#but hes still depraved because he keeps going back to one specific demon

[plush-rabbit]

Foggy Minds

Word Count: 4.7K A/N: I dont know his body!! So I tried to leave it ambiguous and yeah!! i also wrote this just for the ending bit

-

It’s a fucking joke. A cruel one. Angels- or at least Exterminators- are known for their cruelty. Raining down from above, a storm cloud that leaves red behind. Even after the destruction and death, the guts and gore that leave a lasting stench, the cruelty isn’t done. The angel Adam still has to bring torment down to Hell.

A wolf in sheep’s clothing is what he is. He can pretend he’s higher than the sinners down below, but he’s just as crude, if not more so than the worst of them here. It’s a tradition at this point for both you and him. He brings hell on hell, and a week later, he flies down once more, calling the club that you work at, demanding for you to be sent to the Heaven Embassy. However, as the next Extermination Day comes close, he’s called for your services once again. You wish you could say no, but he pays quite a lot for you, and you could always use the money.. 

You hate the walk there more than anything. It’s like everyone knows you’re off to go fuck the Exorcist. You look both ways before disappearing through the doors of the Embassy. Maybe they think you’re getting a meeting with- someone. 

The Embassy is empty, and every step you take echoes out in the room. You’re terrified. You always are. It never stops feeling like a trap. Even in the elevator on the way to the suite, you can only stare at the golden doors in front of you, your reflection distorted and twisted. 

If you’re going to be honest- you aren’t sure why it’s you who has to come up. It’s Adam- he’s bragged enough about how he can have anyone, and yet, he pays for a sinner’s cunt. You make sure to not feel special, to squash any pride down. Perhaps it’s too tedious to pay for another sinner or hellborn, and it’s best to just get what he knows will be a good fuck. You sigh and look away from your reflection and the glowing numbers. Still, you show up and do your job. You've taken better and worse clients. The angel is just someone in between. 

The doors open and you pass a few doors until you reach his suite. You don’t know why the Embassy has so many rooms, and when you tried to ask Adam, he made a comment about how you could have a fuck-a-thon, doing it in each room, and you sneered at the idea. 

Your suite- or rather his suite- is unlocked like always. You waste no time, stepping into the shimmering room. It’s livable. A kitchenette on one side, a bathroom with a wonderful shower tucked in the room, and a massive bed pushed to the end of the room. The room is bright, golds and blues, a deep dark wood carved into ornate decorations, and you feel out of place. It’s nice- far too nice for you to show up and defile it with what you’re going to do. The room never ceases to amaze you. There aren’t many places in Hell where the colors are bright and soft at the same time, where things look so pristine and untouched. When you once mentioned to Adam how nice the room was, he laughed and told you that there were far better rooms in Heaven. A part of you still wishes that he would have offered to show you- something, pictures, descriptions, anything. 

“Took you long enough!” The angel says, leaning back on the bed. “I pay for your entire time, ya know? From the walk from your whore house to the embassy, the least ya could do is hurry it up. I’m a very important angel, ya know?”

“You ordered me like last-”

He clicks his tongue, shaking his head. “I don’t want excuses.” His hand waves in the air, and he sits on the bed. “Come on, let’s get to it.” You roll your eyes at him as you walk closer. “Oi! Don’t roll your eyes at me,” his voice is laced with disgust, and you remember that he looks down on you- in more ways than you would care to admit. “Come on, strip.” Your hands go to unzip your skirt. “And make it good!”

You bite your tongue. Your shirt is the first to go. The action is slow, tantalizing as your fingers skim over your bare skin, and your skirt follows suit, pooling on the floor. You step out the fabric, and your heels click on the floor. Adam watches you, his hands scratching the bed covers. You spread your legs over his right, and grab his hands, letting them touch your ribs and then moving towards your back. 

You can feel the tips of his claws scratch at the clip of your bra. You press your cunt over his robe covered thigh, and grind over it softly. “Please, Adam,” you beg. “Take it off for me?” Your hands rest over his chest, and he watches as you grind yourself over him, your hands fisting over his robe, and you wonder for a moment if maybe you did a bad thing- if this was the wrong move. But then your bra straps fall down your shoulders, and it’s discarded somewhere in the room.

You hiss when his mouth suckles on a breast, the other breast being pinched and pulled at. He sucks so softly, letting his tongue roll over the swelling bud, teething at it so you hiss and arch yourself further into him. You can feel a wet spot grow, and you can’t help but rock yourself over your thigh. The other breast is manhandled, twisted and pinched that has you gasping and fisting holy fabric in your sinner hands. 

You're pushed off and his hands claw over your hip. You get the memo, and peel off your underwear, the wetness of it noticeable, and the only mention of it is when Adam pockets your underwear. You wish you bought another pair with you. The heels are tossed aside, and strong hands push you down from your shoulders. You fall onto your knees with a hiss, and you know what you have to do.

-

“And- And- Oh fuck, that’s it, baby-” He hisses, his head tilted back. The hand fisted into your hair tightens, sharp stinging encouraging you to swallow more so he could let go. “I’m just saying that why would you settle for anything less than-” A moan interrupts his monologue and you look at him through glossy eyes. “Oh fuck. It’s like a fucking gift to suck me off.”

A string of spit and pre-ejaculate connects to your lips as you pull away. It’s thick and white, and you’re gasping for hair, a hand wrapped around the base of his cock and you push yourself to swallow his package, fitting the pair into your mouth as your hand pumps his length. He’s breathing heavily, and you know he's upset at the loss of contact with your mouth with the way that his hand tangles itself into your hair, but his mask is twisted, and you pop them out of your mouth. Your mouth feels dry despite the excess spit- you suppose it’s the salty taste that lingers. 

You take him back in your mouth, eager, and begging for him to just spill his seed already. Your cheeks hollow, and he’s heavy on your tongue. Your tongue swirls over a vein, and you can feel him twitching.

“Fuck, I’m close,” he hisses, his hands cradling your head. You hum, and brace yourself, your hands holding at his thighs, bracing yourself for him to thrust forward. His hands tighten, and he thrusts into your mouth. You gag around him, your throat constricting around him. It’s a horrid sound, loud and hollow, and acid threatens to bubble over. As he continues to pump himself into you, spit dribbles from the corner of your lips and you’re grateful that you were ordered to remove your clothes. 

“That’s right, take it. Oh fuck, fuck-” a string of curses fills the room, and he’s unrelenting, pushing deeper into your throat. A hand slips to grab at your breast, eyes squinting when you can feel the spit coat over your chest. Your other hand tightens around Adam’s thigh, your nails pinching into him.

Your fingers pinch over your nipple, rolling it over, desperate to take your mind off of the assault of your mouth. His thrusts get deeper and harsher, and he’s still in the back of your throat, holding you down. Curses mutter in the air, sharp and slurring together, and he keeps his eyes on you. The eye contact is far too much, the piercing eyes boring into your entire being, and it must be some type of power play for him. You choose to focus on the base of his cock. With your nose pressed into his pubic bone, you cough around him, and finally he pulls away, his seed laying thick on your tongue. Tears wet your face and mix with your spit and the drops of his seed. 

He grabs your chin and you open your mouth, showing the mess that he’s made. Letting go, you stay still, as he taps his cock on your face. It’s tacky with your spit and leaves you feeling much filthier than you would like to admit. You hold the seed in your mouth and he gives a nod, and you make a show of swallowing, and open your mouth to show him. “Did you want me to do a blessing before you swallow?”  He teases. “With my holy cum, I grant you the opportunity to fuck me.” He chuckles at his joke.

“Thank you, Adam,” you murmur, hoping that the soreness on your jaw will go away.

“You know, you could learn how to relax your throat. You’d think after doing this for a living, your gag reflex wouldn't be a thing.” You send him a dirty look, and his grin widens. “So fucking sensitive. What did you want me to tell you? That you were good?”

You aren’t sure what mood he’s in at the moment. Sometimes you can tell when he wants to fight with you- where he wants to punish you and call you a sinner as he ravages you, but then there are moments when he wants you to beg for him, to tell him how good he is, how you want his cock more than anything. But at the moment with your skull pounding and jaw sore, you spit out a simple, “Fuck you.” His grin widens, and he hoists you up onto the bed. The stickiness on your face ruins the soft comforter, and you feel too dirty to even touch something so nice.

“I was going to be nice and just fuck you, but shit, you had to talk back.” 

A hand grips at your rear, and a finger teases at your hole. You hiss at the contact, and you're glad you’re face down or else you’d never hear the end of it of how flustered you must look. As if reading your mind, he flips you over, your face exposed and your hands immediately cover the lower half. 

“Adam-” you squeal, instinctively trying to close your legs only to have them pried apart. 

“Don’t worry,” he says casually. “I just wanna look at how wet you got just from sucking on me.” A finger traces against your slick and you watch as he tastes the finger. “Damn, I should have let you keep your panties on if I knew you were going to get this wet.” A finger enters and you squirm, suckling the intrusion further into your softness. “You’re soaked. And all you had to do was suck me off. You know, if I could keep you, I would.” He enters another finger, pushing the two inside until he’s at the knuckles. “I’d give you a nice collar, a nice bed, and all you would have to do is be my little cocksleeve.” He pulls out, and thick strings of slick connect his fingers back to your cunt. He returns his fingers to your cunt, now with the addition of a third. It’s a wide stretch, a sharp pain being overridden with pleasure. “I bet you’d like that. You’d live a pampered life, and all you have to do is keep your pussy spread open for me.” 

With a yank, you’re pulled further into the bed. The comforters make a soft noise, but the bed itself doesn’t creak. You watch with half-lidded eyes, focused as he rests on his knees beside you, his cock growing, the scent of it enough to make you go dizzy. You brush your cheek against it, licking at the side of it when he thrusts his fingers into you.

You sit on the bed, his cock pressed against your face, and with a mind too delirious to think of anything else, you pull him into your mind, lazily bobbing his head, as his fingers scissor inside of you. 

You breathe heavily, your mind growing fuzzy with the stimulation. He’s slow and lazy, massaging the inside of your gummy walls as he looks down at you taking his cock once more. A hand brushes your hair away from your face, and you pull away, pecking at his cockhead, nuzzling the glistening head against your lips. It isn’t enough for you, and you swallow him once more, humping into his hand when he gives a smart smack to your cunt. 

“Turn around,” he orders, and you scamper to do so. You don’t get a moment to prepare yourself, until he’s bullying himself inside of you. Your hands claw at the comforter, and with watery eyes, you see the fabric tear apart underneath your claws. “You’re clamping down hard around me,” he breathes out, and you buck your hips, trying to feel him deeper into you.

Above you, he's heavy, and selfish, pumping into you relentlessly. The sound of skin slapping against skin is harmonized by your moans. He grunts above you, whispering strings of obscenities and few words of praise linger in the air.

“Oh fuck,” he grunts out, “so fucking good.” His breath is hot against you, fanning out into feathered tickles that touch at your body. He’s never been one for intimacy before reaching his peak, always preferring to be lustful, so you never expect him to actually kiss you, but in moments where he rights just at the right spot, you’d wish he do a little more to make it feel something other that whatever this all is.

His body is pressed against your back, hands squirming underneath to grab at your breasts. His hands are rough and unforgiving, pulling and pinching his nails into your soft skin, You can feel the warmth of his breath against your neck, puffing and huffing, murmurs about how you feel wrapped around him, and you bury your face into the comforter. Your mouth is slacked open, spit pooling down, as your moan helplessly around him, body taut and nerves feeling as if they’re on fire. 

“No fucking wonder you’re a sinner,” he seethes out, his thrusts harsh and deep, enough to have you see stars and think about how as selfish as he can, he feels so good. “With a pussy this good, I bet you had everyone lined up for just a taste.” You let out a low whine. “Yeah, I bet you did. No wonder you were hired at that sex joint. Did you have to fuck the owner to get in? Ha?” His tone is wicked, and you’re unsure if it’s his words or the fact that you’re so close as to what is making you tear up. His weight above you shifts, and by your hair, you’re yanked back. You yelp and tighten around him, tears slipping down. “I asked you a question.”

“I didn’t-” you yelp as he continues to bully himself inside of you- “I didn’t hear it, ’m sorry,” you mumble, your scalp stinging with pain. 

“Too fucked up on my dick to even think,” he hisses, pushing you down onto the bed. He pulls himself out, and you whimper, shaking your head and pushing yourself closer to him, your cunt weeping for more of him. “A cock hungry slut is all you are, huh?” His cock is pulled out, and he watches you whine, your cunt gaping and leaking slick that makes your thighs glisten. 

“Adam, please,” you moan, turning your head to look over your shoulder. You can feel the drool stick to the side of your lips. 

“Please what?” he spits out, his eyes flickering to yours, before returning to your ruined sex.

You let a whimper, high-pitched and desperate. You fall back to the bed, your eyes looking forward, and your hand slips underneath you, fingers peeking towards your cunt, feeling the warmth drip onto your fingertips. “I want more,” you tell him, your words muffled by the comforter. “I want you,” you tell him, hoping that he’d take pity on you for a moment.

The tip of his cock brushes itself against your opening, and you clench around it, your body aching for more. “Nah, you have to do better than that.” Your cries are shushed, brows furrowed and you’re turned over onto your back, “Come on, I’ve heard you beg before.” Two of his fingers enter you, thrusting in painfully slow. “You know what to say already.” Your chest rises and falls rapidly, your fingers twisting the bed sheets into spirals. You shake your head, humping pathetically into his hand. “I promise to make ya feel real good.” 

“Adam,” you croak. He pulls his fingers out, and tears gluten over your lashes. “Please, I wanna be fucked.” Your legs tense when you feel the tip of his cock nestle itself inside of you. “I’m just a filthy sinner who needs-” you yelp when he thrusts himself inside of you, the entire lengths filling you nicely- “needs to be fucked by your holy dick.” His hands curve over your hips, scratching softy over your skin. 

“A little more, honey, and I’ll ruin that demon pussy for you.” His hands curve over your hips, scratching softly over your skin, his voice low and sweet for you.

