th,' and 15th days in a lunar calendar month. The days of ashura and the arafa are also good opportunities for fasting. In addition, to fast on Mondays and Thursdays is sunna.

B. THE NIGHT OF QADR (Power)

The most important and blessed night within the year is the Night of Qadr (Power). God chose the month of Ramadan for believers to fast and He gave much importance to this night. In the Qur'an, the the Night of Qadr is mentioned, being given utmost importance.

On the Night of Qadr, the single most important event in human history unfolded. The Glorious Qur'an was preserved in 'the Preserved Tablet', and the Archangel Gabriel descended with the blessed book to reveal it upon the command of God to His Messenger (pbuh). On this night, the doors of the heavens opened and the revelation descended. So valuable is this Night of Qadr that a special sura has been devoted to it in the Qur'an; it is a night that is better than a thousand months. Gabriel descended many times to earth in order to convey a message to the prophets, but on the Night of Qadr Gabriel, the other angels and God's mercy poured down to earth for the sake of the Qur'an.

The Night of Qadr is important for us; if this night is spent in prayers and supplications all past sins and mistakes will be forgiven. 'Whoever stands in prayer during Laylat-ul- Qadr, with faith and being hopeful of God's reward, will have his former sins forgiven.

The night of Qadr has meanings, such as the night of power, decree, majesty and honor. The Divine Decrees are issued on this night, the appointed time of everything is fixed and the blessings are apportioned. It is such a great and honored night that its blessings are more than that of a thousand months.

The Night of Qadr is such an important night that there is a special sura devoted to it in the Qur'an:

'We have sent it (the Qur'an) down on the Night of Qadr.

If only you knew what is the Night of Qadr.

The Night of Qadr is better than a thousand months.

The angels and the Spirit (Gabriel) descend thereon by the leave of their Lord with every command.

It is peace, till the break of dawn.' (97; 1-6)

1. We have sent it down on the Night of Qadr:

In the first verse, God the Most High, states that the Qur'an was sent down on the Night of Qadr. Indeed the word "Qur'an" is not used in the first verse; instead a pronoun is used. With the sentence 'We have sent it down', God indicates both the greatness of He Who sent it and He shows the great honor of that which was sent. The Qur'an is so great and honorable that it is obvious that God has sent it and of course the night on which it was sent must therefore be an important night. The complete Qur'an was sent down from 'The Preserved Tablet' on this night to the 'The House of Glory' in the lowest heaven, from whence it was revealed piecemeal to the Prophet (pbuh), according to events which took place during his life, over a period of twenty-three years.

2. If only you knew what is the Night of Qadr:

In this verse God makes clear the greatness of the night of Al-Qadr, the night on which He chose to send down the Noble Qur'an. The night of Qadr is such an important night, yet if God had left us alone and had not informed us of its importance we would not have understood the value of this night.

3. The Night of Qadr is better than a thousand months:

The number a thousand might not mean the exact number of months, or it might in fact mean exactly 83 years. The good deeds performed on this night, the fasting on this night and the standing in prayer on this night are all better than the good deeds, prayers and fasting of a thousand months. The rewards of all these are countless. Only God knows how much reward will be given to those who spend the night in prayer. This is a very large blessing for the followers of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh).

It is reported that the Prophet (pbuh) was shown the people who had lived in ancient times; it seemed as if the lifespan of those in his community were shorter, thus making it not possible for them to accomplish the same amount of deeds as those who had come before, as they had lived longer lives. Thus, God gave Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) the night of Qadr, which is better than a thousand months. This also shows us that a span of 80 years for the people of today is quite a long time.

4-6. The angels and the Spirit (Gabriel) descend thereon by the leave of their Lord with every command. It is peace, till the break of dawn:

The word 'spirit' has been interpreted as signifying the Archangel Gabriel. On this night the Archangel Gabriel and innumerable other angels descended with innumerable blessings and mercy. Their descent occured several times, not only once, and this was repeated by other groups of angels who continued to descend until the dawn.

The words "by the Lord's permission" show the importance of the angels' descent and their tasks.

