Olivia Lux is collecting selfies with my favorite queens tonight like they’re fucking infinity stones

"Oh, don't be like that, Rashid. Around this time of year is important to the others too. You have Ramadan, the cousins have the Eastertide, and the twins have the Pesach."

"I have Qingming! 

“...Or I would if I could identify who my ancestors are at all."

"Look at me on principle: I'm the Sin of Gluttony. I am defined by insatiable hunger. My power is sacrilegious in its very existence. I am fully capable of creating tangible fabrications of sustenance all while being deprived of food and drink. I can keep it up from sunrise to sundown all month long if I have to. It won't be hard. I was a man of the world before I was a man of God. I only followed tradition at home because we literally were subjugated by people who enforced the Quran in everyday living.

"We're all hellbound. Literally. Nothing we do or say can get us any closer to our God(s), will make anything haram halal again, or forgive our sins, or free us at all. There are absolutely no points in making any appeal to the divine, regardless of which God and certainly of what holy book or faith."

"Fine. Fine. That's fine by me. I'm areligious myself, I frankly don't care about the notion of God's grace or whatever, especially considering what He did to me. If you're going to stay out of Ramadan, then that is your choice. But even with all that--

"I won't let you stomp all over the Twins' and the Cousins' reverence like that. We all may be hellbound, and not all of us are reverent to our faith, but they are, regardless of where they are going and the pointless of trying to appeal to God. Do you even hear their prayers, Rashid? Do you?"

"Do you? I don't know a lick of Hebrew or Latin, and I am certain neither you nor Rui do."

"I don't. But I don't need to understand Hebrew or Latin to understand their prayers."

"So what are you saying, Abena?"

"All I'm saying is....

"........................

"Forget it. Nothing I say to you will get through to you. Good night, everyone."

"Pfah. That woman. Can you believe her, Ruixiong? Are you stupid enough to try to appeal to a higher power that condemned you to begin with?"

".................................."

"What's with that look?"

".....I guess I'm just a little jealous."

"Jealous??"

"That they have someone to revere at all, even when rejected. That they'll keep trying. Not out of desperation, but humility. I wish I had that kind of faith."

"Hmph. Why don't you?"

"For one, as I said, I don't have ancestors I can identify with. And secondly, whoever I can revere? He constantly ignores me and even poisoned me to death. So as you asked: am I stupid enough to try to appeal to a higher power that condemned me to begin with? In some regards, maybe.

"But in others: no. I gave up. Fuck you, Rashid. Good night."

"Wait, what?? Ruixiong?? What are you saying?! Rui?? Ruixiong!!"

Lovelink: Hugo Hornsby (Bored)

Rating: PG Word count: 1603 Summary: Hugo Hornsby is late, and Isadora can’t help but feel herself slipping out of his life. Maybe some love fizzles out just like this; tired and bored.

"The games you played were never fun You'd say you'd stay but then you'd run"

Bored. Isadora hunched forward over the diner counter and rested her cheek against her fist, very slowly rolling her eyes. He was late, again, and that was becoming an unfamiliar habit. She was getting bored. The last time she had seen him, she was walking around her apartment in her underwear, making him a coffee while he awaited on the couch. He stared at her hips while rambling on about planetary disease and she just nodded along. Two weeks later, he was...

"Late. So late. I know, I'm so fucking sorry." Hugo Hornsby scrambled onto the neighbouring stool and tossed his wallet down on the counter.

Isadora both cringed and laughed inside when his voice dropped to a whisper as he swore, then rose again with an emphatic sorry.

His cheeks were ruddy and the brown sugar hair upon his head was unkempt. He slept in. And regardless, she was charmed, hidden deep beneath her impatience. Hugo Hornsby was sort of ravishing.

"Good morning, Hugo."

"No smile for your best friend?"

She frowned, deeply, just in time for a waitress to set a cup of coffee in front of Hugo with a lightly toasted bagel with too much butter. They'd only gone to this diner for a few months, but everyone knew their orders quite quickly. It was just far enough from the city that they almost forgot about the real lives waiting for them back home. Almost.

"I'm starting to get the feeling that you don't have time for friends, Hugo. You bailed on Taylor Thursday night too." He flinched, and Isadora braced herself for a pang of guilt, despite its truth.

"Taylor was a mistake, I already talked to him about it. If you two aren't dating anymore, why does he talk to you so much anyways?"

"Bitter-bug." If he was going to act like a child, so would she.

"What did you call me?" His brows furrowed, a crease forming behind the bangs that kept falling in his face.

"You're bitter that Taylor thinks I'm cooler than you. And why we talk is no longer your business, we're allowed to be friends. You introduced us to each other, it's not our fault we're close."

The dating ruse had been fun while it lasted, but soon it became clear that there was a lot more complexity to Hugo and Sally's relationship. They'd been so close, Sally almost gave in. But even if she had, would Hugo have chosen Isadora after everything that had happened? She wasn't sure she would have settled for being a rebound if it was Sally's decision to leave.

"I suppose that one is on me. And I am sorry I'm late, I spent my Friday night marking thirty science tests in my least favourite unit."

"You don't have a least favourite unit," she said bluntly. "How was date night with Sal?"

Hugo shrugged sheepishly, a bit guilty but mostly embarrassed by his lie. She knew he missed their original date night that week because there was no obligatory Instagram post about it. She hated that she knew the inside workings of his whole life. He was very predictable, even if he wasn't calling her as much anymore.

"I wanted to take her to the restaurant her parents brought us to when we graduated, but it was three hours away. We drove all of the way there and it was closed, then got stuck in traffic the whole way home. She's back to not talking to me, again."

"She should have killed you."

"Isadora?" He stared at her so earnestly her heart began to slow, anticipation like a heavy rock on her chest. Time was slow around Hugo, love took a lot more patience than she ever dreamed. "What am I doing?"

Breaking my heart, she silently lamented.

"You're living whatever life you chose for yourself. Very few people choose, Hugo. Don't you feel lucky?"

Maybe it was cruel, but she couldn't look at him as she said it. She wanted him to recoil, to show a glimpse of misery or regret for what could have been. She just didn't want to see it, it would make her too sad to sit next him and know he hurt just as much as her. For what? That was a good question.

Maybe the only look on his face was content and at peace with his choices. Maybe he wasn't hurting like her at all. She couldn't bear to see that either.

"I'm very happy for everything I have. I suppose I could consider myself lucky."

When she finally looked, she really couldn't read what he was feeling. All she knew was that she was soaking up every ounce of exhaustion clinging to the air like radiation. And it all came from Hugo. Who was he these days? Was everyone losing him like this or was it just her?

"I've been thinking about something lately. You don't text me anymore, I know we hang out here and there. I don't want to seem ungrateful, but I miss waiting to see your name pop up on my phone during a long shift. It used to make my day, talking to you about the little things. Once upon a time we were just friends on an app and nothing else mattered." Back when it was hopeful to fall in love with him, when he made promises.

Not promises, she supposed, declarations maybe. Ideas. Dreams that turned into bad ideas.

"I miss you too. I know it's been different for a while, I've been torn in so many directions I don't have a brain left to communicate with some days. It's a lousy excuse, but I know how different it's been. It's not just... I really do miss you, I promise."

"Just text me, if you think about me some days and have the time. You don't have to waste any thoughts on me, ever. But if you do," she shrugged.

Hugo rubbed his eyes, sighed a little. "No thought of you is ever a waste, and if I were to text you every time I thought about you, you'd swear I was obsessed with you."

A sad smirk curled Isadora's lip and she leaned a little into his side. They sat facing the kitchen, not looking at each other, shoulder to shoulder.

"Not if I answered back to every one. Then we'd both be obsessed, that would be pretty pathetic I suppose."

"Incurably pathetic." His voice was smooth with a gentle authoritative tone that came from years of teaching.

The romantics dream, a very simple foundation to it at least, is to find someone who actively chooses you. Hugo Hornsby woke up some days and chose Sally, as he had for about a decade prior to meeting Isadora. Then there were other days, when he came over for dinner with her favourite snacks in a bag and sleek button up shirt, almost always green, with a smile just for her. And she swore, however delusional she may have been, that he chose her over and over again.

And then he'd leave. Rinse... repeat.

"Taylor mentioned that they have more auditions on Monday night, I was hoping you'd have time to binge Ito's new cooking show. Netflix gave him a wicked budget; there's a whole episode about trying to teach the prince to make desserts for his fiancee."

Hugo's dimples framed a wide smile, his deep blue eyes sharp under the harsh diner lights. "That sounds perfect! How about I bring some of the wine Sally and I made last summer?"

Isadora nodded, despite the notion of drinking that wine seeming slightly sacrilegious. They'd only ever gotten drunk together one other time, and during a particularly harsh wind storm. She fell asleep on the couch and woke up at 4am, holding Hugo's hand from where he laid unconscious on the floor. No matter how tight she had squeezed, he hadn't woken up. Isadora had cried silently for what seemed like ages, wondering if it was her first and last time to ever hold his hand.

She could never hold his hand in public, never kiss his lips in private, never feel his body curl around hers in a bed they couldn't share. Hugo Hornsby was not her fiance, or boyfriend, or lover.

He was just her friend, shoulder to shoulder with her in a diner on the off-beaten path outside of town.

"If you're bringing wine, I'll provide the cheese. Actually, I'll grab some back up wine too, the temperature drops Monday and we're in for a cold night."

"Perfect!" He cheered excitedly, earning a dirty look from a rather tired looking waitress.

"You're perfect," Isadora smiled. She swore Hugo even blushed. Did he blush for Sally? Did she ever try to get such a reaction from her partner?

"Isadora?" She stared at him expectantly and wondered if she could ever get sick of hearing him say her name. Her arm was still pressed tightly against his side, to the point that she was almost falling off of the stool.

"Yes, Hugo?"

"The butterflies don't go away," he whispered. Those blue eyes were dimmer, dimples disappearing into a tightened jaw. Isadora looked away and rested her head on his shoulder, for just a second. She pretended it was to comfort him and not herself.

"Everything dies, Hugo. Especially the butterflies."

He should know that... it happened with Sally, didn't it?

"And when you walk out the door and leave me torn You're teaching me to live without it"

i listened to starry session! here are some thoughts. and to be clear: i enjoyed it a lot, and also these are just my personal opinions. you may disagree! that's totally fine. there is no value judgment here. i think sometimes people can't tell whether what i say is an opinion or like, something i think is an absolute truth, so. this is an opinion.

Song of Blooming Flowers: this one was just kind of okay. like i liked it! but it didn't feel all that interesting.

Jounetsu no Mezameru Toki: i think this might be one of the most forgettable songs in the franchise and this cover did not change that

Procyon: now we're fuckin talking. karen and claudine give nana and maya a break from being villains. it's very cute, and i think the song greatly benefits from having a deeper voice in there... the characters' register in the original song are all way too similar and imo it's kind of exhausting

Pride and Arrogance: hell fucking yeah. futaba has one of my favorite singing voices in the franchise (shoutouts to Teru, how is her voice so sexy) but Kaoruko is the real star (lol) here. the girl has got RANGE.

Fancy You: i think i might like this better than the original? it just doesn't have the 'wow' factor that some of the other starry session tracks have. like, it sure is kuromaya doing a love song! it's good but doesn't really stand out.

RE:Create: i love junna but it's a shame that this is so little of the song. like i get that the original is like 6-7 minutes long or something but still... it would've been nice having someone doing nana's part.

Circus!: i think i like the original better, especially since the original is one of my favorites. i think that maya and hikari just don't play off each other well here, especially when compared to the kaotaba version

Driving the Auriga: this one's fun. i need an isolated sound clip of claudine saying "yo!" so it can go in the claudine sound clip hall of fame with "goddamn!".

Chasing Sirius: i didn't think it was possible to find a pair of characters as funny to imagine arguing in an ikea as kaotaba but damn if they didn't prove me wrong. nana and maya playing off of each other always rules, especially since they've got pipes.

GANG☆STAR: not as good as the original, but it's fucking GANG☆STAR. you can't go wrong, no matter who's singing it. but i think that this suffers from not having maya and futaba to be on the low end.

Bonds of the Stars: HELL YEAH GO OFF QUEEN. i had no idea what to expect from this going on but holy fucking shit, Ayasa is so fucking talented.

Onikurenai: I'm sorry, i love mahiru, but she just doesn't work here. the song ends up being a lot more bland than the original fumirui version. I'm sorry haya-chan

Love's Wicked Pitch: i could listen to Teru literally all day and never get bored so. also, imagining futaba chasing hikari around is extremely fucking funny. absolutely incredible

Rose Poems: fucking S tier. watered my crops, cleared my skin. one of the covers that i think might be better than the original. akishio is incredible but. moepii. and junnanana. you can't compete with that.