“Adam,” you plead, your hands curving over your breasts, “I need you,” you whisper in a haze. “I need your cock in me, I wanna cum real bad. I need you. I need you to fuck my sinner pussy.”

He gives you a lazy smile, and gives a nonchalant shrug. “Good enough.” He pushes himself inside of you. Your stomach coils into a heat, and you suck in a harsh breath when his fingers slip to rub at the bundle of nerves between your legs. “You have a fucking grip on my dick. What is it? Are you close?” You let out a broken moan. Your legs kick up, and wrap around him. “If I cum in you, you’re dealing with it.” His grin is sharp and predatory, and it only makes you drag your hands down his arms.

Your hands reach up, and you hold the sides of his neck, your hands curving behind, and you just feel tufts of hair peek from underneath the mask. A hand reaches to grab your wrist, holding it tightly, and you’re sure you’re going to have a bruise afterward. “You fuckin’ slut,” he spits out. “You think just because you got my mask off last time, I’ll let you look at me again?”

“Adam,” you whimper out, scratching at the back of his neck with your free hand, “please. I just wanna look,” you slur out. You know you’ll regret saying those things when you’ve sobered from him, but sex always did make you softer, needier. You think that must be why he decided to continue to hire you- to see you pant for him and stroke his ego. “You’re so pretty, I wanna see,” you lament. “I wanna- I just- I wanna look at you when I cum,” you stumble over your words, your fingertips tapping against the bottom of the mask. The golden eyes narrow at you, and you can only look for so long until you turn your attention elsewhere.

His mask is tossed to the side, and his irises glow. The hand that holds your wrist loosens, and you cup over his cheek, the stubble on his chin scratching at your palm. “Fuck- Oh fuck,” you hiss out, your heart beating against your chest rapidly. “I’m gonna- Oh my- Adam! Fuck,” you hiss, the knot in your stomach tightening, a pressure building more and more until you’re sure that you’ll burst. 

Even as your body shakes, he doesn’t stop. He continues moving his hips, pushing all of himself inside of you, his breath coming out in pants above you, his smile sharp and face flushed. A hand wraps around your neck, and you arch yourself into it, whining and mumbling at how your cunt is still too sensitive, how he has to slow down, but he coos at you, and he tells you how good you’re benign for him, and you hold onto his wrist with your hands. 

Adam places his face close to yours, his lips and breath fanning above yours, and you’re stuck staring at his eyes, unable to look away from the gold in front of you. You lick your lips, and you brush against his. He stares at you, and your face burns. 

He gives shallow thrusts, and is still inside of you, and you can feel him. You can feel the heat, and the stickiness leaks out of you. He keeps himself there, and hides himself into the crook of your neck. After a moment, he slips out, and you can feel the heaviness of his seed weep out of you in slow and heavy drools. 

You lay in the afterglow, chest heaving and sweat and more sticking to your skin. Your body is on pins and needles, and laying on top of the soft bedding, you could fall asleep right then and there. Nestled into a pile of feathers and gold, you could die- again- and be happy with it. 

But then the man- the first man- groans and you remember that this isn't the time to play house. You have a job. Or rather, you had one, and now you have to return. You lift yourself up into a sitting position, and you stare at the bathroom. A part of you wants to take a shower, but you fear that if you even just tasted what luxury is, you’d have to be pried out of the embassy. 

With a sigh, you lift yourself off of the body and gather your clothes. The lack of underwear is something that you frown upon, but when you look back to the angel, with the demand for its return, you can’t bring yourself to ask for it. You’ve walked around without it before when customers got handsy, this is nothing. Your skirt is tight, and long enough that only a pervert would tell. 

“So,” he trails off, lying on his back, “do you wanna cuddle or something?”

Your eyes widen, and as you flatten your skirt, you thin your lips. “Uh, no. No thanks, Adam. I’m uh- I’m good.” You straighten your top, and tap your heels against the floor, the sharp click echoes in the chambers. 

“Whatever,” he huffs, “I was just gonna psych you out anyways.” He waves his hand, and cool air rushes around you. 

You let out a sigh, looking at the mirror where you stared at yourself just a bit ago. Your hands play with your hair, making sure that when you leave, it won’t look like you just slept with someone. You hum, and tilt your head from side to side, trying to find some sort of mark that would have to be hidden. However, the cool air- his own magic or blessing- has fixed any evidence of indecency on you.

“The extermination is next month,” Adam sighs. Your eyes flick up, and you catch him staring at you- golden eyes piercing into your own, unblinking and unbothered. 

“I’m aware,” you tell him, returning to look at yourself in the mirror. You stand straight and let out a sharp sigh. “I think some of the residents are already panicking.”

“Are you?”

Your stomach knots itself, and you remember when you were first bought by Adam- the nervousness, the disgust, the bile burning your throat. It’s all too familiar at this moment. You shrug. “I don’t think it’s set in yet,” you mumble. 

“I’ll come by the night before.” You look at the white tiles- the grout filled with shimmering gold, and the tiles patterned with silver and gold lines. “I’ll leave the back door unlocked like last time.” He doesn’t say the words nicely, it’s more like an afterthought, as if telling you this is a bother, but still, he tells you this, and one thing you've learned about Adam is that he hasn't lied to you yet. You fist the hem of your skirt in your hands, and nod. It’s silent, and then he starts again, annoyance laced into his words. “What do we say?”

“Thank you, Adam,” you tell him in a beat. 

“Yeah, well, I can't have my favorite whore die.” His wings unfurl and stretch across the bed. The tips of the feathers reach just beyond the mattress, and you shrug. The words hang heavy in the air, and you feel small compared to him. In the mirror, you can see his reflection, his  mouth thinning, and his eyes narrowing. “I- uh- I still have you for ten more minutes.” You make eye contact with him in the mirror. “Get back here. I wanna suck on your tits.”

You stick your tongue out, and your hips sway as you walk towards him, your heels falling carelessly to the floor as you rest beside him. His hands are cold as they peel off your shirt and without a care, he tosses it to the foot of the grand bed. A hand cups at your breast, and you can feel his breath fan over your chest, and you wait to feel his teeth bite at you, but you never do. The wetness of his lips trace over the swell of your breast, a peck pressed against the bud, but never swallowing it. Your chest is heavy with his weight on top of you, and the hand on your breast unfurls and curves over your ribs. His wings expand, and they partially cover you, the softness of them akin to the finest blanket in what only money can buy. 

Realization as what he’s doing has your body heating, and you worry that he can tell with the way that he’s laid bare on your chest, and yet, he makes no snide comments. This is far more intimate than anything you’ve ever done before. With a harsh swallow, your arm wraps around him, your hand reaching upwards to scratch at the back of his head. Your hands knot into his hair, your nails dully scratching along his scalp. He lets out a low hum in response, nuzzling his cheek over your bare skin in approval. 

With a shaky breath, you break the silence. “You know, I was thinking, that maybe I’d uh, give that Hazbin Hotel a shot.” You feel his hands scratch over your ribs, straight, and piercing, and they cling to you as his breath hitches. “I’m not sure I believe in the whole redemption thing, but free housing is nice.” You feel him nod slowly, and you twirl a piece of his hair around your finger. He gives you a short answer, one that is mumbled into your skin and doesn't make its way to you, and his wings inch further up covering more of your body as he brushes his lips against the swell of your breast. You don’t look at the time even when you feel that he’s grown heavier on your body.

#hazbin hotel #hazbin adam #hazbin adam x reader #adam x reader #hazbin hotel x reader #hazbin hotel adam #i uh #something something he's pretty and awful #i just really wanted to write the last part #but i needed sustenance #i needed food #i had to write them getting there #i think he'd get a soft spot #like he'd like just a few people but would have trouble connecting to them #but i also think he would pay money to like get with a sinner #something about his ego and stuff #how he knows that hes better #but hes still depraved because he keeps going back to one specific demon #please let him return as a demon #i need it #i need him

[pfhwrittes]

Talk Shop Tuesday:

What piece(s) has (have) been most influenced by friendships you've formed here, and how is that reflected in your work?

hi gemma, i love you 💜

(and heads up, this is going to get long)

oh boy, so many of my fics have been inspired by my friends here!

it's absolutely mental to me that i started this blog because i wanted to yell at @391780 on tumblr instead of in her ao3 comments. so i think we can all say thank you to the lovely early for being my entry point into the cod fandom (her work The Arrangement was one of the first fics i read in the fandom - and one of the fics i've mostly recently re-read. i finished it up around 7.30 this morning).

in fact the entirety of the Retail Hell AU was inspired by this ask which came off the back of a post of hers talking about john price working in retail post-141 life.

in fact, a lot of my Masterlist is the result of me going "EARLY I'VE HAD ANOTHER IDEA!!!" in her DMs. she has my eternal love and gratitude for being such a fantastic writer and cheerleader for my writing.

next up, the lovely @kaadaaan is the sole reason i have so many john "soap" mactavish is a Certified Freak posts in my Here Be Kink Masterlist (heed the tags with that one, it's 18+ for a reason). most notably my most recent fics featuring slightly pathetic!johnny x pervy housemate!reader (part one and part two or on ao3 here).

vi is the WORST for letting me run my mouth on her posts or in her DMs. i have a whole document of notes on how i want to expand those fics into a truly depraved universe (rip to kyle, he's about to get put in the middle of the weirdest threesome of his life while simon slowly loses his mind over the fact that his stolen t-shirt is now a cum rag for the most disgusting couple he knows).

then there's @syoddeye. i found For the Record on ao3 and fell in love with the way they write the messy reality of living with addiction and being kind of stalled out in your life. it dragged emotions i hadn't felt for years out of me and i think as a result it's given me the courage to be vulnerable in my own writing in a way that i wasn't confident enough to do when i first started writing for the fandom.

it's really fucking scary to leave parts of yourself in your writing, intentionally or not, but the fact that they continue to pour love on my kyle x transmasc!reader fic from my Binders and Boyfriends series and have called it a comfort fic just means the absolute world to me.

and finally, there's you cariad! yes that's right, you of @gemmahale fame! you have been one of my biggest and brightest cheerleaders for anything involving our beloved kyle "gaz" garrick. it has been an absolute joy to yell in your DMs over The Contract (and some other stuff 😉). i would apologise for going "wait, what about if we did THIS...?" and accidentally turning our lovely self-contained demon au into an entire universe BUT that would be a lie. i am deeply in lesbians with your brain and ideas.

i can't pinpoint a specific fic (aside from some still unseen stuff) that you've had the most influence over but much like sy has, you've encouraged me to trust my instincts with my stories. oh and to never ever scrap a single piece of a wip, just to put it in the odds and ends section at the bottom 😉.

special shout outs go to @greatstormcat, @mortuarywriting, @dragonnarrative-writes, @eilidh-eternal, @ceilidho, @secretsynthetic, @sentientcave and so many other fantastic people that i've seen pop up in my notes just to cheer me on and grace us all with their fantastic writing. every single one of you that i've mentioned (and some people that i'm sure i've forgotten) have encouraged me to keep writing, or to be conscientious and considerate in regards to keeping this little corner of the fandom i inhabit a diverse and welcoming space to ALL readers. from the bottom of my very mushy heart, thank you 💜

Talk Shop Tuesday

#pfh answers #Talk Shop Tuesday #i love each and every one of you that has taken time to read my fics or headcanons and has graced me with likes and reblogs #back in december 2023 i never would've expected to find my way into this community at all #and you've all been so wonderful and welcoming that it makes me a little bit emotional actually #just know that if you're reading this that i love you

[akimmito]

Heroes are made by the path they choose

Previous | AO3 | Next 

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Chapter 4

Chloe Bourgeois is not having a good day, the National Assembly has spent the whole morning discussing the mayor's ridiculous decisions regarding the orders given to the MT and, indirectly, to the heroes regarding the danger of the new villain.

She's the youngest member of the 577 deputies that make up The National Assembly of the French Parliament, having the minimum age to enter the elections and having demonstrated her worth, far from the stigma of her father as mayor, she won a position. And she has been doing everything possible for the good of France (especially Paris, with the miraculous butterfly still loose).

The arrival of the first Akuma in seven years shocked the entire country. She knows the senate must be chaos too and not to say the presidency, she can only imagine the Elisha Palace on fire with everyone screaming as they run in all directions… Or, a similar scene, many adults almost yelling in panic while pretending not to panic. It's good that the meeting is held in private.

Which brings it back to the real reason for the whole discussion, since the events with Hawkmoth, the French Government has been more involved in what happens (which should have been from the beginning being because is the capital of the country) and they have been active in trying to laws allow arrest for embezzling the use of a prodigy (leading to a long list of crimes). And when she joined, she did her magic and started talking about a way to prevent someone from using the prodigies to misuse, making the MT an organization recognized by the Government for the protection of Paris (therefore, the heroes also have that faculty to be treated as part of a whole) and of France as a whole; they have access to the government, the MT is above the police in power to enforce the law, but always maintaining its independent character (not that someone should know it and she has said nothing, all to prevent Marinette from giving an attack for that).

The entire process involved each State Institution and lasted four months; it was stressful, but two months later, everything is going smoothly and the news no longer mentions prodigies, evidence of jewel magic and any non-butterfly mentions have been removed. Additionally, anyone posting information about the prodigies will face legal charges accordingly.

The only requirement for this was to provide a list of the official members (they didn't ask for identities knowing that it's dangerous), both teams gave their members and it was recently updated with the inclusion of Thuban.

Everyone is aware of the mayor's request and she's smirking, that inept is worse than her father. Ask the MT not to investigate a dangerous criminal who in just one day of his appearance caused at least a hundred deaths with her first Akuma? That the cure of Rakkīgāru (official name since last night, after making it clear that Ladybug is not a cloak with an immovable name) brings everything to its former state does not exonerate the murder.

France designed a maximum underground security prison protected with safeguards similar to those of the MT headquarters, where the most violent criminals are sent (so that they don't become weapons of the new criminal). Unfortunately the safeguards can't be put in all of Paris or they would start to cancel each other, so they use them for the important thing. Suzaku, who is Marinette's vigilant identity, is in charge of all the processes.