The Prophet's (pbuh) advice, found in different hadiths, suggests that one should search for the Night of Qadr in the last 10 days of Ramadan, especially on odd numbered days.

God's mercy and peace surrounds believers until dawn. The angels pray for the believers and send salutations of peace to those who are occupied in prayer until dawn. The morning of the night is also full of goodness and it is serene, tranquil and peaceful. A good example of this is the victory of Badr, which took place during the life of the Prophet (pbuh) in the second year of emigration from Makka to Madina.

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iamweartdc · 4 years

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3/19/20

Everything is covered. Not just with some invisible germ but by a blanket of tension. We've all got the same things on our minds and it's changing the temperature of it all (pun intended). It's like we're all tuned into the same station and it's all we hear. I wonder if people who are feeling hyper aware for the first time realize: this is how it feels all the time for me. That manic awareness.

If I were a legit recluse. If I were doing this how I really want, I would be posted up on a porch. Drinking. Watching the world go by. There's just a window here. Mopsy is sitting on the sill watching the pink blossoms bob against the grey sky. Two blue birds just landed amongst them.

I ripped yesterday's page out. So technically this is not my first entry. I was faded. Not sure why I did that. Just a continuation of my lifelong battle with the legitimacy of my own thoughts. "This one isn't deep enough," "This one is too melodramatic." It's like I hold my interiority to the same standard I hold my fiction. How sadistic. I guess I'm making myself into a character. Now I am only "writer." Not citizen, not party girl, not roommate, not lover, not girl on the train or in the bar. Those people are gone for now. I wake up and sit down to drink coffee and write my three pages. Then I work on something else. Yesterday I worked on escaping. I went into the woods with Sara and found a fallen tree to sit on.

We walked around Glover Park and went to our old elementary school. It's all glass and fancy now, but we went when it was just a little brick building. I saw the tree that made me a writer. Really, I would sit there and imagine stories about that tree. The only way to describe a tree like that is magnificent. Awesome. An idol grown to worship itself, yet unaware of the process. It just is. Is it in the act of observation that the force of life becomes magic? or in the space where life exists unaware of itself, only there to do what it is already silently doing? Communicating only with its own needs in each moment and reacting to the needs of life around it. I guess my thinking about that tree, looking up at it, is still life communicating with life. I am alive, although I tend to complicate my purpose beyond just survival. All humans do that, if they're so lucky. I wrote like 80 pages about that damn tree when I was like 12. "Ignotus," the story of a magical girl with a quest.

We went to our first home and I tried to dig up a brick on the sidewalk right in front that I knew I had hidden things under so many years ago, "trinkets untold lay under this brick." I couldn't get it out of the dirt because of my long nails and Sara said we would come back with a pick axe. It all needs a pick axe.

We walked and talked about the changing world and then went back to her place and got high. Mom says I can't do that anymore, that it's too dangerous. I can't see Savta because she's an at risk community. She said it breaks her heart not to see me. At Sara's we drank red wine, ate Oreos, watched The Fellowship of the Ring and compared our place in the current apocalypse to that of the situation in Middle Earth. Who will be the Frodo? Who will cast Corona into the fire from whence it came?

It's probably not all too productive to be comparing those two situations, but it made me laugh. Made us laugh, so there's that.

Tomorrow I'll go back to the woods with my book and journal. I don't miss any of the old world, yet.

#quarantine #journal #dear diary #coronavirus

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soulsofjannah · 4 years

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The Superiority of Istighfar

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

(الاِسْتِغْفَارُ) is the verbal noun from [اِسْتَغْفَرَ وَيَسْتَغْفِرُ ] to seek Allah’s forgiveness. The word [الغُفُرُ ] means to cover and conceal.

The words, [الغَفُورُ وَالغَفَّارُ وَالغَافِرُ] are all names of Allah and mean the covering of the servants sins and the pardoning him of his errors.

Shaykh Zayd Al-Madkhali said: These three names mean that Allah is vast in virtue and Very Generous in Forgiveness towards repenters, as long as they don’t continue to sin.

