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salixj · 3 years

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(December 21, 2020 / JNS) It’s one of the few rap videos around that features a lead singer in frockcoat, tallis and shtreimel—paired with a cascade of gold chains (one bearing a Magen David) and leopard-skin scarf—dancing with guys from the ‘hood facing off against others in Chassidic garb.

As such, “Mothaland Bounce,” where our hero proudly calls himself “Hitler’s worst nightmare,” reveals much about the man behind it and what it means to be a passionate and deeply committed Jew of color.

Because for Nissim Black—successful rapper, father of six and Orthodox Jew—the video makes a strong statement about how Jews of color merge their very disparate identities into a (nearly) seamless whole.

(Fans may want to check out Black’s newest rap video “Hava”—a thoroughly Nissim spin on the traditional “Hava Nagila”—its release timed for the first night of Hanukkah).

Black is perhaps the most famous of today’s Jews of color. (Readers of a certain age will recall when singer Sammy Davis Jr. could claim that honor).

Though the term itself has gained traction in the last decade, there have always been Jews of different races. Scan the globe today, and you’ll find Ethiopian Jews and the African Lemba tribe whose men test positive for the Kohen gene, a marker of the Jewish priests.

What’s more, many Sephardic, Cuban, Mexican and Yemenite Jews consider themselves Jews of color. Not to mention the murky waters surrounding pockets of the Black Hebrews found in Israel (largely in Dimona and Arad in the Negev Desert) and around the Diaspora, many of whom claim descent from the ancient Israelites.

The numbers are equally murky. Estimates range from 6 percent to 12 percent—or even as much as 15 percent—of today’s Jewish population being Jews of color. But there is little in the way of standardized definition of who is a Jew; some studies count all the members of a household as Jewish household when only one member actually is. But when researchers Arnold Dashefsky and Ira M. Sheskin held the disparate estimates of Jews of color up to the light of demographic standards earlier this year, they concluded that the percentage of Jews of color “is almost certainly closer to 6 percent nationally [from the 2013 Pew study] than 12 to 15 percent. And this percentage has not increased significantly since 1990, although it is likely to do so in the future.”

It stands to reason that this year of painful racial tensions across North America could trigger an internal debate in African-American Jews, especially those who came to the faith not through birth or adoption, but who, like Black, embraced Judaism as adults.

And embrace it many of them do—with passion, perseverance and a deep appreciation—often overcoming raised eyebrows, insensitivity and even downright racism in the process. With a surprising number of them finding their spiritual home in Orthodox Judaism.

Nissim Black

Damian Jamohl Black, whom the world knows now as rapper Nissim Black, was born into a family of Seattle drug dealers in 1986. His childhood was pockmarked by FBI raids on his home, his dad was taken away in handcuffs, and he was accustomed to assorted incidents of street violence and crime. By 9, he was smoking marijuana, and plants were growing in his room. By 12, he’d joined the family business.

The only faith Black was exposed to back then was his grandfather’s Islam. His first religious service? A mosque, which he attended until his grandfather went to prison.

But at 13, Black was pulled into Christianity by missionaries. He now says it was the best thing that could have happened to him. “This was the first time I was around people who had normal healthy relationships. No one sold drugs, they had a heart for kids from the inner city, and their summer camp was the most fun I’d had in my life,” he recalls. “Becoming religious saved me from the world of street gangs.”

By high school, he was “the poster child of the missionary center.” That’s when he met the woman who would become his wife. As a Seventh-Day Adventist, Jamie (now Adina) went to church on Saturdays. They wed in 2008 but remarried in an Orthodox ceremony after their conversion five years later.

By 19, Black was making rap music professionally, and his mother died of an overdose. But by 20, Christianity was beginning to feel foreign to him, and he began wondering what the Jews walking in his neighborhood on Saturday mornings were up to. “I went to Rabbi Google and found Chabad.org. And it all began to make sense,” he says. “I told my wife [they were newlyweds] that I didn’t want to celebrate Christmas and Easter anymore. Pretty soon, she was doing her own digging into Judaism.”

The couple’s conversion followed in 2013 and aliyah to Israel three years later. The Blacks now make their home in Ramat Beit Shemesh with their six children, ages 1 to 12. “I wanted my kids to grow up here,” he says, “where they’d see Jews of different shades all praying the same prayers.”

“I’ve checked every box, right?” he says with a laugh. “One rabbi at my yeshivah told me, ‘You have a lot of strikes against you: You’re black, you’re a convert and you’re a Breslov Chassid. And in all these things is your greatness.”

Maayan Zik

Maayan Zik was 13 when her soul woke her up. Growing up in Washington, D.C., with her mom and sister—her parents divorced when she was in first grade, and she didn’t see her dad for another 10 years—she attended Catholic schools and was close with her maternal grandparents, Jamaican immigrants who took her to museums and taught her the value of hard work and education.

Accompanying her Jamaican-born grandmother to church every Sunday, by 13, Zik had “begun to wonder if what my family believes is right for me.” She explored a number of world religions, but when she saw a photo of her light-skinned Jamaican great-grandmother Lilla Abrams, whom family lore says was Jewish, “I realized I had to go way back to find out who I am.”

When she moved to an apartment in 2005 in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn, N.Y., she noticed the previous tenant had a left up a poster of a white-bearded man. “I said to myself, ‘I’m going to find out who you are.’ The man turned out to be the Lubavitcher Rebbe. Two years later, after courses and a summer seminary program, she converted. Thirteen years later, now 36, Zik remains there—with her Israeli-born husband and four children. “This somewhat awkward coexistence that lives inside me” fades into the background when she begins to pray, she says. “Having a personal conversation with God as part of the Jewish people, it’s who I’ve always been; I just didn’t know it.”