You are a ghost, I am a ghost: mahiru gets her redemption, because holy shit, this one's incredible. i think it's actually be better than the original, which feels sacrilegious, but like... it's so good. teru and ayasa do fucking work as the ghosts and haya-chan is great too. A+

Arbitration of Zeus: teru... good.......

so there you have it! again, i liked it a lot! I'm curious to know what other people think. anyway

I'm going to become a kaotaba stan solely bc of how good teru and ayasa are as singers

adsentio - bonus letters

a/n: written in the royalty!au. i would recommend reading adsentio for context, but it’s not absolutely necessary. as suggested, this is just a little add-on/bonus snippet that popped into my head. 

summary: prince akaashi suddenly begins writing letters to you on the months you’re not there. you’d be lying if you said you weren’t beginning to look forward to them.

royalty!au: adsentio (pt. 1) | bonus letters (pt 1.5) | the masque (pt. 2)

-

Dear Princess (Y/n),

My mother plans to arrange a ball in your honor when you turn 18 next summer. It appears that she and your mother already started making arrangements a few months ago while you were still here. They plan on inviting other nearby kingdoms – I believe many other dukes and princes will plan to attend. Your coming-of-age is worthy of celebration, but I thought I could help relieve some of the pressure by periodically filling you in on the plans. In fact, I believe they’d like to make it a masquerade ball. Is that something you would enjoy?

I hope this letter has been safely given to you. There is no rush for a response, but if I must be honest, I look forward to receiving your letter soon. Again, there is no rush. I hope you are in good health.

Sincerely,

Prince Akaashi

-

Your Highness,

It is very kind of you to go through the trouble of sending correspondence of your mother’s plans. However, wouldn’t you think that I would know of these arrangements? After all, it is held in my honor. Forgive my forwardness, but were you looking for an excuse to write me a letter? Do you enjoy my presence at the castle more than I’m led to believe?

While I do believe the ball is too much for something as simple as turning 18, I appreciate the sentiment. I actually brought up the idea of a masquerade to your mother when I was there – it’s nice to hear that it’s still in consideration. Wouldn’t you agree that the air of mystery would be much more enjoyable?

Many princesses and ladies will be there as well. Why only mention the other dukes and princes? I have a possible idea, but perhaps I’ll keep it to myself. It seems more enjoyable that way. As of now, I am in good health. We are beginning to prepare for the frost, as well as ensuring that our citizens have the food and shelter to overcome it. The harvest was good to us this fall, and I only hope that spring comes quickly. I must admit that I was pleasantly surprised to receive a letter from you, and I was quite eager to write back.

I look forward to hearing back from you as well.

Princess (Y/n)

-

Dear Princess (Y/n),

If I may be bold, wouldn’t you believe it appropriate to address me by my given name? Even in written correspondence, you find the need to be formal. As I recall, you’ve addressed me by my name in person, so why not in letters? But should you find that uncomfortable, I will understand. There is no pressure.

I’m genuinely happy to hear that you’re still well. We are preparing for the frost as well. Should your kingdom ever need aid, do not hesitate to send for us. I will see to it that I personally help deliver any resources that you may need. Merger or not, our kingdoms are good allies, and should do as good allies do.

I suppose a masquerade would be more entertaining. It’d be interesting to see what everyone’s masks will look like, though I’d be less likely to speak to anyone. It wouldn’t be hard to find Bokuto in the crowd with that hair of his, but I suppose it’d be a little more tricky to find you. Not that my purpose of the ball would be to find you, but I’d at least want to bid you a happy birthday. That’s all.

As you know, I find no need to beat around the bush. I did, somehow, desire to write to you. You stayed a month longer than you usually do this past summer – I suppose I had grown accustomed to your presence, though I wonder why I never wrote you before. I hope you can forgive my forwardness as well.

I didn’t forget of the other possible attendees of the ball. As you had said before, there are some men in line for your hand. I assume that they would take this chance to impress you and your parents. After all, your kingdom is powerful and strong – most would benefit from a merger with you. Politically, our forces combined would be best. However, if I may be selfish, I believe you would make a good companion. If I see the other men making advances, perhaps I should prepare to win you over. But the choice would ultimately be in your hands, and I don’t intend to take that away in any sense.

I am eager to receive your response.

Sincerely,

Keiji

-

Prince Akaashi,

Old habits are so hard to change. I will do my best to correct myself and address you less formally. Many would frown upon this, however. We are not officially engaged yet – I believe some of the more traditional, older handmaidens would find this to be scandalous. They would assume we were off doing something sacrilegious in the hidden corridors, or something that would warrant me addressing you by your given name. I must say I am moved by your want for me to address you as you desire, even flustered. I imagine there are many other ladies who long for this same chance – perhaps I am special to you?

Along those lines, I do not think you give yourself enough credit where credit is due. I have no doubt that you will be able to find me the night of the masquerade – in fact, I believe you will have very little difficulty in doing so. However, perhaps to make this more fun for us, I might make it harder on you. Let us see if you are able to find me before the clock strikes midnight. You are incapable of fooling me – you know as well as I do that you have more than enough time to bid me a happy birthday before the ball.

I admit that I miss being on your castle grounds. It is a place that I have called a second home for many years now, and staying the extra month only made my leave harder. I am happy that you desired to write me. I now look forward to your letters more than others’ correspondences. One trait that I have always admired about you is your honesty – you don’t care to mince your words (unless it would be more appropriate to do so). I must say that I’m quite tired of polite, bureaucratic talk, especially at it should hold no place in a friendship like ours.

I hadn’t thought to give much time to any suitors who would try to sway me in their favor, but I am curious to hear of your argument now. You should be prepared to make a good stance, though I must say that you have earned yourself some extra credit from me – you haven’t failed to forget how important the value of choice is to me. Many other men will fail to remember or even acknowledge this.

If I may be selfish, I hope that the summer months arrive quickly. I look forward to my annual trip to your kingdom.

Sincerely,

Princess (Y/n)

-

Dear (y/n),

The answer is simple. Yes, you are special to me. You are one of my oldest friends, and there are very few people that hold the same honor. Though I’d like to be bold, a bravery that I can only display through paper and ink, and say that you are more special than just an old friend. We have known each other for many years, and I am very sure that you know the meaning in my words. Should you not, I would be willing to explain it in person.

Must you make it more difficult for me to find you? If so, for your entertainment, I will indulge you. However, I am not one to back down from challenges. This will only fuel me in my search, and I will spend the remaining time until then to recall on everything that defines you. Even in sleep, I will study, as you do appear in my dreams from time to time. I do believe it would only be fair to receive a reward if I find you by midnight.

I, too, also anxiously await your letters. Though I know the delivery man is doing his best, I can’t help but wish for a way for letters to travel faster. The days spent waiting for your responses seem longer and less bearable. It’s akin to the feeling when you visit the gardens every day and feel that the flowers are delayed in their bloom. On days when your letters arrive, they seem to have opened substantially. They seem fuller, brighter, and stronger, and I often have to restrain myself from retrieving one for you (since you are no longer here).

You are free to be selfish with me. I, too, wish for the summer months. In return, I hope you accept this bracelet as a Christmas gift. I found it from a jewelry stand when I was strolling through the city and thought it would fit you. You are not one to care for the number of jewels or the material it is made of – I only pray that you will accept it, and I fully intend to compensate for all the previous Christmas holidays where I did not gift you something. It is regrettable, and I can only hope that you accept my apologies now.

Sincerely yours,

Keiji

hi there! i've been wanting to learn how to read japanese for a long time now for video game purposes and was just wondering if you had any recommendations on how i should go about it. are there any resources/tools you recommend? thanks in advance!

Hmmmmmmmm.

This is a bit difficult for me to answer because I’m not really “self-taught” - I was lucky enough to attend a high school that offered Japanese as a foreign language, and then studied it more in university (though there was a gap in education where I did throw myself into reading/translating despite being rusty af........) So, I’m speaking as someone who had years of kana/grammar structures/vocab/kanji/etc. under my belt before jumping into like....... doing my own reading for fun/translating video games/etc.

(Putting the rest under a cut because this got long)

Basically, you need a good foundation. Obviously, you need to be able to read kana - kanji is......... a little bit like vocabulary, I guess? Obviously memorizing them - especially common ones - will be hugely beneficial for reading, but at the end of the day, you can look up what a specific word means or look up a certain kanji. So like........ learn words and kanji, but also your main focus should be fostering a strong knowledge of grammatical structures. And there is a LOT of grammar you’ll be learning, especially because Japanese has different levels of formal -> casual speech.

In any case, as far as resources go......

The Genki textbooks are, I think, the standard textbooks used in courses (at least, I was assigned them both in high school and university). Even though “textbook” does make me clutch my wallet in fear, Genki textbooks actually aren’t all that expensive as far as textbooks go - around $45 a pop (and you might find ex-students selling theirs for cheaper lol). They also have workbooks to go along with the textbook, though those are more or less impossible to find used due to being, well, workbooks - I know doing what is essentially homework on your own time sounds like death especially because you just wanna know enough to read, but writing, especially when learning kana, is really good practice that will help ingrain the info in your brain. You can even find answers online!

I don’t personally know how effective it is, but Udemy often has discounts on entire language learning programs with a pre-recorded instructor and everything. I bought a couple lessons (to help my younger brother who never ended up using them 🙄) that a friend uses now, but like I said I can’t personally vouch for it because I’ve never had to use it.

I’m assuming you found me because of Fate translations so I will say this. Do not start on Fate. Do not do that to yourself. Pick a game with a lower reading level that isn’t going to kick you in the shins repeatedly, and start with that. Personally, I started with Fire Emblem, and aside from like...... weird fantasy terminology, it was a pretty easy read (though I again have to stress that I had years of schooling under my belt even if I also had a couple years of rust)

Speaking of reading levels, there are like........ Japanese children’s books? That you can read to get yourself comfortable and reading “naturally” as well - aka just like a toddler would, having to figure vocab out from context clues, etc. I experienced this kind of thing as an after-class method for getting some extra credit with like... physical books my sensei had, but this looks like it links to websites with either children’s stories typed out or actual full pdfs that you can read! The 3rd link looks particularly helpful in regards to that, though the site is a little intimidating (and you need to register). The trick here is to not use any dictionaries at all or anything. Just your own knowledge and context clues (which is why picture books are so helpful). If a book is too hard, go down a reading level and do those instead until you have the knowledge level to increase your reading level. Remember that it’s okay if you struggle a bit! You don’t want to be in a level you’re breezing through, but you don’t want to be in a level where you don’t know anything that’s going on either.

Dictionaries - mmmm there was a dictionary I literally lugged around with me for a while to use for translating on the go, but that was obviously a pain in the ass so I ended up paying for an app lmao. The one I got is just named “Japanese” in the app store (the icon should be red and the seller is Mark Gansicke?). I think there are other free ones and online there’s jisho.org but I like my app because, at least when I bought it, it was the only one that let me pull up kanji really fast just by selecting the appropriate radicals.

Okay, so you’ve got your foundation, you’ve got your dictionary to look up words you don’t know...... Now you’ve come across a kanji in a game and you are stumped. Flummoxed. You have no idea how it’s pronounced so you can’t just type it into your Japanese keyboard. You’re trying to use your app to search for the relevant radicals but for some reason you simply cannot find it. Have no fear - I have a solution, though it will be sacrilegious at first. Hear me out. Go to google translate. Change the input language to Japanese. (I am assuming this is on PC) Click the little pencil in the bottom right corner of the input box. This will bring up a box you can draw in. Draw the kanji you’re looking at. You may have to draw it a couple times for google to find it (knowing general stroke order helps!!!!). When you see your kanji in the suggested kanji box on the bottom, click it. It should now be in the input box. UNLESS YOU CAN VERIFY THAT THE INFORMATION GOOGLE TRANSLATE IS TELLING YOU IS CORRECT OR NOT, IGNORE THE TRANSLATION. But now you have your kanji or kanji compound available to copy+paste into your proper dictionary!

I thiiiiiiiink that’s it? Or at least like... all the advice I can give. Sorry I can’t offer more, but I hope this is at least somewhat helpful!

hello! i hope this isn’t too odd but i have a few questions about practicing witchcraft/wicca and being a christian. i am a young adult and researching wicca heavily and am extremely fascinated by it, but i was raised christian and i am struggling with my faith. how do you incorporate wicca into your christianity? could you tell me more about it? it would be extremely helpful and appreciated!!!

Hello friend! I have some information that may help! (I speak to a lot of brand new witches, so I often explain things as if you have just heard about it. Sorry, I don’t mean to sound rude, I just don’t like to assume levels of expertise and then send an explanation that makes no sense.) Onto the extremely long reply!

I am actually not Wiccan at all, I am a Christian who practices witchcraft, though! So just in case you don’t know, Wicca is a religion, not witchcraft. They are not really interchangeable terms. That is why the the term for somebody being in Wicca is Wiccan and not Witch. :) Here’s the classic saying to help understand, “Not all witches are Wiccan, and not all Wiccan are witches.” I have seen people say Wicca is a way of life, but I will be using the Wicca definition specifically. You can do witchcraft without Wicca, because witchcraft is a craft and not a religion. Witchcraft also has a category of non-religious witches, who keep their craft separate from their religious worship/views. They call that secular witchcraft. You can practice witchcraft in any religion, or even without religion, since it is a craft.

If I am misunderstanding your question, and you are saying mixing Wicca (the religion) and Christianity, I honestly don’t know what to say? I haven’t really encountered people mixing religions, mostly because usually religions have rules within them that basically say “I’m the one true religion, etc etc etc.” I do know that there are people that believe all religions are true, which is cool. But I am not knowledgable enough about mixing Christianity with Wicca, so I can’t give advice on that. I can give advice on mixing Christianity with witchcraft, though! So here that goes:

Disclaimer: I am not super duper religious with my craft. I’m more secular, but I do use christianity more now, so I can get closer with my faith that I had struggled with.