But going back to the important thing, she hopes that a new law will be created or the status of the MT within France will be made public.

She, of course, understands Felix and Marinette's plan. Agreeing not to investigate is another way to investigate while relaxing from active work because they went so far to say that the patrols are canceled for the entire week and if they ask, it was the mayor. And it was the two days of silence that led the vice president of the country that morning to send a message to the MT (something funny, if they ask her, just two days and they worry) and, therefore, to find out that the mayor asked them without giving an explanation (said by Corvus, Felix was very specific with his concerns about it and that they didn't want to cause problems with the government). That generated all the meetings she knows are happening.

At lunchtime, she escapes to the MT in search of Marinette or Felix, to tell her about government disaster they caused, to discover that the demonic blonde is in Romania supervising the recording of a movie and that Marinette went to her country house. Oh well, she can tell they after the chaos comes to an end. The only thing she finds is Kagami being hugged by Luka to appease her anger, a gracefully adorable image in her eyes.

____________

Alizee @AlizeeShin_

In my opinion, the government has reacted well to the return of the butterfly. I lived in Paris nine years ago and the government then did nothing. Good for us!

Elliot Renault @Elliot_Renault

The MT has been silent since the Akuma appeared, they have not been seen on the streets or on the roofs. The Government is treating the matter as the problem that it is, since today the institutions were in full swing and surely we will soon have news about it.

Chloe B. @QueenBourgeois

I need urgent vacations, a break from all this madness would be good. I 'm sure that all of Paris has the same desire.

Michel J. Laforet @LaforetLeGrand_

Such a scandal about a man, perhaps the heroes are not so heroic. They only accumulate failures.

Chloe B. @QueenBourgeois

@LaforetLeGrand Soon, all of Paris will know that it was your father, the ridicule that she asked the MT not to investigate, today at 8:00 pm on the National Chain;) ___________________

As the French Parliament catches fire figuratively and almost literally, Marinette is engaged in her little investigative work on the Mayor of Paris and his son, especially his creepy son, still remembering that he had to deter Damian, five months ago, from assaulting his home and murdering him (using methods intended to cause the greatest physical pain as he dies) for harassing her during a party (which they went to just because Chloe took them). Damian was ready to pounce on Michel with the first sharp thing in hand when he saw him put a hand on her butt; in the end, it was Felix who sent him flying politely with an explicit threat in his words.

"Mother, you are still working..." Damian is not happy, especially when he sees the face of the man who dared to lay hands on his mother without his consent (man who should be dead). He doesn't understand why she investigates them.

"I'm just curious, Pierre Laforet doesn't seem like the type who would want to sabotage our work."

"Yeah, Michel Laforet doesn't seem like a sexual depraved either, and I'm sure he's capable of raping a poor defenseless lady." There is poison in his words, he still wants to see him writhe in agony as life slowly leaves him. No man has the right to approach his mother with such impure thoughts.

"Could be..." She replies distractedly, reading on the surface, if she want to go deeper into them, she must do it from the MT.

"Mother, let's play with the dogs. They are happy to see you, too. ”Damian tightens her shirt sleeve to get her attention, not that he enjoys acting like the ten-year-old he is, but his mother needs a break from everything that stresses her out.

"Uh, fine." She closes the laptop and agrees to go out and play with the dogs, which are huge and knock her down as soon as she goes out into the yard, as a bonus, they also do it with Damian and the two ofthem are being overwhelmed with doggy love for four adult dogs, two puppies and a black cat (which is like a miniature dog for being raised by the two German Shepherds), Dafne only watches from the bottom in disgust.

Hugo watches everything from the kitchen window, listening slightly to Marinette's laughter and Damian's humorous complaints. The employees whisper beside her about how excitable canines are with their owners.

Those little happy moments are necessary to face the difficulties that arise and enjoy them to the best of your ability.

__________

Violet @SilkenLavanda

There was an explosion in or near the Louvre... I can see the fire from here. I doubt it's an Akuma...

Paris News @ParisNewsTWT

An explosion is reported around the Louvre Museum, people are invited to keep their distance. Authorities confirm that the cause was a bomb, two fatalities and eleven wounded. More information in the 6 o'clock newsletter.

Max K. @ MaxKan_Tech

What was missing…

#maribat #dickinette #dick x marinette #ml x dc

[heterophobiclanwangji]

Stupid Sexy Shizun

(an unnecessarily long post about Shen QIngqiu, romantic storylines, and dangerous fanon)

I see a lot of varying characterizations for Shen Qingqiu, especially vis a vis his allure to the other (typically male) members of the cast. Frankly, I do think the entire thing is funnier if a lot of people are in love with Shen Qingqiu, who only really recognizes Luo Binghe (and even then only after nearly apocalyptic levels of drama), and I’m willing to believe that he is unwittingly attractive for the following reasons:

he unintentionally falls into suggestive situations (the Skinner incident with the immortal binding cables, the Huan Hua Palace Water Dungeon, also with immortal binding cables For Some Reason, the succubus incident with Liu Qingge, etc.)

he may fall into improper/informal forms of address (for example, calling Binghe by name the first time they meet, rather than Luo Binghe or any of the previous Shen Qingqiu’s, er, nicknames)

he doesn’t always understand physical boundaries the same way as other characters (yikes @ the scene in one of the extras where he gives Binghe spiritual energy via skin-to-skin contact and fails to understand how/why that would be inappropriate, and potentially the situation with Liu Qingge cleansing his meridians, although I have reservations about that)

he tends to objectify people, which makes more sense when you realize he’s evaluating them based on his understanding of their characters and function in the original plot and cataloging differences, but reads differently to people who don’t have that context (which is almost everyone) (he makes internal comments about how hot a lot of the characters are, and I feel like he stares at people, but I can’t remember a specific incident for this; in conversations, it comes up in lines like “even if something bad happens, it won’t happen to you,” or “I knew you would definitely win,” both spoken to Binghe--at this point Shen Qingqiu doesn’t know Binghe very well and still sees him as The Protagonist, but to Binghe they just seem like heartwarming moments of security and belief)

he has trouble enforcing platonic guidelines to his relationships due to his fundamental belief that no one would find him attractive, be it romantically or sexually, and therefore sees no reason to draw that distinction (not going to cite specific incidences for this, it’s more of a recurring combination of his low self-esteem and lack of self-awareness, which I may talk about later in another post).

however, some reasons I have seen in fandom that do not seem likely based on my understanding of the plot and characters (although I will be the first to admit that I do not remember every single detail of the novel or extras, and that Shen Qingqiu is not the most reliable narrator to start with) are as follows:

fan language (technically possible, no indications given in canon, and you cannot convince me that Mr. I-Named-This-Poison-With-No-Cure-Without-A-Cure, Great God Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky had the patience and wherewithal to research or create a comprehensive fan language)

owning and using slutty, slutty inner robes (this would require the cutthroat, inscrutable original Shen Qingqiu to own such robes in the first place, I don’t remember any canonical references to improper dress aside from instances where he has been disrobed--the Skinner incident, Huan Hua Palace Water Dungeon, and his QingSi treatment--, and Shen Qingqiu has a healthy paranoia about governing his appearances so people won’t realize he isn’t the original goods; yes, the Peak Lords suspect him of being possessed anyway, but to my knowledge their reasons centered around his personability and investment in his students rather than robes or hair ornamentation)

eating suggestive foods (this one is slightly debatable. again, he doesn’t see himself as someone people would find attractive, so I can’t discount the idea that he would inadvertently eat something in a suggestive manner. however, I saw someone have him request dishes involving aphrodisiacs, and I was like, WACK. He probably had a cataloged index of the different weird plants and monsters of PIDW before his transmigration and ranted excessively in the comments about all of the pointless precursors to papapa, up to and including creating different plants/animal organs that have the same or better effects and then yelled at Airplane for not keeping better track of his own inventions. This is the guy who saw Liu Qingge under the effects of succubus poison or whatever and immediately knocked him into a cold bath. you won’t catch him slipping that easily)

enabling Binghe to get away with suggestive/improper and sexualized behavior while he was still a teenaged disciple. I think this one really gets to me because that narrative of the virginal innocent Shizun and his perverted disciple is the exact view that the outside world has of their dynamic, as represented by the fragments of The Resentment of Chunshan that we see in the extras. People see Binghe as a depraved monster (he is a demon, after all) and make insinuations about his treatment of Shen Qingqiu’s corpse during the five years between his death and resurrection. For contrast, the crux of the novel is Shen Qingqiu realizing that Binghe is hurt and insecure and desperately begging to be loved. In the extras he even goes through some of Binghe’s memories and remarks about how, contrary to rumor, all Binghe did was keep his body from rotting while he searched for ways to revive him. I won’t say that Binghe wasn’t a teenage boy and never did what teenage boys do, but the extras showed us that Binghe would rather throw himself into a cold lake than act inappropriately towards his Shizun, and I can’t remember him making any sexual advances until after Shen Qingqiu came back to life. In canon, Binghe is ill-informed and generally bad at sex, which doesn’t speak to me like someone who was just waiting for the right moment to strike.

I will read a hundred fics about Shen Qingqiu inadvertently causing people to fall in love with him, but a lot of fanworks try to make it about a physical allure rather than his personality and the ways in which he feels comfortable interacting with other people. People respond to his kindness and his feelings of duty and honor, and it makes me feel cheated to see interpretations downplay characteristics of his actual personality, especially when it degrades the characters around him, too. Yue Qingyuan feels protective of him but generally listens when Shen Qingqiu tells him not to draw his sword, and in canon he gave Shen Qingqiu enough space that he was surprised by the extent of his grief when Binghe was in the Endless Abyss. Liu Qingge is also protective of Shen Qingqiu and is involved in getting Shen Qingqiu’s promise to remain with Cang Qiong Mountain Sect before the Maigu Ridge incident, but doesn’t stop him from leaving when he decides to go. Binghe makes some questionable choices, but his anger and insecurity are understandable even without the rampant communication failures and the influence of Xin Mo, and the end of the novel shows that Luo Binghe is willing to leave if that’s what Shen Qingqiu wants.

Sometimes fan interpretations get really intense about this, as if Yue Qingyuan, Liu Qingge, and Luo Binghe would catfight over Shen Qingqiu. Granted, Liu Qingge and Luo Binghe are willing to throw down at any given time, but the main romantic development comes from Shen Qingqiu treating other people with respect and receiving respect in return. While people do try to influence Shen QIngqiu’s decisions, the ultimate choice is his own.

One of the points of the novel is that people matter and their choices affect not only themselves but the people around them. I don’t care if Shen Qingqiu is some kind of accidental sex god, because his choices and especially his decision to care about other people give Yue Qingyuan, Liu Qingge, and Luo Binghe each something they didn’t have in the original storyline: Yue Qingyuan gets a chance to explain himself and his failures, and is relieved of his burden of caring for Shen Qingqiu; Liu Qingge gets to live and see his little sister grow up; and Luo Binghe gets to be loved and cared for.

As for Shen Qingqiu, he got to choose his own happy ending.

#scum villain #shen qingqiu #scum villain meta #bingqiu #svsss #svss #other characters and ships to a lesser extent #sorry yue qingyuan and liu qingge #me when i was most of the way through the post: wait am i a luo binghe apologist??? #i keep a 'luo binghe did some things wrong' sign next to my 'the misunderstandings in scum villain make sense actually' sign #i feel like i got. way too passionate about this #i do not expect this to get notes #my posts

[smylealong]

Year in review - 2020

2020 has been a mixed bag of an year. Where on one hand it has been a raging dumpster fire with a global pandemic, lockdowns, social distancing, online schools, politics, forest fires, Karens and the general sense of ennui that the year brought. On the other hand, the year gave us all time. Time to reflect on ourselves. Time to teach ourselves new things. Time to binge watch. And boy did the streaming platforms make full use of it. Listed below are the best things I saw in 2020. (Across languages and in no specific order.) IT IS A LONG POST. PROCEED WITH CAUTION.

HINDI Thappad: Dir: Anubhav Sinha. Starring: Tapasee Pannu, Pavail Gulati, Diya Mirza, Kumud Mishra and Ratna Pathak Shah. On surface level, the premise seems frivolous. After all, it was just a slap. Just. One. Slap. Yet, with that one slap, the protagonist’s neatly organized world comes apart at the seams. From there begins Amruta’s (Tapsee Pannu) journey into exploring the micro-aggressions and tiny slights that she has turned a blind eye to, for the sake of keeping peace. The film never veers into a glorification of violence nor does it get overly preachy. It is a mirror to the patriarchal society and raises pertinent questions about the things that the society as normalized. Things that shouldn’t be normalized.

Bulbbul: Dir: Anvita Dutt. Starring: Tripti Dimri, Avinash Tiwari, Rahul Bose, Parambrata Chatterjee and Paoli Dam.

Horror does not always lie in the things that go bump at night. Sometimes, horror is what society expects of you. Horror is the consequence of not fitting into the role that has been written for you. Sometimes, it is terrifying to be a woman in a male-dominated society. That is what Bulbbul explores. Wrapped in a beautiful package, Bulbbul tells the raw story of a child-bride who is punished, harshly, inhumanly, for acting her age. If you haven’t seen it yet, drop everything and watch it. It’s on Netflix.

Lootcase: Dir: Rajesh Krishnan. Starring: Kunal Khemu, Rasika Duggal, Vijay Raaz, Gajraj Rao.

This was a charming little movie that had me in splits. A story of a simple man who chances upon a bag full of money. What follows is a hilarious tale of lies, deception and comedy of errors. Kunal Khemu proves that Bollywood does not realize just how talented he is. Vijay Raaz’s deadpan comedy and Gajraj Rao’s evil smiling desperation are a delight to behold. I’m smiling even as I am writing this. This was fun!

Raat Akeli Hai: Dir: Honey Tehran. Starring: Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Radhika Apte, Ila Arun, Shweta Tripathi, Tigmanshu Dhulia.

This was India’s answer to Knives Out. Nawazuddin Siddiqui is at his finest as the honest and frustrated (in more ways than one) police officer who finds himself attracted to the mistress of the murdered man. What follows is a tale so full of twists and turns that I could not predict where it is going. When you have Siddiqui at the helm, you are almost certain to get a good film. But when he is backed by stellar performance from the able cast, that takes the film to another level altogether.