Mordechai Ben Avraham

Black and Mordechai Ben Avraham are both African-Americans from the West Coast (Seattle and Los Angeles, respectively), and both found Judaism in their 20s. But their early environment could hardly have been more different.

Growing up in an affluent neighborhood with a successful businessman father and a professor mother, “my focus was on how someday I could make more money than my dad.”

Ben Avraham’s spiritual journey took him from Sufism to the Kabbalah until at 22 he experienced Shabbat in a Carlebach-style minyan. “It was like I was floating in outer space. This is what Jews do? This is amazing! The Torah, the prayers, this beautiful spiritual system God gave to the Jews for people to transform themselves—they literally grabbed my heart.” His conversion was complete in 2013 with his move to Israel three years later.

Now 39, the former TV producer is living in the heart of Jerusalem’s religious Mea Shearim neighborhood, working towards his rabbinical degree and publishing a book on the joys of Torah as a black Jew.

But why would anyone who’s already making a huge leap religiously and culturally choose to embrace Orthodoxy with its full menu of mitzvot, accepting the Torah as Divine and committing to living within halachah (Jewish law)?

“If someone is going to make this big of a change completely based on their need to go beyond, there’s a very real tendency to go what many would consider ‘all the way,’ ” says Henry Abramson, dean of Brooklyn’s Touro College and author of The Kabbalah of Forgiveness: The Thirteen Levels of Mercy in Rabbi Moshe Cordovero’s Date Palm of Devorah (2014), among other titles.

A shared history

Much of this tendency to search spiritually can be traced to African-Americans’ religious experience in America, adds Abramson. “Since the 1960s, we’ve seen the phenomenon of questioning the Christianity foisted on their slave ancestors.”

And though Islam has attracted many of these disenfranchised souls—in part, he says, because the black Muslim culture permeated prisons beginning in the 1960s—Judaism offers another option.

Ben Avraham maintains that, in a spiritual sense, Judaism may feel familiar to those raised in the black church. “Like Judaism, gospel Christianity is an intense personal relationship with God without any intermediaries,” he says.

This is a connection Ben Avraham experiences every day of his life. “Living in Mea Shearim, in a fundamental way, I’m around people who are just like me. I just connect with my Chassidic neighbors.”

A growing fissure

But after the 1960s and ’70s, when Jews fought alongside blacks for civil rights in the United States and in South Africa, “there’s been a growing fissure between blacks and Jews,” says Rabbi Maury Kelman who, as director of Route 613, a New York City conversion program, has welcomed many students of different races into his classes.

And, with last summer’s rise in violence between the African-American community and the religious Jewish community, primarily in New York,” says Black, “lately, it’s gotten uglier.”

‘I cried all the way home’

Not everyone in the Jewish community rolls out the proverbial red carpet for someone of color.

After working up the courage to walk into synagogue on Shabbat, Zik couldn’t miss the two women glaring at her, eventually yelling at her to get out and threatening to call the police before giving chase.

“I cried all the way home, but my friends would not let me give up,” she says. “I also knew from everything I’d read about the Rebbe, with his emphasis on love and kindness, that eventually this would be the right place for me.”

“Unfortunately, like in all communities, you’ll find the occasional ignorant Jew or racist,” allows Kelman, who offers programs on the importance of accepting the convert.

A time of racial tensions

With this year’s heated racial debates and demonstrations following the May 25 killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, where does that put Jews of color, with feet in both the African-American and Jewish worlds?

Zik, for one, helped lead a rally in Crown Heights this summer where black neighbors shared their experiences with racism. “It was a reminder,” she says, “that the Torah teaches us to protect the rights of all God’s children.”

And the learning goes both ways, she adds. “When black friends ask me if now that I’m Jewish, do I have money? I tell them about the Jews I know who struggle to pay for rent, food and their kids’ yeshivah tuitions. I tell them that, when I’ve had my babies, neighbors bring us meals and help furnish the nursery. People here always want to do another mitzvah.”

Ben Avraham also says he better appreciates African-American history because he is a Jew. “We can see our own story reflected in the Torah,” he says. “Our two peoples had so many struggles just to survive.”

Adds Black: “Just knowing there are black religious Jews can help the two communities see they aren’t completely separate after all—not to judge each other so quickly.”

Kelman agrees. “Black Jews can be a terrific bridge chiefly because they have credibility on both sides. It’s increasingly important to teach our fellow Jews that we’re a family that comes in different colors, that Judaism is colorblind,” he says. “Once they convert, they’re just as Jewish as any of us—and our diversity only strengthens us.”

‘Something bigger than myself’

By the end of “Mothaland Bounce,” the guys from the ’hood and the Chassids are dancing together with Black as ringmaster.

But it may be “A Million Years” that’s Black’s love letter to Judaism.

In this 2016 music video (with singer Yisroel Laub), Black takes a journey proudly carrying a Torah throughout Israel—archeological digs, mountain caves, a busy shuk (marketplace) and Jerusalem’s Old City—turning heads as he goes. (Don’t miss the moment when Black stops to let some haredi kids lovingly kiss the Torah), finally nestling it inside a synagogue’s ark.

“Since I was a kid, I was looking to be part of something bigger than myself,” says Black. “I prayed and prayed, and finally, I knew who I needed to be, a Jew, and where I needed to be, the Holy Land. It took time but now God’s answered my prayers. And one thing I know is that to God there is no such thing as color. He sees us for who we are inside.”