These three names all mean the same thing according to the scholars of Tafsir. Allah conceals the sins of the servants who repent, feel remorseful and request His pardon and His forgiveness. [1]

The reality of Istighfar

No human-being is sin free, no of us are infallible, so it’s man’s nature to sin. The Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) said: “Every son of Adam commits sin, and the best of those who commit sin are those who repent.’”[2]

Allah is delighted when we sin and then seeks his forgiveness. This is part of His Mercy. The Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) said, “By the One in Whose Hand my soul is, were you not to commit sins, Allah would replace you with a people who would commit sins and then seek forgiveness from Allah; and Allah would forgive them”.[3]

Its worth mentioning here that Istighfar isn’t only done on the tongue which has no impact on the Heart and body. Al-Fudayl ibn Iyyad said: “Seeking Allah’s forgiveness without abandoning the sin is the repentance of liar.”

So seeking forgiveness from Allah also requires us to leave off the sins.

Istighfar is for the Believers.

Allah said: It is not (proper) for the Prophet and those who believe to ask Allah’s Forgiveness for the Mushrikun (polytheists, idolaters, pagans, disbelievers in the Oneness of Allah) even though they be of kin, after it has become clear to them that they are the dwellers of the Fire (because they died in a state of disbelief).[At-Taubah:113]

Allah’s Messenger, (ﷺ) said:

I asked permission to seek forgiveness for my mother from Allah, but He did not grant it to me. I asked permission from Him to visit her grave, and He granted it (permission) to me.”[4]

Allah said: Whether you (O Muhammad ) ask forgiveness for them (hypocrites) or ask not forgiveness for them … (and even) if you ask seventy times for their forgiveness … Allah will not forgive them, because they have disbelieved in Allah and His Messenger (Muhammad ). And Allah guides not those people who are Fasiqun (rebellious, disobedient to Allah).[At-Taubah:80]

These two verses and hadith prove that forgiveness isn’t sought on behalf of the disbelievers and the hypocrites. Istighfar is a special trait that Allah has only favored the Muslims with.

An abandoned Sunnah for Istighfar

The Prophet used to wipe the head of the children and ask Allah to forgiven them. Abu Iyas said, “ My father took me to the Prophet [ﷺ] when I was a young child and the He [ﷺ] wiped my head and asked Allah to forgive me.”[5]

The Wordings used for Istighfar

[‏ رَبِّ اغْفِرْ لِي وَتُبْ عَلَىَّ إِنَّكَ أَنْتَ التَّوَّابُ الرَّحِيمُ]

Narrated Abdullah ibn Umar :

We counted that the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) would say a hundred times during a meeting: “My Lord, forgive me and pardon me; You are the Pardoning and the Forgiving One”.[6]

[أَسْتَغْفِرُ اللَّهَ الَّذِي لاَ إِلَهَ إِلاَّ هُوَ الْحَىُّ الْقَيُّومُ وَأَتُوبُ إِلَيْهِ]

The Prophet (ﷺ) said: If anyone says: “I ask pardon of Allah ,with Whom there is no deity, the Living, the eternal, and I turn to Him in repentance,” he will be pardoned, even if he has fled in time of battle.[7]

[أَسْتَغْفِرُ اللَّهَ وَأَتُوبُ إِلَيْهِ]

Narrated Abu Huraira:

I heard Allah’s Messenger (ﷺ) saying.” By Allah! I ask for forgiveness from Allah and turn to Him in repentance more than seventy times a day.[8]

[سَيِّدَ الاِسْتِغْفَارِ]

اللَّهُمَّ أَنْتَ رَبِّي لاَ إِلَهَ إِلاَّ أَنْتَ خَلَقْتَنِي وَأَنَا عَبْدُكَ وَأَنَا عَلَى عَهْدِكَ وَوَعْدِكَ مَا اسْتَطَعْتُ أَعُوذُ بِكَ مِنْ شَرِّ مَا صَنَعْتُ أ��بُوءُ لَكَ بِذَنْبِي وَأَبُوءُ لَكَ بِنِعْمَتِكَ عَلَىَّ فَاغْفِرْ لِي فَإِنَّهُ لاَ يَغْفِرُ الذُّنُوبَ إِلاَّ أَنْتَ

