#like that quote from nation about the gods letting you down and how kneeling to them would be bowing to murderers and bullies | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

rea-can-yeet · 2 years

Text

Part two of my take of sagau winx au. So imagine after fleeing away from the three nations, all you've ever did during the escape is just fly, you didn't even rest. You kept flying for three days straight, avoiding civilizations cuz fuck the idea looking for a hotel to wait for rescue from Alfea, you'll get attacked again.

So you flew and relied on regeneration spells to maintain your stamina during the night. As you flew, you reach an area that's just all white, snow. You were at your limit so you have to land and rest. As you touch down on a stone to avoid the snow (cuz enchantix form doesn't have shoes), you stretch your body and sit down. You were sure that it would be safe to detransform, so you do-- which was a mistake because once you do, you start shivering from the cold.

Shoes are back to protect your feet from the snow? Good. The lack of your enchantix to protect you from the cold? Bad.

You sneeze and was contemplating to transform again but you were too tired. You were about to cast a little song spell that would warm you up for a couple of minutes when you heard footsteps against snow.

Oh curses! You should have doubled checked if you were safe, even use echo location to see if you were truly alone. You're a Fairy of Music for crying out loud!

You turn around ready to throw hands but you were stuck in place when you see a formidable foe, the very person that you pray to not encounter.

Tartar sauce.

Childe approaches you cautiously and you also held a fighting stance. But oh, what's this? He starts kneeling, calling you divine one. And you just stood there like🕴️

What? Hold up, rewind a bit cuz you're confused. First, people try to kill you for impersonating the 'Divine One' what ever that is, then this guy believes you to be the person the others have accused you of impersonating. Damn, you might think Childe would have mistook you as that damn god, so you came clean, not wanting this guy to attack you like the others.

He shakes his head tho, believing that you are the god their nation prays. Your wings were evidence enough. You realized that he has been in this area longer than you were and had saw you detransform. He said that there were statues and other stuff that describes your appearance, especially the Divine One's higher form of divinity, which are her wings.

You ignore the way he described your wings, even tho it was uncanny how people of Teyvat knew about your wing's description cuz you swear no one outside the students of Alfea know, but you still think it's bull. You would have still continued to disregard his silly beliefs of you being that same god until he got to the part where there are depictions of you having different wings while holding a square metal device.

You stopped as you realized what that meant. You were seen holding a phone and lastly, it meant you have obtained different fairy forms, different wings, aside for enchantix and charmix.

And then his next words solidified in you, the last nail in the coffin, he utters a quote that people of Teyvat claimed to be said by you;

"If you have tequila, vodka, red bull, and the power of god and anime by your side, you will ascend to the epitome of peace and chaos."

You wanted nothing more than the cold to just kill you. That line, that very line, is what you always say around your friends, both human and fairies. You were even planning to use that quote for your year book when you graduate Alfea.

And it seems that Childe, despite his nation to be based on Russia, doesn't seem to know Vodka. Let alone tequila, red bull, and anime. Teyvat citizens, including Childe, revers this quote to be an unattainable destiny only to be accomplished by the Divine One.

As crazy as all of these have came to be, for now, you were going to believe him because holy shit, this fictional character knows shit about you, but also because it was too damn cold. You were thankful that he does not plan to kill you and offered for you to be presented to the tsaritsa so that the archon, the fatui, and the entire nation can put you under their care and protection.

You agreed, he even gave you his jacket and transformed into his foul legacy to carry you to the palace. How sweet of him.

So he carried you there and you were presented to the zepolyarny palace as he said, the only difference is that everything seemed like it was prepared beforehand, as if there's an event or something. Fatuis were well groomed and formed in an organized line before the throne, the Harbingers were present as well, and holy sht, the tsaritsa is hot.

Turns out, they were waiting for your arrival. When you were Rick Rolling™ the acolytes, a fatui has witnessed your transformation and reported to the tsaritsa immediately. One of the fatui have took it upon themselves to note your directions and concluded that you were avoiding towns and went flying to the corners of Snezhnaya.

You've always wondered why Childe was in Snezhnaya when he's supposed to be stationed in Liyue. You got your answer, he was tasked to find you as he was one of your divine vessels, the one you've taken to different places and given him blessings to become stronger.

Childe returns to his human form and he didn't even looked tired, instead, he looked energized. He informed the tsaritsa that you were the real deal, the transformation, your power, and the fact that Childe didn't feel pain or fatigue when he transformed, just seals that you were, in fact, their god.

Everyone rejoiced for you to have blessed their nation by your presence. Celebrations happened, you were cared for, they scorn the other nations in your stead for what you've been through, you bond with the Harbingers and the tsaritsa etc etc etc. The usual fatui au chain.

You liked how you don't have to fight anyone or run away to survive here, you liked it, but you were still in a middle of an assignment. There should have been a search rescue coming for you, you were stranded in Teyvat with no where to acess the infinite ocean. You started to worry...

Until a call from the headmistress (not faragonda because i think she'd be retired by the time you enrolled) came. Well, technically you made a distress signal spell until you finally got a call-back.

So I'll stop my idea here for now because holy hell this is getting longer so I gotta split it. Part three will just be about the headmistress' take about the whole situation. No actually, scratch that. Headmistress' verdict will be on part four. I change my mind, part three will be different.

But that will take some time for me since I still have a lot to draw, but it'll come soon, I promise because I'm such a geek and I'm too invested

And also, I hope you enjoy the comic below. Because I wanna l see how some of the fatui react with the winx transformation.

This is how it happened basically:

You will sing along 🔫

I was supposed to upload this yesterday but I got busy with studying haha

#sagau and winx basically lol #genshin self aware #genshin impact sagau #genshin sagau #genshin cult au #art #short comic #sagau villain au #sagau #rea draws #rea brainrots

721 notes · View notes

gabywantsafriend · 4 years

Text

Dopamine and Oxytocin: Brian Johnson x Reader

(Not my GIF)

Requested by tmntthristy - “Is it ok if request a brian Johnson x reader where they meet in detention”

Hi sorry it took me so long to respond to your request, love :( I hope you enjoy it, though! -Gaby :)

Warning: Mentions of drugs, Swearing

“Ah, Ms. L/n. Right on time,” Vernon greeted without looking up from his clipboard. He flipped through his papers. “Let’s see, first time in detention, eh?” You nodded. “So you’re in here for cursing out Mr. Galvin, correct?”

“To be fair, sir, he was making sexist comments. He needed some words of wisdom to deflate his pathetically large ego.” Allison snorted, mouthing “Good one!” which you replied with a thumbs up. Vernon sighed, “Very unlike you, Ms. L/n. You’re not really the type to speak your mind,” he hinted at your quiet nature, “Alright, well take a seat. Anywhere’s fine.” You sat next to Brian as you’d talk to him the most during class. Plus, you weren’t very close with the rest of the kids. The vice principal then proceeded to lecture you all on the importance of morals and good conduct; you know, all that boring shit. He then proceeded to his office after a last warning of, “And no funny business, got it?”

Once Vernon was out of sight, the group chattered away about their week and how they managed to get into detention. You found out that they called themselves “The Breakfast Club,” and that they see one another on the second Saturday of each month to catch up. They had agreed to keep their friendship private as they were from completely different social backgrounds. They seemed close, much to your dismay as you were an introvert with few friends and weren’t the best at socializing. Great, nine glorious hours of being left out.

You actually followed Vernon’s instructions and managed to finish your essay within the first 45 minutes. You didn’t have anything better to do. The next four hours comprised of you doodling on your notebook and were seemingly peaceful except for Bender’s occasional taunting. Boredom took a hold of you eventually as even your thoughts couldn’t keep you entertained. The group was sprawled out on the floor, passing around a blunt as they cracked up about anything and everything. Yep, they were high as a kite.

You were having a whole, blown-out debate in your head whether you should join them. Your logic kicked in. Y/n, are you insane? A single drag can lead you to addiction and you’ll never get into a good college and no one will hire you because of your messed up state of mind and no one’s ever gonna love you because drugs will be your number one priority. It’ll tear your life apart-

“Hey, can I have a go?” Fuck it. All five of them whipped their heads to look at you, faces painted with astonishment. “Well, well, well. She speaks!” The criminal mocked with a shit-eating grin, kneeling and looking to the heavens as if he just witnessed a miracle. “I’m anti-social, not mute, you fucking moron,” you retorted. The rest of them snickered. “You’re cool,” Allison nodded in approval, passing you the blunt. You stared at the rolled up weed in between your fingertips. As you inhaled the foreign material, you cough a couple of times before you feel the drugs slowly take effect, you squint as the world seems to blurrily spin around you. The next thing you know you’re laughing uncontrollably.

“Alright, if you could have a super power, what would it be?” Brian asked while kneading through his eyebrows, making sure they were still there (the weed toyed with his sense of touch.) The group of high teenagers were all over the library. Andrew was running around the room with Allison on his back, his arms outstretched while he made airplane noises to make her laugh. Bender let out a giggly “Ouch! You’re tugging too hard, babe!” as Claire braided his hair behind a bookshelf. The four were paired up, consumed in teen romance. Brian huffed after looking around, realizing that their attention wasn’t focused on him and his weird questions. He closed his eyes momentarily, basking in the peaceful state of mind that the drugs caused him to be in.

“I’d probably shapeshift.” The nerd squinted at you, quirking an eyebrow in confusion. “What?” You waved your hand in a “move over” kind of motion and he obeyed, scooting a little to make room for you. You laid down beside him, staring at the ceiling. “You asked about super powers, didn’t you?”

You heard him. You, the pretty girl who sat in front of him at History; you, who pushed him out of the way as not to get hit by a dodgeball during P.E; you, who occasionally engaged small talk in class; you, who he had admired for the longest time, were paying attention to him.

He masked his growing smile with a sly, “Oh yeah, I did ask that. I didn’t know Marijuana gave me short-term memory loss,” he laughed quietly. “I wanna have super strength, by the way,” he said as an answer to his own question. “Lame.”

You both then proceeded to talk for what seemed to be hours on end (except for when one of you had to use the restroom.) You spoke about everything and nothing at the same time; your conversations simultaneously switching from serious discussions to little things that made zero sense. From childhood traumas to favorite nursery rhymes, crying about the pressure of having strict parents to cackling about who could sing the national anthem in a higher pitch. You weren’t sure where all of these stories and ranting and weird ass humor were coming from, nor were you sure if you’d remember any of the things you’ve rambled on about by the time the drugs wore off. But after listening to this random nerd from History class, you were sure of one thing:

He’s really pretty.

You took subtle glimpses of him so he wouldn’t catch you staring. You took mental notes of how his eyes seemed to smile while he’d let out a hearty chuckle, how he’d pick at his fingernails when he was nervous, how his voice cracked every now and then, or how he’d do anything and you’d be utterly bewildered.

And he’s beyond intelligent. From what you’ve observed based on hours of chatting, he’d think for a moment, most probably choosing the best words to use, then rant to you as if delivering a whole speech, complete with an introduction, body, and conclusion. “His mind is pretty, too,” you thought.

“Woah, you okay? Your pupils are huge.” You shook your head lightly, getting your head out of the clouds. “Well, that’s what happens when you space out while you’re extremely high,” you nagged playfully. “I don’t think it’s just the Marijuana, Y/n,” Brian stated as-a-matter-of-factly. You squinted at the nerd as you challenged, “Oh yeah? Then what is it?”

His fucked up mental state gave him a surge of confidence as he cleared his throat and explained, “Well, scientifically speaking, there are these ‘love hormones,’” he drew air quotes with his fingers, “called Dopamine and Oxytocin that affect the size of our pupils. These chemicals usually get boosted in your brain when you’re romantically attracted to someone-”

“Wait, wait, wait- so, you’re saying I’m attracted to you?” You sat up, scoffing incredulously. He stopped mid-tutoring to turn his head toward you, you doing the same. He sheepishly grinned, “I don’t know, maybe? I mean- I hope I’m right because I like you a whole lot.”

You sat up abruptly, causing Brian to be startled. “What? You’re joking, aren’t you? I swear to God, Johnson-” His stomach churned unpleasantly at your reaction, you looked disgusted. He was sitting up now, cheeks aflame with embarrassment as he began to stutter out strings of apologies and explanations.

“I-I’m so sorry! It’s just that y-you’re so pretty a-and you’re really kind and-and I couldn’t help but-but like you! I’ve l-liked you ever since the m-moment you first introduced you-yourself to class last year. Shit, this is so humiliating!” He buried his face in his hands. “I’m so stupid for thinking you’d like me back,” his timid voice was muffled by his palms, making it even harder to understand, but you did.

The next thing you knew, you were moving his hands away from his face, placing a small peck on his pink lips. It was delicate and quick enough to miss. However, he didn’t miss the way his stomach erupted in butterflies; or how your lips were soft against his. He wouldn’t miss it for the world. His eyes, previously squeezed shut, went wide after the little display of affection.

You laughed lightly. “What’s so funny?” He questioned with the goofiest grin on his face, still in a small state of shock and euphoria.

“Your pupils are so blown out, dork. Like they’re absolutely massive!” You said in between giggles. His hands found their way to your cheeks and now it was his turn to kiss you, longer this time. It was sweet and full of admiration. He pulled away to speak.

“Maybe it’s because I like you so much.”

#80s #80s movies #80s imagines #the breakfast club #the breakfast club imagine #brian johnson #brian johnson imagine #brian johnson x reader

294 notes · View notes

dreamofmysoul-tsc · 3 years

Text

Some Questions and Theories

Ok y’all, I have some observations and sort-of-theories regarding the new TLH art

Belial

From my quick google search, The Devil card represents enslavement, fear, a feeling of being trapped, temptation and materialism. Now I know next to nothing about tarot cards, but these connotations are stressing me out

Regarding “a feeling of being trapped,” maybe that reflects Belial possessing people or having his demon cronies possess people (ex. the killer from the CoI prologue)

Cortana is split in half at Belial’s feet; I suppose this could be symbolic, foreshadowing Cortana turning against Cordelia and burning her hands. Or it could be literal. What if Belial does manage to break Cortana and then Cordelia has to find Wayland the Smith to fuse it back together?

The inscription above his throne reads “And he who overcomes, and he who keeps my deeds until the end, to him I will give authority over the nations--he shall rule with a rod of iron and I will give him the morning star.” This is a quote from the Bible, specifically Revelations 2.26-28. Depending on the version of the Bible it may look different, but long story short, this is a quote from Jesus Christ. It essentially means “I have given you my kingdom and you must take care of it; you must uphold the word of God and encourage others to do so. Those who don’t will perish.” The fact that this is over Belial’s throne could just be him making a mockery of the Bible, but I’m sure it goes deeper than that. In the books, morning star is often used in reference to Lucifer. And even though these words are from the Bible, the meaning behind them could be twisted. Belial wants people to rule over; he wants a world he can rule over. Any who stand in his way will be destroyed. Maybe it’s Lucifer’s throne, maybe Belial’s just being edgy, but long story short, I think things are about to get real ugly

Tatiana

The Tower card is apparently meant to symbolize danger, a coming crisis, destruction, liberation and unforeseen change. I think it’s pretty safe to assume that whatever Tatiana is about to do, it’s definitely going to be dangerous and destructive. I mean, she’s probably gonna be responsible for most of the deaths in CoI

Why is she holding a stele? She has stated many times that she hates Shadowhunters and has voluntarily estranged herself from their society. She never let Grace get Marked (although I don’t entirely believe that). What could she be using it for? She’s holding it in a threatening way, as though it’s more like a kitchen knife than a tool. What rune could she use that would be harmful to Shadowhunters? Would she even be using angelic runes at all?

Why is there a MOAT OF FIRE behind her?? W H A T

Cordelia

She doesn’t look particularly distressed or sad; she almost looks peaceful. The sun is rising/setting behind her. By all accounts, it should be a beautiful image minus the bloody hand. She is kneeling, her pose reminiscent of knights in Medieval paintings. But who would she be kneeling to?

The hand. I think the hand could be Belial, used in a symbolic way to show that he will mess with Cortana. Or it could be a way to symbolize that Cordelia may go down a dark path, ally herself with the wrong people, or lose herself in her goal to defeat the threats they’re going to face

The two golden drops of blood; angels have golden blood,,,hmm

Thomas and Alastair

I don’t have much to say about this one because I feel like this one is pretty straightforward; I think this could be the scene where Alastair says something like “Hate me on your own behalf, Thomas.”

Thomas looks conflicted, Alastair looks pained; I think Alastair really wants to befriend Thomas again, but Thomas just doesn’t know if he can forgive him. I think this will be before Tom gets kidnapped, potentially early on in the book. I still have faith that they’ll make up and form some sort of tentative bond by the end of the book

Anna and Ariadne

The demon; this demon looks suspiciously wormlike, huh? It could just be a nod to the Benedict fiasco, but I think Gideon may have been correct in his fears that his father’s *ahem* dealings with demons could have had some negative repercussions

I don’t have much to say about this one either, but I would like to state that Ariadne looks gorgeous and I hope she gets more page time

James

Ok. James. Tell me why this looks like a scene from The Notebook; dramatically standing at a train station with a letter in his hand, he’s clearly been running, his scarf is about to fly off. The drama, I love it

Ok but seriously though, I think the letter may be a goodbye and I think it could be from a number of people. It could be from Grace, Cordelia, and it could even be from Matthew. They leave before James can say goodbye in person and he has a “did she get off the plane” moment by sprinting to the train station just as the train departs. The scarf will flutter onto the train tracks all dramatic. It’s gonna be so angsty

I hope y’all liked my barely coherent thoughts regarding these new art pieces. I love how we’ve all collectively fallen to pieces. This book is gonna destroy us, huh?

I any of y’all have theories of your own or anything to add, feel free! We’re one month away! I don’t know whether to be excited or terrified

#tsc #tlh #chain of iron #theories #observations #28 days until CoI more like 28 days until doomsday

38 notes · View notes

dynamics-of-an-asteroid · 3 years

Note

Dont suppose you have a copy of the interview you could share?