I suggest if you want to stay specifically Christian and just be a witch, don’t become Wiccan at the same time as Christian, as that is a different religion and they are pretty contradicting. Do secular or Christian witchcraft! I think starting out secular is easier, since you can learn more about the craft, and then when you’re more comfortable you can put your religion in.

What I do as a Christian Witch: (Bolded- things I do to mix my religion and witchcraft.)

Personally, I don’t call upon my god to help me in spells/rituals. However, I do pray in the morning and give thanks at night. My faith is not as strong or the center of my craft, as some Christian witches, which is fine, you do whatever feels best! 

You can make a religious altar, or praying closet of sorts. I do have a cross on my altar, so it reminds me that I am Christian, and to not accidentally go into other religions I am not knowledgable in, when doing my craft.

 I also use God as a means of protection. Like protecting me from harm, or protecting me with spirit work, I even ask for protection with warding. 

You can ask God to bless something, or anything you are comfortable asking. 

I do not worship saints, angels, or that type of christianity, so I can’t really advise you on that. 

There are some religious candles in some shops you can use.

 Since I have been trying to get back into the faith lately, I’ve been trying new things. I really like the idea of bible verses as poems or spell sentences, to make something stronger. Or even making sigils out of bible verses. Pretty cool results. Plus, the Bible just sounds ancient and powerful in itself, so once you find meaning and relate to one of those verses and use them, you feel more connected to your faith (at least I did :) ).

I believe prayers can be powerful for your craft. 

You don’t need to use god/jesus/angels, for things if you don’t feel comfortable. Some Christians like to keep their deities holy and almost untouchable, so they would rather just use prayer, and the occasional check-in, rather than ask god/jesus to do something for them. Whatever floats your boat. :)

Religion and Witchcraft:

 What is surprising to hear (at least it was to me) is that practically every religion practices some form of witchcraft, even if not under that name. In Christian churches, we light candles for purposes, and in some denominations, do exorcisms. Just comparing things: prayer closets and witch altars, candles lighting up a sacred place, the idea of a sacred place that evil cannot enter, offerings, wine and bread as body and blood, symbolism, and crosses are like protection sigils, singing, praying for the sick/injured, holy water and blessed water, and many other traditions churches carry out that are like witchcraft. In the Bible, practically everything God/Jesus and churches do for worship is witchcraft. I know that sounds sacrilegious, but just by thinking about it, its pretty cool. Also most religions were influenced by each other. Christianity was a major force through history, they stole, pillaged, forced people to change religions, and toke peoples holidays and morphed it with their own, practically reclaiming it (I’m looking at you Christmas tree). Christianity is heavily influenced by witchcraft and other religions. Even our holidays and celebrations were from other cultures. (That is not implying that the religion is false, but history and religions, objectively, intertwined with each other and changed as time went on.) I am a huge history geek and love reading about the convergence of witchcraft and Christianity. Very interesting. Take a look at what your bible says, or church does, and some of the traditions. You’ll see hints of witchcraft everywhere. Especially Catholicism and Lutheranism. Religions change as times change.

Struggles I had as a Christian Witch: (Sorry if this sentence sounds like a straight white male taking about how hard life is compared to others or something)

I had trouble coming to terms with accepting being a Christian witch. So let me tell you: practicing witchcraft is not throwing away being Christian. Don’t feel like you need to, if you don’t want to. And if you every feel like your craft is a sin, then repent if you need to. (Here’s a bible lesson from a Christian to another Christian :) ) If you’re scared witchcraft will keep you from heaven. Don’t be. In the Bible Jesus died for our sins. What does that mean? He died for us to sin and not go to hell for committing them. Yes sinning is still bad to purposefully do with no remorse, in the eyes of the church. But Jesus died so we had the option to repent and the option to sin. Repent if you feel that you are sinning, but don’t forget you won’t go to hell for sinning. God loves us no matter the mistakes we make. (All of this according to the Bible of course.) Rant over. Sorry I just wanted to put that out there since I struggled myself with feeling like I was doing something wrong. Now I don’t, but it is still comforting to know that Jesus/the Bible got my back. lol And honestly, I feel like witchcraft has helped me come back to Christianity, which is something I’m sure God is cool with.

I am a secret witch. My religion and family is probably a big part as to why I am a secret witch. Christianity can be an intolerant religion, depending on your church, family, and other variables. My church isn’t super intolerant, but my family would definitely not understand/accept my craft. They wouldn’t be mad, they would just think its stupid, or a waste of time. So I am a secret witch, but I am not ashamed. Its the safest option for me. Do what is safest for you. Don’t risk safety for witchcraft. Don’t feel like less of a witch if you are secret.

Wicca/Paganism in the witchcraft community, is everywhere, because they tend to use witchcraft in their religion. Don’t think you have to be a certain religion to be a witch, you don’t. It can get hard to find parts of witchcraft that do align with your views. That is a struggle most witches probably have. Personally, I am not comfortable with using the directions (Like east, west, north, south) for my craft, and calling upon my deity for spells. So I don’t. I just alter things a bit, to fit me! If you’re not comfortable with something, don’t do it, or change it! Be careful and safe, of course. If something isn’t feeling right, things may not go well, so always be attuned to yourself.

Don’t let the haters drag ya down. There are many people who hate the idea of christian witches. Sometimes people have reasons and sometimes they don’t. There is no religion out there that has been built perfectly on love and kindness. (Unless I am wrong? I would actually like to know if there is?)Wicca has its bad parts and good. Christianity has its bad parts and its good. The thing you need to remember is that you were probably not responsible for the old history of the religion. You can’t help/change the past. It is up to you what you uphold and believe. Also is somebody comes at you with their bible thumping and bible verse reciting arguments remember: the Bible has been translated and re-written by hundreds of people. Those people were not free of bias, and translations are not always perfect. The Bible actually contradicts itself often. You choose what you believe. Even churches may be disapproving of witches. (Even though they do rituals often lol) Churches can’t tell you you’re not christian. They can’t stop you from believing in whatever you believe, so don’t let them stop you. Don’t let people drag you down. Live your life! Believe what you want to believe!

Using secular witchcraft, you can add in your religion if you want! Thats why I like secular witchcraft. You can just focus on the craft, but if you want to, later, you could add your religion and make it not secular.

Since there are so many Christian denominations, there isn’t one way to be a Christian witch, and practice it. I know there are major christians into angels, arch angels, and saints, and all that jazz. That is not what I worship or use in my religion. Often times I just put my religion in my craft in any way that feels right. Basically what I am telling you, is that there is no right or wrong way to be a christian witch, just like how there is no right or wrong way to be a witch. Do what feels right and is the best for you. As long as you are safe and not hurting anyone, do what you want! All witches are different, even if they share the same religion. Witchcraft is all about crafting your own practice. Theres no handbook for that. You have to go through trail and error to see what you like and works for your life.

So sorry for the Bible-length reply, but we all know I am physically incapable of summarizing. 

Please no hate, this is all my opinion mixed with some religious beliefs, take it with a grain of salt. I am not a religious expert, I am just speaking from observation and experience. 

If any other Christian Witches out there want to put in their two cents, you are more than welcome to!!!

I hope this answers your question! Many blessings

Jikook AU #3. (WIP)

Tags: Supernatural AU, Prince Jimin, Innocent Jimin, Sand Master Jungkook, Sand, Lots of sand, Deserts and Dunes, Aesthetics, Dreamy, Stalking, Seduction of the Innocent, Dark Ending.

(Updates will be irregular and short, tbh, because this is a short fic, I dunno why I’m splitting it even further, but you gotta do what you gotta do sometimes. Will be posted on AO3 when done.) 

(THIS IS A NON-PERSONA FIC, OKAY. YEAH, I WRITE THOSE, TOO.)

Part 1. 

The king has been writing letters for as long as Jimin remembers.

Their kingdom is dying, but here, in the safety of the palace, it is but a muted echo, a whisper shared in secrecy between the serving folk.

Jimin was born in the palace, raised in the palace and is destined to die here, too. The outside world is as ephemeral to him as a dream, existing only in the meandering stories of his mentors. The stories of warm people and treacherous dead ends, hidden among the streets so narrow one could barely squeeze through. He wishes he could experience it all, if only for a day, breathe in the smoky spices of his people, drown in the daily hubbub of a bustling bazaar, but come next morning, that dream escapes through the cracks of the ancient walls somewhere Jimin could never possibly follow.

For he is the youngest prince - he belongs here. As moon belongs in the sky, as fish belongs in the sea.

(Here, in the world of sand and wind, the sea, of course, is nothing but another dream wisp.)

Being the youngest means to bring luck and good fortune into the family. That is his sacred duty. The reason he is alive. That is also why he is prohibited to ever leave the palace grounds. The moment his feet brush the stones that are not of the palace, his family is doomed. Or so the story goes - a mere legend but who would dare to disobey and taunt the Fate herself? People in power are most superstitious.

Fettered he may be, still, Jimin has been raised with kindness, his wishes indulged, his whims obeyed - all but one, of course. The affairs of the outside world have also been kept out of his concern. The king and his letters, the occasional visitors, his brother’s sudden disappearance and his mother’s tears - all of that existed in a different world from his. Might as well be another dream.

He has his own reality, instead - his routine devoted to studies. Music, dance and sacrilegious reading. Tending to his mind as well as his body. He is the soul of the palace and his beauty reflects the vitality of their dynasty that has been prospering for a thousand of years now. Truly, the gods have been gracious.

It’s not often he is called to the great hall, the heart of their palace, where the king holds his daily sittings. Oftentimes Jimin feels lost in such a vast open space, a tiny speck surrounded by massive columns that soar high and imperious as in a vain attempt to bring them closer to the sun - they say the titans build them, long before humans were even in the picture. That is why they’re so humongous. That is why every word uttered travels great distance before echoing off the stone, magnifying it in intensity.

It’s no coincidence that only the king is allowed to speak in full voice here, the rest of them resorting to humble whispers. And Jimin barely utters anything at all. He’s only ever invited to play an instrument - a lute or banjo. And Jimin loves doing it. It brings a smile onto the king’s face - his father’s face.

The day he’s summoned again makes his heartbeat quicken just so. As much as he’s removed from the matters of their kingdom, he is not completely oblivious. Not long ago, his ears have caught a whisper of a whisper - something is happening outside the walls. The City’s walls. Somewhere far away where only dreams dwell.

Spurred by his curiosity, he hurries out of his midday bath, giddy with excitement as his attendants wrap him into layers of gauzy fabric, their movements ritualistic and solem. As much as he’s impatient, he understands that the youngest prince is the soul of the palace, hence he must look impeccable, especially in the eyes of the outsiders.

The sight that greets him in the great hall upon his arrival, however, dampens his spirits. The king seems...Jimin can’t really ascribe an emotion to his face. Maybe it’s grief, although Jimin could never be sure - grief exists in a place beyond his comprehension. He only knows the occasional melancholy of things.

Wordless, Jimin bows and lowers himself on one of the pillows by the king’s elevated seat, reserved for the members of the royal family - they are the only people who can remain seated in the king’s presence, the rest of the court keeping their distance respectfully, their heads lowered.

As he picks up a light lute, ready to start on a melody that his father finds most pleasurable, he’s immediately hushed with a brisk wave of the king’s hand, his eyed lidded in deep thought. Jimin’s fingers stay still, barely touching the strings, as the silence becomes their only music.

“Bring him in.” The king’s tired voice is barely above whisper. It barely cuts through the heavy silence of the hall.

Jimin waits with bated breath as the thudding of marching footsteps reverberate through the space like thunderclaps. It’s sinister and Jimin has half a mind to slink back into his chamber - the comfort of his books and blankets, only his curiosity gets the better of him.

The man the guardsmen bring forth is not of this land, that much is certain. His clothes are well-traveled, dusty from sand and grime, his looks have a rough edge to him, which strangely only adds to his handsome allure. Jimin has never seen a foreigner before, let alone so striking, that he allows himself to just stare, agog, at the stranger, along with the rest of the court.

“What good a single man would do us?” the king mutters under his breath, as if musing to himself. “I asked - I begged - for an army. Is this how my brother owes his debts?”

The stranger smiles at him and it’s not a kind smile - it’s not an evil smile, either. But there is something wicked behind it, something ancient - the smile of a man who knows many secrets.

“I am the army.”

Spoken with the conviction that cannot be wavered. Jimin doesn’t doubt it for a second, but the king slams his fist on the armrest in fury as a round of gasps rolls through the crowd. The king never - never - shows anger.

“How dare you mock me.”

Unperturbed by the outburst, the stranger, then, brings up his hand and opens his palm - a handful of sand dust piled in the center of it. Jimin almost leans off his seat in order to get a better look; almost rolls off it, a silent gasp of surprise caught in his throat when the sand rises off the palm, shaping up into a miniature whirl, its enchanting dance leaving Jimin riveting with awe.

A wave of whispers disturbs their court. Even his mother, ever the serene matron, loses her composure for a moment, lips parting in wonderment.

The king, however, begs to differ.