(O Allah, You are my Lord, there is no god but You. You have created me and I am Your slave and I am keeping my promise and covenant to You as much as I can. I seek refuge with You from the evil of what I do. I acknowledge Your blessing and I acknowledge my sin, so forgive me, for there is none who can forgive sin except You.)’ If he says this in the morning, believing in it firmly, and dies on that day before evening comes, he will enter Paradise, and if he says it in the evening, believing firmly in it, and dies before morning comes, he will enter Paradise.”[9]

[وَاِسْتَغْفِرِيهُ عُشْرًا]

Um Raf’I when you stand for prayer say, “ Subhanallah 10 times, la illah ilallah 10 times, Al-Hamdulilah 10 times, Allahu Akbar 10 times then say As-staghfurallah 10 times. When you say subhanallah 10 times Allah says this is for me and when you la illah ilallah 10 times Allah says this is for me, and when you say Al-Hamdulilah 10 times Allah says this is for me and when you say Allahu akbar Allah says this is form and when we seek forgiveness after saying those words He says, “ I have forgiven you.”[10]

The times of the day to perform Istighfar

After completing worship

Allah said: Then depart from the place whence all the people depart and ask Allah for His Forgiveness. Truly, Allah is Oft-Forgiving, Most-Merciful.[Al-Baqarah:199]

Although this verse was revealed for Hajj, it applies to completing the prayer and other acts of worship that we fall short in performance.

The last hours of the night

Allah said :(They are) those who are patient ones, those who are true (in Faith, words, and deeds), and obedient with sincere devotion in worship to Allah. Those who spend [give the Zakat and alms in the Way of Allah] and those who pray and beg Allah’s Pardon in the last hours of the night.[11]

After completing a class or gathering

سُبْحَانَكَ اللَّهُمَّ وَبِحَمْدِكَ أَشْهَدُ أَنْ لاَ إِلَهَ إِلاَّ أَنْتَ أَسْتَغْفِرُكَ وَأَتُوبُ إِلَيْكَ ‏

The Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) said: “Whoever sits in a sitting and engages in alot of empty and meaningless speech and then says before getting up from that sitting of his: [‘Glory is to You, O Allah, and praise, I bear witness that there is none worthy of worship except You, I seek You forgiveness, and I repent to You,] then whatever occurred in that sitting would be forgiven from him.”[12]

Also there is other narration when the prophet [ﷺ] said these words after completing Wudu and reading the Quran.[13]

After burying a Muslim

After the burial of a dead man, the Prophet (ﷺ) would stand by the grave and say, “Ask Allah to forgive your brother and supplicate for him be steadfast ,because he is being questioned (about his deeds) now.”[14]

Seeking Istighfar is the way of the Angels and the Prophets.

The Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) said, “The angels supplicate in favour of one of you ,so long as he remains in the place where he has performed Salat (prayer) in a state of Wudu’. They (the angels) say: ‘O Allah! Forgive him, O Allah! Have mercy on him.”‘[15]

Adam

Allah said: They said: “Our Lord! We have wronged ourselves. If You forgive us not, and bestow not upon us Your Mercy, we shall certainly be of the losers.”[ Al-‘Araf: 23]

Nuh

Allah said: Nuh (Noah) said: “O my Lord! I seek refuge with You from asking You that of which I have no knowledge. And unless You forgive me and have Mercy on me, I would indeed be one of the losers.”[ Hud :47]

Ibrahim

Allah said: “And Who, I hope will forgive me my faults on the Day of Recompense, (the Day of Resurrection),”[Ash-Shu’ara: 82]

Dawud

Allah said: And Dawud (David) guessed that We have tried him and he sought Forgiveness of his Lord, and he fell down prostrate and turned (to Allah) in repentance.[ Saad: 24]

Sulayman

Allah said: He said: “My Lord! Forgive me, and bestow upon me a kingdom such as shall not belong to any other after me: Verily, You are the Bestower.”[Saad:35]