For you, dear anon~

His Dark Materials: Andrew Scott on life after Fleabag and Sherlock

We’ve loved him as both Fleabag’s Hot Priest and Sherlock’s menacing Moriarty. Now, he’s back on our screens in the new series of His Dark Materials. Polly Vernon talks to our TV crush

Andrew Scott is mortified. The actor – formerly Moriarty to Benedict Cumberbatch’s Sherlock, then the Hot Priest of Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s Fleabag, imminently Colonel John Parry in the BBC’s adaptation of Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials – arrives at the photographic studio, bang on the appointed hour, in a fawn cashmere cardigan with a fine gold chain around his neck, bemoaning “this terrible, terrible eye infection, which is making me so self-conscious. I’m so sorry. It isn’t that you’ve massively upset me before we’ve even started. It’s so annoying. But anyway…”

Scott, 44, is small, vivid, wiry and garrulously Irish, with a face that is not handsome so much as mesmerising, intense, sharply boned, symmetrical, startlingly expressive. Sequences of emotions so subtle and complicated that I can’t begin to identify or keep up with them ruffle his brow from moment to moment. And, yup, the whole thing is rather disrupted by his left eye. This is no light kiss of conjunctivitis. It’s a swollen, red, perma-weeping situation that engulfs the whole socket. Scott turns his face two thirds on to me, so the infection is largely hidden, which would probably help if we weren’t sitting in a brightly lit hair and make-up room with a massive, inescapable mirror fixed to one wall. “Oh God,” Scott says every time he catches sight of his reflection.

Stress?

“Let’s be honest,” he says. “Let’s not skirt around the issue. It’s being overworked and…” Scott’s eye begins weeping. “Oh my goodness. I am so sorry. Really, really very sorry.”

Wanna wear my sunglasses, I ask, holding them out to him.

“That would be a bit more weird, wouldn’t it? I actually did think about that in the taxi, but I thought that would be some sort of weird and screwed Invisible Man-type thing. I mean, it couldn’t be worse. And then we have to go and get our photograph taken. It’ll be one of those pictures where, you know, those creepy pictures… Of people crying?”

That’s what Photoshop’s for, I say.

“Anyway. Let’s just ignore it.”

I wonder if it’s particularly hard to walk around with an eye infection at a point in time where you’re not merely famous, as Scott is – a star of stage, screen and Bond film, winner of multiple awards, including, as of barely two weeks ago, a Best Actor Olivier for Present Laughter at the Old Vic – but specifically famous for being sexy.

In 2019, Andrew Scott became synonymous with, well, sex. While playing a character technically known as the Priest, whom the general public instantly renamed the Hot Priest, the spiritual support turned transgressive love interest of Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s supremely popular Fleabag, Scott became a cypher for the nation’s more exotic desires. A deliciously contentious pin-up. Ground zero on an earnest social media debate about whether the Priest’s relationship with Fleabag should be considered abusive, power imbalanced, “problematic”. And that was just for starters.

The Priest’s sexual iconography extended far beyond the limits of the show, becoming the subject of internet memes and real-life merchandise (visit online retailer Etsy for your £12 Hot Priest mug emblazoned with an illustration of Scott in priest’s robes, alongside the word “kneel”, a reference to a pivotal moment between the show’s lead characters, which takes place in a confession box, the climax of which, assuming you haven’t already seen it, you could probably take a stab at). There was an unprecedented upsurge in young worshippers, and women started bombarding social media “influencer” the Rev Chris Lee of west London with nude photographs. There was much foetid fan fiction.

To be publicly defined by so much sex, as Scott still is, a year and a half after Fleabag concluded, and then to be encumbered by something as visibly unsexy as an eye infection, I can see how that might make a chap self-conscious.

Scott isn’t here to rake up all that old Hot Priest stuff, mind. He’s here to talk about the second series of His Dark Materials, a lush, expensive fantasy drama based on the Philip Pullman books, jewel in the crown of the BBC’s autumn schedule. The series was filmed through 2019 and the beginning of 2020 and had all but wrapped before lockdown. Good timing, as it turned out, because the extensive post-production processes, unlike shooting, could be completed in isolation.

Scott’s Colonel John Parry is an explorer, the missing father of the central character, 14-year-old Will Parry. He’s a man who slipped into a parallel universe some years earlier, acquired a “daemon” – an exterior animal-formed expression of his soul, a female osprey called Sayan Kötör, voiced with public-pleasing symmetry by Phoebe Waller-Bridge – and never found a way back to “our” world and his son. I speak as a fan of the books, which you might describe as a darker, existential response to Harry Potter, although honestly? They’re better than that. The show is great, a deft, rewarding interpretation, and Scott is an exciting prospect as Parry.

Did he jump at the part?

“I did, actually. It was definitely something I was into. We were doing a play and it seemed like a fun thing to do.” Scott is one of those who slips into the third person when speaking about himself in a professional capacity.

Had he read the books?

“Yeah,” he says. “I think they’re extraordinary. The truth, but told on a slant. I love the way Pullman tells children about spirituality or religion in such an extraordinary, intelligent way. He doesn’t speak down to them. He talks to children’s souls.”

Given that Pullman effectively kills off God through the course of the books and Scott’s a lapsed Irish Catholic who has suffered his share of shame on account of the church’s grip on his homeland (more on which shortly), I’d imagine Pullman’s books talked to Scott’s adult soul too.

Presumably, he didn’t have to audition. Presumably, he never has to. Too famous for auditions?

“No,” he says. “Although I’ve always thought auditioning is a pretty good thing to do.”

Why?

“Because you’re able to understand, ‘Oh, this is the vibe here.’ You think, when you’re an actor, you don’t have much choice, but I’ve always felt like auditioning is a good opportunity for you to go, ‘Oh well, I don’t much like you either. I think you’re dreadful!’ ”

I don’t care that you didn’t give me that part?

“Yeah.” Scott becomes playfully, theatrically defiant. “I don’t care!” He flicks aside an imaginary rejection with a churlish hand.

Will John Parry and His Dark Materials be enough to eliminate all residual overtones of Hot Priest sexiness from Scott? Maybe. He is a fine actor, no question, entirely transformed from role to role. I saw him play Paul, a narcissistic, fame-addled touring rock star, at the Royal Court in 2014 in Simon Stephens’ Birdland, back when his deeply sinister Moriarty weighed almost as heavily on Scott’s reputation as the Hot Priest does now. I’d watched him become someone else entirely on stage. “Oh, you saw that?” Scott says, pleased.

I quote, “Am I cancer?” at him, his defining line from the play, as evidence.

“Oh Jesus. Oh f***ing hell. Oh my. I’d forgotten that line. ‘Am I cancer?’ ”

The Hot Priest association hasn’t left him yet, which is why I find myself asking what it’s like to be the very definition of sexiness.

“You get invited to more parties.”

Better parties?

“Yeah.”

Better than during his Moriarty phase?

“Definitely.”

It must be fun to find yourself le dernier cri in sexy, according to the whole nation.

“Yeah, that’s fun,” he says. “I didn’t really like being associated with scary. It’s not what I’m interested in being, in life, being intimidating to people. It’s not part of my nature, whereas being sexy to people…”

That is part of his nature?

“Well, they’re very different things.”

They’re both about having power over people.

“I suppose they are, yes.”

So did Scott, bored of scaring people, say to Phoebe Waller-Bridge, writer and star of Fleabag and a long-term friend (they met in 2009 while starring in Roaring Trade at the Soho Theatre), “Write a role for me that will make everyone think I’m just really, really sexy now”?

“That’s such a good belt. Are they two ‘Gs’?”

“Exactly.”

——————————

Andrew Scott is not the easiest interview. He’s utterly charming. Really, just a delight. In between prostrating himself for the offence of his eye and apologising for not turning up the first time we were scheduled to meet (ten days earlier; a delayed Covid test result meant he couldn’t make it), he ensures I have a good time in his company. He is playful. He makes me laugh. His every utterance is delivered as a grand performance. (“Shhhh! Just… Shhhh!” he implores, placing a finger against his lips while expressing frustrations over the mindless jabber of social media, and he does it so powerfully, he compels me to be quiet, breathlessly to await delivery of his next line.) He finds elegant ways to flatter me. He laughs at my jokes and is terribly taken with my belt.

Yeah. For Gucci.

“Oh. Ha ha! I thought it was the Golden Globes. I love the Golden Globes. Ha ha!”

And of course, he’s Irish. Clichédly, melodiously Irish, which makes everything sound softer and jollier than it might otherwise.

As for the actual business of being interviewed, of answering straight questions with straight answers, finishing off sentences, offering more than a slip-slide of vagaries punctuated by vigorous hand gestures, none of which translates into print? He’d rather not.

He tells me, as he’s told other journalists before, this is because he’s interested in navigating the line between “privacy and secrecy”, then says he’s aware he’s sometimes “got away with secrecy under the guise and respectability of privacy”, as if signalling potential incoming slipperiness, which means I prepare to throw every trick in the book at him.

First up: amateur psychology.

Might Andrew Scott’s gayness be at the heart of his reluctance to speak more freely? Perhaps. This is no scoop. He’s been out for almost as long as he’s been famous. “I mean, as a civilian, I was quite young [when I came out], you know? But then, as a celebrity…”

He tails off, allows me to fill in the blanks. This is another of his evasion tactics. I can’t very well quote Scott on the presumptions I make about things he never quite says.

He had to have another coming out?

“Yes. And I have another one coming up.”

He has another coming out coming up?

“Yeah.”

So that will be, what? Tier 3 gayness?

“Tier 3, yeah.”

Scott grew up in Ireland at a time when it wasn’t legal to be gay, which could certainly seed an enduring reluctance towards carefree openness in a person. He invokes the concept of shame more regularly than the average interviewee. He was born in Dublin in 1976 to Nora, an art teacher, and Jim, who worked at an employment agency. He has one older sister, Sarah, and a younger one, Hannah.

He was shy, so started attending a children’s drama course.

Did that help?

“Yeah. Acting to me is not pretending to be someone else. It’s more like, this is who I actually am. The lie that tells the truth,” he says. I am none the wiser. He was clearly talented. He went from adverts to his first starring role in a film aged 17 (Korea, directed by Cathal Black), won a bursary to art school but took a place at Trinity College Dublin to study drama instead, and ditched that six months in to join Dublin’s Abbey Theatre. He’s been gainfully employed in the field ever since.

How Catholic was his upbringing?

“Well, there were Catholic priests in my life,” he says. “None of whom I wanted to have sex with.”

Does it amuse Scott to know he inspired a mass fetishising of priestly ranks? That in 2019, the Hot Priest would make, “Can you have sex with a Catholic priest?” one of the most googled terms of the year?

“Absolutely f***ing mental,” he says.

Homosexuality wasn’t legalised in Ireland until 1993, when Scott was 16.

“I always think, if I’d had a boyfriend then, which I definitely did not…”

No?

“No.”

He knew he was gay, though?

“No. No, no, no, no!”

Was he suppressing it or not thinking about it?

“I would say suppressing. Definitely suppressing. I don’t believe people just don’t think about it.”

An upbeat, cheesy jazz remix of something or other starts playing outside the room.

“Oooh, this is the soundtrack for this bit of the interview,” says Scott. He wiggles his shoulders to the music.

I switch to strict dominatrix interviewer mode. Focus, I say. You were about to tell me something good.

“Oh, shit, was I? OK. I think what’s really insidious is that people don’t ask you about sex or… People wouldn’t say, ‘Are you gay or are you [straight]?’ And the lack of directness is very damaging. They just didn’t go there.”

Does he think his family, friends, the people closest to him knew then that he was gay?

“No,” he says. “I don’t think they did know. Or maybe they have a suspicion, but they think, I want to be respectful, so I’m not going to ask about that. Then [when you do come out], people say, ‘Oh, I’m glad.’ You know? If you do talk about it. So I suppose what I feel now is, talking about sex or sexuality is important. Really important.”

Having said that, “There’s still getting rid of the shame. In a situation like this, 10 or 15 years ago, I would have been…” He fakes shock, horror. “Oh no! Polly’s just asked me about [he switches to a whisper] that.”

Scott will talk about his sex life only notionally. No specifics. For 15 years, between 2001 and 2016, he was in a relationship with the actor turned screenwriter Stephen Beresford (Scott starred in Beresford’s 2014 film Pride). Ever since, he’s refused to answer questions about his romantic life.

And he’s not going to talk about it now, I presume.

“No.”

What if we talk about it opaquely?

“OK.”

Where does he see himself, domestically, in an ideal world? Married with kids whom he’ll, I dunno, adopt or have via surrogacy?

“I like it. It’s bold. Am I going to adopt or…?”

Get a surrogate?

“I definitely think that’s something I would be open to.”

Great, I say, with blatant sarcasm. Thanks. How specific.

“Ha! I’m sorry. OK. Have I got any children at the moment? No. How can I… [explain]? OK. I was with a friend of mine in Dublin…”

His partner?

“No, no, no. Not my partner. Ah ha. I see what you were…”

Teasing. Yes.

“Ha! Yes. So, I was with a friend in Dublin and we were walking around and he was looking at apartments and I was like, ‘What about this place here?’ You know? And he said, ‘No,’ and I said, ‘Why not?’ and he said, ‘I don’t live a heteronormative life, so I don’t want a heteronormative house.’ ”

What’s a heteronormative house?

“Two up, two down thing. He goes, ‘I can live in a loft or a weird space. I don’t need those things.’ He was so proud of it. He really owned it. I think where a lot of one’s pain comes from is when you go, ‘I should want that.’ And so, to answer your question opaquely, I have kids I adore. I love children, genuinely, and I had a very happy childhood. But I also feel, if I don’t have kids, that’s all right. I think I would’ve attached a lot of shame beforehand, with not living a particularly heteronormative life… Even with being gay, there’s a sort of way of being gay that’s acceptable. And I don’t feel that any more.”

He feels you can be unacceptably gay?

“Exactly. Exactly!”

I ask when shame shifted for him and Scott says it was when Ireland voted overwhelmingly in favour of same-sex marriage in the 2015 referendum, which felt, he says, “like acceptance, genuinely. And I remember going out to this gay bar in Dublin and this girl came up to me, this cool Dublin girl, and she said, ‘What are you doing here? You need to go down to, I don’t know, blah, blah, this bar in some park.’ She was saying, ‘This isn’t the right gay bar for you. This is some shit gig,’ when the fact I’m in a gay bar in Ireland [at all] is a miracle to me, and then some person with a half-shaved head is telling me, ‘No, you need to go somewhere cooler.’ ”

His left eye starts weeping again.

“I’m so happy about that,” he says. “Even though I’m crying.”

I ask Scott if he has a game plan when picking roles, if he plots his course from Sherlock villain to Bond quasi-villain (he played Max Denbigh in Spectre) to sex icon, and, if so, what next? “No. Jesus, no,” he says.

We talk about the totalitarianism of social media, which he isn’t on, and share a mutual despair over it. “I thought it was something one would associate with the right, but actually, now it’s [the left] that is very ‘you’re this’ or ‘you’re that’. I find that quite frightening. It actually makes me feel ferocious.”

Is he not worried about being cancelled, of somehow saying the “wrong” thing, according to Twitter sensitivities, then having a thousand voices mobilised against him, demanding his firing, in the style of JK Rowling?

“I’m not,” he says. “I refuse to be. A very intelligent person I was talking to recently was writing a book and he said, ‘I’m going to get a sensitivity expert to have a look. I don’t want to get cancelled.’ I found that frightening.”

Is he rich? “Rich is the absence of worry about money,” he says. He can’t remember the last time he worried about money.

That must be nice.

“Of course it f***ing is. I think it’s a miracle. I really do. I was working in a French theatre in London for nothing – none of us was working for anything – and I remember the artistic director of the theatre talking about the fact we weren’t earning any money as some sort of virtue. I remember feeling really annoyed about that, like this isn’t good.”

This leads to an inevitable conversation about how the arts are suffering with Covid, including a segue down the Fatima route, the much shared government advert that depicted a young ballerina and suggested she retrain in something called cyber. “Her name’s not even Fatima,” Scott rails. “I think she’s called Desire’e. From New York.”

I mean to ask him about his experience of filming The Pursuit of Love with Lily James and Dominic West, stars of their own recent off-screen micro-scandal in Rome, just in case he lets any scurrilous insight slip, but our time’s up and it’s not as if Scott has much form on offering up scurrilous insight anyway.

Still, I feel grateful to him for meeting me halfway on the other stuff. And so I say goodbye to Andrew Scott, the UK’s foremost gay heterosexual lapsed Catholic faux-priest lust icon with a troublesome eye infection.

#''Tier 3 gayness'' is peak comedy #I'm not sure if I should put this in the tag but y'all can reblog if you need it on yours #long post #andrew scott

43 notes · View notes

buzzdixonwriter · 3 years

Text

“I Don’t Think That Memes What You Think It Memes…”

There’s a trope being pushed currently by alt-reich supremacists that likens convicted murderer Derek Chauvin with the executed soldiers in Stanley Kubricks’s classic 1957 WWI movie, Paths Of Glory.

Great movie, BTW; go watch it.

First, a quick encapsulation of the film:

An incompetent general orders his battalion to make a suicidal assault across no-man’s land

The battalion, pinned down by murderous fire, can’t leave their trenches

The general orders his own artillery to fire on his own troops to drive them forward

His own artillery refuses

When the attack fails, the general orders soldiers be selected at random from the battalion and executed for cowardice in an attempt to frighten the battalion into following his incompetent orders

The general is brought down by his own incompetence, but too late to save the sacrificial soldiers

The alt-reich supremacist argument goes like this: “They” are sacrificing Derek Chauvin because “they” are afraid Black Lives Matter protestors will riot if they don’t.

Oh, really…?

Was Derek Chauvin told to charge The Wild Bunch, guns blazing?

No?

Did Derek Chauvin yank George Floyd -- who at the time was handcuffed and sitting inside a police car with the door closed -- out of said police car then kneel on Mr. Floyd’s neck for nine minutes and twenty-nine seconds with his hands in his pockets and a smirk on his face while his fellow officers, an Emergency Medical Technician, bystanders, and Mr. Floyd himself said he was putting Mr. Floyd’s life in danger?

Yes?

Well, then it seems like there’s a big difference between someone refusing to follow through on a stupid order that’s likely to result in them getting killed and someone who callously and indifferently chokes a human being to death despite pleas for mercy, doesn’t it?

This is literally why Colin Kaepernick knelt in protest: African-Americans are repeatedly discriminated against by law enforcement and courts, stopped / detained / arrested / charged / tried / convicted / sentenced more harshly than white Americans for the exact same crimes and offenses.

The Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

The Constitution Of The United States Of America: "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

The Pledge Of Allegiance: "I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."

The alt-reich supremacists argue Chauvin did not receive a fair trial.

Really? How so?

Was Chauvin:

informed of the charges against him?

informed of his Constitutional rights?

allowed to have a lawyer defend him?

presented with all the evidence against him?

allowed to confront his accusers in an open court?

allowed to challenge evidence, testimony, and witnesses in court?

allowed to present his version of what happened in court?

tried by a jury of twelve U.S. citizens selected at random that his own defense team could challenge or approve?

Yes?

How many of points 1 – 8 did Mr. Floyd receive at Chauvin’s hand…or knee?

The alt-reich supremacists accuse Black Lives Matter of staging violent protests in response to Mr. Floyd’s murder. While some violence and property damage was caused by BLM marchers, far and away the bulk of the violence and vandalism was committed by alt-reich supremacists acting as agents provocateurs.

There’s nothing new to this, of course.

The Nazis did it back in the bad old days, infiltrating peaceful protests and demonstrations to stir up riots so they could then blame the original demonstrators and use that as justification to oppress them.

(This is the point in our discussion where alt-reich supremacists will start shouting “Godwin’s law! Godwin’s law!” to which I reply with this direct quote from Mike Godwin himself: “By all means, compare these shitheads to Nazis. Again and again. I'm with you.”)

The alt-reich supremacists fail to understand that a fair trial does not mean one where the defendant is guaranteed a chance to walk free.

A fair trials guarantees a defendant a chance to explain things from their point of view and, if they or their lawyers can make a compelling enough counter-argument, then they may prevail.

Nobody told the twelve impartial jurors at Chauvin’s trial how to vote, nor threatened them with harm if they failed to convict.

Prosecutors hate to go to court unless they feel they have an overwhelming chance of proving their case.

A lot of the time, the evidence and testimony leaves absolutely no doubt about the defendant’s guilt and culpability.

Chauvin got as fair a trial as Charles Manson got (admittedly, Manson had the better, more cognizant closing argument.)

All it would take would be one single juror with a reasonable doubt to deadlock the jury and win Chauvin a new trial.

The evidence and testimony led the jury to think Chauvin was guilty.

Video showing a murderer kneeling nine minutes and twenty-nine seconds on their victim’s neck will do that.

Hey, know who else thought Chauvin was guilty?

Chauvin himself.

He acknowledged guilt by offering to plea bargain to the least of the three charges in exchange for being let off the hook on the two more serious charges.

(This offer to plea bargain was not introduced in court as it might prejudice jurors against Chauvin and that wouldn’t have been fair, would it?)

No, it’s crystal clear by their invocation of Kubrick’s Paths Of Glory that the alt-reich supremacists consider Chauvin to be innocent of deliberately murdering an African-American.

(It’s a pity Kubrick is no longer with us because one can easily imagine him reaming out these assholes with an M-60 chamber brush for daring to link his work with their bigotry.)

Kaepernick and Black Lives Matter protest against the view that police officers are entitled to ignore the law and abuse the civil rights of suspects just because those suspects are black or brown or fly the rainbow flag.

Chauvin was neither falsely nor unfairly convicted of murdering George Floyd.

If he didn’t want to be convicted of murder, perhaps he should have considered not murdering Mr. Floyd.

#George Floyd #murder of George Floyd #killer cop #Derek Chauvin #alt-reich #alt-reich supremacists #white supremacy #bigotry #racism #morals #ethics #liberty #justice

7 notes · View notes

ghosttotheparty · 4 years

Text

cotton candy skies always look better in person

4. also on AO3 chapter three

Lucas moved in weeks ago, and he still isn’t done decorating his room.

Really, he could be, he could say “I’m done,” at any second and the room would look finished, but he keeps adding to it, adding to the walls. All four of them: covered, almost completely. Photos and drawings, newspaper clips and cut out letters from magazines pasted over paper and photographs to make quotes he liked and quotes he’d made up. One reads “In case you ever foolishly forget.” It had been pasted on a paper next to a photo of him and Kes in his last room, but now it was surrounded by architecture sketches he did. Another reads “Respect your mother,” over a cutout of Earth from a National Geographic magazine. The walls are cluttered, photos overlapping, some of them almost completely covered, other, random things, like a deflated, wrinkly, yellow balloon from his fourteenth birthday party, and train tickets, causing clashes in colour that felt like tv static. But a calming static, to him. Like all the colours came together to form a visual white noise.

When his room is tidy it looks nicer. Like the mess on the walls in on purpose. (It was only partially. He wanted things on his walls but didn’t plan on it turning into this.) The contrast between the bare wood floor and the walls, scarcely a single spot left blank, looks nice. But usually, the floor is a mess too. Clothes strewn about, more colourful clothes than he wore in Utrecht, and sometimes tubes of paint scattered across the floor, along with a messy palette and brushes. He doesn’t sit at his desk to paint, using it to do schoolwork (unless he does it on his bed) and clearing it off to let his paintings dry somewhere he won’t have to worry about stepping on them.

His room almost always smells like paint now. Oil paint usually, the smell deep and dull, only noticeable when you’re in the room, contrasting from the high, sharp scent of nail polish, which his room smells like every Wednesday. He always opens a window when he does his nails.

He opens a window almost all the time, actually. He likes the fresh air, like the wind that will blow in. He has to put a box of paint behind his door though, as it swings open and shut with the wind. (That’s the only thing he doesn’t like about his new room. The latch on the door doesn’t work that well unless he locks it.) He likes opening the window at night especially, shutting it before he goes to bed. The night air is always cool on his face, and he holds his upper body out the window, closing his eyes and drinking in the air, listening, feeling, the night time city. Cars passing quietly in the distance, a lone bicyclist on the sidewalk below him, laughter from drunken friends, the nearly silent hum of the streetlights. The city is a different city at night.

Lucas loves exploring the Night City, loves how peaceful it is, how sleepy everything seems. At times, he feels like he’s the only one awake. It’s exhilarating.

Leaning out the window, he props himself up on his elbows and sighs, the air cold in his nose and lungs. He catches a whiff of the paint as the wind churns in his room. He shifts on his feet, closing his eyes. He could fall asleep right now. Won’t, but he could.

Moments like these are when he feels lonely, but a nice sort of lonely. A lonely where he feels alone but knows he isn’t really, knows he doesn’t have to be if he doesn’t want to. In another country, miles and miles away is his mom. (Who he talked to today. It was a nice conversation, she talked about how therapy is going so far and how kind her new nurse is.) And Noah. (Who he didn’t talk to today, but did talk to yesterday. It was over a video call and Lucas enjoyed watching him paint his nails. Noah told him about a museum he and Zoë went to on a date. Lucas told him about a great spot he’s found to take pictures of the sunset and promised to send some photos when he downloads them from his camera.) There’s also Kes, Isa, and Jayden, who he doesn’t talk to as much as he hoped to, but talks to about as much as he expected to. Little check-ins, “What have you been up to?” stuff like that. It wasn’t ideal, but it was still nice to hear from them. He’s also received videos of drunk Jayden and Kes, videos of them stumbling around, spilling whatever drink they’re holding, rambling about whatever it is. Kes has sent him a video of himself, in the darkness of night outside, nobody else around, yelling “I miss youuuuu!” the words slurring together. Of course, the video is now in Lucas’s camera roll.

Somewhere in the city, he has Jens. Who is really Lucas’s only friend in Antwerp, unless his cousin counts. Lucas supposes he and Jens are friends; they’re texting now, which Lucas loves. There’s a flutter in his stomach every time he gets a notification from him, the same flutter that he gets every time he looks at a picture of him. He’s learned a lot about Jens. That he’s a skater(when Lucas said he skates too Jens said “I’ll have to take you to my favourite spots,” and Lucas’s smiles grew so big he could barely see), that he plays the guitar (Which, of course , he does), that he likes greasy food. This last one he may have learned from Jens’s Instagram, which Lucas did ask for.

Lucas hears his phone vibrate from inside his room and opens his eyes slowly, letting them adjust, before straightening his back and turning into the room. The phone buzzes again as he reaches for it, and he picks it up, dropping himself on his bed, lifting it to read the messages. From Jens. The messages from Jens. At this time.

Hey You up?

Lucas feels like he just went over a drop on a rollercoaster. He wonders if responding right now would seem desperate, but responds anyway.

Always

Jens reads the message as soon as it’s sent, and maybe there is a glimmer of hope that Jens feels the same as Lucas. But then again, it is a little past one in the morning. Maybe he’s just bored. But then again if he is… he’s talking to Lucas. Sometimes the quarrel between the optimist and the cynic in his head is exhausting.

Can I call you?

Lucas smiles, a little excited.

Of course

He freezes, realising he doesn’t know whether Jens means a video or a voice call, but Jens is already calling him. Lucas sighs in relief when it’s not a video call, and answers.

“Hey.” “Hey.”

Jens’s voice is soft and Lucas can hear music on his end. It’s muffled like it’s playing from behind a closed door, and it’s loud and fast, with strong bass.

“Where are you?” Lucas asks.

“I’m, uhm… I’m at some party. My friend’s house.”

“Everything’s okay?”

“Yeah, it’s just… I don’t know, I got bored.” Jens’s words are slurring together slightly.

“So you called me?” Lucas smiles.

“Yeah, I- I like talking to you.”

His smile grows.

“I’m also, uhm…” Jens’s voice trails off and fades like he’s turning away from the phone. “Uhm, a little bit tipsy.” That explains it.

“I can hear that.”

“I can call you later if you want, when I’m not,” Jens says quickly, sounding apologetic.

“No, it’s okay, you’re fine.” Lucas doesn’t want to hang up. He likes this, Jens’s voice in his ear like he’s whispering to him. Like everything he says is a secret.

“Okay.”

Lucas hears Jens sigh.

“Where are you?” he asks.

“My friend’s house, I found an empty guest room.” Jens pauses. “There’s a bed but I’m laying on the floor.”

Lucas laughs.

“Comfortable?”

“Actually, yeah, really.”

Lucas gets up, holding the phone to his ear, and shuts his window before kneeling on the ground, moving a box of paint tubes out of the way and laying down. He groans softly as his back cracks, and then sighs, laying his down on the floor and looking up at the ceiling.

“Are you on the floor?” Jens asks after a second.

“Yeah. You’re right, this is nice.”

Jens giggles and Lucas grins.

“I’m just gonna pretend I’m lying next to you,” Jens says.

“Sounds good.” Lucas closes his eyes.

There’s a minute of silence, except the music on Jens’s end. Lucas thinks he could fall asleep, with the bass and Jens’s breath in his ear.

“Lucas?”

“Yeah?” He doesn’t open his eyes. He doesn’t think Jens’s are open either.

“Do you believe in God?”

Oh. That’s a heavy question. Of course, Lucas’s mom believes in God, believes wholeheartedly in God. But Lucas can’t say he does. He enjoys going to church, enjoys listening to the others pray and sing, likes the sense of community that it seems to create. But he always feels like he’s just humouring his mom.

“I like the idea of God,” he offers.

“Mm.”

“Why?”

“I think…” It sounds like Jens rolls over on the floor. “I think if God is real…” He sighs. It sounds like he’s falling asleep. “He was having a good day when he made you.”

Oh.

Lucas heart just about explodes, and he laughs,

“How much have you had to drink, exactly?”

“Mmm… not much.” The slurring in his voice betrays him.

“Mm-hmm.”

“A really good day.”

“That’s a good pick up line.”

“Mm,” Jens grunts, and says almost under his breath, “Why I said it.”

“I might have to use that.”

“On who?”

Lucas grins at the drunken jealousy in his voice.

“Don’t know. Maybe I’ll just Uno-reverse-card it and use it on you on Thursday.”

“Mm… okay.”

They both sigh at the same time and Lucas smiles.

He doesn’t know what time he falls asleep but it isn’t long after that. He ends up curled on his side, he knees pulled up so he’s in a ball, his arm tucked under his head with his phone so he can hear if Jens says anything else. He doesn’t. Lucas assumes he fell asleep before Lucas does.

Lucas falls asleep listening to him breath. Which he wouldn’t tell anyone, obviously. But he does, listening to the long inhale, the quick huff of the exhale.

By the time Lucas is asleep, their breaths have synced.

#this one is kinda short #sorry #van der stoffels fic #van der stoffels #vds #jens stoffels #lucas van der heijden #jens and lucas #jens x lucas #skam nl #wtfockdown #cotton candy skies #cotton candy skies always look better in person

39 notes · View notes

flopgoblins · 4 years

Text

Unconventional

Or: 3 weddings and a funeral. Weird things happen when you’re a celebrity. Mostly at conventions.

1. Katya

The girl was wearing Halley High knee socks and the ubiquitous plaid cheer skirt that Katya hadn’t felt the same about since Matt’s story about what happened after the cross-dressing photoshoot. The pigtails were a given. The extensions were off the rack, but the eyeliner was applied straighter than Katya could ever manage herself, and she told the girl so, eliciting a flustered giggle and a babble of thanks. Katya was glad she’d held herself back from making a joke about how hard it was for her to do anything straight, since it would have killed her publicist and made the girl turn an even brighter red. Plus, she’d stolen the line from Matt.

The boy was rather less effectively dressed as Wally, complete with cheap red wig, and Katya refused to examine him any further than that after feeling the bulge in his pocket when he hugged her for the photo opp. It wasn’t the first time, but it never got any less gross. At least he hadn’t made any comments about how hot it would be to see her and his girlfriend make out in matching outfits, but-

“Vanessa, there’s something I need to ask you. Um, and hopefully Katya doesn’t mind.”

Oh god.

Katya turned, ready to signal to the assistant standing off to the side of the backdrop, but then she realized the faux Wally was kneeling. The bulge in his pocket was gone, and in his hand was a small black box.

Katya let out an involuntary cackle of laughter, and clapped her hands over her mouth. Almost as mortifying as an erection in JCPenney khakis, but tragically longer lasting.

Next to her, the girl in pigtails burst into tears.

“Will you marry me?”

What followed was the predictable flurry of snotty affirmations, damp selfies, and fans still waiting in line craning their necks to see what the holdup was. Katya made as many exclamations of delight as she felt she could before warranting a SAG award, and then hustled the enfianced couple towards the exit.

But first….

“Wink twice if you need a way out,” Katya whispered to the still tremulous girl as she hugged her. “Totally understand if you only said yes because of the circumstances, it was a super weird position for him to put you in. And me. Romantic, of course. Sort of. But I can get you out the back door if you need an escape. No? Sure? Okay. Congratulations.” She released the girl, blew a kiss with a spangle-nailed hand, and turned to greet the next group.

“Oh hey! So great to meet you! You will not believe what happened with the last people who came through…”

2. Nico

Nico was still new enough to it that the meet and greets were both novel and incredibly weird. Matt and Katya didn’t even seem to register them anymore, viewing them with about the same lassitude they viewed comicon panels or table reads, but since Nico found panels and reads pretty fucking exciting, photo opps were still a definite thing. And, like having strangers touch your hair and face every morning to get you camera ready, a definite mixture of cool and intensely bizarre. He wasn’t sure if it was weirder to have people paying actual money to meet him - and hug him, and sometimes burst into tears - or to call him by Jack’s name instead of his own.

“You get paid either way,” Matt said, who’d just been Wally’d no fewer than a dozen times.

“Yeah, but,” said Nico, “they know we’re not them, right?”

Matt gave him a gentle, pitying smile, and then both were dragged off for the next round.

After some time, Nico got into the flow of it. He could almost always find something to compliment fans on - their costumes, or their memory for Halley High lore, on which he could generally go toe-to-toe, or their ability to quote his lines back to him word perfect. Katya and Matt had described all of it as vaguely awkward and mostly boring, but Nico liked it, up until the point something happened that he was pretty sure they’d been lying to him about.

‘At some point,’ Matt had said, ‘They’ll do something weird in front of you.’

‘Yeah,’ said Katya. ‘Like get you to roleplay with them.’

‘Or propose,’ said Matt.

‘Aw, fuck off,’ said Nico, who was used to them messing with him at this point.

“Sasha,” said the girl with purple streaks in her hair. “I’m asking you here, in the sight of the greatest thespian of our generation, to do me the very great honor-”

“Oh!” said Nico, and covered his mouth.

“Oh, Fern!” said Sasha, whose shirt proclaimed her a member of Wallack Nation.

“-of marrying me.”

Nico moved his hands from his mouth to his eyes as Sasha flung herself into Fern’s arms. “Oh wow! Oh my gosh!” He uncovered his eyes, saw tongue, and covered them again.

“Oh my god! Did you know that was gonna happen? Holy sh- Wow! Uh. It feels weird that I’m here. Should I leave? Kelsi, please don’t charge them the $75 for the photo opp, this one’s on me. Seriously, should I leave?”

3. Jordie

The rest of them always wrapped up meet and greets before Jordie did. Part of this was because Jordie was bad at ending conversations, and tended to let fans run riot over him, killing the time limit and the event manager’s soul. The rest of it was because Jordie’s line of fans was twice as long as anyone but Matt’s, and Jordie hated turning anyone away.

“Look on my works, ye mighty,” murmured Matt, forty-five minutes after the rest of them had finished and were still waiting for Jordie to re-emerge. He flipped his wrist, looked at his watch, and tilted against the wall. “And despair. I have seen the future, and it is blond, peppy, and nineteen.”

Katya was scrolling the #jordieswiftsdcc tag and perusing selfies from the line. “This person waited two hours to see him and is pretty much creaming herself for the opportunity. This person waited three hours and is getting his signature tattooed on her wrist. And this one looks like he’s had some minor plastic surgery to look more like him.”

“Jesus,” said Nico, horrified. He knew they sometimes forgot that their little cast member, who tended to have half the screentime and a third the lines the rest of them did, was not only a fan favorite but had amassed 5 million subscribers on YouTube for a reason. “Poor Jordie.”

Katya clicked ‘report’ on a Tweet that Nico couldn’t read beyond the handle, which was @jordieswift_tongue_my_taint. She slid her phone into her back pocket and tilted against the wall next to Matt. “Competition, Tiny. Your agency is gonna have a cow if he starts to surpass you.”

Matt curled his lip in what might have been a smirk. “My agency should just sign him and turn me out to stud.”