“Am I supposed to be impressed with your parlor tricks?”

“Perhaps not,” the stranger admits. “But are you sure you are looking in the right direction, my king?”

He points, then, towards the murky horizon, many eyes following the smooth flow of his hand, as if enchanted - there are gasps. There are voices, murmurs of wonder.

Jimin rises on his knees to peer beyond the open balcony into the vastness of the desert, encroaching onto the city from all sides. There is always something predatory about the sands, the dunes holding them in their clutches, waiting for the day it could swallow them all. And today...

Jimin is startled to realize that it might not be as far-fetched a truth. The sight leaves him invigorated as he takes in the sand columns in the distance, streaming down from the skies, all of them mirroring the dance of the little whirl on the stranger’s palm. They are too far to cause any real damage to the city walls, but if they were to reach them, the city would be left in ruins, no doubt about that.

Jimin shivers, as the cold fingers of tangible fear grip at the base of his spine.

“Are you impressed now, my king?” his voice runs as smooth as the sand between his fingers the moment he lets his hand fall - the distant whirls dispersing just as effortlessly, evaporating into the thin air. “Or maybe you think it’s some kind of trick? An illusion? Maybe you want me to raise one in the middle of this hall?”

“No. I believe you.”

The king’s face is pale, hands gripping painfully at the armrests of his throne. He looks like a tired old man. “If you swear to protect my land, you can have any reward you want.”

“I’m sure we can arrange on a suitable price.” The stranger’s eyes find Jimin’s, for the first time, burning through him like incense - it leaves him breathless. “In due time.”

“What should we call you, magician?”

“Jeongguk.”

The name is carried through the hall in reverence - Jimin, too, can’t help but test it out on his lips, soundless to anyone but Jeongguk himself as his dark eyes burn through his very core, sparkling feelings that leave his limbs heavy, pinned to the ground - it frightens him.

He darts before he can change his mind, leaving his flute and his family behind - escaping while all eyes are on the newcomer. Once out of the Great Hall, he sprints all the way into his private quarters, uncaring if the guards see him run like their palace is on fire. His step is light and muted. He doesn’t look back even if he desperately wants to - even if he feels eyes on him. Many, many eyes watching him - the feeling doesn’t dissipate even in the safety of his own bedroom.

Somehow he doesn’t doubt for a moment, whomever this man may be, he’s here to stay.

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

And this is end of the only decently written part for now. Sighs.

SPN 14x13, Lebanon (Yes, That One) -- Thoughts (Spoilers)

It's finally here, guys. The big 300. I've now seen 300 episodes of Supernatural. Phew...what a crazy ride its been. But let's dive into this, shall we.

I'm going to be a little different with this one. This is going to follow a little more of a recap structure. It's the big 300, so of course I had to change it up a little. As I recap this episode, I'll be inserting thoughts I have here and there. I will be recapping from memory so things might get a little out of order. It should go without saying but there will be spoilers. And keep in mind, this is just how I feel and how I interpret things. You may have a completely different interpretation and that's perfectly valid. These are just MY thoughts.

We open up with Sam and Dean in the midst of a hunt. A hunter friend of theirs died and Sam and Dean are trying to recover what was stolen from their friend as well as avenge him. They corner the murderer and in a really cringey fight scene, the murderer meets his maker. Typically, SPN fight scenes are, while not fantastically well put together, but at least put our heroes in a competent light. Honestly, I don't think I've seen such stilted choreography since season 13 in the vamp cave. But anyway, the murderer uses dragon's breath (which is essentially a flamethrower) to escape from Brothers Winchester and it sends them flying in different directions but apparently dragon's breath isn't that hot. Just a small little thing, but if you're standing that close to the fire, you should've had some burn marks, I'm just saying, at the very least, soot on your face. But whatever. Dean gets thrown across the room, Sam ends up on the floor with our villain monologuing to him and I'm uncomfortable with just how incompetent Sam appeared to be in this scene. The villain is monologuing and Sam is just sitting there and doing nothing. What happened to Sam's gun? Why didn't Sam sweep the leg or go for a gut punch? So many things he could've done to get the upper hand in the situation especially since the villain only had a sword. While swords can be very deadly, they're also easier to dodge as opposed to bullets or throwing daggers. But Sam just sits there in fear for a good 5 seconds (and 5 seconds is an eternity both on screen and in a fight) and Dean then shoots the guy and talks about the villain monologuing problem. I'm not mad that Dean got the kill or anything. I don't believe in "staning" culture but if you could at least have made Sam appear competent, that would be nice.

But with the murderer dead, Sam and Dean find out he has a lot of magical junk so they decide to take it back to the bunker. In the files, they find a magical pearl which apparently will grant your greatest desire. Obviously, the boys think, "this is great. Our greatest desire is to evict the douche currently residing in our nagen." But before this greatest wish can be made, we have to make a little side trip because one of the teenagers in Lebanon (the town where the bunker exists) stole the impala. Sam's all, "that kid is in danger, we gotta find her, there's dangerous shit in that car" -- and much to my annoyance, Dean is all, "how dare she take Baby, she better not hurt Baby". *Takes a deep breath* This is an aspect of Dean's character I find super irritating. This weird romance he has with the damn car. How he places the car above things that, realistically, are a little more important. Maybe he should be less concerned about Max scratching the car and more concerned about the fact you have a teenage girl you don't know (or barely know at the very most) in a car with deadly objects and deadly weapons. I get it, this is supposed to be a funny quirk of his and at one point it was but now it's been so overdone that it's more irritating than it is endearing. I really hope the show goes into Dean's character development, and approaches the car as a mirror of how Dean feels about his father and his childhood and as he grows to accept his father more, he'll eventually realize that just like he doesn't need his father, he doesn't need the impala. I'm sure I said something absolutely sacrilegious in the fandom but I'm not going to apologize for it. This whole obsession with the impala is immature and creepy and it makes me worry for Dean's mental health.

So they find the girl but not before the girl's actions releases a serial killer clown ghost (because in an episode dealing with past fears and insecurities, of course it's a clown). They kill the ghost but three of the teenagers see and therefore they get the "talk." And these three also appear to be seen as mirrors for Sam, Dean, and Cas. They weren't very subtle about it, let me tell you.

So after leaving the kids to process the information that the sounds you hear in your closet may actually not be in your head, Brothers Winchester arrive back at the bunker and try out this magical pearl. But behold! It would seem evicting au!Michael is not Dean's greatest desire because Father Winchester is yanked from the past (sometime before the pilot) and dropped into their time. And, I'm not going to say this a lot about this episode, but I like the cinematography used here. It was an excellent usage of the color red symbolizing Brothers Winchester's own repression and isolation they experienced from their father as well as John's revenge focused aggression, blindly lashing out at anything that moves even if it's his own children. And the scene was also shot in a very choppy way meant to be seen as a little confusing...also symbolizing the thoughts of confusion the boys harbor towards their father and much like the confusion John no doubt feels with the turn his life has taken.

Everyone eventually realizes what's up and they fill John in on what's been happening for the past 14 years. And it's a very nice, very touching reunion and then Momma Winchester shows up. John and Mary have a wonderful reunion kiss, its so beautiful. I completely understand how Dean got swept into the moment here. Witnessing something he probably only barely remembers from his childhood, thinking he'll never see it again, and there it is. And just like that it takes him back to a time when life was seemingly perfect. When he had hope, when he had dreams. His parents were alive, they loved each other, they loved him, he had an adorable baby brother. It gave him something he never thought he'd have again. And just the kiss in general, you know. Just so reminiscent of past lovers who never thought they would see each other again suddenly seeing each other and everything they used to feel all coming up at once. It was wonderful. Think Celine Dion, Its All Coming Back to Me Now and I think you'll have the tone of this moment nailed down.

But Sam and Dean leave these two to have their moment and Sam tells Dean there's going to be repercussions for this. Time travel is a funky thing. But they decide to have one family dinner and think about the consequences after that. Dean asks Mary for the ingredients to make her Winchester Surprise and John and Sam have a really touching moment. John feels the need to apologize to Sam about everything that happened between them. And Sam tells him it doesn't matter. Their fight happened a long time ago, he's put it in the past and moved on. Sam also tells his father that the biggest regret he has is never having the chance to say good-bye. Their last conversation being an argument and then Sam finding John dead on the hospital floor. This scene got me so choked up like you don't even know. I've been through this. Lost someone while we were on shaky terms, I never got the chance to say good-bye, so many things were left unsaid and I would kill for an opportunity Sam has here where I can finally tell that person it's okay and rectify the bad blood that occurred between us. And Sam acknowledges it as well. This opportunity he has right here and now is all he's ever wanted.

Sam and Dean go off to buy these ingredients but this is when they start noticing the time travel problems. The future is starting to change, but it's more of a ripple effect right now. They haven't changed yet, but time around them has and eventually the ripple is going to smother out and their new future will take hold. Sam calls it a time paradox. And because of the paradox, we're treated to season 4 Zachariah and Castiel. But in regards to Castiel here, it's important to note that he's more pre-season 4. He hasn't delved into hell yet to get Dean out so he doesn't really have any of those rebellious feelings yet. And no, I'm not going to quote THE Destiel line. In all honesty, I've come to hate the line. It's been over-used so much that it's basically lost all meaning to me. Fandom and canon just keep on poking at it, now it's just something I roll my eyes at whenever I hear it. I am sad that we got season 4 Zachariah. When they were saying we were going to get a different Zachariah, I was so hoping for a role reversal kind of situation but apparently the "different Zachariah" is meant to be interpreted as "different from season 13 au!Zachariah" who actually isn't all that different. PR is not show running, people. Take a grain of salt with everything they say. But the Wing Team is on a quest to find out who meddled with time. Even going so far as to threaten to murder a diner full of people. Thankfully, Sam and Dean stop that from commencing but are in a real shock that with this time paradox, it now means Cas is no longer the Cas they all know and love. That if John stays here, they're going to lose their best friend (in Sam's case) and potential lover (in Dean's case). But the scene plays out how you would expect it to. Zach is his usual douchey self and is giving Sam cancer just like he used to (good times, let me tell ya) but Sam remembers he has an angel blade on him and kills Zach. Nowhere near as badass as it was in season 5, but still cathartic. And next we get to see a re-creation of the tomb scene from season 8 with Dean and Cas in a match of fisticuffs. But this Cas has never met Dean so Dean really has no chance of reaching Cas. But Sam in some quick thinking rembers the sigil that will cast angels out and uses it. The boys make a break for the bunker and everyone gets filled in.

Sam and Dean realize that in order for everything to go back they way it was, they have to smash the pearl. Everything will be forgotten but everything will also revert back to the way it once was. Sam wishes there was a way John could remember everything but Dean tells him he prefers that John doesn't. John going back with knowledge of the future could change who they are and Dean doesn't want that change. He wants to be exactly who he is right here and right now which is just so much progress. John tells them to do it because if the timeline changes, Mary's resurrection could never have happened and she'll eventually disappear. Even though he's going back to a time where he will die, trading himself for Mary is more than worth it. He'd rather have Mary exist in the world and himself die as opposed to living the rest of his days without her. And maybe it's because I have so much Kingsom Hearts nonsense floating through my brain, even if he doesn't remember, this will have left a mark on his heart. It'll leave him feeling something even if he doesn't understand why he feels that way. Everyone has the family dinner they always wanted, John also apologizes to Dean for everything, he tells both of his sons just how proud he is of them, he and Mary have another moment and the pearl is broken. Father Winchester disappears and everyone is crying. Our most beloved Cas returns and remarks on why everyone is acting so weird and Dean tells him they have a story to tell him. I kind of wish we got to see them tell Cas but I understand why we don't. Story-Telling 101. Don't repeat information the audience already knows, instead, insinuate the character is being filled in off-screen. John wakes up in his time in the impala and remarks on the good dream he had and drives off to his dark future. And the episode ends.

So what did I think of this episode? Honestly, I'm of two minds on it. Narratively and character-wise, this was a really good episode. But structurally and production-wise, not so much.

It had a really good narrative, the acting was fantastic, but on a cinematic level, My Chuck, was this episode dull to look at. The directing was just extremely stilted, apart from John's entrance, I don't think there was a single scene I thought was visually appealing. The musical score was very bland. It makes me really sad that there was so much hype for this episode but so little effort put into the production of it. Of the milestone episodes, 200 is probably my favorite.

I also say this episode kind of faltered on a structural basis, as well. While I appreciate the use of the Lebanon characters, I feel like they were largely unnecessary for the actual plot. And when they were first pitching this episode to us last year, I was imagining the Lebanon townsfolk being more of a primary aspect of the episode. While I enjoyed the themes and the mirrors with the Lebanon element, I feel like this would've been a better structured episode without them and given the episode more time with the family reunion and the Wing Team.

But I do love the narrative themes in this episode. Choosing between your past family and your future family. Putting your past behind you and acknowledging yourself as an individual. I've seen a few posts lamenting about how they dislike that Dean didn't yell at John or anything along those lines and honestly, I feel like that's the point. Dean has grown past that. He's acknowledged that as part of his past and has moved on from it. We all have trauma we associate with our parents. And while yelling at our parents might make us feel better, will it really heal us? Will it give us what we really need? And that's the whole thing with Dean, isn't it? Want vs Need. Dean's greatest desire was never to face John again and tell him how much he hates him -- no, Dean's greatest desire was to face his father again and not see himself in his father. To realize he's become his own person that isn't his father and that he likes that person and he doesn't want that to change. That's what Dean wanted. That was the self-acceptance Dean needed and I'm really excited to see where this all heads for Dean as a character. Now that he's accepted himself, is he going to allow himself to be happy now?