Patal Lok: Dir: Avinash Arun and Prosit Roy. Starring: Jaideep Alhawat, Niraj Kabi, Abhishek Bannerjee, Swastika Mukherjee, Gul Panang, Ishvaak Singh.

Wow. Just. Wow. This is arguably the BEST thing that I have seen all year. On the surface this is an attempted murder case. But what it actually is, is a mirror to our society. It is a human story. A story of greed, corruption, power, violence, misogyny, depravity and true evil. It is a story of love, hope, support, kindness and humanity. It is a story of us. My hats off to the entire cast and crew for coming up with something truly special.

ENGLISH

Haunting of Bly Manor: Created by: Mike Flannagan. Starring: Victoria Pedretti, Oliver Jackson-Cohen, Amelia Eve, T’Nia Miller, Rahul Kohli.

Based on Henry Jame’s Turn of the Screw, this was a poignant tale of love, loss and pain. While it pales in comparison to its brilliant predecessor, Haunting of the Hill House, and the 1961 screen adaptation of the novel, The Innocents, Bly Manor still manages to be a worthy watch. In Mike Flannagan’s deft hands, we get to see a completely different perspective of the Haunting. I won’t say more, for spoilers, but this was definitely one of the better things I watched this year. Especially since I almost eschewed English movies/series this year. (I did watch some forgettable movies like Extraction and Mulan, but even mentioning them here feels sacrilegious.)

Korean

This year, I returned to Korean Dramas after a long time. My last Korean Drama before this year was Faith that I saw in 2014. Since Boys Over Flowers (Read Kim Bum) is my guilty pleasure watch, I decided to have it on in the background sometime in March or April this year. (Honestly, in 2020, who knows?). BOF took me to The King: Eternal Monarch. And TKEM introduced me to Woo Do Hwan who gave me some of the best times in this year. Three of his dramas feature here.

Save Me:- Dir: Kim Sung-soo. Starring: Ok Taec-yeon, Seo Yea-ji, Woo Do Hwan, Jo Sung-ha, Jo Jae-yoon.

Do you fancy a kick to your teeth? Because that is what this series is. What starts a simple story of a regular family’s struggles upon moving to a new town, quickly turns into a harrowing nightmare in which you are simply the viewer. The story delves into cults and the insidious power they hold. Through Seo Yea-ji’s brilliant performance as Im Sang-mi, we see a K drama heroine who is not a damsel in distress. She isn’t the one throwing the punches, that is done by Ok Taec-yeon and Woo Do Hwan. Still she is the one that leads the fight. If that wasn’t enough, Woo Do Hwan, plays Seok Dong-chul. Arguably one of the best male leads I have seen.

Mad Dog:- Dir: Hwang Ui-kyung Starring: Yoo Ji-tae, Woo Do Hwan, Jo Jae-joon, Ryu Hwa-young, Kim Hye-sung.

What a treat this show is! Smart protagonists pitted against equally intelligent antagonists and a taut plot that rarely sags (It does sag just a wee bit in the middle but it picks up pace very quickly). Woo Do Hwan is fantastic as the ever changing, tough to pin down, Kim Min Joon. The layers in this character! This show will keep you guessing. Every cast member is stellar and no one has a single misstep. A must watch!

My Country: Dir: Kim Jin-won Starring:  Yang Se Jong, Woo Do Hwan, Kim Seol-hyun, Jang Hyuk.

This series brings a set of very complex emotions in me. Don’t get me wrong. I love the series. Its story, characterization, costumes, cinematography, acting, action scenes, OST. They are top notch. A+. But... and this is a big one, this series is also a glaring display of what happens when a writer falls in love with one of their characters. As a writer, I can say that we love all our characters. But it is very dangerous for a writer to move from simply loving the character to falling in love with the character. When that happens, the writer becomes afraid of letting that particular character make mistakes. Or glosses over their flaws. Often at the expense of the other character. Which is what happened here. The writer fell in love with Seo Hwi and Nam Seon ho paid the price. Hwi could literally assassinate people in front of Hui Jae and still be forgiven for it, while Nam Seon-ho gets demonized for trying to save Hwi by telling lies. I could go on and on about how unfair this series was to Seon-ho, but that would be a separate post altogether.

Tale of a Gumiho: Dir: Kang Shin-hyo Starring: Lee Dong Wook, Jo Bo-ah, Kim Bum.

I started this series for Kim Bum (I LOVE THE GUY). I was prepared for some cheesy, goofy fun with some good looking people. But soon, I was watching it for the story. A smart Urban Fantasy with elements of Korean Mythology, this was UF done right! This series made me do research. I am so tired of seeing the same old myths in fantasy that this came as a breath of fresh air. Intelligent protagonists who communicate well (gasp! what? That happens?). A flip-flopping anti-hero. A truly psychopathic villain and a bunch of other well-fleshed characters make for one entertaining watch. I highly recommend it.

Chinese:

K-dramas made me revive the Tumblr account that I had created sometime in 2017 and which lay dormant since then. Soon, my Tumblr feed was filled with gifs and metas of a show with pretty men. I did not pay much attention to it, till a post about Jin Ling’s Uncle made me snort. Even though I didn’t understand what it was talking about, it was still funny. Realizing that the show is on Netflix, I saw the trailer and wasn’t impressed. Then there was the length. 50 episodes! Holee-moleee. “No. I ain’t got that much time,” I said and moved on. But then, I saw a gif of a man smiling. I had never seen a smile that dazzling. There was something about that smile that made me go back and click on the first episode. And in less than ten minutes of the episode, they killed the man whose smile drew me to the show. WTF? But I had seen gifs of him. There had to be more. Then, the show began and I had no idea what was happening. I decided no smile could be worth the brain-cells I am having to expend for this. Chuck it. But people in Tumblr said, hold on. You will understand it. Episode 2, and I still wasn’t sold. I gave it till episode 5. Then, before I knew it, I finished the 50 episodes and currently reside in the rabbit hole that is The Untamed.

Dir: Zheng Weiwen and Chen Jialin Starring: Xiao Zhan, Wang Yibo, and a host of others. I can’t write the name of the entire cast, even though I want to.

PS: In case you don’t know, the man with the pretty smile is Xiao Zhan.

#2020 year in review #long post warning

[victorluvsalice]

Happy Birthday Nebbychan!

@nebbychan

Since it’s AU Thursday, and you’ve been posting a ton of Steven Universe stuff lately, I have decided to write a Fusion AU fic for ya! For those not in the know, this is something that popped into existence late December 2015 (ironically enough, through a birthday gift from her to me), and has bits and pieces added onto it over time. It’s kind of “The Forgotten Vows Verse, only the Steven Universe Gems are important figures and fusion is a common thing.” Read that link for more details, she explains it better than I do.

My fic focuses on Victor and Alice’s fusion -- more specifically, the fact that said fusion has been both renamed (from Valice to Justice) and redesigned. I thought it might be fun to do a story where the fusion evolved in-universe as well as out, and this was the result. This story makes reference to Nebby wanting to keep Lizzie alive in all her AUs and damn the consequences, and Bumby and Victor having a super-creepy fusion, so you’ll want to brush up on those posts too.

All right, enough preliminaries! On with the show:

They looked -- different.

Valice pressed a hand against the mirror, examining their form in the old, cloudy glass and comparing it to what they'd known before. Taller now, and perhaps a bit thinner. Full skirt and blouse with tie replaced with trousers and something akin to a tailcoat. Shorter hair, but a longer face. The eyes still almost all Alice (barring the color of the left one), but the nose definitely Victor. Valice frowned curiously at themselves. Neither they nor their component people had ever heard of a fusion changing so drastically before. What had happened?

The train is coming with its shiny cars, with comfy seats and wheels of stars. . . .

Valice grimaced. Right. He had happened. Ruin had happened. Even now, the memories were clear -- clearer than they'd like, honestly:

Confronting that oozing sore of depravity at Moorgate Station, every nerve alive with righteous fury, Wonderland pushing pushing pushing her onward --

Waiting patiently by the pillar, mind empty of any thought but Master's command -- and then hearing himself summoned, and stepping forward to Master's side --

Calling out desperately to her broken love, trying to get him to remember who he was, even as Bumby drew him close, twirling together in a parody of what she and Victor had shared and oh no oh no --

Allowing Master to insinuate his way into his flesh, unable to even conceive of the word "no," forget and obey Thirteen, let it all -- wait -- wait what was going on, where was he --

Oh God it was even worse than the Dollmaker, the Dollmaker hadn't had Victor's gentle hands clutching her sister's room key (but wait -- wasn't that gem--?), Victor's soft hair reduced to dripping ooze, Victor's eyes sewn over with cruel black buttons -- let him go, let him go, LET HIM GO --

Why was everything so dark, why did he feel so slimy, what had Bumby -- oh God he was fused with the bastard, and the doctor was -- he'd -- and now he was after Alice, going to make them -- no no no, I won't let you I WON'T LET YOU --

Valice gripped the sides of the sink tight, half-surprised their fingerprints weren't pressed into the banged-up metal basin. The sheer horror of it was pulling them apart, their body going fuzzy around the edges. . .but they didn't want to go just yet, it had been so long -- not since --

"Alice!"

"Victor!"

He flung himself at her, and she spun them in a crazy tangle of limbs -- and it was enough, just for a few moments it was enough -- they turned on the startled psychiatrist, driven by single-minded fury -- a shimmering scythe emerging from their hand, fingers closing around the handle, and then a long swipe that ended in a short scream --

And then Victor had burst apart, unable to take the sensation of being anyone other than himself anymore, and Alice had rushed to Lizzie's waiting arms, and there had simply been much too much to deal with to even think of Valice. The police -- who'd fortunately believed them when they'd said they'd killed Bumby in self-defense; the children -- who were not completely ruined, but needed a loving hand to keep them away from the edge; the "replacement" Bumby had mentioned -- a shock, but a welcome addition to the household (especially after they tasted her cooking); Lizzie -- who was still a little weak, and rather behind the times, but alive, her dear sister was alive; the Van Dorts -- argumentative and disbelieving (Nell more the former, William the latter), but at least willing to front them the money to keep the Home running; Wonderland -- not quite restored, but getting there, slowly but surely; and Victor's own shattered mind -- a mess of old commands and new hatred, twisted and painful -- but salvageable. Even if occasionally they missed the old game of being one instead of two, the mere thought of being fused with another, even someone he loved, had left Victor cold and shaky, and Alice was not one to force her desires upon another, especially with her own mind still needing repair. For a while, in fact, it seemed their slaying of Bumby had been Valice's last goodbye.

And then -- then this morning, Victor had quietly approached Alice, and said -- he wanted to dance again. That the missing had become stronger than his memories of Ruin. And Alice had agreed, and they'd slowly waltzed together, taking their time, just letting the merge happen. . .and here they were. With a different face. Because --

Because back in August, when they'd waltzed that first time only to open their eyes and find the children gaping at them, Alice had been happy to take control -- happy to have a chance to lead, to be the one in charge after struggling so mightily to conquer her demons. And Victor had been content to give it to her, content to fade into the background like he preferred. It wasn't like he was completely missing -- Alice had only been too happy to trade for his long arms, and of course there were the two-toned eyes -- but it was accepted that Alice was the dominant of the pair.

But now. . .now Victor was done standing in the shadows. He might be the shy, retiring type, but he'd be damned if anyone assumed complete control over him ever again. He wanted this fusion, but he would come to it as an equal -- sharing joy and pain alike. And Alice -- Alice was tired of battling everything on her own. She was strong-willed and more than capable of leading, but she wanted to share her hopes and burdens with a true partner. Someone willing to fight by her side. This was a them who were more in tune than ever before -- who were willing to face the world as two proper halves of an even stronger whole. Valice -- no, Justice -- smiled at their reflection, watching Alice's eyes crinkle above Victor's nose.

They rather liked their new look.

#nebbychan #Happy Birthday #fusion AU #fusion birthday #I admit I forgot about the old way you ended the AU #with them as Valice pushing him in front of the train and then staying fused #but I remember us talking about Victor getting iffy about being fused after the Ruin business #and that kind of flowed from there #it seemed logical to me #also come on how great is it for them to slash Bumby open with a scythe #and of course I had to include Lizzie getting freed #dunno how it happened #maybe Victor managing to throw Alice the key before going back to struggling with Bumby? #anyway I hope you like #queued

[keptin-indy]

Exalted: Saigoth Gates 16

The ST didn’t want to deal with Sidereals in this game, so he broke the sky. Krait’s player used Lore to declare some local flora that was specifically bad for us for reasons known only to himself.  The circle gets an artifact they’re really not equipped to handle.  Even more dragon and the circle somehow forgets that West is their designated liar even though they asked him to lie.

West sought out the Immaculate monk defending the fleeing collaborators and told him of the Emperor’s death in the Lap.  The monk was understandably wary of the trustworthiness of the news, but accepted the friendly warning for what it was.  Back at the manse, the salvaged console noted a spot far to the South where the regular dragonlines had begun to flicker strangely, and so the circle decided to detour there when they set out for the Dreaming Sea.  With the Stormwind still not big enough to carry the entire party, Krait summoned an Agata and Shashaka volunteered to take the comparatively slow way this time.  Leaving Krait and Mazatl in the now defunct manse to do their summoning, West, Ardor, and Naran left to return to the Plaza, only to be met with panicked rioting and active fighting at the surface because the stars had stopped shining and were nowhere to be seen at night.  Naran calmed the frightened civilians with the soothing authority of a born politician while Ardor took advantage of the military chaos to incite the besieging Delzahn to press the advantage and break through the Imperial lines into the city.  Her battle song recalled parts of Swan Dragon’s stories of fighting the invading Fair Folk and encouraged the tribes to follow his example and drive out the intruders.  Already in disarray due to the inauspicious astrology (or lack thereof), the Imperial army was routed and those who didn’t desert and attempt to join the Delzahn were driven into the city’s shadowlands.  Ardor directed her army (now definitely following her, in accordance with Delzahn tradition) to seize the collaborators and firmly escort them from the city, never to return, along with their Immaculate protectors who were distracted fighting off the shadowlands’ ghosts.  Meanwhile, West quietly broke into Bronze Coyote’s bookstore to privately study his forbidden occult texts.