Katya slid down the wall until she was squatting on her heels, fringe from her boho vest brushing the floor. She dragged her finger through the dust on the ground. “Tiny ginger babies cropping up in pastures everywhere next spring. Seabiscuit, out of Georgina, by Matt.”

Matt prodded her until she tipped off her heels and sprawled on the floor. “I’m happy to sell my semen but if they actually need me to mount anyone-”

“Guys, please,” said Nico. He was getting antsy, ready to go get dinner, and bouncing a little on his toes to keep himself awake. “There are kids around. Maybe less with the semen?”

Matt dodged Katya’s attempt to pull herself up on his ankle. “How about the mounting, is the mounting okay?”

Katya grinned from the floor. “Oh, I’m sure Nico’s okay with you mounting-”

Matt yawned. “Where the hell is Jordie?” he said. “Seriously, they’re shutting down the venue any minute now.”

“Let’s go look,” said Katya, and clambered upright, scooping up her purse in one hand and Nico’s arm in the other.

Jordie was down to the last fan, but it was immediately clear why it was running over time. It wasn’t just a matter of exceeding the allotted five minutes so much as a ‘death do us part’ thing, given the fact the fan was down on one knee and Jordie looked about 30 seconds away from a nervous breakdown.

“Oh dear,” said Matt. “They got him.”

“I’ll call security,” said Katya.

Nico ignored them both and dashed towards the unfolding scene, where Jordie was babbling helplessly.

“Wait, me? You’re asking me? Oh no! I thought this was about - I thought you were going to propose to someone el- Please stop kneeling. I have - Listen, I have a- Okay, my agent didn’t tell me what to do if this happened? I think my contract says no. I’m sorry! Okay, please don’t - um, please don’t - ”

Nico took one look at the ardent worship on the fan’s face and their outstretched hand, one look at the panic in Jordie’s eyes, and leapt into the fray. “Whoa, hey. Yo! I object!”

“Wh?” said Jordie.

“I’m so sorry,” said Nico, grabbing Jordie’s arm and securing him protectively against his side. “I’m so sorry, but he can’t marry you. Bigamy’s illegal, you see, and he’s already engaged.”

“He is?” said the fan blankly. Nico could almost see them scrolling Jordie’s Wikipedia page in their mind, searching for the ‘personal life’ section.

“I am?” said Jordie, looking as terrified as if he’d actually forgotten.

The fan’s mental scroll had clearly come up blank because their eyes narrowed. “To who?”

“Whom,” said Nico, because children of English professors never missed a cue. “Uh.” He hadn’t thought this all the way through, but realized at once he couldn’t go for his first instinct and throw Katya under the bus. For one thing, it would only encourage the #katyathecougar hashtag, and for another, she might hurt him. He’d deserve it, too. “To me, of course.”

“Wh?” said Jordie.

“Come along, dumpling,” said Nico, and swept him away.

Katya and Matt watched as Nico hustled them both through an ‘emergency exit only’ door, Matt with arms folded, Katya with her phone still out and security ringing through on the other end.

“Well,” said Matt. “If Jack/Silas wasn’t a thing before, it sure as hell will be now. Quick, Kat, bookmark the tag on AO3.”

“Be honest, Matty,” said Katya, as con organizers descended on the still-kneeling fan. “You’re a leettle bit jealous that Jordie got the proposal before you did.”

“I’ve been proposed to no less than five times, Kit-Kat.”

“But never,” said Katya, with a sly smirk. “By Nico Martin.”

4. Matt

The woman clutched a silver urn in one hand and Matt’s fingers in the other. It had been at least five minutes and Matt’s smile was at risk of becoming a rictus, so he changed it to a look of quiet sympathy.

“He would have loved to meet you,” said the woman, pressing Matt’s hand even tighter. “Gloucester Lost was his favorite movie. And we had the box set of NICU: NYC. Watched it nightly.”

“I’m so glad he liked it,” said Matt. He eyed the urn, in which resided the last earthly remains of Milton Heslop, apparently Matt’s biggest fan. His agent would not be pleased to know that one of Matt’s most dedicated viewers was dust, but he supposed this was what came of approaching thirty. An aging fanbase was just what a turn on Halley High was supposed to prevent, but he supposed a woman holding her dead husband was better than yet another red wig and loosely glued protuberance. “Would you like a picture?”

“I’ve been going to all his favorite places,” said the woman, still latched to Matt’s hand like she was one of the parasite wasps from episode five and he was - well, himself. “I scattered some of his ashes at Yosemite, and some at Dollywood. He always wanted to see the Space Needle, but they wouldn’t let me through the metal detector. I thought of the beach at Gloucester, of course, where Vincent tried to drown himself, but-”

But that particular beach didn’t exist, since they’d done all their shooting in Rhode Island for tax reasons.

“-but then I thought I could do one better.”

“A photo?” said Matt again, a little desperately. The pill he taken with breakfast - ‘breakfast’ might have been a generous description, but with his morning coffee and kahlua, anyway - was wearing thin, and he would have given a finger for the chance to smoke a cigarette. Going cold turkey this week had been a mistake, no matter how much he liked being able to kiss Nico without brushing his teeth first. “We can take a - There’s a photographer right - ma’am, do you-”

She’d finally let go of his hand and was busily unscrewing the top of the urn.

“Ma’am,” said Matt, but he didn’t leap back in time. Slowed reflexes, another sin imparted by the cold turkey.

“This is for you, Milton,” said the woman sorrowfully, and upended the urn at Matt’s feet.

“Well,” said Matt later, brushing grey dust off his lapels, “I’ve had two proposals and one break-up at fan events, but I can say that was my first consecration of human remains. Slightly less awkward than the proposals, honestly. Kelsi, do you have a wet wipe? Or a vacuum?”

As the event manager hurried over with some hand sanitizer and a damp paper towel, Matt shot a glance at Katya, who was shaking helplessly in the corner with tears streaming down her face. “Kitty, if you don’t get me something to smoke and I mean now, I’m doing to sneeze Milton all over your McQueen.”

“I’ll see what I can rustle up at the crematorium,” said Katya, and dissolved into laughter once again.

#star boys #matt rose #katya walker #nico martin #jordie swift #bonus episode #craving star boys content? WAIT NO LONGER

19 notes · View notes

dailyaudiobible · 4 years

Text

09/24/2020 DAB Transcript

Isaiah 43:14-45:10, Ephesians 3:1-21, Psalms 68:1-18, Proverbs 24:1-2

Today is the 24th day of September welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I'm Brian it's great to be here with you as we lock in, buckle up, move forward, take the next step in our journey through the Scriptures this year. So, we’ve been working our way through the book of Isaiah in the Old Testament and we’re in the book of Ephesians or the letter to the Ephesians in the New and now we’ve got a ways to go…I guess about another 20 chapters in the book of Isaiah, one of the longer books in the Bible. And, so, let's dive in. We’re reading from the contemporary English version this week. Isaiah chapter 43 verse 14 through 45 verse 10.

Commentary:

Okay. So, as we move our way through the letter to the Ephesians I have kind of referred to it as like this mountain road experience where we are headed to the top, and there's all these turn offs along the long way and there’s beautiful vistas all along the path because that's just kinda how I…I…I read Ephesians. There was this one year where I’m reading it and stopping and going, “wait a minute. What? What…what is being said here?” Just truly contemplate the level, like the bigness of some of the things that are being said. And, so, it's always kind of been like this to me. We reach this point the Bible and it's like, this is why this is called Good News. And if this is all true, then this is not just a life game changer, like this is a world game changer, this is a humanity game changer. And, so, in our reading today Paul’s saying like, “there was…that there's a mystery, a mystery that God is revealing, a mystery that God has always planned to reveal and He’s revealing it now and this is the mystery: because of Jesus, the good news…well…let me just quote Paul, “because of Christ Jesus the good news has given the Gentiles a share in the promises that God gave to the Jews. God has also let the Gentiles be a part of the same body.” Now we've already talked about Paul being controversial and so we could understand from a more traditional Hebrew perspective that people would be against Paul in this declaration, but the truth of…of the Christian faith is that it is vastly, vastly a Gentile form of spirituality now. That's how things have turned out in the last couple of thousand years. And, so, what we’re reading in Ephesians is that this is the plan, that God has grafted us into the master story that He's been telling through the Hebrew people, that He has invited us all to be a part of the same body through the Savior, through Jesus. I know that we know that but if we would slow down a second, understand that we just kind of turned off into this little parking area and we’re looking out over the journey upward that we’re taking and it's this beautiful scene, we could understand we are so fortunate. We are so, so fortunate that God loves us and has always loved us and has always intended us to be a part of His story. What Paul’s saying is your ethnicity doesn't matter, what boundaries you live behind, what nation you are in, whatever the ide…ideology of your culture is, you are invited through Jesus to be a part of the family of God. So, indeed, that is good news. But…buckle up because we’re about to get a cosmic view of things that we probably will need to ponder today. There's a reason for all of this. So…so, I'm quoting Paul again, “God who created everything wanted me to help everyone understand the mysterious plan that it always been hidden in His mind. Then God would use the church to show the powers and authorities in the spiritual world that He has many different kinds of wisdom. God did this according to His eternal plan. And He was able to do what he had planned because of all that Christ Jesus our Lord had done.” Okay. So, it's good that we’re parked here at this vista instead of trying to drive because this requires us to widen our horizon and understand that there are way bigger things going on surrounding our faith. Like we try to work out our faith most the time to try…to just try to have some kind of balance in life and follow and love God and…but it's really centered around our experience in our own consciousness, what we personally are perceiving that we are experiencing. Well, what Paul is saying is God has all kinds of wisdom and it's being borne out in what He is doing and what He is doing is revealing this wisdom to the spiritual realms, to the unseen rulers and authorities, to beings in the heavenly places, the powers and authorities in the spiritual world. In other words, our lives and our faith and our pursuit of union with God reveals the wisdom of God beyond what we can physically, with our bodily senses, with our human flesh, perceive, that there is more going on in the spiritual realms than we may be aware of. This isn't just about the rescue of our hearts. It is. This isn't just about us walking with God through this world and being a light in the darkness. It is. But the revelation of God's unlimited wisdom is being revealed in the spiritual realms because of this. Right? That’s something…that's something to think about, that’s something to go ponder, that’s something to reread and consider, that the story is bigger than we knew or than…that we mostly paid attention to, that the weightiness of our lives is revealing the wisdom of God far beyond what we can see or perceive. And because of this, and I'm quoting again, “Christ now gives us courage and confidence so that we can come to God by faith.” In other words, the presence of God and our awareness of His presence is always available, and we can be confident and even bold about it. I mean…I know we know some of the stuff but if we slow down, like…as if we were…we were driving up a mountain road pulling off at the scenery along the way, we’d understand we are talking about really big things. And, so, as we end our short, short reading but power packed reading from the letter to the Ephesians today, Paul prays a prayer and it's kind of Paul's response to what he is sharing, like, “look at what is going on here, perceive this, understand who you are.” And then he prays this prayer. And, so, let me just, again, like…I’m kind of re-quoting a lot of what we already read, but let's receive this prayer. So, Paul says, “I kneel in prayer to the Father. All beings”…and we just explored that…“all beings in heaven and on earth receive their life from Him. God is wonderful and glorious. I pray that His Spirit will make you become strong followers and that Christ will live in your hearts because of your faith. Stand firm and be deeply rooted in his love. I pray that you and all of God's people will understand what is called wide or long or high or deep. I want you to know all about Christ's love. Although it is too wonderful to be measured. Then your lives will be filled with all that God is.”

Prayer:

Father we acknowledge that’s big news and we acknowledge that we gloss over these realities, these spiritual realities daily as we just try to deal with the chaos that's flying at us in…in…in our senses. And yet we are being shown today that there is way more going on and way more at stake than we ever perceive or pay attention to. But the deeper that we become aware of Your love for us, the deeper that we move into a committed loving relationship with You, the deeper we fall in love with You, the more we realize that Your love is too wonderful to be measured and that we become aware that our lives are being intertwined with You as You intended. This was always the plan, that we might be filled with all that You are. And that last thing, we don't even know…we don't even know how to think about it or how to become aware of it, that You would permeate us, that You would surround and envelop us, that we would…that we would as Paul said, that our lives will be filled with all that God is. That this so good there are no words. And, so, Holy Spirit we invite You to well up from within as we meditate upon these things today, that they might become the way we look at things, this would be the eyes that Christ looked at the world through, this would be looking through Your eyes. And in part, that requires us to look at ourselves differently. It requires us to look at ourselves the way that You do and then that requires us to look at everyone else the way You do, even the people that we think are the problem. And, so, come Holy Spirit into this we pray. In the name of Jesus, we ask. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is home, home base, it’s where you find out what's going on around here. It’s sort of the central hub for the Global Campfire since we find ourselves spread out geographically to the ends of the earth. And what a joy to even say that, like what a joy to even know that we are all over the place. And home base where the Global Campfire's burning is kind of dailyaudiobible.com. So, check it out.

Check out the Community section. Check out the Initiatives section. And check out the Shop. Resources are available for this journey.

And if you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, you do that at dailyaudiobible.com too. There's a link on the homepage but if you're using the app you can press the Give button in the upper right-hand corner or if you like the mail better the mailing address is PO Box 1996 Spring Hill Tennessee 37174.

And, as always, we’re a community of prayer. It's a beautiful thing about us. It's a…it's a, come on…it's a gorgeous mesmerizing thing about us, a distinctive, it's a…I just…there's nowhere else like it and it’s beautiful we get to participate in each other's lives even though we are spread to the farthest corners of the earth. It's a beautiful thing to hear each other's voices, it’s a beautiful thing to get to know each other by voice. What a joy. And, so, yeah if you have a prayer request or encouragement you can hit the Hotline button in the app, or you can dial 877-942-4253.

And that's it for today. I’m Brian I love you and I'll be waiting for you here tomorrow.

Community Prayer and Praise:

Hi Daily Audio Bible this is Nalin from Dubai it’s my first time to call in. I’ve been listening to this beautiful program for eight years and now I’m a double DABber as well this year with China. Anyway, I would like some prayer requests for myself, my boss, and my colleagues. It’s been very tough since the COVID-19 and yes, we’ve had several cuts and we’ve had many issues and ups and downs and…but now we’ve got a dictator. A new manager came and she’s so dictatorship and rude and not the family-oriented atmosphere we have. And, so, I just want us for you guys to pray for me and my colleagues, especially my boss to be strong and hang in there and just to have the faith that we do our job and we get through this and we can conquer all with God. Thank you very much.

Hi this is Susanna in North Carolina I really need some prayer. I don’t feel like this is something that supposed to be between me and God and me learning to figure it out but I’m not doing a good job at all. I don’t know exactly what to ask for. I have a pretty good lot in life and yet I easily fall back into anxiety and live out of fear. I want to get back to a consistent level of joy and peace and having enthusiasm and drive for what I do each day, being able to trust God even when I can’t see around the next bend, to be able to rest in his light yoke. It’s a __ with me and something worth doing, to be able to rest in who he made me or made me to be or who I am now and in whose I am and to be finding my identity there. I don’t know if that’s one of those weird situations where you need something to actually cry about but…because I mean He’s…He’s been there for me and been faithful and I feel like I just have this mental battleground going on. So, if He gives you anything crave to pray for is appreciated for anything comes to mind. Thank you.

Good morning DAB family this is Chris from Virginia. Can you please pray for a friend of mine, he’s like a cousin, his name is Dennis? He’s going through some major intestinal complications and most importantly he is not saved and currently has a __ negative mindset. Please pray for his salvation. Please also pray for me as I am going to make an attempt to have a salvation conversation with him and just hopefully please pray that God gives me the words to share with him the vision I see for him and his future with just complete healing and salvation through Christ. Thank you all for all that you pray for. I love you all. Thank you, Brian it’s amazing what you do for us all. God bless you. Bye.

Good morning DABbers my name is Mary this is…I am a first-time caller and I’m just calling to request prayer for my daughter. She’s been fighting cancer since 2016. She’s 25 now. She has dealt with this like a trooper. She’s lost her hair. She’s not been able to walk. She’s done everything and she just loves the Lord and spreading the word. The reason I’m calling for prayer is right now she is losing her speech. She’s having trouble talking and this has been the hardest thing for her because she loves the Lord, she loves telling the people about the Lord and right now she can’t because she can’t speak very well and that’s really…really bringing her down because she doesn’t understand. And I just…I pray…I pray that God will restore her speech and will help her to continue spreading His love. We are so grateful for everything He’s done. He’s sustained her through all of this. She’s never stopped trusting in Him. But this one’s a hard one and I’m just needing prayer. It’s hard as her mom. It’s hard as her mom to watch her go to this and I just need more prayer out there to help with her speech. Thanks.

Hi, my name is LeeAnn it’s my first time calling. I’d just like to ask for prayers for my daughter. She has severe anxiety and she’s having trouble coping with it. Just asking for your prayers for her. Thank you. Thank you all for being here for everybody that listens to this Daily Audio Bible. I have found a lot of peace and comfort here through you guys. Thank you. May God bless you all.

This is Denise from North Carolina I’ve called in before about my situation. First I want to apologize for calling about something so selfish and something so frivolous when there’s so many other people suffering worse than I am, have more things going on that’s more significant than what I’m going through but hurt is hurt, pain is pain and I pray that you would pray for me and my pain. I called in once before about being in a marriage that has no intimacy. We’re friends and we do what God tells us to do but we have no intimacy and I’m lonely in my marriage. I also admitted to the fact that I had a previous affair and I ended that because I knew it was not of God because I was lonely and just wanted attention. I really miss that person even though I’m not supposed to. And I know it’s the spirit that I miss and it’s not the person because I need that companionship and __ . I ask that you pray that God would give me what I need so I can do what’s right and so that my husband and I can live a marriage that’s supposed to be fulfilling, which it’s not right now. We’re companions, we take care of business, we raise our children, but I’m not fulfilled and I ask God to show me what He wants me to do. I try to be all about God but it’s not the same as having someone to hold you and care for you and make you feel important. So, I ask that you pray that I will continue to do what God has me to do and God will open the doors up for me and I not be selfish in this.