As he raps:

“I came from a distance Where everything was different … I called out to You And You showed me that You listened … I gave my all to You And You showed me who I am.”

#Israel #Jews of Color

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smalltragedy · 3 years

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* herman tommeraas, cis man + he/him | you know donovan mercer, right? they’re twenty one, and they’ve lived in irving for, like, four months? well, their spotify wrapped says they listened to ice boy by corbin like, a million times this year, which makes sense ‘cause they’ve got that whole fear hidden behind a stoic stare, bleeding from your nose and from your gums, and the night sky with all its stars, with all its mystery and unknown thing going on. i just checked and their birthday is march 15th, so they’re a pisces, which is unsurprising, all things considered. ( james, 21, est, they/them )

yes hi i did bring ducky back. i promised. please love him jst the same im sry he had 2 go fr a while.

ABUSE, VIOLENCE, DRUG ABUSE, EYE INJURY, GANG MENTIONS TW.

mini playlist.

father ;; the front bottoms / ice boy ;; corbin / lose yourself ;; eminem / my own worst enemy ;; lit / say it ain’t so ;; weezer / maps ;; yeah yeah yeahs / star stopping ;; lil peep / benz truck ;; lil peep / trauma ;; nf / northern downpour ;; panic! at the disco / your graduation ;; modern baseball.

statistics.

full name: donovan mercer.

nickname(s): ducky.

birthday: march 15th, 1999.

zodiac: pisces sun, aquarius moon, aquarius ascending.

label: the despondent.

hometown: hell’s kitchen, new york.

sexuality: bisexual (bt not out).

pinterest.

biography.

born in hell’s kitchen to vinny mercer and a mother who ran out of the hospital as fast as she could, as soon as she was able. she’d gone so quick that she’d never given ducky a middle name - just donovan. the younger brother of mercy (shoutout 2 bri)

his father’s the right-hand man of a well known mob boss named lars amaretto, and so, you can imagine the kind of environment ducky (& mercy) grew up in. weapon & drug dealings, interrogations, violence around every corner. a brutal way of living, no place to raise two children.

implied abuse tw // their father was not kind, or merciful - and ducky was a runt compared to mercy, small and sensitive and kinder than his brother. weak, and filled with softness, with big brown eyes and a smile that should’ve been able to melt ice - but it didn’t. and it never did.

he cried often, and was punished often for it until he learned to stop crying - at least in front of their father, and mercy too, at some point. only in the comfort of his room, with doors locked and blinds drawn closed. implied abuse end of tw

he dreamed, too, dreamt often. he’d been obsessed with outer space since childhood, as long as he could remember. school had once shown man landing on the moon, and ducky wanted that. wanted to be that, wanted to be there, up with the stars, discovering the unthinkable.

abuse mention // but it was discouraged, heavily so - projects destroyed by an angry fist only to be reconstructed to the best of ducky’s ability, with mercy’s help, all throughout the night. he’d saved up for a telescope when he was thirteen, but it’d been destroyed almost immediately when discovered. not a day went by that their father didn’t tell ducky that he was, first and foremost, stupid - and would always be. end of abuse mention

to the point where he stopped trying, simply. he never graduated high school.

abuse mention // anxiety mention // anyways … at the age of fifteen, he’d have enough. he was sick of the abuse, the pain - the crying behind closed doors, the sneaking around, the constant feeling of needing to escape, impending doom, anxiety attacks in the shower and in school bathrooms and at the back of the bus where nobody sat besides him because he was - that boy, the son of that man, the brother of that brute. he’d been a teenager and he’d already been an outcast by all means - an outcast in his family, no matter how hard he tried to appease vinny, and an outsider everywhere else.

the plan took months of preparation, paper ripped out from the back of his school notebook and stuffed beneath his mattress, details of his escape from a checklist of essential items to makeshift maps of bus routes to different cities.

all for nothing, the moment vinny discovered it, the edge of a map sticking out after a rushed morning.

heavy abuse tw // violence tw // it’d been the same day he’d gotten the nickname - ducky - the way the wound wrapped below his mouth, and the way it’d begun to heal - puckered, at first, like a duck’s bill. a better name than eyepatch, at the very least. the scar’d run from the arch of his left brow, across his eye, down his cheek, and below his lip. his eye sustained injury, and not allowed to see a doctor about it, it never healed properly.

eye injury // corneal scarring, impairing his left eye. astronaut dreams destroyed, but not in a matter of seconds. in the matter of an hour, maybe more - and that’d been much, much worse.

he stopped trying to run away after that. tried to be more like their father, more like mercy - more brutish, less feeling. spoke less, and less. spoke hardly at all, unless spoken to first.

still didn’t matter. still lived his days in fear, still knew it’d never change. nothing would ever change.

the mercer brothers have been floating around the north carolina scene for ~5ish years now, trailing after their father who is consistently chasing after their mother with no luck. they’re currently residing in palm motel. can we get a hell yeah?

personality & facts.

he’s actually very? intimidating? when you first meet him. mercy’s younger brother, with a criminal’s record almost as long as his - a scarred face and a mean resting face. it takes at least five minutes of conversation beyond small talk before it starts to weigh on your mind that maybe, he’s not as bad as he seems.

and - well, he isn’t. but he’s guarded - so guarded. more-so than mercy, because mercy’s quicker to anger, quicker to react, and ducky tries so hard to drown out the noise. but he’s not a robot, and his facial expressions can give him away in a second.