Come morning, West found that his least favourite Dragonlord had been trapped in his headquarters by Delzahn warriors who waited gleefully for him to give himself up for execution.  West gave them a public proclamation - as written by his fictitious magistrate - of the Dragonlord's crimes, both real and imagined, to be read at this joyous event.  With Chiaroscuro as squared away as could be reasonably expected, the circle (minus Shashaka) set out on their days-long tornado roadtrip.  On the way to the strange spot to the south, Mazatl noticed a swarm of large tumbleweeds he knew to be full of poisonous spores and directed West to steer them well clear.  West also sent Typhoon to rain on the strange plants, dampening down the spores and keeping them from spreading.  No one is quite sure why, but the circle somehow feels this was all Krait’s fault.  Nearer their destination, the desert changed from sand to an eerie field of amethyst, oasis plants and animals turned to crystal in one catastrophic instant.  Krait theorized that it was the work of the long-missing Eye of Autochthon, whose tales included the destruction of entire armies in bizarre ways.  At the epicenter of the crystal wave, the circle found the frozen statues of refugees fleeing from a grand army of Fair Folk.  Between the two groups was the statue of a woman who had turned to face the horde, holding up an unremarkable, strikingly non-crystalline orb.  As the Twilights debated how dangerous it would be to touch such a powerful artifact without protection, Naran cut to the chase and plucked it out of the long-dead woman’s hands.  He silently attempted to close the Saigoth Gates with it, but couldn’t tell how successful this was.  Ignoring the Twilights’ pleas to study the thing, he handed the Eye to Mazatl for safe-keeping, though they did bow to the Twilights’ recommendation not to store it in Elsewhere for fear it would disappear again.

Continuing along the way, the group stopped in Zoatham, noted for its slave trade and slave mining industry, where Krait barely restrained himself from raining doom down upon the entire community.  Their following nights’ stops at Ember and Kamthahar were much more pleasant.  Unsure where in the region to look for the Gates, the circle decided to try Champoor, where they knew a dragon of one of the mysterious extra elements made her home.  They found Champoor to be a lawless, wretched city, like the Undermarket of Chiaroscuro on a much larger scale and without any fear of reprisal.  A child attempted to pickpocket Krait and barely escaped his dematerialized guard-tomescu when Krait decided to not let the demon eat him, but he was stopped shortly by an “official” who asked to see his demon license and then demanded a bribe when Krait didn’t have the made-up documentation.  Naran, ever quick to see opportunity, paid him more than he asked and pressed the man for local information in return.  The man directed them to go to one of Tenepeshu’s temples and sacrifice someone to her if they wished to get the dragon’s attention and suggested some rival gangs he claimed were especially wicked as excellent candidates for said sacrifice.  Mazatl and Naran seriously considered this while Ardor and Krait loudly objected. As a compromise, they settled on an animal sacrifice and headed to the nearest major temple only to find it occupied by priests performing ritualized murder and worse.  Ardor and Krait fumed at the depravity around them while Mazatl said the requisite prayers and (non-human) sacrifice so impressively that Tenepeshu herself came to see who this new petitioner was, filling the temple with inky darkness punctuated only by her glowing eyes.  At a loss of what to say now that the dragon was actually there, Mazatl deputized West to explain their request.  Put on the spot, West first attempted to sound out Tenepeshu’s feelings on the Never Was without giving their own position away, but Ardor, already on edge and never patient at the best of times, blurted out that Saigoth was dead.  Everyone but West was somehow shocked when the shadowy dragon of an unnatural element was pleased by this news.  She said that she served the things beyond the Gate, older than the Primordials, indescribable by human language.  West improvised a way to keep the conversation going and get more information from her, telling the dragon that he wanted to see and study these unknowable beings, pouring all his conman’s dishonest charm into the lie.  Tenepeshu considered his request and West dropped into an ancient tongue of long-dead spirits so she could better explain what her masters were, leaving the rest of the circle convinced that he was betraying them and probably plotting to have them killed.  Tenepeshu said that if he truly wished to meet the Never Was, he should sacrifice his companions to her and she would personally introduce West to the beings she called Zelshan.  Prevaricating on that, he asked about the mystery Exalt who had attacked them in the manse and she said that some people’s souls called out for the primaeval darkness even not knowing of its existence.  Should he wish to partake of this offered power, she named a few of the Zelshan who might be willing to grant such prayers.  The Zelshan had been overthrown by the Primordials, imprisoned inside one of their own, called Zen-Mu, and cut off from Creation, the first in a long line of such usurpations, but she refused to tell him the exact location of this prison until he proved himself with his increasingly angry friends’ murders.  While speaking the forgotten language, West couldn’t understand any language more recent than Old Realm, but she was fully aware that the rest of the circle was passing the time by discussing how best to kill both her and West, should it come to it.  Informed of this lack of faith, West irritably told Mazatl in Old Realm that this was precisely what he had asked him to do, but Mazatl was having none of it and demanded the mysterious conversation end.  Tenepeshu took the opportunity to leave before the Solars could sort themselves out enough to attack.

#actual play #livejournal replacement #game #exalted: saigoth gates #exalted

[theconservativebrief]

They all start the same way: a few minor chords from a pipe organ, maybe a quick plug for Bromo-Seltzer or some other apothecary’s helper no longer in circulation — and then the creak.

It is the creakiest creak to have ever creaked, so drawn-out and borderline polyphonic that it could be mapped on a musical staff. Doors, even those leading to dank candlelit basements in which creepy bards wait with tales of the macabre, do not make this much noise in real life. (And that’s true; the creaking sound effect was achieved with a rusty swiveling chair. Pity the poor self-starting staffer who once oiled the makeshift instrument under the impression that he was helping out.)

But that’s just the order of the day on The Inner Sanctum Mystery, where there’s always a chill in the air, black cats yowl at the full moon, and no hinge keeps quiet.

Spun out from Simon & Schuster’s series of cheap paperbacks and then spun out once more into a six-picture series of feature films in the ’40s, the title gained the most prominence as a radio serial running 526 episodes from 1941 to 1952. Creator Himan Brown struck the same chord with audiences that Rod Serling would continue to clang all throughout the 1960s on The Twilight Zone, attaining impressive longevity through an infinitely renewable formula and the public’s unslakable thirst for fear.

Brown cohesively bound the many installments of this radio anthology by sticking with a consistent structure and tone befitting the morbid subject matter. A vampy host brought over from the Broadway stage (Raymond Edward Johnson, at first, then Paul McGrath from 1945 onward following Johnson’s enlistment in the war effort) would ham it up as he introduced the night’s diversion with florid language that would make Edgar Allan Poe proud.

Then followed an account of danger and suspense, playing up atmosphere and tension over gutbucket descriptions of gore, erring on the side of “spooky” rather than “horrifying.” These punctuated by occasional appearances from the schoolmarmish Lipton Lady, come to shill for sponsored tea and tut-tut the twisted little deviants who tuned in.

The narrator’s raconteurish presence set the scene as an act of yarn-spinning, a framing device harkening back to the scary-story form’s beginnings in the oral tradition. By creating this familiar cast of characters and an accompanying sense of communal gather-round-children experience, the Sanctum established itself as a place anyone could go to get scared out of their wits in the comfort of their own home.

While some episodes dove into the supernatural (to wit: “The Horla,” in which Paul Lukas contends with an invisible demon borrowed from an old French novella), they more frequently landed in an earthbound, Hitchcockian register. With all the gravitas that the sonorous cast could muster, they emphasized a human element among the violence, illustrating the ease with which jealousy, arrogance, or anger can drive a person to homicidal extremes.

All that each half-hour segment needed was a sturdy hook on which it could hang puns, pulpy pleasures, and purple prose; hubristic would-be masterminds plotting their perfect crime, average Joes stalked by unseen predators, lovers losing their senses in fits of feverish passion.

The dark side of the FM dial provided a playground for some of the era’s most lauded talent to cut loose, and launched careers for a handful of future stars. Because the Sanctum’s signature fusion of lurid content and arch humor toeing the line of camp offered many thespians a reprieve from a diet of soft-focus melodramas and dignified theatre work — not to mention a quick check — it attracted the cream of the day’s crop.

Silver screen monster-men such as Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff were regular fixtures on the airwaves, the invisible man Claude Rains showed up for “The Haunting Face” (an episode now preserved by the Library of Congress) and two years out from Citizen Kane, Orson Welles dropped in to provide vocals for “Death Strikes the Keys.” Helen Hayes and Mary Astor set a course for the scream queens of the ’70s with their earsplitting terror, and even Frank Sinatra lent his velvety baritone to “The Enchanted Ghost.” For audiences in the ’40s, listening felt like attending a swinging costume party with all their favorite celebrities.

For listeners in 2018, however, the Sanctum and its library of nightmares live on as a totem of nostalgia for a bygone era, both of horror and audio media.

The Inner Sanctum Mystery took me unawares on — when else? — a dark and chilly night. During the final hours of an October day’s road trip with a friend, we were scanning the FM dial when an eerie shriek burst onto the radio and caught our attention. After about 20 rapt minutes, we learned that a local affiliate liked to treat Long Islanders to some vintage frights when the according season rolls around.

Though many episodes have been lost to the sands of time, a healthy portion remain available to stream online, and revisiting this curious chapter of horror has become my favorite Halloween ritual. There’s a hokey appeal to the conspicuous old-fashioned-ness of the crackly broadcasts, all corn-syrup blood and rubber bats. Brown pushed the horror envelope by taking advantage of radio’s inability to graphically represent grisly material, allowing the suggestion of depravity and letting the listener’s mind fill in the rest.

Inner Sanctum Mystery host Raymond Edward Johnson poses with a presumably creaky door. CBS via Getty Images

Moreover, Sanctum hails from a time when consumers had a more formal relationship with what they listen to. In a pre-TV America, the radio was appointment entertainment, commanding rooms where sitting families would place the sum total of their attention on a narrative that leaves you behind if you zone out. There’s something meditative about doing nothing but sitting and focusing, eyes closed, imagination firing on all cylinders; it raises the zen state of lower wakefulness achieved by moviegoers to the Nth degree. While you listen, everything else stops.

As the popularity of long-form radio storytelling has declined, podcasts have moved in to fill the vacuum, but some of the jerry-rigged charm has been lost along the way. Freed from dependence on a gatekeeping broadcast station, independent outfits everywhere have flooded the internet with anthologies and long-form series updating Sanctum’s template. The White Vault is one such program, following a perilous expedition to a research facility tucked away in a frost-choked wasteland. Producer Travis Vengroff and creator/host Kaitlin Statz agree that the content and the platform housing it have both changed since Brown’s day.

“Older radio teleplays generally emphasized stage acting and live audio design,” they explained via email. “As many of the shows were performed live for radio, they created soundscapes on the fly using whatever objects or tools they could fit in a soundstage… From a production perspective, audiences now expect more.”

Attaining a standard of professionalism is more doable than ever, but that polish has widely supplanted techniques with their own time and place. As Vengroff and Statz put it, “Stories are now pre-recorded, edited, and mastered prior to being released. So instead of shaking heavy paper, actual sounds of thunder might be used, and the sounds of wind and rain might be used in place of a dramatic organ performance.”

That technological evolution is reflective of a wider shift away from the stylized pre-packaged irony embodied by Inner Sanctum Mystery and towards an approximation of real life. “Over-the-top acting was also desirable because shows during that era emphasized excitement,” the White Vault team said, “often taking listeners to distant locales to tell grandiose stories. While a podcasting sub-genre still exists to cater to the fans of the old radio plays, modern audio drama has since shifted its style.”

While the audio drama medium’s evolution clearly points forward, employing more sophisticated equipment and techniques, the limitations of Sanctum’s era forced personal touches that are now easily automated. Statz and Vengroff aren’t bothered by these sea changes, or by the notion that consumers might be taking in their handiwork while cooking, driving, cleaning, working out, or “powering through any mind-numbing tasks.” The listener has claimed dominion over the shape of their entertainment, pausing and playing as they please, streaming and downloading at their own pace.

Maybe it’s time to let the old ways die, and accept that Inner Sanctum Mystery’s specific register of mannered, corn-adjacent horror lives on solely as a novelty in a modern radio landscape. But what is Halloween if not the season of novelty, an occasion for goofy artifice, for plastic and foam?

Inner Sanctum Mysteries host Raymond Edward Johnson and actress Virginia Owen demonstrate the old head-in-a-hatbox gag. CBS via Getty Images

Excluding only sci-fi, horror attracts more purists than any single genre, and that diehard fanbase can be a double-edged sword. Slasher flicks remain the one trend-impervious box-office bet, as recently proven by the umpteenth Halloween’s resounding success, yet this comes at the cost of some measure of homogenization.

Plenty of people equate horror with straight-faced scares, as if its inherent value can be measured in ounces of cold sweat. Those in search of something a bit kookier can perhaps have a detached chuckle at kiddie-demo Halloween specials, but otherwise, they’ve got to search a little harder.

The Inner Sanctum Mystery, then, serves as an alternative to all things sleek and serious, occupying a universe where the words “gritty reboot” have yet to be uttered. This facsimile of time travel transports listeners to a horror paradigm governed by the notion that being scared should be kind of fun and kind of silly.

Brown preferred to emulate the feel of a fairgrounds haunted house rather than a house actually haunted, with the added benefit that most of his tricks had yet to calcify into cliché. Conceived with a wink and performed with absolute conviction, his work aptly embodies the spirit of Halloween as a jovial celebration of all things frightful. Every day was October 31 in the Sanctum, all the nights stormy, all the screams shrill, all the doors creaky.