1 note · View note

burtlederp · 4 years

Text

Pancakes

So, this is something I wrote for an assignment for one of my college classes. It turned out both longer and better than I anticipated, and kinda whumpy. I figured y’all might be interested in reading it. >:3 PLEASE note, though, all dialogue and writing was taken from and based off of Peter Morris’ play “Pancakes.” I haven’t watched the video on youtube, but I DID read the script out of my textbook, and it was pretty dang good. Anyways, hope y’all enjoy!

content warnings: blood, death, choking, murder, uhh... Fun stuff.

---

“Hungry,” he gasped between mouthfuls. “So hungry.” By and by, he leaned back in the chair, chewing, and let his eyes fall down to Sam’s lifeless body on the floor beside him. He swallowed and chuckled, “You were right, the Lord does help those who help themselves.” He kicked the body in the side, laughing at how the head lolled about from it. Buddy then returned his attention to the pancakes, using red-stained hands to eat, the fork forgotten.

“People don’t need philosophers.” Sam shoved another pancake into his mouth, inwardly enjoying watching his flatmate’s eye twitch. He thought Buddy might explode, but then the philosophy major set his jaw.

“Yes, they do. They just don’t know it. But they will. One day, they’ll wake up with a spiritual malaise, and then they’ll need me,” Buddy replied with forced coolness. A smug smile tugged at one side of Sam’s mouth, and he strategically turned it into a confused frown.

“What the hell is a spiritual mayonnaise?” Sam, of course, knew what ‘malaise’ means, but it was just too easy to poke fun at the idiot.

“Malaise! Not mayonnaise! Spiritual malaise! And people like you are gonna get it bad! Trust me! Then I’ll be in big demand! You wait and see!” Buddy opened his mouth to say something more, his pointer finger jabbing in Sam’s direction, but then his jaw snapped shut. He sat down on the floor so fast that Sam thought his knees had buckled, he’d fainted, but he hadn’t. He folded his legs quickly into lotus position, eyes closed, chanting obnoxiously. Sam stared, pausing in his engorgement.

“You don’t wanna work, do you?” Sam leaned forward, resting his chin in his hand, eyebrows raised.

Buddy opened one eye ever so briefly to glance at him. “Yes, I do,” he replied, his words so in rhythm with his chanting that it took Sam a second to realize he’d responded.

“You don’t,” Sam looked down at the man, a vague expression of amusement. “If you did, you wouldn’t be sitting around unwashed, unshaved, and undressed on a weekday.”

“It’s eight o’clock in the morning,” Buddy informed him, peeking briefly at the clock.

“Early bird catches the worm,” Sam shrugged, leaning back in his chair and spearing another soft, warm pancake with his fork.

“I don’t want worms. I want pancakes,” Buddy protested, watching enviously as Sam halved the pancake. Sam gave him a condescending look, and something cruel flickered in his eye.

“Then earn them,” He said evenly.

“How?” Buddy asked warily. He shifted out of his lotus position, his legs tingling with pins and needles.

“You can do a little job for me,” Sam’s smile was much too kind, and didn’t reach his eyes.

“What kind of little job?” Buddy’s eyes narrowed, suspicious.

“You can shine my shoes,” Sam responded.

“You want me to shine your shoes?” Buddy repeated, slow, turning it over in his mind. Really? That simple?

“I’ll give you a pancake for each shoe,” Sam nodded, crossing his arms, sitting as though he were closing a business deal, not trading a pancake for a shoe-shine.

“One pancake for each shoe,” Buddy echoed, raising an eyebrow.

“That’s the offer,” Sam waved a hand briefly. Buddy hesitated, then his face hardened.

“Is that what you want, to humiliate me? Demean me? Well, forget it! I won’t do it! I won’t!” Buddy growled, leaping to his feet. “I want at least two pancakes per shoe!”

Sam grinned, two perfectly-straight rows of perfectly-white teeth. “Deal.” He held out his hand.

“Deal.” Buddy shook the man’s hand. “Take off your shoes.”

“No.” Sam’s response left Buddy quiet for a split-second, and Sam could almost hear the gears turning.

“Then… how am I supposed to shine them?” Buddy asked lamely, brows knitting together.

“Get down on your knees.” Sam held his gaze unflinchingly.

“What?” Buddy blinked.

“Get down on your knees and shine my shoes.”

“Are you serious?” Buddy frowned, a hint of incredulity to his voice.

“You want some pancakes, don’t you?” The man quirked an eyebrow.

Buddy could feel himself salivating at the thought of taking a big bite of fluffy, syrup-soaked pancakes. “You know I do.”

“Then get down on your knees,” Sam’s smile had disappeared.

“Sam, please…”

“Down!” He barked. Buddy jumped, and paused for a long moment, staring into the hard eyes of his host. Finally, he yielded, kneeling on the kitchen tile. He could see them here, the two shiny black shoes, already bearing a gleaming dully beneath the table. Buddy swallowed, glancing up at Sam to see he was still watching.

“What do I use to shine them with?” Buddy inquired hesitantly.

“Your tongue.” Sam bit each word, his perfect teeth clacking together and the sound echoing around the kitchen. Buddy averted his gaze for a moment, working his jaw, hands clenched into fists.

“No.” He forced out the word, glaring up at him. Sam smiled wryly, cruelly, plucking a pancake from the plate and holding it out, dangling it in front of Buddy’s face.

“Mmmmm, these are so good.” Sam’s eyes were dark slits, not a spark of empathy to be found there. Buddy made to grab the pancake, but Sam easily pulled it out of his reach.

“I won’t do it,” Buddy hissed.

“They’re so light and fluffy, sweet and delicious. Mmmm-mmmm-mmmm.” Sam shoved the pancake into his mouth, taunting.

“You’re a pig.” No sooner had Buddy spoke the last consonant when Sam’s foot kicked him hard in the chest and sent him toppling over onto the floor.

“Watch your mouth, Buddy. You’re only here thanks to my good graces. I could’ve thrown you out months ago. I could throw you out right now,” Sam seethed, leaping to his feet, gripping the table as he bared his teeth in a snarl. “But I won’t. You know why, Buddy? Because I pity you. Do you hear me? You’re pathetic. Look at you, about to kiss my feet for some lousy pancakes.”

Buddy’s could only glare at him for a moment, leaning back on an elbow as he caught his breath, before his face softened. “I’m hungry. All I’ve eaten in the last week were some stale Saltines.”

“Those were my stale Saltines. Bought and paid for with my money.” A malevolent fire burned in Sam’s eyes as his words hissed forth like a snake. “And you didn’t even say thank you, did you?” Buddy gulped, staring up at him, his stomach a hollow pit in his gut, gnawing at itself. He bowed his head, mumbling something.

“What was that?”

“Thank you,” Buddy repeated, then quieter, “I said thank you.”

“That’s better.” Heat diffused through his words as Sam sat himself back down. Buddy waited a moment, eyes tracing the tile patterns in the floor before he slowly rose to his feet. Sam studied him, silent, scrutinizing, chewing on a mouthful of pancake.

“What is it with guys like you? You’ve always got your hand out. Soft, fleshy hands that haven’t seen a day of work.”

“I need help,” Buddy’s voice was soft, hands working at each other as his pride gasped for air after such a hard hit.

“‘The Lord helps those who help themselves.’ Now there’s a Bible quote for you.” Sam said dismissively.

“That’s not from the Bible.”

“Well, it should be. Now stop bothering me.” Sam wasn’t looking at him anymore, though his eyebrows were raised disapprovingly as he turned his gaze down to his food, stuffing his face. Buddy watched him, fingers curling into his shirt as his stomach growled, begging for food. He turned to leave, and made it as far as the door when he paused, and looked back to his flatmate.

“How can you be so heartless when you have so much?” Buddy croaked, a lump in his throat. “Look at you, you have all the pancakes.”

“That’s right. They’re all mine,” Sam’s eyes flickered up to him. “And what, I should just give them to you?”

“You could share them,” he suggested weakly. Sam’s face screwed up like he’d caught a whiff of something foul.

“Why in the hell would I want to do that?”

“It… might make you feel good,” Buddy tried weakly. Sam stopped, looking at him, and then burst out laughing. First he still hovered over his pancakes, shoulders shaking with humor, then he threw back his head in a guffaw, fork still clenched in one hand that rested beside his plate.

“That,” He wheezed. “Is the stupidest thing I ever heard.”

“Some people find great solace in charity,” Buddy informed him, and Sam just scoffed, rolling his eyes.

“What they find, Buddy boy,” Sam leaned forward, pointing the fork at him accusingly. “Is a tax deduction. No one does anything without getting something in return. Now, can all the philosophical mumbo-jumbo. I have to finish eating. I have a morning conference. They’re putting me in charge of the national ad campaign for Good Will.” He finished haughtily, and continued eating.

“Good Will. They’re putting you in charge of ‘good will.’” Buddy’s voice was flat, staring at the man in dim disbelief. He huffed a laugh. “Well, that’s just perfect. It’s like putting a fox in charge of the hen house.”

“Very funny,” Sam’s words were somewhat obscured and jumbled through a large mouthful of pancake.

“It is. It’s hilarious,” Buddy leaned on the doorway, rubbing his face. “But I just can’t bring myself to laugh. It’s a very amusing paradox but I just can’t laugh. I’m too weak. I’m hungry and lightheaded and I just don’t have the strength to laugh.” He raised his eyes from the floor to Steven, and a weak, slightly-crazed grin spread across his face. “But it is funny. Not slap-your-thigh funny but wry and ironic. Only God could make a joke like that. The same God that gets kick out of holocausts and plagues and famines. What a sense of humor that guy’s got. He gave you all the pancakes, and he gave me none.” His voice soured as he staggered forward, slapping his hands on the table, staring at Sam, nose scrunched in a snarl.

“That’s life. Some of us have pancakes and some of us have not.” Sam didn’t look up at him, cutting another bite.

“Yup, and you have them. You’re the pancake king.” Buddy gestured weakly towards him with a hand, letting it fall back to the table’s surface.

“That’s me.” Sam wasn’t even paying attention to him anymore.

Something filled Buddy’s stomach as he watched Sam eat. It wasn’t food, it wasn’t anything that would actually fill it for very long, but it was hot and fiery and furious. It overflowed from the pit that was his stomach and flowed through him, up into his head and out to his fingers. As if he was no longer in control, but this feeling was instead, he pushed himself back up to standing and circled around the table to Sam.

“Here, your majesty, why don’t I give you some more syrup?” He asked, his voice as sickly-sweet as the contents of the amber bottle he lifted from the table top.

“I don’t want any more syrup.” Sam’s eyes only briefly followed the bottle, but he paid him no mind.

“Sure you do. Everybody wants more syrup,” Buddy spat as he yanked off the cap and turned it out onto Sam’s head, the sticky, sugary sap covering the perfectly-styled hair.

“What the fuck!” Sam barked, dropping his fork.

“And butter? What about some butter?!” Buddy snarled, curling his fingers around the butter knife and driving it into Sam’s gut once, twice, three times. Sam fell from his chair, uttering a strangled cry as blood began to seep from him, spattering the floor.

“You want pancakes?! Here, eat some pancakes!” Buddy snatched some from Sam’s plate, and fell atop him, shoving them into the man’s agape mouth before he could make another sound. His legs straddled his flatmate, one hand pressing him to the floor by the neck, the other reaching back to the table. “Have another! And another! And another!” Buddy screamed, pounding pancake after pancake down the man’s throat as his body convulsed beneath him, held fast by the hand wrapped around his throat. Sam writhed weakly in his own blood, hands clumsily and uselessly clawing at the floor, Buddy’s arms, his own mouth, until his eyes rolled up into his head. The man went limp, head falling to the side. Buddy waited until he was sure he saw no more movement before he let go, panting. He leaned back on his heels, wiping sweat off his brow, heart pounding. His eyes rose back to the table, to the stack of pancakes that remained there. Buddy scrambled up into the chair and began to shove food into his face, feasting like an animal.

---

(just btw, proper citation in MLA format is located here, on my masterlist.)

12 notes · View notes

wesleyhill · 5 years

Text

Division and Reunion

A homily on Luke 12:49-56 and Hebrews 11:29–12:2 preached at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral, Pittsburgh, on August 18, 2019

I would speak to you in the name of God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Our Gospel for today could have been ripped directly from current headlines. Jesus speaks of division in stark, unblinking terms:

From now on, five in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three; they will be divided: father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.

Haven’t we experienced something like what Jesus is describing? How many of us are already looking ahead to Thanksgiving dinner and beginning to dread the political conversations that will pit us against one another?

It’s become a cliché by now to talk about and bemoan the divisions in our country. Books with titles like The Fractured Republic are bestsellers. One of our sitting U.S. Senators just published a book with the phrase “Why We Hate Each Other” in the subtitle. A social psychologist’s recent book promises to tell us “Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion.” African-American voices regularly insist, with each new instance of police brutality and injustice, that the racial divide remains unrectified.

There was a recent article in the Washington Post that poignantly brought to mind my own family and our divisions. Journalist Elizabeth Bruenig interviewed Joe and Daniel Aguilar, a father and son, both evangelical Christians. Joe, the father, is a supporter of President Trump and plans to vote for him in next year’s election. Daniel, the son, is not and does not. “To see Joe and Daniel sitting together side by side, as I did, in a Fort Worth taco restaurant, you might guess they’re related; you might also guess that there’s some tension between them, at least where it comes to politics,” Bruenig writes. “They eyed each other warily as I broached the subject of Trump.” As I read those words, I thought about the last time my father and I got into a shouting match about politics.

Jesus’s words seem like an acute diagnosis at this moment in our national life: “father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother.”

Jesus’s words, however, aren’t original to him. When he speaks about division in this way, he is drawing on imagery and wording found in the Scriptures of Israel, what we call the Old Testament. The prophet Micah supplies the words that Jesus later takes up and uses in his time. Micah first zeroes in on the people of Israel and highlights their sins of greed and violence:

The faithful have disappeared from the land, and there is no one left who is upright; they all lie in wait for blood, and they hunt each other with nets. Their hands are skilled to do evil; the official and the judge ask for a bribe, and the powerful dictate what they desire; thus they pervert justice. (7:2-3)

In response to this injustice, Micah declares that the Lord of Israel will bring judgment upon the people. When we hear the word “judgment,” we may be tempted to think of Dante’s Inferno or the worldwide catastrophe that a villain like Thanos in The Avengers movie unleashes. But for Micah, the judgment shows up in a less flashy way. It is already here in the present, Micah insists, long before any apocalypse brings the world to an end. It is demonstrated in the present fraying of the social fabric:

Put no trust in a friend, have no confidence in a loved one; guard the doors of your mouth from her who lies in your embrace; for the son treats the father with contempt, the daughter rises up against her mother, the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; your enemies are members of your own household. (7:5-7)

When Jesus quotes these words from the Old Testament prophet Micah, he is saying that Micah’s prophecy is reaching its fulfillment in his own day and time. As Jesus goes around Judea proclaiming the arrival of God’s reign and healing the sick and denouncing the hypocritical religious leaders, he brings about division in families, just as Micah wrote about. Some people choose to follow him, and their relatives look at them as if they’re crazy. Some people choose to believe that he is the long-awaited Messiah, while their family members shake their heads in dismayed disbelief. No one sees eye to eye, and mutual trust and fellowship is impossible.

But what is intriguing about Jesus’s words is that he seems to view all of this division as having a trajectory to it, so to speak. The division between families and neighbors is going somewhere. Jesus doesn’t succumb to the despair that so many of our current political commentators seem to nurse. He doesn’t throw up his hands and say there’s no way to heal this fractured society. Instead, he points to the culminating moment of his ministry—the moment that has not yet arrived but that Jesus is journeying towards: “I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed!”

We know that Jesus isn’t referring here to his baptism in the waters of the Jordan River by John the Baptist. That baptism has already happened. Jesus is referring instead to his death, using baptism as a metaphor. He is going to go under the water, figuratively speaking, and drown. The fire that he comes to bring is going to consume him. He is going to die in Jerusalem on a Roman cross. There, he is going to take all the judgments against God’s people into his own body, and he will bear them, and bear them away. This is what Dr. King meant when he spoke about the arc of the universe: the history of God with God’s people is a trajectory with an eventual endpoint. The judgment that Jesus went around announcing is going to reach its terminus—and it will terminate on him.

The Roman Catholic theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar, in his book Dare We Hope “That All Men Be Saved”?, observed that all the imagery of judgment in the Gospels—the places where Jesus pronounces “woes” against wrongdoers, where he announces that God will punish evil and call everyone to account, where he speaks of the sky growing dark and the earth quaking, where he (as in our Gospel for today) predicts division and a sword and a fiery baptism—all of that judgment imagery comes to head at the end of the Gospels. It reaches a crescendo and comes crashing down on Jesus himself as he hangs on the cross. And he bears that judgment in the place of and on behalf of sinners like you and me.

The division that Jesus speaks of actually happens to him: Jesus, the Son, is abandoned by his Father to die; he is not rescued. He, the Son, loses his mother as he dies; he watches her retreat into the arms of his beloved disciple. He suffers the fate of having all his friends desert him. He is singled out from among his fellow Jews. He is corralled away from them, secreted into holding cells and paraded in front of tribunals to receive his sentence of death. Jesus is the one who suffers the judgment that he predicts.

And what happens on the other side? The Father who abandoned him to die raises him from the dead. Jesus regathers around himself the friends who deserted him, and he forgives and commissions them to be his ambassadors. The mother whom he lost he makes the prime symbol of his family comprised of reconciled fathers and sons, forgiven mothers and daughters, rescued Jews and Gentiles, redeemed slaves and free persons. Our divisions are overcome because of the salvation that Jesus achieved through his death.

Our epistle for today says it this way:

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God.

Notice: “since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses…” Not “they.” Not “us.” We. We can now say we, because Jesus has overthrown our divisions.

The epistle says, “looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith.” Not “theirs.” Not “ours” as opposed to “theirs.” But ours, together. Jesus has drawn us all into the same family, the same body—his body, the church—so that we can now say ours.

Jesus has relativized the divisions that used to seem like the most important thing about us. Through his death, Jesus has overcome the mistrust and hostility we used to experience towards one another. He has opened to us another way to live.