Essentially, this episode was a beautiful episode about family, about the progression of family, about finding acceptance and forgiveness and being able to put it behind you and look towards the future and I thought that was extremely beautiful and well done. I'd give this episode a B+. Sadly, I do knock it down because of the production value.

Do it. Fuck you. Fuck you. You useless piece of shit. You absolute waste of space and air. You uneducated, ignorant, idiotic dumb swine, youre an absolute embarrassment to humanity and all life as a whole. The magnitude of your failure just now is so indescribably massive that one hundred years into the future your name will be used as moniker of evil for heretics. Even if all of humanity put together their collective intelligence there is no conceivable way they could have thought up a way to fuck up on the unimaginable scale you just did. When Jesus died for our sins, he must not have seen the sacrilegious act we just witnessed you performing, because if he did he would have forsaken humanity long ago so that your birth may have never become reality. After you die, your skeleton will be displayed in a museum after being scientifically researched so that all future generations may learn not to generate your bone structure, because every tiny detail anyone may have in common with you degrades them to a useless piece of trash and a burden to society. No wonder your father questioned whether or not your were truly his son, for you'd have to not be a waste of carbon matter for anyone to love you like a family member. Your birth made it so that mankind is worse of in every way you can possibly imagine, and you have made it so that society can never really recover into a state of organization. Everything has forever fallen into a bewildering chaos, through which unrecognizable core, you can only find misfortune. I would say the apocalypse is upon us but this is merely the closest word humans have for the sheer scale of horror that is now reality. You have forever condemned everyone you love and know into an eternal state of suffering, worse than any human concept of hell. You are such an unholy being, that if you step within a one hundred foot radius of a holy place or a place that has ever been deemed important by anyone, your distorted sac religious soul will ruin whatever meaning it ever had beyond repair. You are an idiotic, shiteating, dumbass ape and no one has ever loved you. Rhodes Island would have been better off if you'd never joined us. You are a lying, backstabbing, cowardly useless piece of shit and I hate you with every single part of my being. Even this worlds finest writers and poets from throughout the ages could never hope to accurately describe the scale on which you just fucked up, and how incredibly idiotic you are. Anyone that believes in any religion out there should now realize that they have been wrong this entire time, for if divine beings were real, they would never have allowed a being such as you to stain the earth and this universe. In the future there will be horror stories made about you, with the scariest part of them being that the reader has to realize that such an indescribable monster actually exists, and that the horrific events from the movie have actually taken place in the same world that they live in right now. You are the absolute embodiment of everything that has ever been wrong on this earth, yet you manage to make it so that that is only a small part of the evil that is your being. Never in the history of mankind has there been anyone that could have predicted such an eldrich abomination, but here you are. Its hard to believe that I am seeing such an incredible failure with my own eyes, but here I am, so unfortunately I cannot deny your existence. Even if I did my very best, my vocabulary is not able to describe the sheer magnitude of the idiotic mistake that is you. Even if time travel some day will be invented, there still would not be a single soul willing to go back in time to before this moment to fix history, because having to witness such incredible horrors if they failed would have to many mental and physical drawbacks that not even the bravest soul in history would be willing to risk it. I cannot imagine the pure dread your mother must have felt when she had to carry a baby for nine months and then giving birth to such a wretched monster as you. Not a single word of the incoherent, illogical rambling you may be wanting to do to defend yourself or apologize would ever be able to make up for what you just did. The countries of the world would have wanted to make laws preventing such a terrible event like this from ever happening again, but sadly this is not possible since your horrific actions just now have shattered every form of order this world once had, making concepts such as laws irrelevant. Right from the moment I first set my eyes on you I knew you were an absolute abomination of everything that is wrong with humanity. I was hoping I would have been able to prevent your evil from being released upon this world by tagging along and keeping my eye on you, but it is clear to me now that not even the greatest efforts would have been able to prevent a terrible event in this scale from occurring. You are the worst human being, or even just being in general, that I have ever had the misfortune of witnessing. Events like the infected plague apparently only happened with the goal of teaching humanity to survive such a horrible event as the one you just created, but not even mankinds greatest trials were able to even slightly prepare anyone for the insufferable evil you have just created. If you ever had them, your children would be preemptively killed to protect this universe from the possibility of anyone in your bloodline being even half as bad as you are, except you will never be able to have children, because not a single human being will ever want to come within a hundred mile radius of you and anything you have ever touched. You are a colossal disappointment not only to your parents, but to your ancestors and entire bloodline. The disgusting mistake that you have just made is so incredibly terrible that everyone who would ever be to hear about it would spontaneously feel an indescribable mixture of immense anger, fear and anxiety that emotionally and physically they would never truly be the same ever again. The sheer scale of your mistake, if ever to be materialized, would not only surpass the size of the world, but it would reach far beyond the edges of the known, and almost certainly the unknown universe. I could sit here and write paragraphs, nay, books describing your immense failure, yet even if I were to dedicate my life to describing the reality of what has just gone down here, and I would spend every moment of it until my heart stops beating working as hard and efficiently as possible, yet there is not even a snowballs chance in hell that I would be able to come close to transcribing the absolute shitshow you have just released upon the world. You are an irresponsible, idiotic, disgusting, unloved, horrible excuse for a living being whos soul contains less humanity than every ginger in history combined. The absolute disgust I feel when thinking about anything that has even a slight resemblance to anything that might have to do with you and your unholy actions is so incredibly great that when I am honest about it I think that even I do not posses a consciousness great enough to comprehend my own feelings about it. When people of Columbia fought to break free from Lungmen, countless soldiers fought and lost their lives in favor of a chance at a better future for their children, they did not give their lives to have you fuck the world up beyond repair to the degree that you are doing right now. Honestly, even when technology advances and studies on the subject become more and more accurate, I do not think humanity will ever truly be able to understand what your failure actually means for the universe. My hate for you and everything you stand for is so much deeper than the depths of Shambala that you could probably take the entire Lungmen population down there and back up around twenty million times before you would have sunk to the end of my hate, and honestly, I do not want to exaggerate, but I think that that insult was low balling it such a massive amount that all mountains in this world combined would not be able to stack up to this imprecise judgement in light of the fact that when being honest, my hate is almost certainly bottomless. There is no one in this world that has ever loved you, and especially after what you just did, no one will ever love you in the future either. There is no hope that your idiotic behavior and especially your crooked soul will ever change for the better, and in fact quite the opposite might be true. By making the mistake that you just did, you have shown me that you are so incredibly hopeless that you will only devolve into a more idiotic and wretched creature than you already are. The only possible way in which your future would be brighter than the black hole your existence currently is would exclusively be because there is absolutely no conceivable way that you would even be able to sink lower than the pathetic place your current failure has put you in.... Got an opinion about this? See what others are saying.... See MORE -> https://worldnewsinpictures.com/do-it #FuckFuck #FuckFuckYou #YouThe #YouTheEven #Jesus #JesusAfter #JesusAfterYour #YouYou #YouYouYou #Island #IslandYou #IslandYouEven #YouNever #YouNeverIts #EvenNot #EvenNotThe #YouEvents #YouEventsYou #TheYou #TheYouThe #Columbia #ColumbiaLungmen #ColumbiaLungmenHonestly #Lungmen #LungmenThere #LungmenThereThere #GotSee #GotSeeSee #useless #absolute

I Am Woman | RIP Helen Reddy

I am woman, hear me roar In numbers too big to ignore And I know too much to go back and pretend Cause I've heard it all before And I've been down there on the floor No one's ever gonna keep me down again

Oh yes, I am wise But it's wisdom born of pain Yes, I've paid the price But look how much I gained If I have to, I can do anything I am strong (Strong) I am invincible (Invincible) I am woman

You can bend but never break me Cause it only serves to make me More determined to achieve my final goal And I come back even stronger Not a novice any longer Cause you've deepened the conviction in my soul

Oh yes, I am wise But it's wisdom born of pain Yes, I've paid the price But look how much I gained If I have to, I can do anything I am strong (Strong) I am invincible (Invincible) I am woman

I am woman watch me grow See me standing toe to toe As I spread my lovin' arms across the land But I'm still an embryo With a long, long way to go Until I make my brother understand

Oh yes, I am wise But it's wisdom born of pain Yes, I've paid the price But look how much I gained If I have to, I can face anything I am strong (Strong) I am invincible (Invincible) I am woman

I am woman I am invincible I am strong I am woman I am invincible I am strong I am woman

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rptW7zOPX2E

https://genius.com/Helen-reddy-i-am-woman-lyrics#

Helen Reddy

b. 1941

She hit No. 1 with an anthem of female empowerment, and her own life was proof of what it took to get there.

           By Rob Hoerburger

       Any appraisal of 1970s pop music usually involves, and in some cases devolves into, some of the following arguments: disco versus punk; sensitive troubadours versus glam gods; Barry Manilow versus Led Zeppelin. Often lost among these discussions is just how rich a time it was for female artists, and especially for fans of female artists. In line at a record-store cash register one night in 1973, I looked down and realized that my selections, all four of them, were by women. These songs included the latest singles by Aretha Franklin, Dusty Springfield and Melanie; the newest member of the quartet was “Peaceful,” Helen Reddy’s follow-up to “I Am Woman.”

       If you know anything about Reddy, it probably starts with that song and its insistent refrain, “I am strong/I am invincible/I am woman.” Reddy wrote most of the lyrics to the future feminist anthem in 20 minutes in 1971, but they were at least a decade in coming. In her early 20s, she left her alcoholic first husband while she was still living in her native Australia, when he became physically abusive during her pregnancy. “Once was enough,” she wrote in her 2006 memoir, “The Woman I Am.” “I would not risk losing the baby I had prayed for.” After winning a singing contest, she moved to the United States in the mid-1960s with a toddler in tow, $230 in her purse and hopes for a career in music, but she was told by one male record executive after another that no one was interested in a “girl singer.” She had to hector her second husband, who was also her manager, to finally secure her a record deal. By the time he did, she was nearing 30, the usual expiration age for pop stardom. Rather than detail her grievances, “I Am Woman” offered a triumphant message of validation, and it landed just as the second wave of feminism was cresting, when Carole King’s “Tapestry” album was ruling the charts, Shirley Chisholm was running for president and Roe v. Wade was being decided. Reddy would claim that of the million or so people who bought “I Am Woman,” eight out of 10 were women. When she accepted a Grammy for her vocal on the song, besting Franklin, Carly Simon, Roberta Flack and Barbra Streisand, Reddy famously thanked God, “because she makes everything possible.”

               But you didn’t have to be a woman, or even like “I Am Woman,” to appreciate Reddy. Maybe that’s as sacrilegious as saying you like Franklin but never cared for “Respect,” or Nirvana but not “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” Sometimes, though, when a career moment turns into a monument, it can overshadow everything else. In Reddy’s case, “I Am Woman,” and a few of the monster hits that followed, like “Delta Dawn” and “Leave Me Alone,” were far from her best; they could seem squarely on the nose, catchy but kitschy, passing tones on the way to something better on the radio.

       Dig a little deeper into Reddy’s catalog, and you’ll find the goods — songs like “Emotion,” “Gladiola,” “What Would They Say” and, especially, “Bluebird.” Written by the great Leon Russell, “Bluebird” had a chill disco backbeat, but the jazzy melody and wistful lyric would have made it welcome on Ella Fitzgerald’s set list. On these tracks, Reddy, like the best vocalists of any era, made musical intelligence sound sexy, and her versatility extended her appeal to, at any given time, rock critics and the cocktail-shaker set.

       Reddy placed at least one song in the Top 40 every year for seven years, but then “maybe radio listeners needed a break,” she wrote. “I know I did.” By the time of the next women’s wave in music, with the likes of Madonna, Whitney Houston and Janet Jackson, she had pivoted to theater — I saw her give a strong performance in “Blood Brothers” on Broadway in 1995 — and she left show business altogether for a while to study clinical hypnotherapy. She wondered if “I Am Woman” had been any for naught in the age of “Material Girl.” “I was asked many times if I still believed in feminism! As if it had been a fad like mood rings and pet rocks.”

       Reddy did have a last round of concerts in her, and I caught one of those final shows in Provincetown, Mass., in 2014. The draw was clearly the big hits, based on how the audience — women and men, Reddy’s era and younger, mostly gay — practically drowned her out singing along to them. I was hoping she’d include some of my favorite deeper cuts, but as the show went on, my hopes sagged; there was no “Emotion,” no “Gladiola.” Then, near the end, there it was: “Bluebird,” and she sang it with all the heart and salty affirmation she brought to the song 40 years earlier. “I Am Woman” closed the show, and it sounded newly relevant. Its hold-your-head-up message had never really lost currency, and in a town long known to be a gay haven, the song itself seemed a safe harbor, from which songs like “Bluebird,” and probably many other great recordings by women, had set sail. As we poured into the street with “I am strong/I am invincible” fresh in our ears, I found myself thinking of a different Reddy lyric, from “Peaceful”: “Maybe someday you’ll up and say we had a pretty nice time.” Another estimable songwriter, Kenny Rankin, a man, may have written it. But leave it to a woman to make it sing.

hiiiiiii!Can you rec Bottom Louis fics please?