Episodes of The Inner Sanctum Mystery are available to stream via archive.org,

Original Source -> Why the vintage terrors of The Inner Sanctum Mystery make for great modern Halloween fare

via The Conservative Brief

#IFTTT #The Conservative Brief

[delwray-blog]

WHY BAD THINGS HAPPEN TO GOOD PEOPLE AND GOOD THINGS HAPPEN TO BAD PEOPLE?

AMERICA IS FORSAKING GOD

"Why bad things happen to good people and good things happen to bad people".

America is forsaking God and God is forsaking America. This article is penned to show you why bad things happen to good people and good things happen to bad people. To those with the bones or backbone and spiritual aptitude, read this entire article to answer the question why mankind is the way he is and why God is forsaking man?

“Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves: Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient; Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, Without understanding, covenant breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful: Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them” Rom. 1:24-32. KJV

Do you want to know why man is the way he is? The problem with man is that God is not restraining man any longer and has given him up. God has given man up! He has abandoned man and we see here in these verses a record of man’s sin and the reason God has given him up. Now basically those verses are a list of the sinfulness of man. Men are wicked. They are vile. They are evil. They are creatures utterly filled with sinfulness. They are characterized as ungodly and unrighteous.

Now we are not in this particular day and age surprised to hear this about men because we see it all around us. We see the depravity of man, made manifest to us. We're not in a world of isolation. We are in a tremendously integrated kind of world, a multi-ethnic kind of world, a media-oriented kind of world that is shrunken to such a small size that we pretty well know everything that's going on everywhere, and the sinfulness of man is common knowledge. No matter how well a society begins, it always descends to the same pit of immoral behavior and subsequent judgment of God that is categorically presented to us in Romans chapter 1. Like a baby, the beginnings may be lovely and beautiful but the end is ugly. Everything starts well but the vileness of man's nature plunges him into the pit of sin under the condemnation of God with nothing but a prospect of eternal hell.

Man is not good and you need to mark that down at the very beginning. Man is evil. His nature is bent on sin, and given his prerogatives he will inevitably end up in the chaos of immorality.

Why? Why is it so? Why has man always inevitably to sink to such a sad condition? How is it that that infant life, so lovely, so precious, so soft, so innocent, will descend to the corrupted adulthood that inevitably awaits the human race? Why?

People, I think the answer is right here. You want to know why men are like they are. Women are like they are? Do you want to know why the fall of man is inevitably marked in every single life? The answer is clearly here, it is because God gave them up. Three times that is said in these verses. And it basically means that man is abandoned by God. God has abandoned man. God is still in control but He has given man up because of his sin. God has taken His hands off man and allows him to do as he pleases, to reap what he sows. That's really the problem that man has. You see, because of the Fall and the depravity of man, his innate sinfulness, as we shall see in a moment, because of this man has no, and I'll say it again, no capacity to restrain his sinfulness. It is impossible for him to restrain his sinfulness. He can't detain it. He can't harness it. He cannot do good. He cannot keep from doing evil. There is none, says Romans 3, that doeth good, no not one. They do evil continually. Even the most religious among men, the seemingly self-righteous among men may be committing the most heinous sin of all, which is “self-righteousness.” Man cannot restrain evil and he will inevitably do what is wrong. There's only one force in the entire universe that can restrain evil and that is God. And the problem with man is that God is not restraining him. God has abandoned him. God has given him up, given him up, given him up. And what that really means is that God no longer restrains man. God is still in control but He has abandoned man. That is the story of the human race. It really all began in the Garden.

Now this passage is the most tragic, the most fearful, the most sobering, somber passage in all of the epistle to the Romans, and because of this single thought, that man has been abandoned by God. Look at verse 24, "Wherefore God also gave them up." Verse 26: "For this cause God gave them up." Verse 28, "And as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them up, same verb, to a reprobate mind."

Now if you want to know why man is like he is, that's it. And that really is the major reason I write here as I do. Man is the way he is because he's abandoned by God. And God is the only restraining influence there is in the universe to hold back evil. And the more God lets go, the worse it gets. And as you go through human history, it says in 2 Timothy 3:13, "Evil men will wax worse and worse." And it's almost as if God just continues to let go of man and man continues to go his own way. And in the process he compounds sin upon sin upon sin, which escalates his evil, until ultimately you end up in the Tribulation. And in the Tribulation Period, according to 2 Thess. Chapter 2, the final restraints are taken off and the one who hinders, who is the Holy Spirit, hinders no more, and literally all hell breaks loose across the earth. The pit opens up, says Revelation 9, and belches forth all of the bound demons. You compound that with the last bit of restraint being taken off man, with centuries of escalating sinfulness, and you have the Tribulation. Abandoned by God, that is man's problem.

I want you to just think that thought with me for a minute. And I'd like to show you that it is not a new thought in Romans; it is elsewhere in the Bible. And I'll give you a couple of illustrations. In Psalm 81 verse 11 it says, "But My people would not hearken to My voice and Israel would have none of Me, so I gave them up." To what? "To their own hearts’ desires and they walked in their own counsels." Israel would not hearken. They would have none of Me so I gave them up. What horrifying words.

In Hosea, the prophet marks the same tragic reality. In chapter 4 verse 17, an unforgettable verse, it simply says this, Ephraim, and that is a term designating the nation of Israel, “Ephraim is joined to idols." And then here comes the shocking line, "Let him alone." “Ephraim is joined to idols. Let him alone.” God gives up on the northern kingdom. God gives up on his wayward people who will have none of Him.

Listen to this. In Matthew 15:14 our Lord talks about the rulers of Israel, most specifically the Pharisees. It says this, "Let them alone. They are blind leaders of the blind and if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch." Let them alone. Let them go. The restraints are off. That's man's problem. God is not restraining him and he has no capacity to restrain himself.

In the Seventh Chapter of Acts there is a masterful address, a sermon given by Stephen. Part of it speaks to our point. Listen in verse 37, "This is that Moses who said to the children of Israel, ‘A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren like me. Him shall you hear. This is he that was in the church in the wilderness or the assembly in the wilderness, with the angel who spoke to him in Mount Sinai and with our fathers who received the living oracles to give unto us, whom our fathers would not obey but thrust him from them and in their hearts turned back again into Egypt." In other words, they didn't want the leadership of Moses, who represented God. They said, “‘Aaron, make us gods to go before us, for as for this Moses who brought us out of the land of Egypt, we know not what has become of him. And they made a calf in those days and offered sacrifice unto the idol and rejoiced in the works of their own hands." Listen to this. "Then God turned and gave them up to worship the host of heaven." Gave them up, let them go. That was the choice they made and He let them go.

Just one other Scripture comes to mind. Chapter 14 of Acts, verse 16 says that God in time past allowed all nations to walk in their own ways. Oh my, what a statement. He let them walk in their own ways.

Now, believers, I submit to you that whether you're talking about all nations or whether you're talking about Israel, there is a point at which God lets them go. God gives them up. To the pre-flood, the antediluvian society, God said back in Genesis, "My Spirit will not always strive with man." It doesn't go on forever.

Now we have to ask a question as we look at Romans 1. How did this ever happen? How did God ever get to the point where He gave people up, where He just turned them over, let them go? What is it that brings God to such a place where He gets so angry, so full of wrath that He lets people go, that He just takes off the restraint?

Well the answer to that is to go back to the full thought of our text, and you have to begin in verse 18. And there you see the descent of man presented in successive steps, leading to verse 24. And I want you to follow this. First of all, we can go back to verse 16 and remind ourselves that Paul has designs in the Book of Romans of preaching the gospel. He's not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. He wants to unfold the gospel which is the standard of salvation for everyone that believes. And as he unfolds the doctrine of salvation, he begins with the principle of wrath. That's not typical of our approach when we come to someone who is not a Christian, to start with the subject of wrath. And in defense of Paul, these people to whom he writes are already Christians and he's simply delineating to them theologically all that is necessary for a full understanding of the gospel of Christ. So he begins with the fact in verse 18 that God is very angry. "The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men."

So, God is angry. He is so angry that He gives men up. He lets them go, takes off the restraints. Why? Why does He do this? Why does He let them go? Well there are basically successive steps, first of all, because of revelation. You remember back in verse 18, it says they hold the truth. And then in verse 19 it says they hold it because God has made it manifest. And then in verse 20 he says it’s manifest through the creation of the world so that men can see that God is powerful and God is supernatural so that men are without, what? EXCUSE, so they've had revelation. They've had the truth. It's not only given unto them, in verse 19, but it is manifest in them. They've thought about it. They've conceived it. They've perceived it, that God is, God is supernatural, God is eternally powerful, and they are inexcusable. And so we start with revelation.

And then you descend to rejection, verse 21. “Because when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful, but became vain, empty in their thinking, and their foolish heart was darkened.” In other words, they had the knowledge of God and they refused the knowledge of God. They rejected it. It was all theirs. They turned their back on it.

Rejection led to rationalization. Verse 22, "They then professed themselves to be wise, and thus they became the biggest fools of all, for who is a greater fool than he who is a fool and thinks he's not?" And so man has revelation, followed by rejection, followed by rationalization, in which his empty imaginations tell him that he is really wise.

And the fourth step in the successive fall of man is religion, verse 23. He then changes the glory of the incorruptible God, the true God, into an idol, an idol made in the image of men and birds and beasts and snakes and bugs. And he worships everything but the true God. Religion is not man at his highest, religion is man at his lowest. For religion is idolatry, and idolatry is man in the pits, for idolatry violates the first commandment, "Thou shalt have, what? No other gods before Me." And the second, "Thou shalt make no graven images."

And so man starts at revelation, descends to rejection, descends to rationalization and descends finally to religion, manmade, Satan-inspired, demonic religion that has absolutely no truth in it and no power to restrain sin.

Now watch what happened. At this juncture, God lets men go. Why? Because they have gone so far away from Him “Ephraim is joined to idols.” What's the rest of the verse? “Let them alone.” Because you will have none of me, I give you up. You have forsaken me and I forsake you. That's the story of man. The human race is not on an ascent to God, the human race is on a descent from God. They're running as fast as they can away from His presence and reality. And they have come to the pit of religion. And once you come to the pit of false religion, you have violated the first and foremost commandment, and that is that you should love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. You have made other gods, you have blasphemed the truth of God and you are at the worst possible level of human existence. And at that point, God says I gave them up.

The Human Race Is Not On An Ascent To God, The Human Race Is On A Descent From God.

And that leads to the results of verse 24. When God gives men up, they sink into reprobation that is almost beyond description. Because when the restraints are off all hell breaks loose. Now I want you to think this thought with me because it's the key to the passage. Now listen carefully. The wrath of God is not only something future, there is a day of wrath; we'll get to that when we get into chapter 2 over about in verse 5. There is a day of wrath in the future, but the wrath of God is not just a future reality. The wrath of God is going on all the time. Verse 18 says, "For the wrath of God, the Greek says is all the time being revealed from heaven."

Now listen. How is God's wrath being revealed? It is being revealed in His giving men up. For when He gives them up to their sinfulness, that in itself is the working of His wrath. He could restrain men, but He is so angry with their apostasy that He lets them go, and the consequences of their own sin are the outworking of His wrath. Men today who live their own life in sin are seeing the wrath of God unfolding through the result of their own sinfulness.

And you see it all over the place. The terrible disasters that come into people's lives because of their incessant sinfulness is the outworking of the present expression of the wrath of God. And you're going to see this as we go.

Now, look at man at his worst. Man at his very worst, man in the muck, in the mire of his filthy depraved heart, that's my obligation and yours, even now, to show men the outcome of having a depraved heart. It's not necessarily a pleasant one but it shows us that when men abandon God, God abandons them and their own sin takes over and works its own effects.

In Judges 10:13 it says, "Yet ye have forsaken me and served other gods." And that is always man at his lowest. He gets religious. "Wherefore I will deliver you no more." You abandon me, I abandon you. Second Chronicles chapter 15, I want to show you two passages in 2 Chronicles, verse 1 says, "The Spirit of God came upon Azariah the son of Oded and he went out to meet Asa, the king Azariah is a prophet and said to him, ‘Hear ye me, Asa, and all Judah and Benjamin, the Lord is with you while you are with Him and if you seek Him, He will be found by you. But if you forsake Him, He will forsake you.’"

Second Chronicles 24 verse 20, "The Spirit of God came upon Zechariah, the son of Jehoiada, to the priest, who stood above the priest, above the people rather, and said to them, ‘Thus saith God, ‘Why transgress you the commandments of the Lord that you cannot prosper?’ Because you have forsaken the Lord, He hath also forsaken you.’" What a verse. You forsook Him, He forsakes you. And when that happens, it is a short step to the abandonment of the sinfulness that we see in these verses.

Now, I want you to divide the text into three parts. Each of the three is introduced by the statement, "God gave them up." The first marks, now think with me, the essence of sin. The second marks the expression of sin. And the third marks the extent of sin, meaning “to give up.” It by the way is a very intense word. It means to turn someone over. And it's kind of interesting if you follow its use for just a minute. Look back at Matthew, and I won't go all over the Bible, but I'll just hum through Matthew and show you a couple of places where it's used in Matthew. It's used in Matthew 4:12, "Now when Jesus heard that John was cast into prison," and there the idea is he's thrown into punishment, he's thrown into judgment. Matthew chapter 5 verse 25, "Agree with thine adversary quickly while thou art in the way with him, lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge." Again, meaning, turning someone over to a judge for sentencing. In the first case, turn them over to a prison. The second case, turn them over for judgment.

If you follow along you'll see it also in chapter 10 of Matthew, verse 17, "Beware of men for they will deliver you up to the councils" again, turning you over for some kind of sentencing, turning you over to some judge. You find it also in verse 19, "When they deliver you up, again don't be anxious what you're going to say on your behalf." You find it in verse 21, "And your own brother will deliver you up to death." And again, every time so far in Matthew it's used of putting someone in a position to be sentenced or putting them under judgment or putting them in prison.

And if you follow it into the eighteenth chapter of Matthew, verse 34, again you find in the parable of the kingdom of heaven, in which there were servants involved who owed the master, it says the Lord was angry and delivered him to the inquisitors till he should pay all that was due unto him. In other words, he turned him over because of non-payment of his debt to some who would punish him until he learned to pay. Again it speaks very specifically about a judicial setting and a judgment rendered by a judge or by some kind of authority.