he’s seen what happened when mercy had a glimpse of something good in his life (though, it wasn’t actually good at all - mercy had someone, at least. at the very least) - and how quickly it’d all fallen, and so ducky puts a barrier between him and others. distant, as much as he can be.

it hurts, because ducky isn’t by any means antisocial. he doesn’t hate people - he wants to be normal, wants to have friends and a girlfriend - or maybe even a boyfriend, god - but he’s so afraid. ducky is, by nature, a very scared person. terrified to his very core. he knows there is always eyes on him, and mercy too, and he knows that nothing is worth getting someone else hurt.

you know him as mercy’s little brother, and he’s quiet you know that - but his name is ducky, and you think - he’s not too bad. and he knows this, knows the doubts. knows that it’ll get back to mercy, eventually, that his brother is nothing more but a pussy. so he fights more than he’d like to, against the guilt that buries itself deep within his chest with every thrown fist. he throws up, afterwards, in the garbage can outside. too much to drink, he says, rare grin - because grins are convincing, and grins with bleeding gums are intimidating. he learned that from his brother.

violence makes him sick to his very stomach. he can’t watch horror films, or even action films, without feeling queasy. there’s been more times than he can count where he’d thrown up after a fight, or after an interrogation, usually in private but in the occasional presence of mercy.

they fight, a lot, sometimes - ducky’s too soft, too weak, and it’s bad and it’s terrible and ducky knows that mercy’s afraid. for him, of their father, and his wraith. ducky knows that if mercy isn’t hard on him now, their father will be on him harder. still. there’s resentment, small but there, like the flame of a match. he doesn’t know what’ll happen when there’s nothing more to burn, but he doesn’t want to find out. he’s afraid to find out.

he’s still in love with the moon and the stars, and the planet’s - and their moons, too. its subdued, now, though. a silent passion - one that is often not watered, left for rot. he sneaks into engineering lectures at the community college, occasionally, or physics, or whatever peeks the small curiosity inside of him.

commits small acts of kindness when nobody looks. doors held open, the meals of elderly folk eating alone suddenly paid. picks up litter besides trash bins, and always cooks extra than what he needs and leaves the rest for mercy. it’s these small things that make him feel, just the slightest, better about himself.

because god - there are layers and layers of self-loathing. it’s a labyrinth, and he’d never speak of it - but he can’t stand his own reflection. doesn’t keep photos of his family, only a few sparingly of mercy.

a liar, sad to say. has little experience with. ehem. intimacy, and the bodies of others, but lies often and says that he does. mostly to his brother, but word travels quick - and he’s not nearly as much as a fuckboy as is rumored, having only been with a handful of girls, if even that. it’s better this way - if people know that he throws others away like they’re nothing.

he ghosts often, too, if he does get to talking with anybody. the moment ducky feels a spark, something pulling at his poor heart, he ghosts. he develops feelings too easily, too often than he’d like. has left many friendships without explanation, because of this. you know the priest in fleabag season 2? the scene where he comes to fleabag’s house? yeah. tht’s ducky!

has maybe half the amount of clients that mercy does, but he’s working on it.

pretends he doesn’t care as much as he does. pretends a lot, like there’s nothing soft to him. but a trained eye can see clearly through this. even so - even if you can see that there’s more to ducky than violence and drug deals - you’d still have to break through a dozen walls.

in the rare occasion you get him talking - i mean, talking a lot - he’ll talk about space. ramble off a dozen useless facts about dwarf stars and black holes and all of jupiter’s moons. about a video game he likes, about nothing and everything at all. but as soon as he begins, he stops - embarrassed. apologizes, shuts his mouth, disappears to wherever. anywhere but there.

drug abuse // has a. complicated relationship with benzos n xanax n a various assortment of painkillers. ironic bc he hates drugs due to. his chosen career n wldnt do most of what they sell, bt yknow. this ws inevitable. hates beer bt forces himself 2 drink it bc toxic masculinity probably man idk.

overall just … he’s a soft boy, with a big heart - bigger than anybody else in his family, that’s for sure, but his exterior is far different than that, and it’s hard to tell.

violence mention // purposely loses fights so that he doesn’t have to severely hurt someone. because sometimes he just - he was raised in a violent environment, and sometimes he snaps. sometimes ducky just fucking snaps. and his vision goes red, and he can’t control himself - because need to survive kicks in, and violence is all he knows. if someone pushes ducky - pushes him enough, he breaks. he fights back. it’s all he knows. it’s all he knows. it’s all he knows, and that’s not an excuse - and he knows this, and god, he’s so tired. he is so. tired.

wanted plots.

u look good tonight ... ;; wld love a connection in which he is feeling emotionally compromised n maybe kinda hs a thing w someone bt hes like. very unreliable n kinda ghosting bc he is very afraid n it wld b maybe bad fr them to b anything other than hook ups. cld apply to smth very intensive or smth very surface lvl i’ll take thousands.

palms sweaty ... moms spaghetti ... ;; ppl tht ducky just hs fkn brawled. cld b anybody fr any reason. ducky prob lost n he prob lost on purpose bt also ur muse cld maybe kick ducky’s ass? cld b a fake fight cld b a real fight. cld b a npc fight n then ur muse cn patch up ducky? possibilities endless. maybe they hv a nice spaghetti dinner n both of them r both bruised up frm their fight. sometimes fights end in spaghetti dinners. thanks eminnem or whatever.

own worse enemy... ;; ducky needs friends bt hes bad at making friends n sometimes he fks shit up by pushing ppl away n self sabotaging n being a major cunt n sometimes he just ghosts bt hes always very remorseful abt it? this cld b a very like. up n down friendship of any type its just. where do they stand. r they friends. r they enemies. r they lovers? probably not lovers. prob just platonic. but still its the thought tht counts.

and also ;; literally just like. anything. clients who buy off of him n like. casual friends n casual enemies n casual hookups. ppl hes ghosted. ppl hes embarrassed himself in front of. maybe ur muse tries to get ducky to socialize or maybe ducky is like. u are too much fr me. n ur muse runs off crying. endless possibilities all u hv to do is call this number now.