Musa

Allah said: He said: “My Lord! Verily, I have wronged myself, so forgive me.” Then He forgave him. Verily, He is the Oft-Forgiving, the Most Merciful.[Al-Qasas:16]

The benefits of Istighfar

It’s a command from Allah:

Allah said: So be patient (O Muhammad ). Verily, the Promise of Allah is true, and ask forgiveness for your fault, and glorify the praises of your Lord in the Ashi (i.e. the time period after the midnoon till sunset) and in the Ibkar (i.e. the time period from early morning or sunrise till before midnoon) [it is said that, that means the five compulsory congregational Salat (prayers) or the ‘Asr and Fajr prayers].[Ghafir: 55]

It’s a means to increase your provision:

Allah said: I said (to them): ‘Ask forgiveness from your Lord; Verily, He is Oft-Forgiving;11. ‘He will send rain to you in abundance;12. ‘And give you increase in wealth and children, and bestow on you gardens and bestow on you rivers.’ “[Nuh 10-12]

It’s help one enter Jannah

Refer to the hadith known as “ Sayyidul Istighfar”

It removes sins

Anas (May Allah be pleased with him) said

I heard the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) saying, “Allah, the Exalted, has said: ‘O son of Adam! I shall go on forgiving you so long as you pray to Me and aspire for My forgiveness whatever may be your sins. O son of Adam! I do not care even if your sins were reach up to the sky and should you beg pardon of Me, I would forgive you. O son of Adam! If you come to Me with an earthful of sins and meet Me, without associating anything with Me in worship, I will certainly grant you as much pardon that could fill the earth.”‘[16]

It Repels harm and calamity

Allah said: And Allah would not punish them while you (Muhammad ) are amongst them, nor will He punish them while they seek (Allah’s) Forgiveness.[Al-Anfal:33]

It raises your level in Jannah

The Messenger of Allah(ﷺ) said: “A man will be raised in status in Paradise and will say: ‘Where did this come from?’ And it will be said:’From your son’s praying for forgiveness for you.'”[17]

It cleans the heart

The Messenger of Allah said: “Verily, when the slave (of Allah) commits a sin, a black spot appears on his heart. When he refrains from it, seeks forgiveness and repents, his heart is polished clean. But if he returns, it increases until it covers his entire heart. And that is the ‘Ran’ which Allah mentioned: ‘Nay, but on their hearts is the Ran which they used to earn.’”[18]

The Spiritual Development of Istighfar

It makes the Dunya insignificant in the heart of the servant

Distances the devil from you

Attain Allah’s love

Taste the sweetness of faith and obedience.

Increases intellect and faith

Draws the slave closer to Allah.

Removes stress and worry.

Makes worshipping Allah easier.

Helps to purify your soul and your community from bad deeds.[19]

Acknowledgments : Quranic verses were taken from the Muhammad Taqedeen Al-Hilali.

[1] العمل لاسنى/pg 79

[2] Ibn Majah : 4251 graded as being 4251

[3] Muslim 2749

[4] Muslim #1621

[5] Musnad Imam Ahmed [4/19] graded as Sahih by Shu’ayb Ar-Na’ut

[6] Sunan Abi Dawud 1516

[7] Abu Dawud #1517 graded as Sahih Al-Albani

[8] Al-bukhari#6307/ Muslim 2707

[9] Al-Bukhari 6306

[10] Ibn Sunni amal layl [105/37-38]

[11] Ali Imran : 17

[12] At-Tirmithi#3433/At-Tirmithi graded this hadith as being Hasan Gharib As-Sahih

[13] http://www.abuaaliyah.com/2014/10/14/instead-of-saying-sadaqallahul-atheem-say/

[14] Abu Dawud#946

[15] Al-Bukhari: Book 9, Hadith 1062

[16] At-Tirmithi 1878 Hadith Hasan

[17] Ibn Majah :798 Hasan by Imam al-albani

[18] At-Tirmithi 3334 –Graded as Hasan by Imam Al-Albani.

[19] Refer to [نظرة النعيم/ vol 2/ 302]

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