So, friends, as we ponder the harsh reality of division that our Gospel reading for today puts in front of us, let us also see how Jesus has taken all the ways we are arrayed against each other and has taken them all the way into his own body on the cross. As we come forward now to Jesus’s table, to eat his body and drink his blood, as we kneel here together and hold out our open hands alongside each other, fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, daughters-in-law and mothers-in-law, let us look to Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith, and rejoice in the way he has made us one. And let us give thanks that instead of awaiting a baptism of fire, we await instead the crown of life and everlasting fellowship with the One who gave himself for us. Amen.

4 notes · View notes

pamphletstoinspire · 5 years

Photo

Living By Faith: The 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time (October 6th)

Our readings this week take up the theme of faith, both Israel’s faith under the old covenant and the faith to which we are called in the new. Jesus urges us not to despair even if we feel our faith is pitiful. God can work wonders using small material.

1. Our First Reading is a famous passage from Habbakuk:

Hab 1:2-3; 2:2-4

How long, O LORD? I cry for help but you do not listen! I cry out to you, “Violence!” but you do not intervene. Why do you let me see ruin; why must I look at misery? Destruction and violence are before me; there is strife, and clamorous discord. Then the LORD answered me and said: Write down the vision clearly upon the tablets, so that one can read it readily. For the vision still has its time, presses on to fulfillment, and will not disappoint; if it delays, wait for it, it will surely come, it will not be late. The rash one has no integrity; but the just one, because of his faith, shall live.

Like Jonah, the Book of Habakkuk is an anomaly among the Twelve Minor Prophets. The other ten relate oracles the various prophets delivered on behalf of the LORD to Israel and/or the nations. In Jonah and Habakkuk, however, the focus is largely on the spiritual struggle between the prophet and the LORD concerning the wisdom and righteousness of God’s providence over world history. Both Jonah and Habakkuk struggle with the justice of God’s ways. The Book of Jonah explores this question largely through narrative, whereas Habakkuk engages it through dialogue between the prophet and the LORD. Habakkuk resolves doubts about God’s justice by urging God’s people to live by faith in God’s promises, even if contemporary events seem contradictory or inexplicable. Habakkuk 2:4, which summarizes this message succinctly, is one of the most-quoted verses of the Old Testament in the New (Rom 1:17; Gal 3:11; Heb 10:38-39) and has powerfully influenced Christian piety, prayer, and theology.

As is the case with so many of the Twelve, no biographical information is available for Habakkuk. The form of his name is unusual and its meaning uncertain. It may be a passive form derived from the Hebrew root h-b-q, “to embrace,” i.e. “one who is embraced.” The date of the book is likewise uncertain. At least Judah, if not Israel, still seems to be in existence as the prophet writes, so it must be before the exile (>597 BC). Beyond that, the mention of the “Chaldeans” (=Babylonians) as a rising threat in 1:6 (cf. Isa 39) is the best piece of evidence for dating. The prophet’s words indicate that people will be surprised to hear that Babylon will be the agent of God’s judgment (1:5-6). This would certainly not be the case in the early sixth century BC (c. 590s-580s) when Babylon was a dominant and feared world power, so Habakkuk should probably be placed sometime in the late eighth (late 700s) or (more likely) the seventh century (600s) BC, when Assyria was still dominant in the Levant but Babylon was growing in power (cf. Isa 39).

Habakkuk begins his book by complaining to the LORD: why does God seem to do nothing about the violence and injustice the prophet sees around him (1:2-4)? God replies that He is preparing the Babylonians to come and destroy the evildoers (1:5-11) and Habakkuk acknowledges this divine judgment (1:12). However, sending the Babylonians as executors of justice raises another theological problem: how can God judge wicked persons by others who are yet more wicked (1:13)? The prophet goes on to describe the wickedness of wealthy man who consumes others (1:14-16) and “slays the nations” (1:17), perhaps the King of Assyria or Babylon.

The LORD’s response to this second, more sharply-focused complaint from Habakkuk is much longer and more detailed (Hab 2:2-20). First, the LORD counsels the prophet and all the righteous to have patience, even if it seems like the oracles of God are slow in fulfillment (2:2-4). Secondly, the LORD pronounces five woes (vv. 6-8; 9-11; 12-14; 15-17; 18-20) on the “arrogant man” whose “greed is as wide as Sheol” and “gathers for himself all nations.” This may be simultaneously (1) a hyperbolic description of any wealthy oppressor, and (2) a specific description of the King of Babylon (or Assyria). The message of these woes is that the wickedness of the wicked man will come back on his head: those he oppresses will one day suddenly turn on him (2:7) and he will experience the destruction to which he subjugated others (vv. 8, 10, 17).

The Book of Habakkuk ends with a psalm composed by the prophet, which appears in its present context to be a response to the woes against the evildoer just pronounced by the LORD (2:6-20). This psalm, which bears a strong resemblance to Ps. 68 and others, recounts a theophany of the LORD in which he marches north to Israel from the south (the region around Sinai), accompanied by a violent storm and earthquake (1:3-12). Having arrived, he vindicates his “anointed” (v. 13, probably the Davidic King) by slaying the sea serpent that embodies evil (vv. 13b-15). This entire poetic composition, colored with mythological imagery, may be a figurative description of the Exodus, the conquest of the land, or one or more other of God’s great saving acts of his people in Israel’s history. Essentially, it is a mytho-poetic description of God’s power over the forces of evil as the divine warrior, which is manifested in various ways throughout history.

In response to his vision of God manifesting his power and justice, the prophet resolves to “wait quietly” for the day of judgment on those “who invade us” (v. 16) and to rejoice in the LORD even though there is, as yet, no sign of the consolations and blessing that God has promised for his people (vv. 17-19).

The Book of Habakkuk is of perennial theological and spiritual interest because it struggles with the ever-pertinent question of theodicy, the justice of God. If God is good and all-powerful, why do the wicked seem to prosper? Of course, many other biblical books, notably Job and the Psalms, also deal with this issue. The answer offered by the Book of Habakkuk is that God will, in the end, deliver justice to all. In the meantime, it is necessary for the righteous to exercise trust or faith in the goodness, justice, and promises of God. This practical advice is summed up well in Hab 2:4b: “The righteous shall live by his faith” (RSV). The word translated “faith” is ‘emunah, which is more precisely rendered “faithfulness,” “integrity” or “fidelity.” It derives from the same Hebrew root meaning “true” (‘-m-n) that gives us “Amen,” i.e. “so be it!” or “it is true!” St. Paul quotes Hab. 2:4 in Rom 1:17, but follows the Septuagint in rendering Heb. ‘emunah as Gk. pistis, “faith.” Although the Gk. pistis (“faith”) is not the exact equivalent of Heb. ‘emunah (“faithfulness”), it certainly is the case that the Book of Habakkuk, taken as a whole, counsels the follower of the LORD to exercise trust or faith in the present while he awaits the fulfillment of God’s promises in the future.

P. Our Responsorial Psalm is Ps 95:1-2, 6-7, 8-9:

R. (8) If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.

Come, let us sing joyfully to the LORD; let us acclaim the Rock of our salvation. Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving; let us joyfully sing psalms to him. R. If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.

Come, let us bow down in worship; let us kneel before the LORD who made us. For he is our God, and we are the people he shepherds, the flock he guides. R. If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.

Oh, that today you would hear his voice: “Harden not your hearts as at Meribah, as in the day of Massah in the desert, Where your fathers tempted me; they tested me though they had seen my works.” R. If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.

Psalm 95 is a very common responsorial, and also appears frequently in the Divine Office. The Psalm recalls the trials of faith that Israel underwent in the desert, while wandering forty years under Moses. Massah (“trial”) and Meribah (“contention”) are names of the location in Exod 17 where the people ran out of water, and lost their faith in God and his prophet Moses. The grumbled and complained, accusing God of intending evil for them. We can say that those two events became iconic examples of the loss of faith by God’s people, and they resulted in plagues in both instances. They become ensconced in Israel’s memory as counter-examples to the faith we should embrace and demonstrate toward God.

2. Our Second Reading is :2 Tm 1:6-8, 13-14 :

Beloved:

I remind you, to stir into flame the gift of God that you have through the imposition of my hands. For God did not give us a spirit of cowardice but rather of power and love and self-control. So do not be ashamed of your testimony to our Lord, nor of me, a prisoner for his sake; but bear your share of hardship for the gospel with the strength that comes from God.

Take as your norm the sound words that you heard from me, in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. Guard this rich trust with the help of the Holy Spirit that dwells within us.

Unlike the Israelites in the desert, we have the tremendous “help of the Holy Spirit” in order to maintain the “faith and love” of Christ Jesus in our lives. Faith is contrary to a “spirit of cowardice,” but leads us to an attitude of “power, love, and self-control.” This reminds us of St. Josemaria’s teaching that Christians should have a kind of spiritual “superiority complex” when tackling the challenges of this world. Confidence should characterize the Christian; not self-confidence which the world urges, but what we might call “Christ-confidence” or “Spirit-confidence.” Knowing that “it is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me,” we should have this great confidence that God will provide a means for us to overcome the obstacles we face. No doubt this will mean we must share in the “hardship for the Gospel,” but we can rely on the “strength that comes from God” to persevere through it.

3. Our Gospel is Lk 17:5-10:

The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith.” The Lord replied, “If you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you would say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.

I think many take this parable wrongly. Hearing that faith the size of a mustard seed would be sufficient to perform miracles, folks reason like this: “I can’t work miracles; therefore, my faith must not even be the size of a mustard seed! I must try real hard to muster up some faith the size of a mustard seed, because my faith is microscopic!”

However, I don’t think our Lord was trying to discourage us and tell us that our faith was insignificant. Rather, the purpose of our Lord’s words are consolation, not rebuke. The point he is making to the disciples is this: You don’t need much faith to be effective! Just give me a little bit of faith and I can do great things for you! Just as I took five loaves and two fish and fed 5,000, I can take a mustard seed of your faith and transplant a tree into the ocean.”

Our Lord’s words are meant to be an encouragement. You may only have a tiny amount of faith, but go ahead and step out on that faith anyway. You do not need huge faith already in order to begin serving the Lord. He will take what you have and do great things with it.

“Who among you would say to your servant who has just come in from plowing or tending sheep in the field, ‘Come here immediately and take your place at table’? Would he not rather say to him, ‘Prepare something for me to eat. Put on your apron and wait on me while I eat and drink. You may eat and drink when I am finished’? Is he grateful to that servant because he did what was commanded? So should it be with you. When you have done all you have been commanded, say, ‘We are unprofitable servants; we have done what we were obliged to do.’”

It’s not immediately apparent what the connection is between this saying of Jesus and the previous teaching on faith. Maybe it’s this: sometimes those who do great works of faith think they are doing God a favor. Jesus says in a different place, “Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’” (Mt. 7:22) These are works of faith. However, to these individuals, Jesus responds, “Depart from me, for I never knew you, you evildoers.”

We don’t do God favors by serving him. Paul says, “If I have faith to remove mountians” — alluding to a version of our Lord’s teaching in Luke 7—“but have not love, I am nothing.” Great works of faith do not add to God’s glory. Nor does our holiness.

Jesus is reminding us here that we can’t actually put God in our debt, and that even a holy life is only “normal” for God to expect of us. After all, holiness is normal, it is sin and evil that is abnormal. Sin may be typical, but it is still abnormal. Mary was the first normal human being since Adam and Eve fell.

If we live a saintly life, in a sense it is nothing exceptional. All we’ve done is to be truly human, to fulfill the destiny for which we were created in the first place.

It makes me think of an anecdote a friend of mine shared with me this week. A construction crew was rebuilding a Carthusian monastery and came across the grave of a monk. Opening the casket, they found him incorrupt. Wondering what to do, they called the nearest Carthusian monastery, which was in another country. “What shall we do with the body?” they asked. “Bury him again”, came the reply. “But he’s incorrupt!” they protested. “All Carthusians are supposed to be holy,” came the answer, “this is not exceptional. Bury him again.”

This Sunday’s Gospel is calling on us not to pat ourselves on the back every time we turn away from temptation or do an act of mercy. It is only normal. Holiness should be ordinary.

From: https://www.pamphletstoinspire.com/

#27th sunday in ordinary time

1 note · View note

thecorteztwins · 5 years

Text

Fabian Cortez: A Masterlist of Marvel’s Worst Man or Mutant

@sammysdewysensitiveeyes Heya! Sorry this took a bit. I have a LOT of Fabian comics to go through. I want to rec the ones really worth reading in terms of content, whether quantity (a lot of him) or quality (he’s important, scummy, or funny in some way) I also wanted to describe what the actual content inside them is, so you can decide for yourself if it’s up your alley or not for what you’re looking for. So under the cut I’m going to list you every piece of Fabian Cortez content worth having! Complete with pictures! Try not to drool, ladies!

I’ll start with his 616 issues. X-Men (second series) #1: Fabian arrives! First thing he does is use the fact that his sister was nigh-fatally shot defending him to MANIPULATE MAGNETO WITH HER APPARENT DEATH while conveniently not mentioning he can heal her and she’ll be fine. Also introduces the term “flatscan” hooray! X-Men (second series) #2: Magneto shows up to save the Acolytes from the bullshit they got themselves into. Scolds Fabian on the way home after. Quality bits include that when Magneto arrives to collect his stupid followers, Fabian grins RIGHT AT THE GODDAMN CAMERA like he fucking KNOWS. Also, THIS HAPPENS

FUCKING FABIAN I SWEAR TO GOD HE’S SO GROSS also this is when she calls him Magneto’s “pet boy” which I am never ever letting go of X-Men (second series) #3: Fabian betrays Magneto and the other Acolytes, leaving them to die! So what’s the humorous content? Well, they’re spying on a napping Xavier, and Fabian is all “What are you doing, old man?” pondering-like, and Magneto goes “Sleeping?” and idk I find that fucking hilarious. Magneto and Fabian hold hands while Fabian tells him “Let me take you to your quarters” RAWR

X-Factor #92: Fabian’s first interaction with Pietro! He’s pulled together this massive fucking Acolytes attack on a government facility, exposed their secret Sentinel project to X-Factor, put an alien parasite in Val Cooper (which she vomits up in this issue) to control her...ALL TO TALK TO PIETRO!!! Yeah. Also he makes a girl kneel between her knees and creepy-touches her hair, then PULLS it while snarling about how Pietro will be his. So. Yeah. The Uncanny X-Men #300: This happens

Moira also whispers to Neophyte (a teenage boy Acolyte) about how she’s seen how he looks at Fabian when no one is watching. She actually is referring to how she can tell Neo knows Fabian is lying about everything, but still. Neo also quotes some shit about how “Lord Cortez was with our savior a the moment of his death. Magnus has entrusted him” that you just fucking KNOW Fabian is the one who said this you KNOW he’s been preaching this shit to his new Acolytes. Meanwhile, the Gamesmaster TROLLS THE HELL OUT OF FABIAN by letting him talk about how “lol yeah I totes killed Magneto” when Gamesmaster knew that Neo was listening. When Fabian calls Gamesmaster out on this “You set me up!”), Gamesmaster is like “lol yup trololol” and his reason is honestly just that it was funny (”Anything to keep the game interesting”) Fabian tries to run away during a fight because of course he does. THEN WE GET THE FAMOUS NAKED TANTRUM!!!

BECAUSE THIS WAS NECESSARY Fun fact, the naked tantrum epilogue is done by a different artist than the rest of the issue. The person who did most of the issue draws the men with heavy black body hair. The person who did the naked epilogue does not. So Fabian goes from having very hairy arms to totally smooth, suggesting he just got a full-body wax during the time between the tantrum and the main story. So there’s that. Also he breaks a window during said tantrum because THAT’S such a smart idea; nothing like glass shards in your urethra! Also jumps on a man (still naked) while he screams about being royalty. God, I love him. The Uncanny X-Men #304: Opens with the Acolytes dogpiling on Fabian because Exodus has revealed he’s full of shit and the one who killed Magneto. He is STILL trying to give them orders---specifically, the female ones! Oh, Fabian! Exodus, rather than killing him, teleports him away, claiming that Magneto doesn’t want him executed but to suffer slowly “a victim of someone else’s legacy” This was probably meant to foreshadow that Fabian had the Legacy virus, since that plot was just starting at this time, but that never happened so it just comes off like Magneto, being an egomaniac himself, knew that just fading into obscurity would be the perfect punishment for someone like Fabs. Avengers #368 (Bloodties Part I of V): Starts with Fabian holding little Luna above the flames of Genosha and monologuing to her. SHE’S A BABY, FABIAN. SHE CAN’T UNDERSTAND YOU. WHY DO YOU LOVE YOUR OWN VOICE SO MUCH. It is kinda cute (if you ignore the whole “city on fire” thing) that she’s wrapped up in his cloak and appears to be smiling and snuggling him while he rambles. Maybe she thinks he’s telling her a story, idk. All I know is Luna is the only person in this whole damn series who has ever liked Fabian at all and that’s because she’s a literal toddler (infant?) who doesn’t know what’s going on. Issue also ends with Fabian and Luna. He and his forces have murdered the entire government of Genosha and now he’s proclaimed himself the new Chief in State of the nation. He addresses the people from a broadcast inside the state citadel, with a worried-looking Luna on his knee, surrounded by the corpses of the former government. I personally don’t think he looks good on TV. Not good for humorous content, but is worth it if you also want to see him actually seeming scary; it’s gonna be the last time he does it. X-Men (second series) #26: Fabian holds a very confused baby Luna as he gives a big dumb ranty speech to the Genoshans. Also shows up to flash thigh at Pietro like this:

Avengers #369 (Bloodties Part V of V): Exodus takes baby Luna from Fabian and kills him effortlessly. Nothing funny here, but if you enjoy the idea of him dying in a sewer, it may be for you! The Uncanny X-Men #307 (Bloodties Part IV of V): Pietro, Jean, Crystal, and Wanda search the Genoshan sewers for Fabian and Luna. There’s a lot of very unintentional humor here. Pietro mistakes HIS OWN WIFE for Fabian in the dark after HEARING HER VOICE, Fabian compliments Pietro on HOW WELL HE SCREAMS FABIAN’S NAME, Fabian teling Wanda and Pietro not to fight over him, Fabian ranting about how his life is in danger AS IF HE EXPECTS ANY OF THEM TO CARE LOL. Also at this point Fabs is having a nervous breakdown in sheer pants-pissing fear of Exodus, so he is REALLY rough-looking. Very unkempt, very unclean, raggedy cape, and the only time we see his hair out of the ponytail. Don’t know if you’re into the whole “grungy crazy-eyes” look but if you are, this is the issue for you! The 1996-1997 Magneto miniseries is full of hilarious Fabian goodness! It also does not actually have Magneto in it. It has Joseph, Magneto’s younger clone, believed by everyone at the time to be a de-aged Magneto with amnesia. It’s four issues and THE ART IS HORRIBLE and they forget Fabian’s ponytail through the whole thing except one issue...but the Fabian fuckery is AMAZING! It’s where he lies to a bird, it’s where he returns from the death no explanation and comes in LEVITATING AND SPARKLING with also no explanation how he’s doing that, where he tells a woman that snow reminds him of himself because he’s SO PURE and then tries to put her in his would-be harem two issues later and SHE BEATS HIM UNCONSCIOUS AND NO ONE QUESTIONS HER WHEN THEY WALK IN ON IT, where they lock him up and he escapes by somehow making A BIG FUCKING HOLE IN THE WALL WHAT THE FUCK and Joseph is just like “eh he’ll die out there” and apparently that’s just fine with everyone (LOOOL), where three Acolytes fight over who gets to kill him....honestly it just goes on and on, it’s great. A+ Fabian material, you must read! Fabian also tries to tutor Joseph on how to be Magneto and all I can think of is the bit in “Anastasia” where Vlad and Dmitri teach Anya about being a princess. Also he tricks “Magneto” into kissing a woman and it makes Exodus cry. So there’s that too. Quicksilver #1: IN JUST ONE SINGLE ISSUE Fabian manages to get a MASSIVE AQUARIUM comically dumped on him because he didn't listen to a woman, literally RAINS on poor Bova and Luna who have NO IDEA why a random wet fuckboy is falling on them from the ceiling screaming, SHOOTS A HORSE FURRY ON ACCIDENT, and then gets scolded like the idiot he is by Exodus. I’m just...in awe. Quicksilver #4-6: MAXIMUS AND FABIAN TEAM UP!! Heroes for Hire & Quicksilver Annual 1998: Pietro is finally ready to lead the Acolytes like Fabian was always pressuring him to!...and Fabian goes “lol nope” when Pietro is like hey go fight this dangerous battle. FABIAN. Exodus and Pietro both think he’s a coward lol. Fabs just takes anyone with him who will go and tries to split XD Magneto Rex #1: Magneto tracks down Fabian to make him serve him again. Involves Fabian saying “I guess I don’t have any choice” while kneeling in front of Magneto and a closeup of Magneto’s hand on his head. So yes. And Magneto even brought along a NEW ponytail douche with him, Pipeline, just to show Fabian he’s not special. X-men (second series) #96: A shirtless Magneto sits up in bed after having a dream about Xavier and yells “Fabian Cortez! Attend me!” Fabian comes running into his room. Also Magneto punches him in the face. Uncanny X-Men #379: At this point everyone knows Fabian is a big fat traitor so he doesn’t even try to hide it, he just openly talks treason to the other Acolytes. Magneto catches him and tosses him into a pillar, he ain’t even surprised. Magneto Dark Seduction #1: Pietro walks in on Fabian sitting in Magneto’s chair when no one is around and yells at him. Magneto Dark Seduction #2: He’s in it but not worth noting. If you want to read the Dark Seduction series as a whole though, you probably should read this just for context’s sake. He does send a goddamn email as “Trojan Horse” though. Seriously. Trojan Horse. FABIAN ARE YOU SERIOUS?! Magneto Dark Seduction #3: Just a couple panels, but Fabian getting a fuck ton of guns pointed at him while he plays innocent!

Magneto: Dark Seduction #4: Fabian stares at a woman’s ass while negotiating with her for his release. He never notices the floating head of Sinister behind him because of said staring. He complains about the means of escape she gives him not being good enough, and then is killed by Magneto. So the last two things he does in his life is stare at a woman’s butt and be an entitled brat. HE DIED AS HE LIVED! X-Men ‘92 is indeed great! The thing to remember is, there are TWO X-Men ‘92 series. The first series is part of the 2015 Secret Wars and is four issues. The next series, which spanned 10 issues from 2016 to 2017, is not. The one with Fabian content is the second one. However, he is NOT in every issue, and not every issue he’s in will have Quality Fabness. X-Men ‘92 #2: His first appearance in these pages, in which he immediately shows us YUP, IT’S HIM by proclaiming himself THE SUPREME MUTANT:

X-Men ‘92 #6: Features Fabian undercover as a roadie in Lila Cheney’s band. This is where he fools all the X-Men here as security by him just wearing a goddamn baseball cap. Also features THIS FUCKING FACE:

X-Men ‘92 #7: The first page doesn’t have Fabian, but it does have someone talking about him! He’s one of The Toadies, the band that Lila was playing with, and a real-life grunge band that got to cameo in these issues! He refers to Fabian as “that weird roadie with the ponytail” which is priceless enough, but also says that the band “chased him to the parking lot but lost him” That’s right, Fabian was CHASED THROUGH A CONCERT PARKING LOT BY A GRUNGE BAND! And it was off-screen! This is both FANTASTIC because it happened and a HUGE LOSS that we didn’t get to see it. Later in the issue, Fabian himself does show up being HIMSELF and we get this:

Because we needed that angle of him, I guess. Thanks artists. And then we get him...being himself. X-Men ‘92 #9: It only has one Fabian panel but OH MY GOD WHAT A PANEL

X-Men ‘92 #10: Includes these wonderful moments/faces!

That time Fabian Cortez just kind of randomly photobomber the Summers-Grey-Xavier family photo Seriously, Charles is basically Scott’s father, and to a degree Jean’s as well, Cassandra Nova is his twin sister, and Cable is the son of Scott and Jean’s clone and then there’s Fabian who has no connection to any of these people who isn’t even on the same SIDE yet has just RUN IN THERE AND INTO THE FUCKING CENTER NO LESS FABIAN

Now let’s go one more, X-Men Forever! I don’t consider it great Fabian content, there’s really no comedy beyond how much Claremont clearly hates this guy, but given his presence in it, I’ll list his appearances and let you decide if it’s something you’d want to have a look at. Like X-Men ‘92, X-Men Forever takes place in an alternate timeline. It branches off right after X-Men #3, when Fabian murdered Magneto. Also like X-Men ‘92, it’s the second series to be called this. The first one is by Fabian Niceiza and there is no Cortez content. The one you want is the X-men Forever written by Chris Claremont and his beautiful, beautiful hate-on for Fabian. X-Men Forever #1: Fabian fights the X-Men. Not anything really noteworthy as funny or scummy or specifically “Fabian” here. Some of them debate killing him once they knock him out, as the X-Men all kinda become especially “fuck this guy” in X-Men Forever towards Fabian even though he’s done MUCH less shit in this universe. Why? Claremont hates him, that’s why. But yeah probably not worth it if you’re looking for a “Fabian being Fabian” fix. Is worth it is you always wanted his flat ass in khakis though!

Also the Phoenix knocks him on his ass when he manhandles Jean

And he does what he does best!

X-Men Forever #5: A shackled Fabian is dumped into the middle of nowhere into the hands of a mysterious group. Just one page, nothing funny or shitty here, not worth it for what you’re looking for I don’t think. X- Men Forever #19: We get to see what happened to Fabian! He’s in the clutches of the Consortium, an anti-mutant organization, and he’s a tortured emaciated wreck. I don’t even like seeing him like this, man. I love him getting what he deserves but oh man this is rough. There is one kinda funny bit where, when they discover him, he asks if they came to mock him. I think this is funny just because it speaks to his egocentric mindset even in this state; yes, Fabian, they busted into a super dangerous top-secret facility just to make fun of YOU! X-Men Forever #20: . He can’t even stand up, he has to be carried out of there. He gets shot during his own rescue, but lives (for a bit) through it, long enough to give the X-Men some info about who’s behind this operation. This is not funny Fabian content at all, so you might not want it. X-Men Forever #21: Fabian passed away during the night after his rescue. Claremont is sure to state in the yellow boxes that “Nobody misses him. Nobody mourns.” We do get to see his dead body and Jean does a sort of psychic autopsy in which she extracts further info from his deceased brain. Again, this isn’t funny Fabian content, it’s not even really Fabian content at all, would not recommend. We come back to the fun with “X-Men: The Animated Series” from the 1990s! Fabian appears in “Sanctuary: Part !”, “Sanctuary:Part II”, and “The Fifth Horseman.” All of them are pretty great! And gave us MY FAVORITE SCREENSHOTS OF ALL FLIPPIN’ TIME! xD THE HOLOGRAM HAREM!

#xmen #x men #fabian cortez #issue list #masterpost #a fabsterlist

11 notes · View notes

woodworkingpastor · 3 years

Text

Say What? If my people… -- 2 Chronicles 7:13-14 -- Sunday, August 22, 2021

In Max Lucado’s children’s book, You Are Special, we meet the Wemmicks—small wooden people who have been lovingly carved by the master craftsman Eli. Wemmicks seem to spend most of their time putting stars or dots on people. It’s their way of expressing how important or unimportant they perceive others to be. If you are talented or interesting or pretty, you get stars. If you’re clumsy, awkward, or uninteresting, you get dots.

All the Wemmicks are covered in stickers, including Punchinello. He has been judged by his peers to be completely unworthy, so all of his stickers are dots.

One day, Punchinello meets a girl named Lucia. She, too, is unique: Lucia doesn’t have any stickers at all. The stickers don’t stick to her because she spends a lot of time in Eli’s woodshop, where she has learned that the stars or dots only stick if you let them.

This delightful story tells of Punchinello’s visit to Eli’s woodshop, where he learns more about the wooden people’s motivation for putting star and dot stickers on each other, and how he might learn to move beyond that.

The background to 2 Chronicles

If we were to evaluate the books of 1 & 2 Chronicles with star or dot stickers, we’d likely give them a lot of dots. But not 2 Chronicles 7:14; this very popular verse gets lots of stars. But let’s be careful; remember that this is the Say What?!sermons series. To misquote Inigo Montoya from The Princess Bride: “You keep quoting that verse…I do not think it means what you think it means.”

As with each of the sermons in this series, the challenge lies in our preference to choose simplicity over depth and to reduce the treasures of Scripture to slogans. The difficulty with this passage is that pretty much every time I hear someone quote it as a solution to what they view as the world’s problems, it’s almost as if they read words,

if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land (2 Chronicles 7:14)

but they hear, “if those people…” We’re smart enough to see that there are problems. It’s the solution that we struggle with. If we choose the simplistic reading of the text, 2 Chronicles 7:14 becomes a giant dot sticker that we go around sticking on all the people and all the situations that we perceive to be the problem.

An incomplete understanding of sin

But a deeper reading of the text reveals a need to reconsider how we view sin. One way we understand sin is as a personal action that damages my relationship with God. You’ve probably heard sermons or read some devotional articles along the way about what kind of movies are ok for Christians to watch, or whether it’s acceptable to drink alcohol, or about sex outside of marriage. These are all fair topics that view sin as a personal action.

But let’s complicate things just a bit and apply this to a more complicated topic raised in the Church of the Brethren annual report. Racism is a significant—and highly controversial—topic in our nation at the moment. When discussing the sin of racism, many people approach through this lens of sin being a personal act. They correctly observe that “I never owned a slave; why should I be held responsible for something my ancestors did?” We all know people who are different from us and we get along fine; we have nothing but generous thoughts toward people whose skin color or religion or national origin is different. Seen through this lens, you understand why people get offended at the suggestion that they might be racist.

This view sees sin as an action that impacts the sinner’s relationship with God and those to whom the sinful act was directed. Jesus’ death on the cross atones for that sin, and God’s great gift to us is to extend forgiveness, forever settling the issue of sin.

All of this is “chapter and verse” correct, but it’s incomplete. It is also important to view sin as systemic, something that disrupts the harmony of life, feeds into evil powers, shapes frameworks, whose consequences are felt for a lifetime and lifetimes to come. In this view, sin is more than personal.

What I don’t understand is why this would be controversial for people who take the Bible seriously, because God tells us that this is exactly the way things will be. When God explains to Adam the consequences of sin, God says (among other things),

“cursed is the ground because of you…thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you” (Genesis 3:17).

In other words, the impact of sin is more than personal; sin corrupts everything.

This is what the current conversation about racism in America attempts to deal with. It works from the understanding that past sin continues to impact the present day, even when people in the present are not guilty of committing that sin. This is something that is significantly complicates the work of the Gun Violence Prevention Commission. There are reasons why much of our gun violence in Roanoke is in the NW community. Part of it is that there are too many young men making bad personal decisions with guns. But another part involves walking backward through time to Roanoke’s beginnings in the 1880’s to see how power was used to marginalize Black persons—legislating where Black persons could live in one generation, then condemning those homes in another generation to build the Civic Center; knocking down barbershops and corner grocery stores and other small businesses to build so-called “better” roads through the Gainsboro neighborhood; disrupting civic and congregational and neighborhood life by providing housing projects in place away from the old neighborhoods. We’ve come a long way, and most everyone celebrates that. But it doesn’t mean that old decisions and attitudes aren’t still a factor in today’s issues.

In this view of sin, Jesus’ work both forgives us and releases us to be transformed in the Spirit to join his work in unwinding and healing the consequences of sin that permeates the world.

This is the direction in which 2 Chronicles 7:14 helps us move, especially if we will take the time to at least read verse 13 along with it. Let’s connect some dots (not those of the Wemmicks, though!) here: remember the curse of sin: the land will produce thorns and thistles, making it harder to harvest crops. Now hear the judgment of verse 13: drought and locusts as punishment for sin. Sin is not only personal; sin is also an agent, creating a world in which no one can live well. Healing our land requires us to return to God—not only those people that we want to walk around and put dot stickers on, but all of us; all of the people. This verse is not a means of affirming or critiquing others’ behavior or worth. It is a spiritual discipline for prodigals, for people who have finally come to the end of themselves and realize our only hope is to return to God. If we are to humble ourselves and pray and seek God’s face and turn from our wicked ways, we must give up the desire to be in control of our own story, we must even reject our own ability to interpret the facts. We search Scripture deeply and in community; we lay down the weapons of rightness; we listen to the people who are grieving and bearing the suffering and losses of our day.

Conclusion

I have a file on my computer that is a one-page list of the challenges I see for our day, and how the church might address them. Every now and then I look at that list and edit it, rearrange it a bit, and so on. One thing is clear to me: we are rapidly moving toward a world in which no one can live in well. And no matter how hard we try, viewing the problems as someone else’s fault isn’t going to get us anywhere.

Do we want to be made whole? Do we want to see the world made whole? 2 Chronicles 7:14 invites us to take a collective way forward. There is another I want to offer to you: a hymn that I hope we can learn someday.

Great God, your love has called us here, as we, by love for love were made. Your living likeness still we bear, though marred, dishonored, disobeyed. We come, with all our heart and mind your call to hear, your love to find.

We come with self-inflicted pains of broken trust and chosen wrong, half free, half bound by inner chains, by social forces swept along, by powers and systems close confined yet seeking hope for humankind.

Great God, in Christ you call our name and then receive us as your own, not through some merit, right or claim, but by your gracious love alone. We strain to glimpse your mercy seat and find you kneeling at our feet.

0 notes

automatismoateo · 3 years

Text

A rant: I haven't spoken to my abusive parents in several years, and today I got an e-mail from my dad that was a random biblical verse. | Spoiler Alert: I got kinda mad. via /r/atheism

Submitted November 30, 2020 at 09:38PM by Obliterature (Via reddit https://ift.tt/2JdYlaY) A rant: I haven't spoken to my abusive parents in several years, and today I got an e-mail from my dad that was a random biblical verse. | Spoiler Alert: I got kinda mad.

My parents growing up were abusive and were the cause of various forms of trauma to my three siblings and I. My dad, a lapsed Catholic, decided he was a "Christian" again after Barack Obama was elected and started sinking into a far-right sinkhole of anti-intellectualism. My mother, is a right-wing Jew. What a combo, eh?

Anyway, I've been estranged from them for several years, because I couldn't handle their gaslighting, denial, and continuously crappy and toxic behavior. I told my Dad and Mom at the time that they would be back allowed in my life if they met certain conditions (seeking mental health treatment and committing to seeing through being the primary condition). Today, I get this e-mail quoting the Bible verse Psalms 95:6"

O come, let us worship and bow down: let us kneel before the LORD our maker.

I don't know what came over me, but I flipped out. I got angry. And I couldn't stop myself from writing him an e-mail back. This may be petty, but I just felt like I had to share it. Apologies if this doesn't belong here.

The E-Mail:

Oh, shit, are we trading favorite biblical verses now? Here’s a few of my favorites:

How about when Leviticus weirdly shames women for having periods?

" 'When a woman has her regular flow of blood, the impurity of her monthly period will last seven days, and anyone who touches her will be unclean till evening. 20 " 'Anything she lies on during her period will be unclean, and anything she sits on will be unclean. 21 Anyone who touches her bed will be unclean; they must wash their clothes and bathe with water, and they will be unclean till evening. 22 Anyone who touches anything she sits on will be unclean; they must wash their clothes and bathe with water, and they will be unclean till evening. 23 Whether it is the bed or anything she was sitting on, when anyone touches it, they will be unclean till evening. 24 " 'If a man has sexual relations with her and her monthly flow touches him, he will be unclean for seven days; any bed he lies on will be unclean. 25 " 'When a woman has a discharge of blood for many days at a time other than her monthly period or has a discharge that continues beyond her period, she will be unclean as long as she has the discharge, just as in the days of her period. 26 Any bed she lies on while her discharge continues will be unclean, as is her bed during her monthly period, and anything she sits on will be unclean, as during her period. 27 Anyone who touches them will be unclean; they must wash their clothes and bathe with water, and they will be unclean till evening. 28 " 'When she is cleansed from her discharge, she must count off seven days, and after that she will be ceremonially clean. – Leviticus 15:19-28

Or that one where God tells Moses that the crippled and handicapped aren’t fit for his church?