#irvingintro #abuse tw #violence tw #drug abuse tw #gangs mention #eye injury tw #chuckles evilly #im a madman #anyways this is like essentially a repost

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grailfinders · 4 years

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Fate and Phantasms #67: Medea (Lily)

Today on Fate and Phantasms we’re taking a blast to the past with Medea again, this time before Jason screwed things up. Medea Lily is a witch with an extreme focus on healing and removing status effects. If you think that sounds like somebody got their cleric in your wizard, you’re right!

Check out the breakdown below the cut, or the build sheet over here!

Race and Background

Much like the older Medea, the younger Medea is a High Elf Noble. This gives her +2 Dexterity; +1 Intelligence; History, Perception, and Persuasion proficiency; 60′ of Darkvision; the ability to Trance instead of sleep; Fey Ancestry giving you advantage on being charmed, and the Prestidigitation cantrip. The only difference here is the cantrip- you’re not that aggressive yet. (Almost like they have the same backstory or something.)

Stats

Make sure your Intelligence is high-studying magic is hard, but you’re good at it. Second is Charisma- you’re a child, people like you. Most people, anyway. After that is your Wisdom- you failed one really important insight check, but you’re good at healing and some of your spells explicitly use your wisdom modifier even as wizard spells. Children are pretty nimble, so pick Dexterity next. We really don’t want to dump Constitution, so we’re dumping Strength instead. Medea was never a powerhouse, and you’re still a teenager.

Class Levels

1. Like Medea before (after?) her, Medea Lily is a Wizard, meaning at first level she has proficiency in Intelligence and Wisdom saves and two wizard skills. Arcana will help with your studies, and Medicine will help you heal when you run out of health slots.

First level wizards learn Spells that use their intelligence to cast, and they can also perform an Arcane Recovery, regaining half their level (rounded up) in spell levels on a short rest once per long rest.

Wizards get a lot of spells first level, so to speed things up, I’m just listing them and bolding the ones that are very important or very in character. For cantrips: Blade Ward, Mending, Light, False Life, Mage Armor, Protection from Evil and Good, Shield, Sleep, and Magic Missile.

Mending is literally how Pain Breaker works, restoring something to how it once was. Mage Armor is one of those “you can’t prove they don’t know it” spells, but it’s good for not dying. You have 6 health. Don’t get hit. Finally, you might not specialize in offense, but having some caster balls to throw around in a fight isn’t a bad idea.

2. At second level you specialize in a school of magic, and Theurgy will help you get that delicious cleric chocolate mixed in with your wizard peanut butter. You get a Divine Inspiration, picking a domain that will flavor your later features and spell list. Life is pretty self explanatory for this character-it’s almost entirely what you like to do. You become an Arcane Initiate, letting you learn Life Domain spells, and after learning all those you can learn other cleric spells as well. Finally, you learn to Channel Arcana, giving you power similar to a cleric’s channel divinity feature once per short rest. Divine Arcana uses your bonus action to add 2 to your next spell’s attack roll or saving throw, and is useless in this build. Preserve Life uses your action to heal five times your level in HP split among any number of creatures within 30′ of you. You can’t heal creatures past the halfway point this way, and you can’t heal constructs or the undead at all.

Now that we have our list, it’s time to fill it out. Bless and Cure Wounds are our first Domain Spells, and they’re also very in-character. Being a white mage without healing is kind of difficult, and Pain Breaker lets you reset your party to peak performance to enhance their saves and attacks.

3. Third level wizards get second level spells, and we’re going to continue to fill out our cleric spell list out with Lesser Restoration and Spiritual Weapon. The former is another Thing Pain Breaker Can Do, ending one disease or the blinded, deafened, paralyzed, or poisoned condition with a touch. The latter... isn’t really your style, but if Jason can summon the Argonauts to fight for him, you should be able to get their weapons at least. You use your bonus action to summon a floating weapon that lasts for 1 minute without concentration, with the ability to attack with your bonus action (and on cast) and also move 20′ per round.

4. Use your first Ability Score Improvement to grab a feat. You’re a caster from the age of gods, so you’re just a little bit more magical than everyone else thanks to being Fey Touched. This raises your Wisdom by 1 to round it out, and you learn Misty Step and Beast Bond. You can cast one of these spells once per day for free, and again with a spell slot, but they both use Wisdom as the casting modifier. Not that this is an issue- neither one has a save or attack roll.

For even more spells, Spare the Dying is a cantrip that you technically shouldn’t be able to get yet, but whatever else you’d get we’d just replace at level 9 anyway. It lets you spend an action to stabilize a creature without a medicine check. Healing would be explicitly better, but sometimes you don’t have spell slots.

For your spells that need slots, Gentle Repose extends the timer to revive a corpse by a week, and the corpse can’t rot or become undead during that time. See Invisibility lets you see invisible things, as well as the astral plane. Pain Breaker returns things to the way they should be, and most things should not be invisible.