In the 26th chapter of Matthew, in the 15th verse, Judas Iscariot said to them, "What will you give me and I will deliver Jesus unto you?" And there again it means turning Jesus over to the Jewish authorities for punishment for execution or whatever. Chapter 27 of Matthew verse 2, "And when they had bound Him they led Him away and delivered Him to Pontius Pilate.” I think you get the picture, don't you?  God gave them up, God gave them up, and God gave them up. And when He did, He gave them over to a punishment. He gave them over to an imprisonment. He gave them over to those who would inflict pain or to that which would inflict pain upon them.

Spurgeon, writing says, "The lost enjoy forever the horrible freedom they have demanded and are therefore self-enslaved." God gives them up judicially. God gives them up punitively. God gives them over to the consequence of their own sinfulness.

Now, there is a sense, and this is a theological point that I want you to get in your mind, we're going to go two ways on it, there is a sense in which the phrase means "God let go." God just took His hands off, pulled the restraints back and just let them go in their sin, and sin brings its own consequence. One of the problems, by the way, in our society is that we're working furiously to remove the consequence of sin. I always think about that when I think about all the medicines they've invented to stop venereal disease when venereal disease is God's way of stopping immorality. And as soon as you can deal with venereal disease you can free up everybody to do whatever they want. There's a sense in which God just lets men go, takes away His restraints, gives them their freedom, and they go on in their sins and reap the results. So in a very real sense, without revealing fire from heaven, without some cataclysmic event, God pours out His wrath on a day-to-day basis as He abandons men to the destructiveness of their own compounded sin. It's an amazing and awesome reality. God makes men's passions the very instrument of His wrath.

So, we have a world of sex perverts. We have a world of people who live in moral permissiveness. We have a world of liars and cheaters and thieves and robbers and gossipers and disobedient and loveless and brutal, proud boasters, because God let them go. And there's no way to restrain that. People say, "Oh, God in the future is going to judge America." God is judging America right now. Can't you see it? Can't you see a whole nation gone after perverted sinfulness and reaping the consequences of its own sin? God's judgment is at work right now. And our culture, if it reflects anything, reflects the utter meaninglessness, the utter despair and the loneliness and the lostness and the fragmentation and the absence of identity that results when man is cut off from God. One writer said, "What God, without God there are no abiding truths, there are no lasting principles, there are no norms and man is cast upon a sea of speculation and skepticism and attempted self-salvation."

Now, I think it's important to say this. Though sin is a result of God's wrath, God doesn't make men sin. He just abandons them to their own perversity. And we say that to protect the holiness of God. I had a man say to me one time, "God makes you sin." That's not true. God is of purer eyes than to behold evil, cannot look upon iniquity. God is always good and right and true. God does not sin and God tempts, says James, no man to sin. But God will abandon men to their own sin as a part of His judgment. He loosens the restraints and man's depraved desire takes over. That's why our society is like it is. God just took off the restraint. And I think we've seen it happen sort of progressively in our own country, as it happens, I think, in a lot of societies that are founded on Christian principle. For a long time it seemed as though the restraints were there and things were different. In the last 100 years it just seems that God has just taken them off and we're reaping all the results.

If there's anything that I believe, and I believe a lot of things, but if there's anything I believe, I believe that God is in the process of pouring out wrath on American society and society around the world as we know it in Western culture. Because we have abandoned Him, He has abandoned us. And as I said earlier, it's not that He's totally lifted the restraints. That's yet in the future. And when He does that, according to 2 Thess. 2:7, when the one who hinders stops hindering, that is when the restrainer, the Holy Spirit, doesn't restrain anything, then you will have chaos that is unimaginable. And the earth will turn into a slaughterhouse. Men will even massacre one another.

A further thought is necessary. And I told you there would be a kind of a two-fold thing as you think about the judicial act of God. It is not just a negative restraint withdrawal. It is not that just God just pulls back. That is, that is too be non-involved. There's a sense also in which in pulling back or letting the restraints go, God is acting in a positive overt move of judgment. It isn't that God just says, "Ah, that's enough of you," and turns around and takes a walk. It is that God in taking off the restraints which is sort of a negative thing, He just takes them back also is positively inflicting men with His wrath, because He knows the consequence. He abandons us totally to our sinfulness. He removes the restraints. But in a real sense that is a positive punitive act on His part.

Now let's follow that thought as we move through our text. Keep in mind, God lets men go and we find out what happens when He does.

I want to give you one footnote. It's important to say at this point that this is not a final forever act that damns all men without recourse. God lets men go to the consequence of their sin and all the while endeavors to reach them with the message of His salvation. You understand that? You see, the gospel begins with the fact that God let men go. But it is these very men, the world of people like you and I, that He has abandoned to their sinfulness, that He calls back later in Romans in the redemptive invitation of the gospel.

For example, the woman Jezebel seems to have been, in Revelation 2, the very embodiment of gross, vile sin. And yet God, it says, gave her time to repent, time to repent. 1 Peter 3:20: It says, "The patience of God waited, for God was not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance."

In 1 Corinthians chapter 6 you have a list that's almost identical to Romans chapter 1. It says, "Be not deceived, fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, effeminate, homosexuals, thieves, covetous, drunkards, revilers, extortioners, none of these shall inherit the kingdom of God." It's almost an identical list to Romans 1. And then it says, "And such were some of you. But you are washed, you are sanctified, you are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God." It's those kinds of people that He wants to redeem, do you see? So He has abandoned man, yes. But He calls man back to Himself. The abandonment is from that pristine knowledge where men knew God and ran from God, and now God runs and calls them back. And very often, as He lets them go deeper and deeper into the pit of their own sin, they eventually hit bottom and scream for mercy. And so in a real sense, as it says in Isaiah 19:22, God smites in order that He might heal. Divine mercy and grace and patience without response result in the outpouring of wrath. Man won't respond, God pours out His wrath. Impenitent sinners are swept away into their own sins, and vile passions lead them toward hell. In the midst of it all God calls them to Himself.

Let's look at the first of the three and, I don't know, we probably won't get past this one. The essence of man's sinfulness, verse 24: "Wherefore God also gave them up.” When He let them go they went directly to uncleanness. The word "wherefore" indicates the judgment of God's wrath finding its reason in the preceding verses. God gave them up because they had revelation, they turned it to rejection, then rationalization and finally in their idolatry, false religion. And because of that God gave them up. And first we see the essence of their sin. He gave them up to uncleanness, impurity. And that is the essence of man's sinfulness. That he is on the inside impure. It goes on to say, “Through the lusts of their own, what? Hearts! It is an internal impurity. Man is given over to rottenness on the inside.

That word, by the way, is used often by Paul. In fact, it's a common word that he uses to express the condition of men. He uses it in 2 Cor. 12:21, Gal. 5:19, Eph. 5:3, and 1 Thess. 4:7. Man is basically unclean. That's the essence. When I say essence, I mean the nature of man or the heart of man, the internal part. You see, the problem with man is that inside down deep he is a rotten, a vile sinner; uncleanness, impurity.

Now may I add this? That as I looked that word up and traced it through Paul's thinking, it primarily refers to perversion of the sexual area of life. But it encompasses a general essence of a God-rejecting heart. It becomes a sort of a totally unclean, vile character, which expresses itself primarily in the sexual area. That's why it says at the end of verse 24 that they wind up dishonoring their own bodies between themselves. The baseness, the vile nature of man's heart is the reason that he becomes sexually perverted.

The thought of the phrase, let's look at it a moment, “through the lusts of their own hearts.” “Their own hearts” emphasizes that they are self-willed. Their own heart, do what you want, do your own thing, do whatever you feel like doing, let your lust tell you what to do. And because their hearts are unclean, out of it comes filth. In Prov. 4:23 it says, "Out of the heart are the issues of life." And Jer. 17:9 says, "The heart of man is deceitful above all things and what? Desperately wicked" when God gives men up He gives them up to uncleanness, which comes out of their own insides. “Heart” means the thinking processes, the will, and internal character. Man abandoned by God has only to do what his heart tells him to do, and his heart is corrupt. He has no other norms, no other standards, no other principles than his own desires. And those desires come out of a perverted heart turned over to its own devices and utterly sinful. They eventually manifest themselves in physical perversion.

And I would just say again, man is not good. You know, if you believe in the basic goodness of man, you're dead wrong. Man is basically rotten.  Rom. 3:10, "There's none righteous, no not one." How many? Not one, and he put that extra phrase cause somebody would have said "except me" so he said "no, not one." "There's none that understands, there's none that seeks after God, they're all gone out of the way, there is none that doeth good, again, there's none that doeth good, not one. “Their throat is an open sepulcher, with their tongues they use deceit, the poison of asps is under their lips, their mouth is full of cursing, their feet are swift to shed blood, destruction and misery is in their ways. The way of peace have they not known and there's no reverence for God in their eyes.” And the whole world is guilty before God. And later on he says, "For all have, what? Sinned and come short of the glory of God." Man is basically vile. And the problem is because his basic nature comes from within him, and within him is rottenness.

Mark 7, you know the passage, "For from within," verse 21, "out of the heart of men proceeds what? Nice things? No. Evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness and evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness, and all these evil things come from within and defile the man." You were born into this world a sinner, you're defiled from the inside and it manifests itself on the outside. And if you've abandoned God and God has abandoned you, there is no way to restrain that evil, there is no way to cover that evil, and there is no way to deal with that evil. In fact, in Proverbs 6 it says "Men have hearts that are quick to devise wickedness. In Prov. 10:20 it says, "The tongue of the just is like choice silver but the heart of the wicked is of little worth." Why? It has no worth because it has no good that it can produce.  Isa. 44:20 says of man, "He has a deceived heart and hath been turned aside."  Jer. 5:23 says, "This people hath a revolting and a rebellious heart."  Ezek. 14:3 says, "Men have set up their idols in their heart and put the stumbling block of their iniquity before their own face." They cause themselves to fall because they're so filled with evil. Evil-perverted desires mark men.

And the result, back again to Romans 1, "They dishonor their bodies between themselves." This gives meaning to the lust of the heart. You wouldn't know what the lust of the heart was unless you had a phrase like this to show you how it works itself out. They don't know how to handle their bodies. They pervert God's intended use for the body. They turn to fornication, sexual activities, sexual deviations, sexual perversion, and sexual promiscuity. And if there ever has been a society preoccupied with it, it's us. But may I hasten to add, we are just like every other society that's ever been around, only some have covered it up better. In their freedom from God's truth they turn to perversion and even inversion of the created order, as well. And in the end, their man-centered humanism resulted in dehumanization of each other. And that's what men do when they dishonor their bodies. They turn each other into animals.

In 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, Paul, I think speaks to this just in a marvelous way. He says, "This is the will of God, even your sanctification, you should abstain from sexual sin and you should know how to possess your body in sanctification and honor, not in the lust of sensuality as the Gentiles or the heathen who know not God." If you're a believer, you ought to know how to control the body. Why? It is because the Spirit of God is there and He can control those things.

But, he says, "You should know how to control it, not like the pagans who know not God." What is the implication? It is that they cannot control it. As in Colossians, you have the capacity as a believer to set your affections on things above and not on things on the earth. They do not, they do not. They will go out and dishonor their bodies because that's what their lusts tell them to do.

But he says, God will destroy both it and them because the body is not for fornication, the body was made for the Lord. But man said no to God and started down the slide and now he winds up only doing what his own desire tells him to do and he fornicates. That's the legacy of man.

Why? Let's go back and at least look at verse 25 for a second. Why? It is because, again, “they exchanged the truth of God into a lie.” They actually exchanged the truth of God into a lie! It expresses some mild shock, like, “Could you believe that?” They had the truth of God written in their hearts, visible around them and they didn't want it and they rejected it and they exchanged it into a lie. This means they exchanged the true God for false gods.

What is the word lie there? The lie is that God is not God that God doesn't have to be obeyed or honored or glorified. That is the lie that Satan has been pushing off since the Garden. They believed the lie that God is not God, God is not to be praised and honored and glorified and obeyed. They believed the lie. It is not unusual that God is called “the truth.” It is not unusual that idols are called “the lie.” Jesus called Himself, “the Truth.” And Isa. 44:20 describes a sculptor who made for himself a god, who reaches out to take hold of the god, and Isaiah says, never asks, and “Is there not a lie in my right hand”? The idol is the expression of the lie that God is not God, the truth is not truth. Jer. 13:25 says, "Thou hast forgotten me and trusted in a lie." And the proof is shown in the exchange that follows, in the next phrase in verse 25: “They worshiped and served the creature more than the creator.” Their own idols made with their own hands in their own image and in that of animals and birds, expressions of their own evil desires, gods of their own liking and their own making, they worshiped rather than the true Creator.

When it says they worshiped and served, it means they adored and served. So, beloved, they deserved their punishment. Men deserve their punishment. They are without excuse. And the reason God gave them up to the essence of their evil hearts so that it would express itself in the corruption between their bodies was because they exchanged the true God for a lie. And they worshiped the idols and the things they love rather than the Creator. And at this point, the Apostle Paul can't stand it any longer so he just throws in a benediction, "Who is blessed forever, amen." I mean, he just can't go any further with the garbage. And the very mention of the name of the Creator who is blessed forever, amen, and you know what that was? That was an old, traditional, Jewish doxology. And Jews today, Orthodox Jews today, will still say that. They'll mention something about the Creator who is blessed forever, amen. That's not uncommon even today. And he just goes into that common phrase; he cannot resist a respite of refreshing thought in a sea of filth. He can't resist a word of praise affirming what is due to God. And in a sense he heightens and magnifies their evil, doesn't he, because God is worthy to be praised, He is blessed forever. And yet they worship the creature more than the Creator.

Men today worship cars, they worship houses, they worship clothes, they worship their bodies, they worship women, they worship success, they worship money, and they worship false gods in a religious environment. They have idols ad infinitum, ad nauseous, but not God, and that's why God gave them up. And He gave them up to the essence of their evil hearts.