The Lord said to Moses, 17 "Say to Aaron: 'For the generations to come none of your descendants who has a defect may come near to offer the food of his God. 18 No man who has any defect may come near: no man who is blind or lame, disfigured or deformed; 19 no man with a crippled foot or hand, 20 or who is a hunchback or a dwarf, or who has any eye defect, or who has festering or running sores or damaged testicles. 21 No descendant of Aaron the priest who has any defect is to come near to present the food offerings to the Lord. He has a defect; he must not come near to offer the food of his God. 22 He may eat the most holy food of his God, as well as the holy food; 23 yet because of his defect, he must not go near the curtain or approach the altar, and so desecrate my sanctuary. I am the Lord, who makes them holy.' – Leviticus 21:16-23

This one ought to hit close to home: kill your sons who are stubborn and rebellious. Well, what are you waiting for, pops?

If someone has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father and mother and will not listen to them when they discipline him, 19 his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him to the elders at the gate of his town. 20 They shall say to the elders, "This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a glutton and a drunkard." 21 Then all the men of his town are to stone him to death. You must purge the evil from among you. All Israel will hear of it and be afraid. - Deuteronomy 21:18-21

Ohhh, looks like any many who’s injured his cock and balls isn’t allowed in church either…I wonder if emasculation from wife counts? Is that why you never go to church?

No one who has been emasculated by crushing or cutting may enter the assembly of the Lord. - Deuteronomy 23:1

Personally loving this one where men have permission to cut off a wife’s hand should she try to defend her husband.

If two men are fighting and the wife of one of them comes to rescue her husband from his assailant, and she reaches out and seizes him by his private parts, 12 you shall cut off her hand. Show her no pity. - Deuteronomy 25:11-12

How about the one where God condones bashing babies against rocks?

Daughter Babylon, doomed to destruction, happy is the one who repays you according to what you have done to us. 9 Happy is the one who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks. – Psalm 137.8-9

Or the one where God condones ripping babies to pieces, looting their parents’ houses and raping their mothers?

See, the day of the Lord is coming -a cruel day, with wrath and fierce anger- to make the land desolate and destroy the sinners within it. 10 The stars of heaven and their constellations will not show their light. The rising sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light. 11 I will punish the world for its evil, the wicked for their sins. I will put an end to the arrogance of the haughty and will humble the pride of the ruthless. 12 I will make people scarcer than pure gold, more rare than the gold of Ophir. 13 Therefore I will make the heavens tremble; and the earth will shake from its place at the wrath of the Lord Almighty, in the day of his burning anger. 14 Like a hunted gazelle, like sheep without a shepherd, they will all return to their own people, they will flee to their native land. 15 Whoever is captured will be thrust through; all who are caught will fall by the sword. 16 Their infants will be dashed to pieces before their eyes; their houses will be looted and their wives violated. – Isaiah 13:9-16

Hubba, hubba, Ezekiel!

There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses. - Ezekiel 23:20

Oh damn, what about that time in Hosea when God’s all about baby-killing AND violently murdering pregnant women? I thought Christians opposed abortion?

"But I have been the Lord your God ever since you came out of Egypt. You shall acknowledge no God but me, no Savior except me…"You are destroyed, Israel, because you are against me, against your helper… The people of Samaria must bear their guilt, because they have rebelled against their God. They will fall by the sword; their little ones will be dashed to the ground, their pregnant women ripped open." - Hosea 13:4, 9, 16

And no examination of the Bible is complete without some New Testament Exodus shenanigans about selling your daughters into sexual slavery.

"If a man sells his daughter as a servant, she is not to go free as male servants do. 8 If she does not please the master who has selected her for himself, he must let her be redeemed. He has no right to sell her to foreigners, because he has broken faith with her. – Exodus 21:7-8

Tell me, Dad. Do you really think you know more about the Bible than I do? I literally majored in literature and the “classics” of western culture. I graduated Summa Cum Laude with a 3.99 GPA. I’m halfway through a masters degree on these kinds of ancient texts.

You, on the other hand, are a fake Catholic who rarely goes to church and has mindlessly hooked onto far-right & conservative talking points in your old age out of your reactionary racism to the election of a black man to the presidency.

What the fuck happened to you? The [CENSORED NAME] I remembered when I was growing up was an marginally intelligent and moderate thinking person capable of critical thinking. The [CENSORED NAME] I’ve seen devolve into the anti-intellectualism of American-Christian nationalism & conservatism since Barack Obama took office in 2008 has been an embarrassment to yourself, to your Jewish wife, and to your children. Get a fucking grip.

Your politics and your religion are centered around greed, prejudice, and the marginalization of ethnic, cultural, political, and religious minorities. Your fetishization of your personal “freedom” and “liberty” over the health, safety, and human rights of others is vile and repulsive, and it illustrates that your ideology extends to only caring about yourself and your immediate circle, rather than for the common good of all people. (Not very Christian, bro.)

All that aside, you know my conditions for allowing you and mom back into my personal life. You must:

Be open and honest with our mother about her abusive behavior towards you and your children over the decades.

You must seek mental health intervention and treatment for her, to include medication and therapy. She is sick. She has been sick for a long time. She is long overdue for psychological help. Your enabling of her abusive and unhealthy habits is only going to further isolate you and her and compound her mental illness, as well as present detrimental effects to your own mental health, if they haven’t already.

She must commit to A.) Admitting the abuses she’s done to you, your family, her family, and all of her children and B.) Following through with her mental health treatment. No half-measures. No quitting. She is sick, and she has been sick for as long as I can remember. She will not ever get better or be better if she does not have your support and encouragement throughout what will likely be a very sordid and difficult treatment. She will not get better or be better if she doesn’t commit to seeking treatment for, what is likely, the rest of her life.

You need to finally own up to your own flaws, too. You have gaslighted us, your kids, and told us that the abuses and trauma we have endured from our mother and you have not happened; that we are liars and that are “ungrateful”. You have enabled your wife’s abuses by turning a blind eye to them. No longer.

BONUS: If you could at least try to understand that your politics are not only harmful to humanity at large, but to your children and grandchildren, as well, it’d be fucking nice to see you apply some critical-fucking-thinking to the ideology you’ve so mindlessly given yourself to.

Here’s the thing, [CENSORED NAME], I may be the only kid that’s cut you out of my life so far, but I can guarantee you: I will NOT be the last. [SISTER 1] and [SISTER 2] are tired of you, they are tired of mom, and they are ashamed of you. I tell you this not to hurt you or twist the knife, but to warn you. You have been dangerously close to losing them the way you have lost me for years. Every time one of your ignorant political rants shows up on their Facebook feed, every time you harass them about wishing mom a happy birthday, or harass their ex-husbands on Facebook, every little stupid and inconsiderate act you take, is pushing them closer to the ends I have taken to separate myself, my family, and my children from you.

As the status quo stands right now; you and mom are toxic. And I cannot in good faith bring people like you around my children. You did enough damage to me and my siblings. I won’t let you hurt my children, too.

You’ve already missed out on nearly the first two years of [CENSORED WIFE'S NAME] and I’s daughters’ lives, and [CENSORED SON'S NAME] has no idea who you people are. I am certain they cannot tell the difference without your influence in their lives. Can you?

I am not an unreasonable person, and I do not ask for anything that is out of your realm of capability or power; I am not asking for the clocks to be turned back and for you to undo the years of abuse and trauma you and mom inflicted on us. I am not the hateful and ungrateful son you have painted me to be. I may be stubborn and rebellious, but I am not without reason or compassion.

Your Stubborn and Rebellious Son, Take Him to the Elders at the Gate of Town For His Stoning,

- [CENSORED NAME]

#reddit

0 notes

tonystarktogo · 6 years

Text

Tiny Tony Overlord Part 3

Part I | Part II | Read on AO3

Betaed by the amazing @folklejend. All remaining mistakes are my own. Enjoy!

Chapter 3 Recover

.Minor S.H.I.E.L.D. Unit.

Bix, whose birth certificate states the name Bianca Arlinda White, has had a terrible day so far. Admittedly, the good days have been few and far in between ever since Captain fucking America was rediscovered in the middle of fucking nowhere and successfully defrosted before the right people could get their hands on him. Like Iron Man’s creation hadn’t been bad enough—and really, who could have seen that one coming?

It’s not that Bix has an opinion on their existence one way or another, it’s just that superheroes tend to be, well. Messy. Not to mention that there are only so many high horses and moral bullshit speeches you can listen to before you want to take a nearby machine gun and shut them the heck up yourself.

[continue below the cut]

And then there are those days where they open their damn mouth and take control of your most precious weapon because they apparently eat shameless amounts of luck for breakfast every day. Which is just not fair. Just because Bix doesn’t play with the good guys doesn’t mean fate is allowed to mess up every single mission Bix is in charge of. That just isn’t right!

“Enter,” a voice calls out, and Bix pushes the internal rant aside to be finished at another time in favour of entering the small, clean office.

Walter Brickley is the supervising officer of SHIELD’s local strike teams. He is also meticulously dressed, single, in his early thirties, and filled to the brim with confidence and self-importance. In other words he is perfect.

Bix observes Brickley’s expression closely. The way he takes in the expensive high heels, the form-fitting blouse with the top button undone, the manicured fingers and the skirt an inch shorter than SHIELD’s dress policies allow. Brickley isn’t a pig, thankfully. He doesn’t leer, doesn’t even stare excessively. It might have made the job easier, but there is always a fifty-fifty chance Bix will snap and break someone’s knee, and that never helps. He is interested though, if his dilated pupils are anything to go by.

“How can I help you, Miss?” Brickley asks, the picture of friendly competence.

Years of practice allow Bix to repress the instinctive grimace and paint a honeyed smile on instead.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Agent Brickley.” Bix shakes the man’s hand. “My name is Andrina Flynn. I work directly under Senator Stern. I was hoping the two of us could come to an agreement.”

* * * * *

Bix leaves Agent Brickley’s office twenty-five minutes later, the picture of the calm and collected secretary. The closest bathroom is right around the corner, and it takes Bix all of four minutes to replace the skirt with rugged pants, exchange the heels with black combat boots, and pull the long, wavy locks into a high ponytail. By the time Bix’s cell phone rings, the last traces of deep red lipstick have been wiped away and the face inside the mirror starts to look familiar again.

“Yes?” Bix answers, careful to use a deeper voice.

“Agent White, this is Agent Brickley. There is a minor internal security issue that needs to be taken care of immediately. STRIKE team 2 has been authorised to liquidate a threat towards National security. The details will be sent to your phone momentarily. Get a hold of your people and be ready to go in five.”

Bix smirks. “Copy that, sir.”

It is high time to get rid of a certain bothersome—if currently child-sized—genius and reclaim the organisation’s favourite toy.

“But how did you get Brickley to agree to this?” Archie Denver whispers quietly in the back of the trunk half an hour later. “The guy is squeaky clean like no other!”

“Oh, Archie.” Bix patronisingly pats the man on the head. “You’re thinking too simple again. You’re still operating under the assumption that you need an army of corrupt soldiers to take on the world. But you don’t.”

The unconcealed glee on Bix’s face makes their colleagues, Hydra and otherwise, shift nervously.

Good. They may survive this retrieval mission after all.

“All you need is one corrupt mole amongst a sea of honest fools.”

“Ma’am?” an eager trainee speaks up from the other side of the truck, oblivious to Bix’s reflexive twitch. “The target has been located.”

* * * * *

.Zach’s B&B.

Tony is abruptly reminded why he’s chosen to spend the last couple of hours on the uncomfortable seat when he tries to stand and his knees almost give out under him. The dull ache in the back of his head intensifies as well, causing the world to tilt sideways, and for a long moment, it’s all he can do to remain upright and remember how to breathe.

Through it all, Dead-Eyes stays motionless in the shadiest corner of the room and watches him with a blank face. When Tony is aware enough to notice, he appreciates the man’s silence. Mostly though, he just prays for the piercing pain to disappear.

It doesn’t.

“Pepper,” he whispers, the word so soft he almost chokes on it.

She doesn’t smile at him like she used to, hasn’t smiled at all since they’ve lost Rhodey, but he reads the understanding in her eyes. Traces the affection in her scarred features. She is still here after all, still stands tall and proud, brimming with the same fiery determination that has first brought her to his attention so many years ago.

“Tony.” She takes his hands into hers, the touch warm and familiar. “There is no cure.” Her voice doesn’t break, doesn’t waver and god, she is beautiful like this. “You know that. You’ve done the best you can, you’ve done everything you can.”

“Not everything.” His eyes burn.

“This isn’t your fault, Tony,” she says with unshakeable conviction. “I love you.”

Their kiss tastes of the tears they’ve forgotten how to cry and he can’t let go of her, can’t lose her, not after everything, not ever, but when she asks, he can’t deny her anything.

She walks into one of their facilities the next day with her head held high, one of Tony’s most devastating, amplified Jerichos strapped to her chest. She takes over 300 Others with her.

The last of Tony Stark dies with her.

Tony is kneeling on the ground, palms pressed against the solid floor, desperately trying to anchor himself to the present.

He is in a motel. The images in his head, no matter how vivid, aren’t real. Or, a darker voice in the back of his head whispers mockingly, are they?

Tony swallows. Pepper’s face when she found out about the baby—too late, always too late—flashes before his eyes, a look of hopeless devastation so shattered, it tears him apart even now. He can’t recall the moments that have led up to this, nor what happened after. But does it really matter? At some point in time, it might have happened, and Tony can’t take that chance. Can’t allow his friend to ever feel pain like that again, not when he can still do something about it.

Stumbling towards the kitchen corner, Tony struggles to open a bottle of water with shaking hands.

His headache is worse than ever. A reflection perhaps of the utter chaos inside his mind, the strings woven too tightly together to be untangled without ripping them, the gaping holes in between that leave too many questions unanswered.

Tony sways back to the table. Takes another pill on autopilot. Swallows two gulps of water. He tries to set the glass down but his fingers are numb and the glass slips from his grasp. He doesn’t try to catch it. The glass shatters on the concrete with a clash.

“Feel better now?”

“No.”

“Throw another plate then. Maybe the world will magically become a better place. Maybe destroying what little we have left is the cure we’ve all been looking for.”

Tony glares at his oldest friend, who is entirely too blasé in the face of his fury. “What do you want, honey bear?”

“I just want to make sure you’re alright.” Rhodey steps a bit closer then, not close enough to touch yet, but close enough to remind Tony that he’s there. Rhodey is always there.

Almost against his will, Tony can feel some of the tension in his muscles dissipating. “Who cares?” he mutters, just to be a stubborn asshole. “I’m just the mass-murdering megalomaniac, aren’t I?”

“I take it the talk with Rogers didn’t go well.” Rhodey doesn’t look surprised. Truth be told, neither is Tony.

“Yeah,” Tony snorts derisively. “Turns out Captain America doesn’t abide to the, and I quote, ‘needless slaughter of tens of thousands of innocent civilians.’ Who would’ve thought, eh?”

For a moment, Tony simply stares at the remains of his destroyed kitchen. “He thinks there’s another way,” he whispers eventually, aware of how tired he sounds.

Rhodey’s hand squeezes his shoulder comfortingly. “What do you think?” he asks, face free of any judgement.

It allows Tony to say the words that have been drowned out by Steve’s single-minded determination far too often. “I think he’s right,” he admits. “There is another way. But we’ll lose people every day searching for it. And who’s to say that there’ll be anyone left to save by the time we’ve found it?”

Tony searches Rhodey’s eyes, wills his friend to understand.

“There’ll be collateral damage no matter which choice we make, and by—by not containing the damage, we aren’t saving the world, we aren’t even saving the people in the ghettos. We’re absolving ourselves of their deaths, nothing more.”

“Tones-“ Rhodey’s eyes are achingly gentle.

He is interrupted by an icy “‘Containing the damage’?” from behind them.

Tony feels sick. The memory is frightening in its clarity. He can picture the entire scene in his head, down to the colour of Rhodey’s shirt—red and yellow, because of course Rhodey would wear Iron Man merchandise for this kind of conversation—like it has happened only minutes ago, and the emotions it evokes are overwhelming.

There is only one question. Who the hell is Rhodey?

Out of the corner of his eyes, Tony catches a blurry shadow moving towards him but he can’t even muster up the will to shield his face. His headache is steadily getting worse. It’s impossible to focus on anything but the piercing pain deep within his skull, burning with an intensity that makes him want to crack his head open just to get it out. Pressing his flushed skin against the cool floor helps a little but the relief is short-lasting.

It feels like an eternity before Tony finds the will to turn onto his back. The only thing he wants to do right now is lie here and hope the world will stop turning around him at some point. He can’t though. Not when he doesn’t know what is happening to him and whether these symptoms will pass on their own. Who knows what the purpose of the weird energy that hit him was. It might work like a slow-acting poison. Hell, Tony’s physical self is decades younger than his mind; who knows what kind of effects such an imbalance has? What if his body can’t cope with the strain?

No, Tony can’t afford to waste more time. And once he has managed to formulate that thought in his head, he clings to it. Holds on with an iron determination that has been formed and shaped by terror and loss, left him unwilling to consider anything but success a possibility.

Somehow, Tony makes it back onto his feet and after he has blinked away the first bout of dizziness, things get a bit more manageable.

“Alright, Dead-Eyes,” Tony’s voice sounds about as terrible as he feels but he doubts his shadow will care. Actually, he’s starting to question whether Dead-Eyes is even capable of caring. “Clean this room out, don’t leave anything behind.”

The command sounds odd on his tongue, familiar almost, the way a song from your early childhood might be. Like he’s said it a thousand times before, often enough that the details of every occurrence blur and bleed together. Tony shakes the uncomfortable sensation off.

He will have to deal with Dead-Eyes eventually, but he is in no state to do a background check, never mind conduct an interrogation. Besides, so far the man hasn’t tried to kill him. That has to count for something.

“Ready?” he mumbles.

Dead-Eyes gives a sharp nod. He’s wearing his goggles and face mask again. The look isn’t as disturbing as it probably should be, but that seems to be a theme where Dead-Eyes is concerned.

“Cool.” Tony staggers towards the door. “Time to visit some old friends. Older friends. Urgh, whatever.”

They don’t even make it off the parking lot.

I’m enjoying this story a lot, hope you do too! Feel very welcome to share your thoughts and impressions!

#ReRe writes #Tiny Tony Overlord #fic #Tony Stark #Bucky Barnes #Winter Soldier Bucky #tiny Tony #Bix the HYDRA goon #background information #things are slowly developing #actually they're about to get interesting #cue evil laughter

58 notes · View notes