Hiiiiii! I dunno if you want PWPs or fics with plots that have bottom!Louis, so I am gonna do both! The fics with plot are going to have hot bottom Louis smut in them to satisfy your blouie needs :) So here we go:

PWP 

Makes Perfect  by checkthemargins 

“What if you practiced on like, a mannequin?” Louis presses. “Or one of those blow up sex dolls? Or even just like, I don’t know, a pillow or something. Whatever it’d fit around.”

Harry tilts his head thoughtfully, curls catching the light so entrancingly that Louis finds himself reaching up to push his fingers through them. “It’s different, though, innit? When it’s a real person. A pillow won’t snog me.”

“Why should it?” says Louis. “You can’t even take its bra off.”

**This is so fucking hot. Harry is bad opening bras so Louis offers to help. Do you see where this is going? ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Two Sizes Too Big by SLD24 

Louis is shopping and needs help finding an oversized shirt. Harry is an employee who willingly helps. Things get freaky in the dressing room :)

**The summary says it all.

Gnossienne by navigator, pukeandcry 

Louis sets a challenge for himself; it gets a bit out of hand.

**Harry dares Louis to wear a buttplug all day. Louis does ;) Not an established relationship fic.

Pornstar Drabble 1 and 2 by @crazyupsetter 

(or as we know her, whoknows)

** Louis and Harry are pornstars. Louis has been in the business for a while and is popular and it is Harry’s first time in the industry. Louis is not expecting much but he is about to be swept off his feet. 

This does not have a summary so I kinda made one up. This is hot, okay. Like very hot. If you have been in the fandom for a while you know whokhows and how awesome she is. This one is my favourite smut drabble of hers!! (She is in the non pwp list too. Read all her stories. No one writes bottom Louis like her!!)

Fall Into Some Velvet Morning by brigee (lourrythirst)

Louis shrieks loudly as his body collides with the other boy’s, face smashing into said boy’s back which, of course, made him topple from his weird yoga pose. They lay sprawled on the ground, Louis on top of the weird kid who does fucking yoga in a park. Yoga Boy lifts his head out of the grass and mumbles in a gravely voice, “You ruined my vibes there, mate.”

Louis groans as he sits up and rolls off of Yoga Boy’s back. “Yea, well, you ruined my skateboard, mate. Think we’re quite even.”

or au where harry does yoga in parks and louis may or may not want to get into his yoga pants

**Harry teaches Louis Yoga which some how leads to wall sex ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Hail Mary, Forgive Me  by Clamat_Submissa

Louis is extremely religious and sacrifices sex for lent. Harry teaches him life lessons by fucking him in sacrilegious ways.

**IF YOU ARE EXTREMELY RELIGIOUS (especially Christian) OR ARE SENSITIVE TO RELIGIOUS THEMES DO NOT READ THIS.  ***SPOILER*** Harry fucks Louis with a c**ss, Take caution. But it is one of the hottest fics I have read with kind of a forbidden theme.

i wanna fuck you like an animal by kissingiscool

louis is a fox hybrid harry finds in the woods, and harry has a bit of fun with him.

**Fox hybrid Louis is in heat and Harry decides to help him.

Tight Fit by stylesoftheshire

Louis catches Harry reading fanfiction in which he spends his time wearing ice skating leggings and is inspired, leading to a touch of arse-worshipping.

**Established relationship fic!

Place Your Head On My Beating Heart by hopelesswriter

Based on the Prompt: H/L are both pornstars, but Harry (maybe 25) is a veteran at it while this is Louis’ (18) first day. They get paired up together for a scene. Basically just overstimulation and rimming and riding and Harry instructing Louis on how to get himself off before Harry actually enters him. Some spanking and Harry marveling at how much Lou’s bum ripples after each smack. Bonus points for Louis crying from multiple orgasms and the overstim and just being in complete euphoria.

Or the AU where porn sensation Harry Styles takes his newbie to his place and gets him to come untouched twice before even fingering him and they may or may not fall in love at some point between second and third orgasms.

**This is so fucking hot. And 10k+ full of gratuitous smut!!

down by sky_reid

sometimes all harry really wants is to play with louis’ arse.

**Arse worship

Be Professional by writtensoul

Basically, Harry’s the Prime Minister of England and Louis is his hot and willing personal assistant.

“Louis, I- no. Do you know how unprofessional that is? We’re, you’re my assistant.”

“Then let me assist you to an orgasm,” Louis grins, and that’s enough.

**Harry and Louis fuck in the office 

miss sugar pink by softestsuga

Louis rides Harry in his office chair with his co-worker in the room. Only a desk separates them

(It may or may not be one of the hottest encounters they’ve ever had with one-another)

**Voyeurism kinda. So beware!!

Blue Velvet by larrydotcum

Or Louis is a pornstar and very talkative during sex and Harry kinda wrecks him.

**Another pornstar au (i am so sorry rip)

This has already gotten really long so I am gonna do another list of non pwp bottom!Louis fics!! Happy reading! 

So. I’m gay. That’s pretty neat.

Some people might be surprised by this, some others maybe not. It doesn’t really matter anyhow, because the way I am is really the way I am and there’s no changing that.

But even just a year ago, I wouldn’t have been able to talk about this so freely and candidly. A year ago, my life was entirely different. Two years ago, three, five, 10. So much has changed from that dorky kid who grew up in a small farming town where the cows outnumbered the people.

It was in this small farming town where I learned that “gay” was synonymous with “wrong” or “weird” or “broken.” Kids would throw gay around as an insult, and some of those insults were thrown at me for being a sensitive kid who would rather lend someone a pencil to make them like me than actually stand up for myself, even though I knew I was never going to get that pencil to come. I cried when the dogs in Where the Redfern Grows ended up dying. I didn’t want to be mean, and I loved hugs. I was skinny and not that athletic, but smart, and felt more comfortable around girls even though they made me feel like shit most of the time because most of my cousins were girls. But really, I was just always myself. I didn’t even know what “gay” was at the time, let alone sex or any of those R-rated concepts that were thrown around.

High school wasn’t much better, but I started learning. My friend groups shifted a few times, but I always more of an innocent kid. Still smart, but long and gangly after a growth spurt that left me a bean pole. My mom even thought I was going to die one day from being so skinny. Awkward, gangly, etc. But innocent and unaware of much outside of small farming town.

Then high school continued, and I started growing and maturing, and I started noticing more of these impulses and intrigues I had towards guys instead of girls, though I was so confused at the time because, well, guys were supposed to be in relationships with girls, right? I didn’t even know how that all worked, but I tried my best to do the typical teenage stuff. Tried going after a few girls, tried kissing a few, ended up kissing one. But it was never really exactly the most comfortable of experiences.

Still gangly. Still a dork.

Then I hit a major depression, and that sucked, but at least during that time I grew a lot and I learned more about myself. But I still never really understood the whole gay thing.

And then I became a Christian. I felt like God brought me into his arms, and I fell in love with Christianity and the Church and everything that came with having Jesus in my life. But there was one thing that was always off, and that was that I started understanding my sexual attraction toward boys instead of girls. When it finally hit me that I had the oh-so-sinful “same-sex attraction,” I was scared in a way because everything so far had reinforced this tainted image of what being gay meant. In college, I came out to a few people in the first couple of years, but I was so cared.

I even came out to the pastor of the church I was going to at the time. His first questions for me was “Were you ever sexually molested as a child?”

No, pastor.

“Have you ever heard of the Exodus program?”

Again, no. Looked into it. It was a “reparative therapy” program that attempted to make gay people become straight.

What it really did was make people want to kill themselves, which they did time and time again. It was shutdown for being inhumane, and I’m glad I never followed that pastor’s advice.

But I was stuck in a place of pain, of struggle, or having to put on a façade and lie constantly and not be open with myself and with others because I was afraid of how the world would react, especially the world of American Christianity. I heard the horror stories, and the pastor I came out to really didn’t help me feel comfortable with it either.

I was constantly praying for change, while at the same time feeling guilty for how I felt, and seeing and hearing Christians condemn homosexuality. I was confused, I was struggling, and I tried to repress so much but ended up just getting hurt more and more.

In my college Christian group, I had better support. People who were “praying for me.” Praying for me to change, for me to be delivered from this “sin,” etc. Proud of me for not falling into that “lifestyle.”

But then I left that college Christian group after graduating. I loved it, and I still do, and I had lots of love come from it as well. But I still always had to hide, and had to be ashamed of who I was. I had some hard, difficult things happen.

After the group, I found some friends who started showing me even more support, and a different kind of love. Not a love that asked me to change, but accepted me for where I was and who I was. These people I started hanging around – Christians and non-christians – helped me to understand that I shouldn’t be ashamed of who I was. But it still wasn’t enough for me to accept myself, to feel that freedom.

And then a group of pastors and other people came together to create the “Nashville Statement,” where 14 articles (without any scripture referenced) were thrown together to condemn not only gays, but gay Christians, transgendered individuals, and anyone who supported them, saying that they were all barred from heaven. But they said it nice. But it was still damaging, and completely tone deaf in the midst of Hurricane Harvey, as well as a complete blindness to all of the harm and damage that the church has done to people and to the mission of Christ, all of the people the lost their lives because of hatred and bigotry and ignorance from the church. All of the people they’ve pushed away, or made feel wrong, or drove to killing themselves.

I was close a few times myself.

But these articles were so bad, so dumb, so atrocious and ignorant that it motivated me to dig more into the Open and Affirming side of Christianity. Side A, they call it. Accepting of anyone, no matter the gender or sexuality. An open church, with open doors and open arms. Rachel Held Evans, in her book Searching for Sunday, wrote about it a lot as well, which honestly made me cry more than once because of how close to home they hit.

That’s when I decided to accept my sexuality, accept that I was gay, and own it. Nothing about who I was changed from that decision, though. I just became more confident, more comfortable, more in tune with myself. I’ve felt freer than I ever have before, and honestly more in touch with God than ever before as well. Because that’s the thing. I can be a Christian, and I can be gay, and it’s amazing and comforting.

“But the scriptures!” people will say.

But that’s for people who think that the bible is an inerrant, magical book without flaw, which is not how I see it. Sacrilegious, I know, but this “inerrant” bible hasn’t really been used in the best ways when interpreting it literally, without sense of context, translation errors, man’s influence, etc.

The truths still stand to me. God as creator, Jesus as savior. If we agree on that, then there may as well not be more conversation unless we come at it on the same basic assumptions about the bible and its nature.

Anyways, now that I’ve finally accepted this huge aspect of my life, I feel great. I came out to friends, parents, siblings, and I have a loving, supportive circle of friends who love me a lot, and I love them a lot as well. It’s helping me to be a better friend and family member as well because, well, now I don’t have to continue to hide, or be someone I’m not.

So the reason I’m writing this is…well, there are a few reasons.

1. I wanted to come out publicly so that people know where I stand and where I’m at, which will hopefully challenge a few people’s perceptions on the whole topic, and so I don’t have to be in the dark anymore.

2. Because maybe someone, somewhere, will see this and understand that there are people here for them, and that if there is something weighing on you like this, that me and a lot of other people are out there who will love and support you no matter what.

3. So I don’t have to be afraid anymore.

Anyway, if you made it to the end. Thank you for hearing my story. If you have any questions, feel free to ask over messenger, as long as you’re not some religious idiot who’s going to tell me I’m going to hell, or tell me I’m living in sin, or encourage me to turn from my sinful ways or whatever.

Those people are literally the absolute worst, and Jesus cries whenever they do shit like that.

But for everyone else, thank you. Nobody should have to live in fear or in the dark just for being themselves.

Autumn—Sunday Chats (10-1-17)

Fall has finally arrived, and boy do video games just not stop.

Podcast Train Stop

I’m curious if anyone else has tun into the issue where their podcast rotation just stops? I’ve basically stopped listening to all my podcasts except for My Brother, My Brother and Me. I am not sure why, but I’ve fallen off of all of the GiantBomb Podcasts, any other video game podcast, except for really The Easy Allies podcast. Of the group, that one that I’ve gotten into the most recently still sticks with me for whatever reason.

Maybe it’s the want to not listen to hours-long podcast recently? Which is odd because I usually binge many podcasts together back to back. I think the most likely answer is that I had fallen behind and then not been able to catch up. 

This is unfortunate though because podcasts are typically my main source of news and now I am getting a little aloof with the gaming news. But I still manage to keep up thanks to the show I help host!

Has this ever happened to any of you? What do you do, try and listen to all the episodes you missed or just jump right back in?

What’s on Tap

Danganronpa V3

This is the big one. Consuming most of my time like Danganronpa is ought to do. 

It’s very good y’all.

Danganronpa has a great talent of building off of its predecessors in completely unorthodox ways, essentially carrying forward concepts but in logical ways so it doesn’t seem like all of the characters are jumping to conclusions based on nothing. It just seems like this different group of people decided to take a wildly different approach. Chunsoft then ties that to the personalities and style of those same characters, and it’s a brilliant mix-mash of those intelligent designs.