5. You know the deal: a new spell level, another notch on your cleric spell list added. Beacon of Hope gives any number of creatures in range advantage on wisdom and death saves for up to a minute, and they always heal the maximum possible from any source of healing. Revivify brings a creature that died within the last minute back to life with one HP. This is the one thing Pain Breaker can’t do, but we need it to fill out the list, so we’ll have to suck it up and be better than the real deal. Sorry, I guess?

6. Sixth level Theurgists become Arcane Acolytes. They can Channel Arcana twice per short rest, and gain the first level benefits of being a cleric of their domain. Disciple of Life heals creatures you’re already healing with a spell of first level or higher by 2 plus the spell’s level.

Speaking of healing spells... we’re still stuck in the wizard spell list, so we’re not getting any. Instead, grab Dispel Magic and Remove Curse so Pain Breaker can break magical effects as well as simple damage.

7. Another spell level up, another round of cleric spells. For the fourth level, Death Ward prevents one creature from dying when they would the first time it happens within 8 hours after casting. Guardian of Faith is another spell we have to take, flavor be damned but just say you’re calling down Herc to bust some heads; he’s always down for that.

8. Use your next ASI to increase your Dexterity to help you not die. You may have noticed we’re not taking a beeline for Intelligence this build- since most of your spells are healing, a super high save isn’t that useful for you.

Honestly there aren’t many fourth level spells that work for you, so let’s go back and grab Catnap to remove the tired debuff from the party in 10 minutes rather than an hour, and Protection from Energy for some proactive healing, a.k.a. blocking.

9. When you get fifth level spell slots, we can finally finish up the Life Domain spell list. Grab Mass Cure Wounds for our first healing buff since level 2 and Raise Dead for another spell that breaks canon but is super useful. Also, replace that last cantrip with Spare the Dying if your DM’s a stickler.

10. Tenth level Theurgists become Arcane Priests, gaining the sixth level benefits of being a Life cleric. The Blessed Healer feature means that healing others is the best way to heal yourself. Probably not the best way, but a way. Whenever you cast a spell to heal another creature, you also heal by 2+ the spell level. Now you can heal while you heal while you heal.

Now that we’re free to grab more cleric spells, we can spread out a bit. Resistance helps keep a member of the party on their game with 1d4 on a saving throw as a cantrip. Greater Restoration can reduce a target’s exhaustion level; or end a charm, petrification effect, one curse (including attuning to a cursed item), one ability score reduction, or one hit point maximum reduction. Dream lets you shape a creature’s dreams, either as a way to communicate, or a way to torture Jason. If you choose the latter, he’ll take some psychic damage and lose the effects of that rest on a failed wisdom save. Also, if you have a bit of his hair or body part, he’ll have disadvantage on the save. Just something to plan ahead for.

11. Eleventh level wizards get sixth level spells, but now that we have a whole new spell list to play with, we may end up going back for some low level spells too. Heal combines Lesser Restoration with Cure Wounds to heal 70 HP and end blindness, deafness, and any diseases on the target. Going all the way back to level one, Purify Food and Drink removes poison and disease from a 5′ radius of food and drink, which is probably how it should be.

12. Now that we have a way to torment Jason, let’s bump our Intelligence up a bit to make that save even harder for him. True Seeing follows that tenuous thread of logic that justified See Invisibility to its conclusion, giving one creature you touch Truesight and the ability to see the Ethereal Plane up to 120′ away. Contingency lets you cast a fifth level or lower spell up to 10 days in advance, taking effect immediately after its contingency is met. The tough part about being the healer is that nobody’s there to heal you. Now when you drop for the first time, you can instantly give yourself a fifth level Cure Wounds and keep going.

13. Thirteenth level wizards get seventh level spells. Regenerate and Calm Emotions will help you restore people to their natural states, both physically and mentally.

14. Fourteenth level Theurgists get to skip to the head of the class and become Arcane High Priests, nabbing the cleric’s 17th level feature before even they do. Supreme Healing means that all your healing spells always work at maximum power, no rolls required. This really amps up Prayer of Healing for out-of-combat heals, and all that extra HP makes Warding Bond a slightly less terrible idea.

15. With your eighth level spell slots, you can get a Holy Aura, giving allies within 30′ of you advantage on all saves, and imposing disadvantage on all attacks against them. Also, when a fiend or undead attacks, they have to make a Constitution save or be blinded for the duration. The Antimagic Field is more your older self’s domain, but most magical effects aren’t the way things naturally are, so we can swing it here too.

16. Use your next ASI to bump up your Constitution for more not-dying. Also, grab Telepathy for better communication with the party and Aura of Life for auto-healing and necrotic resistance.

17. When you finally get ninth level spells, Mass Heal and Power Word Heal should come in handy. The latter is just about as strong as healing gets in D&D, fully restoring a creature’s health, ending any effect that is charming, frightening, paralyzing, or stunning them, and they can use their reaction to stand from prone.

18. You gain Spell Mastery in one first level and one second level spell, letting you cast them without using spell slots at all. You can swap these around if you need to, so don’t feel too much pressure here. That being said, Cure Wounds and Lesser Restoration are good picks, so you can always have some healing ready. Also, you can now Channel Arcana three times per short rest.

For spells, Invulnerability lets you heal yourself so quickly that you don’t take any damage at all, and Wish will cover anything that comes up you don’t have covered.