May all of us so live under the power of the Holy Spirit that we see righteousness and godliness manifested in our lives, not because we can do it but because God’s Son, Jesus does it in us as we yield.

Lord, we know the wrath of God is at work in our nation as men are abandoned to the essence of their sin. God, help us to take them the message that if they will come back and embrace Jesus, You will embrace them. May they come, in the blessed name of Jesus Christ our Lord!

[hereticaloracles]

Full Moon in Scorpio- Wormwood

“There is an ancient tribal proverb I once heard in India. It says that before we can see properly we must first shed our tears to clear the way.” – Libba Bray

Effective Date:  5/10/2017

Helios’ Astrological Angle on the Full Moon in Scorpio5- Well, this Lunation is about to be one bitter pill to swallow. Yes, you have already had to deal with much, giving up on what you thought was important, and choosing the hills that you want to die on, but unfortunately it is not over for you. No, all that you have done so far is preamble. Look, you have to realize that not all things are possible, all at the same time. Yes, you can have it all, but you have to take the proper steps to get there, and sometimes that means taking a backstep. Remember, quite a bit of these skies are still Retrograde, way more than we are used to. That makes forward motion difficult, if not impossible. With all the planets Retrograde (Jupiter, Saturn and Pluto) and those who are still in Shadow from recent Retrogrades (Mercury, Venus, Vesta) we are having to refocus and reasses every foundation that we have built our lives on thus far. This may seem like a disaster to us, but we have to look ahead to see what is coming: Saturn in Capricorn. Specifically, I have had my eye on a specific moment when we will have Saturn in Capricorn, conjoining Pluto and Jupiter (this also happens to be my Saturn Return. Gods help me.) in 2020, so that will be fun.With his shadow looming large over us, everything starts to make more sense. These days, hell this whole retrograde-dominated year, is one big stress test for your life and what you have built for yourself. These moments can feel poisonous to you, and you will have to make drastic decisions if you want to get through it intact.

Artemis’ Tarot Take on the Full Moon in Scorpio- This is the last of it, Heretics. The North Node in Virgo, that is, and with it we are getting some cutting experiences.  This is the culmination of you finding out just how much of a doormat you really are before the NN moves into Leo, the sign of Ego and Self Worth. But Virgo wants you to give you one last work review, and it’s going to be a particularly scarring one which will move you on to your next challenge – the North Node moving into Leo – aka finding your pride in how you re-confront your mistakes. Do you see failures as opportunities for transformation or do you see them as a wall that you cannot push through, boxing you in and suffocating you – forcing you to pace in circles for all of eternity? Usually when these situations hit us, when we are stuck in a room with a door that does not open whether we push or pull, it is time to start digging instead…

The Sun, Moon and Pluto– This one is going to cut you deep, y’all. The terrifying thing about the Moon mixing with Pluto is that the Moon shows Pluto your vulnerable spots, the soft belly that your spiny ridges and defenses protect. Of course, that means that Pluto will be attacking you on your Sun, aka through your ego. This is actually the least attractive tactic to Pluto, who prefers the stealth assault, and only uses this in two situations: Where he is completely confident in his power and willing to come out into the light; Or when he is desperate and no other recourse is available to him. Either way, in choosing the frontal attack, Pluto becomes vulnerable, as his main power comes from the shadows he hides in, in whispers and secrets. When he comes into the light he is exposed as less than what he pretends to be. So it will be for us during this moon. What terrifies us will be shown to be nothing more than the fears of a child, irrational and blown out of proportion.

We all have these fears lurking in our subconscious- about our self-worth and if we are good enough to get what we want, that sort of thing- But this Lunation will amplify that to the nth degree. The ones to look out for are the fears regarding love and our relationships, of our connection to spirit, and of failure leading us to play it far too safe in our dealings. You must not allow yourself to get sucked into the drama and power plays of others. Stay in your lane, and focus on what you are building. Never forget who you are, no matter what you have to do to rebuild.

(Minor Planets used: Juno, Ceto, Bienor, Magdalena, Minerva, Phaethon, Amor, Cyllarus, Klotho)

The Sun(Ace of Wands), Moon(The Tower), and Pluto (5 of Cups)- There is a dark serpent energy here, slithering its way into every crevice of your life and offering you another bit of the fruit that opens your eyes. Are you too scared to actually face what your world is really like?  This moon is a visionary moon and wants to show you the truth; no matter how grotesquely it may manifest for we’ve all been lying to ourselves in one way or another and creating monsters because of this. Scorpio hates a liar – even a liar with good intentions – so truths she has to tell will always leave a shiver up your spine. The passion during this moon is extraordinarily intense and also extraordinarily sexual. This is all because this moon has been touched by Pluto (and we all know what happens when you are touched by Pluto, you get pulled into the fucking underworld – gnashing teeth and bodies of hell). Your sense for danger will be heightened and your aggression toward being dominated will become deadly under these stars. And pay close attention, Heretics, because people’s corruption will rise to the surface like swamp scum.

When animals sense danger, their sexual urges also increase. It’s a strange “mate before you can’t pass on your legacy” sort of feeling, and we are all experiencing the pressure in society.  The depravity is far more evident than it ever was – no matter how dressed up we try to make the world and our lives. At this point it’s like putting lipstick on a corpse; we still see how dead the world is becoming day by day and we notice this death creeping into our own lives as well. We sit at work, wondering why the fuck we are really there and what the purpose of it all is – no matter how seemingly fulfilling your job may be, it is still feeding a dark system (Why does your yoga studio need a rich girl merchandise section if yoga is a spiritual art? Where is the money in your non-profit really going?) We are feeding our souls into a soulless machine that loves to lie to us and give us the illusion of purpose, and the burden of this daily activity is making our subconscious scream in terror – wanting to take a hammer to all the things around us. This moon is Kali energy – here to swallow whole false towers.  And what happens when dismantling begins? Deceit gets far more intense. Enemies find a new wrath during this full moon, and an “evil” sort of energy prevails similar to what we had during the new moon in Scorpio back on Hallow’s Eve 2016.  Your “demons” are coming back to play in hoards, and I suggest you do not ignore them and continue making them more grotesque due to your self delusion. You may call what you see “evil” but it is really just all of the massive amounts of repression being let out – oozing through our pours and permeating our dreams. This is a healing moon, but healing in a sort of violent way where you must sear the wound with fire in order to close it. Healing through “sex magick” is a must with this Pluto sextile, and a warning to keep your eyes open is also a must. It seems the universe wants to reveal some dangerous truths to us, and they may manifest in very violent and “sinful” ways.

Mercury, Saturn and Uranus– Harsh lessons are coming. These planets are cold in their expression, and very mental. Along with all the transneptunians involved here, that leads us to seeing some very stark realities. We are going to have to face our reality as it is, like running into a brick wall. There is no more burying your head in the sand with these guys, we all have to wake up and get to work. No matter how tired we are, how hurt, disillusioned, numb, forgotten or judged we feel; we cannot quit now. We must push on, and play the game. Hang on to what drives you, the dream of the future you seek to build, and there is no way that you can lose. Still, sometimes you have to bluff on a bad hand….

(Minor Planets used: Chiron, Eris, Sedna, Ixion, Varuna, Rhadamanthus, Damocles, Icarus, Rhiphonos)

Mercury (Hangman), Saturn (Ace of Pentacles), Uranus (High Priestess)- You ever have a really bad trip?  You know, you take a bunch of psychedelics and you realize just how artificial everything is. You get the creeps when you look at advertisements, you want to shatter your tv, and you want to go lie outside in the grass and feel something real? It’s this weird understanding that we have built false laws into our lives – a sort of self imposed hell where we believe in weird things like light always prevailing and that somehow none of us have primal urges toward aggression. Why do you think we have the reptilian part of our brain that we do? There is a reminder here that we live in two worlds. One is the world which we have created that is based on abstract concepts like, “freedom,” and “justice,” and “morality,” etc, and the other world is the Scorpionic world – the one based off of the true order of things that rests just below the surface and wrecks our false dreams at every turn. And in the true order of things, death and violence and transformation is a daily occurring thing. Most humans live their lives trying to manifest themselves into the perfect marketed image of a human, when humanity is far more gritty and elusive and intense than we could ever believe.

There is wisdom in the chaos – wisdom in the violence of nature that we must take to heart and swallow like a pill. Do not ignore the fact that you can only gain false purpose if you follow an abstract path. There is reality, and there is human simulated reality that we have roped together as a collective. Do not let the latter weigh you down and make you feel any less than. Stick to your intuition during this lunation, and don’t fall for false prophets who promise you the gold of heaven or some sort of abstract method of breaking down human behavior. There is a wisdom you seek deep in mother earth – deep in reality and it’s true constructs that can only be intuited, not abstractly manifested by the mind.

Venus– Our girl is all alone, still playing by herself in the Aries sandbox, and that is probably how you are feeling right now as well- Alone, isolated, and trying to distract yourself from it until you have someone to play with. Take this time as a gift, and focus on yourself. Sure, doing so seems like an agonizing torment when you realize how out of touch you are with yourself, but I’m sure that it’ll be fine. Do whatever you have to in order to recover. Retreat from everyone, go to ground, and get back on track. Put your head down, work hard, get in bangin shape and get your money right. Fall in love with yourself again, remember why you are amazing and why you chose this path in your life. You are being so cruel to yourself, punishing yourself for perceived mistakes and failures, most of which you had no way to see coming or stop. You did the best you could with what you had, and there is no shame in that. Rediscover the magic in your life, and come back to it, ASAP- it might just save your soul.

(Minor Planets used: Orcus, Eros, Psyche, Hylonome, Crantor, Circe, Achilles, Siva)

Venus (5 Swords)- So it’s time to wrap up your payment for Venus Retrograde, where you may have destroyed your values for momentary delights. Our girl is just about out of shadow (another 9 days after this full moon), but the Scorpio energy of this lunation is going to be a bit of an inquisition. There is a “struggling against fate” energy here, where we may be attempting to get back something that we lost during Venus’ Babylonian rage through our lives. But, again, the lesson during this lunation is that not everything can be intellectualized and you must look deep into yourself to see if the right choices were made. Even if something feels painful and crushing, the severance of that limb may be the very thing that saves your life and lets you continue growing. You made the decisions you made, now there is no going back. So move on with it; I promise you there are greener pastures ahead that you just can’t see through the cloud of your tears. I know it is difficult to realize people’s true intentions with you, but Venus retrograded to show us that not everyone’s love is a positive influence on our life. Love is a wonderful thing, but some love is shackles of our past karma and repression. Some “love” just smooths things over gets us off, like a cheap prostitute, instead of forcing us to reckon with ourselves and truly transform into what we are meant to be. Don’t stay with lovers, don’t feed lovers that do not feed your purpose.

Mars, Jupiter and Neptune– The biggest thing that I hear from you guys is that you are lost, or don’t know what to do with your life after all that has happened to you. That is okay. Honestly, that’s the only sane reaction to what a lot of you have faced. The thing is, do you really have to do anything? No, don’t just dismiss that out of hand- think about it. What if you just do nothing? At some point it all just becomes too much; You can only plug up the holes and cracks in the dam for so long before it floods the town. Sooner or later, you need to focus on evacuating that town so that the disaster can happen with minimal loss of life. If you ignore the root problem and only treat the symptoms, then you never see any real improvements. Sometimes, everything needs to be destroyed so that you can start fresh again. This is looking more and more like one of those times, both in the world and for yourself. If you realize it and embrace it, then it will be easier than if you reject it until you are steamrolled by it.

Sometimes you have to lose, and its hard. Other times, you have to surrender and it’s even harder. The price of progress in those situations is your ego. When the only option you have is giving up, that is a heavy price to pay, but it means that you can live to fight another day, instead of fading away into insignificance with naught more than a whisper. Unfortunately, sometimes it is the only way. What I am proposing is not at all giving yourself over to the firing squad, no- what I am suggesting is that instead of going down with the ship as a romantic or heroic sacrifice, you get on a damn lifeboat. There is more to you that you have yet to do, and calling the curtain early is not in the cards for you. I’m sorry, because it feels like agony to see the stroy through to the end, but this must be done- there is no escape from your fate. Hold your head up high, and walk into the arena with your dignity, like a true hero.

(Minor Planets used: Pallas Athene, Asbolus, Okyrhoe, Teharonhiawako, Praamzius, Terpshichore, Lachesis, Orpheus, Narcissus, Chariklo, Hygeia, Persephone, Bacchus, Asclepius, Urania, Kassandra)

Mars (Temperance), Jupiter (10 of Wands), Neptune (5 of Wands)-  Alejandro Jodorowsky once said, “Birds born in a cage think that flying is an illness.” Although I agree with Alejandro to an extent, I also believe that said birds have an instinct to fly that itches and prods at them to no extent yet their circumstances make it impossible to ever realize what that itching and prodding is actually for. Maddening, isn’t it? I find humans to be the exact same way. We play these abstract games with each other, not realizing that they are mere shadows of how reality truly manifests. Our joy is taxed right now, and we see no end in sight with all the burdens we have piled upon ourselves. But wait! The key is to continue churning out rawness no matter how tired you may feel by these burdens and the heaviness of cultural dogma. Keep sending out the signals so that other humans know they are not alone in feeling this maddening separation from our true nature. You do not have to be anything the powers that be are telling you to be, and they continue to dump more and more on you so that you suffocate under the structures instead of smash them – showing everyone else that you don’t have to live any particular way. It is time to use the master’s weapons against him, so figure out how to use the system to your advantage and temper a transformation as if this reality is some sort of training regime – a cocoon if you will. In short, don’t give up on your dream just because the world is shitting on it. When the ancient Greeks died, the primary question anyone asked was, “Did they have passion?” And if so, their life was worth something incalculable. “Success” in this world may be the death of your soul. So although right now you may have to resign to the system in order to feed your family and keep yourself out of the prison industrial complex, do not stop plotting your escape. If you do, your repression of your instinct to fly will continue to manifest as demons in your head and you will have to eternally confront them and explain why you would rather live in a lie.

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Full Moon in Scorpio- Wormwood was originally published on Heretical Oracles

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