These games always play with my expectations and take me by surprise, but boy... this one really is messing with me.

Not only that, they’re using loss in a way that is even more emotional and moving then it has been before, which for me has been a first in the series. I actually got choked up after the first chapter because of how this was done.

These games are so good, and Danganronpa V3 is not a disappointment by any stretch of the imagination.

Destiny 2

Finished the raid this past week, and hopefully soon will be finishing it with my original team.

We’ve run into plenty of trouble, but I know we have it in us to knock it out.

Metroid Samus Returns

Uh, y’all? It’s still so good.

Got to some of the new and added stuff to the game and it was absolutely phenomenal. 

Very tense, very cool, and very, very fun. I love it.

Questions

Remember to look for my tweet with the hashtag #SundayChats in it on Sunday afternoons and reply to it with your question! That’s the way to do it!

Normally I would have asked a question to you all this week, but I’m holding it off until next week.

So, real quick, as I was going through questions, I noticed a ton of SNES-classic related questions, which reminds me I’ve been playing that too! Let me insert that real quick...

SNES Classic

It’s so cute!

This is the one I wanted, I got it, I’m v happy.

So I jumped right into Zelda A Link to the Past and played through the opening, and it’s still wonderful.

It’s fun playing on an OG SNES controller, though I do really like the classic controller form the Wii Era. The original too, not the pro, because you get a little best of both worlds.

The big one I sank the most time into was actually Super Mario RPG. It’s been so long since I played that that it’s basically a whole new game for me. Plus, I was a kid, and had no clue what the hell was happening. It’s been super funny and super fun to really see that game with fresh eyes for the first time ever.

Okay, back to questions.

Yay! I didn’t know this!

I’d say I am at about an 8.5. I really like the Jackbox games, and they’re especially fun to get a new one before ExtraLife, when we have a ton of people watching a stream and also a ton of people in the room. With the streaming improvements from JBPP3, I think this one is gonna be pretty stellar. Curious to see what games are in there. Hopefully a Quiplash 3!

This is a very gross question Tyler, not because of the subject, but because you narrowly refer to a character as a “bubble butt baddie” which, at the end of the day, I don’t even know what that narrows it down to? Like, who qualifies for that?

I dunno, but the one answer that came to mind was Miranda from Mass Effect 2.

Oh man this is a pretty good question. I never really got into Costume Quest, which, I know, is sacrilegious to say, but it’s true. The text speed was too fast? I know, dumb complaint, but I’m a terrible reader, so I couldn’t keep up.

Anyway, I’d like to think I’d either turn into some kind of lame superhero, or just straight up Banjo and Kazooie. I don’t know why, but that’s the first thing that came to my head...

Here’s the deal, there is no correct way to play video games. Full stop. You can take your time and savor something, but you can also rush through something and savor it too. Like, I played Persona 5 at what I considered to be a slow pace, because folks like Nabeshin beat it before me, because I wanted to “savor it”. That being said, I still beat it in 2 and a half weeks, and 103 hours split into two and a half weeks is still a whole lotta hours per week. But neither of us played it “wrong”.

Like, folks that get qualified as “casual” are going to be seen as the ones that play it slower, but it’s likely because they have other things they need to do. Like sleep. And eat. I don’t do these things! At least not regularly! 

On the subject of Destiny 2 specifically, I think it does have minimal post-game content, mainly the Raid, the Nightfall, and Trials of the Nine. Which, like, still seems like more than the original, to be fair? There are hidden exotic quests too, and I have a feeling as we roll into Iron Banner this month, there will still be plenty for folks to do after they’ve finished the game. But ultimately the folks that charged through to 280 in the first weekend knew exactly what they were doing and got themselves into that situation. I just started up my third and final character on Destiny 2, so getting that guy up to 280 is going to be a fun trip for me still.

I dunno, there isn’t a right answer to this i think. But power through games or savor them however you like, because I think you’re the best judge of how fast or how slow you should play a game. Plus, you’ll probably put a different amount of time into a given game depending on how you feel about it, so I get it either way.

Weird. Uneasy. Aroused? Horrified. 

Also, it has taken me the full twenty minutes since I screen grabbed this to now when I am typing this answer to form the line “ready to smash” in my head, and I hate me, and you, and everything.

Pumpkin Spice is trash.

I said it.

I’ll say it again.

Take your trash and get out of here.

November is right around the corner. And you know what that means?

Motherfucking Gingerbread Latte.

Aww yay! Favorite month! A lot of folks love October too because they’re into that cool spooky fog feeling! Which is rad, I am not, personally, but I do like the silly Halloween aesthetic. I just don’t like actual scary stuff. Except the occasional scary video game. 

As for me, December is my favorite month, for similar reasons. It is the beginning of Winter, which is my favorite season (unpopular opinion, I know) and it’s also when Christmas and new years happens, and if we’re lucky, a bit of snowfall. Ideally, it just means I’m getting plenty of my hot cocoa on.

This a great question. and I think it comes down to what kind of game you want to play. Like, Earthbound is quirky, and with Undertale having just hit the PS4, maybe it’s time to get into that. Mario RPG is cool and timing based and funny, and it may be a great trip for folks who haven’t played it, or don’t remember it, like me! Final Fantasy 6 everyone keeps telling me is great but I haven’t been able to get into it. That said, it’s super traditional, so if that’s what you’re in the mood for, it’s calling. Secret of Mana has the edge because it’s an action RPG, so it’s different then all the rest. Knowing you like Tales, I’d start with that, since it may be the most fun! Also, goddamn is the music in that game great. But it is in all of these.

For me it was either Mario RPG so I could finally really truly play it, or Earthbound, which I was a bit too intimidated at the time commitment to jump into first. For you, Brendan? Try out Secret of Mana! And keep what I said about the rest in mind.

Baked Potato is the superior potato, IMHO. I really love just barely slicing open a baked potato, loading it up with cheese and butter, closing it back up, letting the cheese melt all in it, then cutting it open again, mashing it a bit, then eating it nice and chunky style. It’s a pure delight. 

Oh, and I don’t eat the outer skin, but I’ll like rip all the potato I can off the skin, and it’s amazing. I love it.

I just fucking love potatoes though. I’d eat mashed potatoes all day if I could, I just prefer baked potatoes.

Here we go, two lists, back to back. Now since you just said top 10 SNES games I will not limit myself to the SNES classic list, but damn that’s a good one to pull from. In NO PARTICULAR ORDER.

Zelda A Link to the Past

Super Mario World

Secret of Mana

Chrono Trigger

Super Metroid

Super Mario RPG

Mario All Stars Collection

Mega Man X

Final Fantasy 2 (Final Fantasy 4)

Kirby Super Star

I know I’ll get a lot of flack for choosing FF4 over 6, but Sunday Chats readers should know my current situation with FF6. Maybe someday...

Now I do want to say this tweet turned into an N64 hatefest, which I am not a fan of, I love the N64 and the PSone, that era holds something special for me. I understand its issues, and probably in the grand scheme of things, It’s the weakest of the console generations, but there are undeniably great games for those systems.

Now, this list will be tricky, but I’ll give it a shot:

IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER

Super Mario 64

Zelda Ocarina of Time

Zelda Majora’s Mask

Mario Kart 64

Star Fox 64

Pokémon Snap

Yoshi’s Story

Paper Mario 

Super Smash Bros

Bomberman 64

This was actually way easier than I thought it’d be. I even left out a few games that I’d have love to see on there and opted to keep the ones I really like there. I kept to the no Rare rule even for Diddy Kong Racing (better than Mario Kart 64) and DK64, even though those would definitely still make and N64 Classic. 

There are few more to shoutout too, but I’ll keep my list at my 10. Boy, looking at this I’d actually totally be down for one of these.

That’s all I got. I know I am bad at covering all my segments recently, but my life has been a bit of a mess as of late. So I apologize!

But thank you for the amazing questions, I adore you all, and I am gonna go let Danganronpa eat my whole soul now.

Thank you all. From the bottom of my heart. For your support. I’ve been terrible about making things lately and you all have not waned with your patience for me. It means the world. I won’t wast your time for much longer, and hopefully this patience will breed something.

Keep it real.

I'm going to be obnoxious and say M A D S W E E N E Y ;)

So many E’s! So many E’s Jess! What the fuck am I supposed to do with that??? xp

M: What is their favourite dessert? 

Ahhhh, fuck. Hmmm, well, we know he’s not into too fruity or too sweet. I bet he’s into chocolate. I bet he is. Although carrot cake might be a thing too. I say this not because of the obvious carrot top joke but  because he’s old enough to remember when carrots were literally the only dessert the British Isles had. Before the import of sugar, shit was not all that sweet, and maybe he harkens back to that. Wouldn’t surprise me at all. So I’ll go with carrot cake, especially with as much grated carrot and as little fucking about as possible c:

A: What are/were this character’s best subjects in school? 

I mean... he was born and died and became a god WAY before school was even a thing ^^; But, in a modern AU where Mad Sweeney was just Some Guy, I suspect his best subject would be philosophy. He certainly has a degree in getting his ass kicked by gods, only fair he gets to tell mortals what it all means xp

D: How they react to being flirted with? 

Well... this depends ENTIRELY on whose idea it was to start flirting. If Mad Sweeney started it and this person is reciprocating, his strategy is to shed clothing and continue to badger offers that could EITHER be vulgar invitations to sex or a fight... wrapped up in a quaint sexual metaphor. Basically, if Mad Sweeney wants to fuck you, you and about 50 other people will know. Not a subtle man.

But if you made the horrifically poor decision to flirt with Mad Sweeney, he would do everything possible to avoid you the rest of his life. The man does not have good reactions to affection, although he desperately needs some. Just keep trying, his bark is worse than his bite. He actually feels all wobbly inside that someone looked at him for 3 seconds straight and didn’t hate him. Also just straight up kissing him never fails. It will DEFINITELY work. Pro Tip.

S: How stealthy are they? 

...let’s see, 6′5″ god regularly chooses to hide behind 5′2″ dead wife. I'm gonna go with: none stealthy.

W: Can they dance? 

Can he dance??? Listen, my trash son may not be good for much, but HELL FUCKING YES, he can fucking dance. No question.

E: How are they with children? 

Literally no idea. His original wife was awful and I can’t remember a mention of any kids. But then... leprechauns are mostly believed in by children, Essie was certainly taken in at a young age. There’s a high chance he’s perfectly good with children. The swearing... and smoking... and drinking is a bit of an issue. But he probably has the sense not to do that shit around kids ^^; I think he has a soft spot for... well, let’s be real, MOST of him is a soft spot, but he really likes the innocent. And he’s got a HUGE, almost suicidal, protective streak. Chances are, when faced with the pure innocence of a child, he’d respond with the uncontrollable need to preserve that innocence ^^; 

There’s so many fucking E’s in his name oh my god, we’re just moving on

N: What do they usually eat for breakfast? 

I”m really not sure I can top @zorja-polunochnaya‘s response of whiskey. Just... straight whiskey. That’s... yep, yeah, that’s accurate. Whiskey and maybe the first hand-rolled cigarette of the day ^^;

Y: What is one question they’ve always wanted an answer to? 

Oh FUCK. Oh... god. “Why me?” That’s... that’s it. And he genuinely means it. Why him, why does he have to suffer, why was HE the one who got cursed. There are other kings and other cowards and other sacrilegious pricks who could have been punished. But he got the short straw. And he continues to get the fucking shaft. And god... he’d just like to know when he’s suffered enough, when he could finally be free. Poor... my poor, sweet trash son.

The Soul of Rebellion Awakens

Felt like writing up this section of Persona 5. Mild beginning of game spoilers for those who haven’t played yet. It seemed dramatic and I like rewriting sections of video games sometimes, to put my own spin on it, or doing my best to capture the feeling of the scenes with purely words instead of the visual medium video games employ.

“Hey… Hey wake up!”

The voice stirred him from unconsciousness, and he sat up slowly, his head throbbing. What had happened? When he opened his eyes he was greeted to the sight of a murky stone dungeon, straight out of a fantasy film. Right, the castle sitting where the school was supposed to be. Those big soldiers. What was going on?

“You alright?”

He looked over and saw the blond boy he’d followed to the castle. “I’m fine.” The blond seemed okay too, aside from the fact they were both trapped in this cell.

“Same, more or less,” the blond replied, before turning back to look out the cell bars. “Looks like this ain’t no dream… Ugh, what’s goin’ on!?” The blond suddenly ran up towards the door and began banging on it. “Hey, let us outta here! I know there’s someone out there!”

Considering how the guards from before had treated them, he had a feeling this wasn’t exactly the best idea. However, only silence and the faint sound of flowing water answered the words.

“Dammit, where are we!?” The blond shouted again, walking back to him. “Is this some kinda TV set…?”

Before he could answer a scream of agony echoed down into their cell from somewhere else in the dungeon. He stood, alarmed, and a shiver ran down his back. They both rushed to the cell door and tried to see where it was coming from.

“The hell was that just now…?”

The screaming dwindled before slowly sputtering to a halt.

“Woah… woah, woah, woah, woah, woah… You’re shittin’ me, right? This is real bad…! Isn’t there some way outta here!? C’mon, we gotta do something!” The blond asked, panic beginning to creep into his voice.