19. With your last ASI, max out your Intelligence for the highest saves and most prepared spells. Now that your saves are as good as they’ll get, grab Dispel Evil and Good to protect yourself from extraplanar creatures. The spell lasts for up to a minute with concentration, but you can end it early to end an enchantment effect from an extraplanar creature, or to try and dismiss such a creature with a melee spell attack and a failed charisma save. Hallow can protect an area in a 60′ radius from those creatures, and you can give it an extra effect when you cast the spell. Both of these features last until the magic is dispelled, but it takes a full day to set up and costs 1,000 gp per cast. Useful for setting up a base, not so much in an emergency.

20. Your capstone level gives you two Signature Spells, third level spells you can cast for free once per long rest. Picking Dispel Magic and Remove Curse means your Pain Breaker will be working even longer than before. For your final spells, Scrying is just useful, and Temple of the Gods, letting you create a small temple over the course of an hour with a door only creatures you designate can open, and the ability to force extraplanar creatures away from it. Casting the spell every day for a year can make the building permanent. Does it match Medea Lily’s skillset? Not really. But it’s cool, and you deserve cool things for making it to level 20 with less than 100 HP.

Pros:

You are really good at healing, and you get to enjoy a late-game healing boost much earlier than you really should to be even better at it.

You can shut down a lot of status effects easily, or prevent your party members from getting them in the first place.

Spells like Dispel Magic, True Seeing, and Protection from Energy mean that you’re pretty good at dealing with magical threats, and at higher levels you’re especially good against extraplanar creatures.

Cons:

Ultimately, healing away damage isn’t as effective as preventing that damage by killing the threat, so your most effective use will be outside of combat. Statuses like being blinded or deafened are much more pressing concerns, though.

You have a very limited offense. Magic Missile can be fine to fall back on (unless they know shield), but you don’t have a lot of power behind it.

Your HP is super low, barely breaking 100 by level 20. That means power word kill will be a huge threat to you, especially without your older self’s counterspell. Also, plenty of martial classes can easily deal that much damage in one turn. Healing doesn’t matter much if you’re dead.

Next up: Time for a great victory!

#Fate Grand Order #fgo #Medea lily #D&D 5e #Fate and Phantasms

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sparksinthenight · 3 years

Text

Advice for Little Me

This is advice that I have for my twelve-year-old self. If I’d known all this at twelve my life would be a whole lot better.

1) Capitalists are horrible, manipulative, lying, selfish, apathetic, overwhelmingly dangerous, incredibly bad for society, wrong, and deeply disturbed.

2) Anyone who ever says or insinuates that they earned the wealth they have are the worst types of people.

3) Anyone who goes around measuring the value of a human being by how fancy their job is incredibly shallow, materialistic, lacking in understanding, and not worth your time.

4) No. No people did not "earn" anything through hard work. They got it through privilege, privilege, privilege, and privilege. The fact that they could afford a decent quality highschool education is already a huge privilege. And no, being poor when they were in college absolutely does not count as not having privilege. They got to go to college. That’s a privilege so many don’t get.

5) You know who's actually working hard? The people in the sweatshops, the mines, the agricultural plantations, the warehouses, etc. The people getting paid poverty wages as they work themselves to death. Have some fucking respect for them you’re not above them just because you were born in a rich family.

6) All humans have equal value.

7) And the value of a human being is inherent.

8) If you have a house and fancy furniture and a flatscreen TV and a car and a closet full of clothes and enough money to go to restaurants and golfing and shit and then you turn around and say you're oppressed I fucking hate you so goddamn much.

9) The voices of the poor people are fucking ALWAYS silenced in this world, all over the world.

10) There's men in suits somewhere defending capitalism and our centrist dads are defending them while most of the world are wage slaves.

11) The poor are always ignored, pushed to the side, and silenced.

12) Hi. Hello person reading this. Check out the Red Deal. It's fucking awesome. Please read it. It will save your soul and change your life.

13) Also my Wattpad account is here please check it out https://www.wattpad.com/user/Balladoad it won't save your soul and change your life but I write communist stories.

14) Your value is inherent. Child. Darling. Your value is inherent. You are alive. That is enough. You don't need a fancy job or a big income or a fancy degree or something. You're a human being trying to do the best you personally can with the resources and knowledge you have and in the situation you're in. Your value is inherent. Baby.

15) Check out the Red Deal.

16) Nobody is liberated. None of us are liberated. Especially under capitalism none of us are liberated. We are all equal. We are all capable of being free. Of having an equal amount of power. Of making decisions equally and democratically where everyone has a seat at the round table. Seperation is a myth. Wow that sounds like a fucking hippie thing to say but I mean it in the most practical, tangible way. We are all equal and we should be treated equally and under capitalism we are not. Not even close. We can all be together, all be comrades, all help and support each other, all protect and provide for each other, all listen to and understand each other, and all create a world where finally, finally people are free.

17) True freedom does not and should not feel forced. Corporate capitalists tell us that freedom is the ability to be successful in the capitalist framework. That is not what true freedom is. True freedom comes from within. It does not feel forced. It feels good and right and beautiful and true. It's not forced upon you it's something that sparks to life inside your own soul.

18) Sucess as a human being is about the kindness and compassion you show other people. Which is actually rather inversely proportional to how much money you make from what I've seen. At every step of your life seek out people who need help and help them.

19) Children should all be treated with equal respect, reverance, affection, and love.

20) Your value is inherent. Human value is inherent. Valuing human life does mean valuing the continuation of human life but not just that. It means valuing the quality of human life too. It means valuing human happiness.