He looked around the room. There was the wooden cot he had been passed out on. Chains hung up on the wall, barrels in the corners. But nothing useful. Not a thing. Were they really trapped down here? Were they going to end up screaming like the person they’d heard?

“Hey, you hear that?” The blond suddenly spoke up.

He turned back to the bars and also heard it: footsteps and clanking metal. Before long one of the masked guards walked up to the door, armour clanking loudly.

“Be glad that your punishment has been decided upon. Your charge is unlawful entry. Thus, you will be sentenced to death.”

“Say what!?” The blond shouted.

Death did seem a bit much for accidental trespassing…

“No one’s allowed to do as they please in my castle.”

This voice was new, coming from behind the guards at the cell door. It also sounded vaguely familiar, but he was having a hard time placing it… That is until the man walked up to them, moving past the guards as they gave way. He was dressed in a red, fur-lined cloak decorated in red and pink hearts. He seemed to wear no pants, only sandals, topped with a golden crown atop his black hair. Staring at them with golden eyes was the teacher the blond boy had been complaining about, the one who had given the girl a ride to school. But he hadn’t had golden eyes then…

“Huh? Wait… Is that you, Kamoshida?” The blond asked, incredulous at the sight of a familiar face.

The man scoffed. “I thought it was some petty thief, but to think it’d be you, Sakamoto… Are you trying to disobey me again? It looks like you haven’t learned your lesson at all, huh?” Kamoshida’s voice was menacing, and he wondered what history there was between the two. “Oh, and you brought a friend this time… because you can’t do anything for yourself.”

Now the man’s tone had turned mocking, and the blond, Sakamoto, seemed to be egged on by it. “This ain’t funny you asshole!”

“Is that how you speak to a king!?” Kamoshida spat. “It seems you don’t understand the position you’re in at all. Not only did you sneak into my castle, you committed the crime of insulting me - the king. The punishment for that. Is death.” The man swung out his arm in a commanding gesture, and a guard stepped forward. “It’s time for an execution! Take him out!”

The students backed away from the door, and he could tell Sakamoto was starting to get legitimately worried. “S-Stop it…!”

There was little power to his voice now however, and the guards opened and stepped into the door, cornering the blond in the back corner, leaving him up against the side wall. This was really bad. This wasn’t a joke, it wasn’t a prank, this was serious, whatever it was. The guards’ weapons looked truly sharp, and whoever this man was that looked like the teacher sounded deadly serious about killing them.

Sakamoto spoke up again as he was cornered “...Goddammit…!” The boy’s voice quivered with fear, but he seemed to pull himself together enough to charge forward, ramming into one of the guard’s shields with enough force to knock it to the ground. “I ain’t down for this shit!” Sakamoto yelled, looking at him. “C’mon, we’re outta here!”

Before either of them could act however, another guard came up and punched Sakamoto in the stomach, sending him reeling with a loud groan, stumbling up against the wall near the hanging chains. He tried to push forward but the guards regrouped, and all he could do was push uselessly against their stocky stances.

Slowly falling to his knees, Sakamoto looked up. “Just go! Get outta here! These guys are serious!”

He glanced towards the open door. All that stood between him and freedom was the kingly teacher. It could’ve been easy enough to push past and run off. He didn’t deserve to die after all, did he? He didn’t deserve anything he’d been put through. Not the assault charge. Not the school transfer. Not the scorn of all those he met. Not this dungeon. Not death. All he had to do was run…

“Oh? Running away, are we?” Kamoshida taunted. “What a heartless friend you are.”

Guilt struck at his heart and his feet stayed rooted.

“He… ain’t a friend…” Sakamoto argued, still gasping for breath. “C’mon! Hurry up and go!”

Sakamoto was trying to absolve any guilt for staying. The boy wasn’t a friend, they were strangers, it was even true. Why stay for someone he didn’t know? But that ended up only making it worse. His legs began to feel weak, panic settling in truly now.

“What’s the matter? Too scared to run away?” Kamoshida taunted further, laughing at his indecision. “Hmph, pathetic scum isn’t worth my time… I’ll focus on this one’s execution...”

The guards grabbed Sakamoto and lifted him by the arms, while another came to crowd him back into the corner, preventing any further attempts at escape. Kamoshida walked up to him, his face now turned away, and laughed as he began to beat on the blonde boy, until he dropped back to the floor, face down, groaning in pain.

Kamoshida spat on him and scoffed. Where’d your energy from earlier go? A peasant like you isn’t even worth beating. I’ll have you killed right now.”

A guard tossed Sakamoto across the floor. He winced at the sight, his mind reeling at what was happening. Sakamoto didn’t deserve this either, no one did. Especially after trying to save him. He couldn’t just let this happen.

“Stop it!” He shouted, his voice sounding feeble against the actions he was witnessing.

Kamoshida turned to face him. “What? Don’t you dare tell me you don’t know who I am.” He glared back, doing his best to try and look threatening while being held back by the two massive guards.

“That look in your eyes irritates me!” The man’s leg came out suddenly, kicking him in the chest, throwing him against the wall. It hurt, bad, and knocked the wind out of him.

“Hold him there… After the peasant, it’s his turn to die,” Kamoshida ordered, turning back to Sakamoto.

“No!” He shouted, running forward on instinct, but the guards immediately grabbed him and threw him back against the wall, pinning him by the shoulders.

Kamoshida stalked towards Sakamoto, laughing.

“No… I don’t wanna die!”

Pure fear had entered Sakamoto’s voice, and all he could do was stand there and watch. This wasn’t fair! Why were they even here! Why did they have to die!?

“This is truly an unjust game… Your chances of winning are almost none.”

A soft, female voice echoed through his mind, and when he blinked, there was suddenly and aetheric, glowing butterfly flying right through the middle of the room. The others were oblivious to its presence, but he sensed the voice was coming from it.

“But if my voice is reaching you, there may yet be a possibility open to you…”

He blinked again and the room was back to normal, the butterfly missing. But now another voice, deeper, dangerous, but calling to him.

“What’s the matter? Are you simply going to watch?”

But what can I do?

“Are you forsaking him to save yourself? Death awaits him if you do nothing.”

I-I don’t… I can’t!

“Was your previous decision a mistake then?”

Suddenly visions of the woman he’d attempted to save, of the man who’d dealt him the assault charges, of the police arresting him, flew through his mind. He hadn’t hesitated then.

“It wasn’t.”

He was surprised at the conviction in his own voice, and he suddenly felt his anger rising. Sakamoto was lifted by his collar, Kamoshida still laughing, the guard holding the boy lifting a sword to his throat.

He began to struggle, refusing to let this scene play out, but the guards held him fast, and the voice, again, spoke.

“Very well… I have heeded your resolve.”

Something shook him to the core. Was it pain? He wasn’t sure, exactly, but it was strange, and made him cry out as though it hurt.

“Vow to me,” the voice demanded. “I am thou, thou art I…”

He continued screaming, as the voice grew in volume and power, this feeling increasing.

“Thou who art willing to perform all sacrilegious acts for thine own justice! Call upon my name, and release thy rage! Show the strength of thy will to ascertain all on thine own, though thou be chained to Hell itself!”

With a final scream, the feeling settled, and where there was once weak and shaking legs, he stood steady. Where before he had struggled, he stood still. Where before there was doubt and fear, he now stood firm and furious.

“Execute him!” Kamoshida ordered.

“That’s enough!” He shouted back.

“...What. Was that…?” Kamoshida asked venomously, turning slowly to look at him.

The guard released Sakamoto, who took in a gasp of air to his previously choked throat.

“You desire to be killed that much? Fine!” Kamoshida nodded to one of the guards.

It lifted its shield and bashed him across the face, knocking him to the side, but he kept his footing. Two other guards rushed in and pinned him to the wall, crossing lances across his throat. Sakamoto fell fully to the floor, exhausted. The guard who hit him lifted his sword to strike.

Then power flowed through him. It was like a rush, enough to blow out into the room, knocking the guards away from him, Kamoshida’s cloak billowing. There was suddenly a mask upon his face. It was surprising. It was… wrong. It shouldn’t be there! It needed to come off! But it wouldn’t! He tugged and pulled, but it wouldn’t come off! Pull harder! It needed off! It began to tear at his skin, and he felt the wet and warm sensation of blood flowing down his cheeks. He pulled harder, and it finally ripped free, the pain swelling, but not nearly as much as the need to remove the mask. He screamed with the pain and elation of finally removing the mask.

And then power. Incredible power rushed through him, around him, overtaking him in literal blue flame that engulfed his body. The menacing voice from earlier began to laugh, and he realized this was what he had been offered. Kamoshida and the guards could only look on, unknowing what was happening. Chains came to his hands as the flames dispersed, revealing another figure behind him, the source of the voice. As he gripped them, he tossed them away, shattering, releasing him from his prison of doubt and fear.

The guards were flung across the room as his awoken power rushed through the dungeon cell. Kamoshida, eyes wide with horror, fled to the doorway. Sakamoto was frozen in place, out of fear, pain, or a combination, he didn’t know. Or care. There would be time later. Instead he turned to Kamoshida, who summoned his guards. They retook their footing and stood between this new threat and their king.

“I am the pillager of twilight - Arsene!” The voice announced, his aetherial body floating behind him.

Arsene was cloaked in red, a billowing jacket, tall boots. A tall black top hat. Large, black, feathered wings, and horns that jutted forward flowing with a red-black colour. It was a menacing sight, and he saw Sakamoto press himself closer to the wall he was leaning against. Kamoshida looked shaken, but refused to retreat.

“I am the rebel’s soul that resides within you. If you so desire, I shall consider granting you the power to break through this crisis.”

He looked up to the figure, determination clear on his face. “Give me your power.”

The being grunted in approval. “Very well.”

“Who the hell are you!?” Kamoshida demanded. He grunted and pointed forward. “Never mind, start by killing that one!”

The armoured guards suddenly poured forth a red-black liquid, dissolving, then reforming into new, twisted shapes. They looked like jack-o-lanterns, with a witch hat, a cloak and holding forth a lantern.

“You’ll learn the true strength of my men!” Kamoshida laughed.

The flew into a formation ahead of him, and he turned to face them. Arsene hovered behind him, and spoke again. “Detest the enemies before you! Change that animosity into power… and unleash it!”

He concentrated on the enemies, and on the feeling of power flowing through him. Blue flame burst from his mask, and he held his hand up to it. He called up on Arsene to attack, and a burst of red-black energy shot up from beneath one of the crypt-dwelling pyromaniac pumpkins and it screamed with pain as the tendrils pierced its body. Both of them then darted forward, lanterns swinging. He did his best to block the attacks, but they buffeted him. But it didn’t hurt like the guards had done to him earlier. It was a minor inconvenience at best.

“Now, swing your blade!” Arsene commanded.

A new instinct poured forth, and he dashed to the one who he’d pierced earlier, finding a dagger now in his hand that wasn’t there before. He sliced at the pyromaniac and it exploded in a cloud of black fog.

“This power of mine is yours!” Arsene announced. “Kill them however you want. Run wild to your heart’s content!”

Finally, he could feel the full strength of Arsene in him. It could guide his attacks, protect him from pain, and unleash Hell’s wrath upon his enemies. All this power was his to command. And he intended to use it.

With another burst of energy, he once more summoned the power of Arsene, his cursed energy piercing the remaining pyromaniac, and killing it in a single blow. He laughed, reveling in his power and the death of his enemies. The scene quickly calmed. The guards dispatched. He alone in the room now, with only Sakamoto and Kamoshida.

The boy broke the silence first. “What…?”

Suddenly reality snapped back into place. They had been in danger. He had fought - and killed! - the guards! And… he was wearing a new coat and suit, all black, with blood red gloves. When had this happened? What was that he had just done?

“What was that just now?” Sakamoto continued questioning.

He didn’t know. Not really. But… it had felt good…

“You little…!” Kamoshida stalked forward, boldly, unwilling to let him do what he pleases.

Sakamoto quickly found his footing and charged the older man. Just like the guard from earlier, the boy tackled Kamoshida to the ground, knocking him flat.

“Hah! You like that, you son of a bitch!?” Sakamoto taunted.

“The keys!” He shouted.

The boy looked down and quickly snapped up the ring of keys Kamoshida or one of the guards had dropped.

“Lock him in!”

They ran out, slammed the door shut, and Sakamoto quickly locked the gate.

“Damn you!” Kamoshida shouted, getting to his feet and gripping the bars of what was now his cell.

“Hey!” Sakamoto turned to him, ignoring the petulant man. “What was that just now!? And… your clothes!”

As if by his mention alone, the black coat disappeared, and his school uniform returned.

“Woah, it went back to normal! What the hell?”

He had no idea, and he no longer cared. All that mattered was they were free, and they had to leave. The power had saved them once, but without really knowing what it was or how it worked, he could not guarantee it would save them again.

“You bastards!”

“This is effin’ nuts... Let's scram! You lead the way!”

Sakamoto turned and looked Kamoshida in the eyes. “Nyeeeeh!” He taunted before tossing the keys into the small river that was running through the middle of the dungeon.

They both took off running, leaving Kamoshida alone in his cell, rattling the bars.

“You goddamn theives…! After them! Don’t let them escape!”