21) Take every opportunity you have to learn. Not learn trivial "knowledge" about string theory or CRISPR or valence orbitals. Real, important knowledge about how to be kind to other people. How to be respectful towards other people. How to uplift the downtrodden. How to be in solidarity with the oppressed. How to live in harmony with other people. How to tear down the walls that divide us. How to live in harmony with nature. How to have respect and reverence for nature. How to protect and defend the Land and Water. How to be brave to put the needs of others before your own. How to think for yourself and be your own person. How to live your life in accordance to the truth and intangible mystic forces behind everything that guide us all. Wow that sounded hippie.

22) People are exploited and oppressed. So many people are exploited and oppressed. They deserve better than this.

23) You shouldn’t go after power. Seeking power is the way to corruption. You should seek to destroy the unequal distribution of power itself so that all people can have equal power.

24) Absolutely power corrupts absolutely. Power corrupts whenever it’s not equally shared.

25) Money is power. It always has been, it always will be. It’s what determines if people are able to eat or not. It’s what makes us spend most of our time at our jobs working for our bosses and doing what they want us to do.

26) Learn history. Please.

27) Read books about the Holocaust. About slavery. About all the types of slavery that have happened in various societies not just the Transatlantic Slave Trade though definitely you should learn about that too. About the Irish Potato Famine, the Armenian Genocide. About colonialism. About settler-colonialism. About feudalism. About monarchy. About the Industrial Revolution. About segregation. About the genocide of Indigenous peoples. About workhouses. About the Witch Trials. About the French Revolution. About the Spanish resistance against fascism. About residential schools. About the 60s Scoop. About the Stolen Generations. About resistance against the Roman Empire. About so much more. Just read them. Make sure they’re not written through the lenses of oppressors and/or rich people though.

28) Recognize that while history affects the present day history IS NOT the present day and present struggles are unique and different though not altogether separated from history. The present day is the present day. It’s struggles are unique and the way that the struggle for universal equality and liberation manifests in the present day is unique.

30) Don’t trust Christian priests.

31) Actually be cautious of any rich, privileged person trying to teach you religion.

32) Just because someone’s older doesn’t mean that they’re right or they know more than you. Knowledge of the truth and wisdom comes from kindness, compassion, humility, and suffering. It does not come from age. A rich man born to a rich family who thinks he’s better than poor people and does not have humility and respect towards them is not someone who knows things, no matter how old he is.

33) Men are generally less trustable than women because they’ve been taught to believe they’re always right and as such do not question themselves and think deeply and critically about their opinions as much as women do.

34) This does not apply to men who are poor or mentally ill since society never teaches them that.

35) Despite this being an unpopular opinion, pain and struggle are actually really good teachers. If you’re suffering, you deserve better. You deserve to not be suffering. But still, use it as an opportunity to learn.

37) Gender roles are the biggest scam ever created.

38) But the even bigger scam is capitalism.

39) You do not need material wealth. It is inherently addictive and bad for yourself, everyone else, and the Land and Water.

40) It’s just stuff. It doesn’t matter.

41) If you’re in a situation where people are treating you like you’re better than other people just get the fuck out of that situation as fast as you can. And never fucking look back no matter what ANYONE says.

42) Have respect and reverence for nature. Learn from it as much as you can. But from like, nature directly. Not from people talking about nature. Unless they’re Indigenous. And pristine, untouched nature is better than nature that’s been tampered with.

43) The world runs on bonds of love more than bonds between atoms.

44) Work hard not for money or to increase the power you have but rather to humbly and reverently improve the lives of the oppressed.

45) But recognize that you can’t do everything and do what you can and don’t beat yourself up over the things you can’t do.

#advice #eat the rich #capitalism #advice for living #advice for myself #I wish someone had told me this #rebellion

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kathyprior4200 · 3 years

Text

Martha’s Revenge

Previously on “Murder Family”

Mrs. Mayberry sat at her desk, looking stunned, her face turning red. The other woman was so young and beautiful. There was her husband, clad naked and showing off his muscles and parts to her.

With a blank shadowed look on her face, the teacher suddenly stood up and walked away. If she wasn’t going to be able to divorce that cheating bastard…

“Wait! Mrs. Mayberry!” called the brown haired girl. She took hold of the teacher’s hand. “Remember what you taught us…think before you act.”

Dark thoughts suddenly festered within the woman and she gripped the girl’s neck before tossing her up in the air through the roof. She stomped out of the room and shut the door. The children ran to the window to watch as she got in her old green car and plowed through a white picket fence. “I love school” was on her license plate. The children rushed to the computer.

The door to the bedroom was quickly pulled open.

“Oh shit, sweetie!” said her husband, caught in the act of fucking the young lady on their master bed. “What are you doing here?”

“Shut up, Jarold!” A newfound rage flared in her eyes. A deadly looking riffle was in her hands. She fired several shots.

The blonde lady shrieked as Mrs. Mayberry moved closer.

“You scream like a fish!” the teacher mentioned to the blonde haired lady.

With a demonic yell, she brutally shot the younger woman across multiple areas of her body. Thick blood splattered everywhere.

Her husband gasped. “Oh god, what have you done?! She had a family!”

“We could’ve had a family!” the blonde teacher sobbed, in a flood of despair and rage. She picked up a bullet and shot her husband square in the head. He collapsed to the floor, dead.

“Oh god, what have I done?” she asked, frazzled, whipping away the blood from the screen. She saw her children stare in horror and disgust. “In front you all.” She broke down into tears, seeing her dead husband in a pool of blood. She spoke her last words through sobs. “I’m so sorry my children. Don’t forget to work on your timestamps.”

Mrs. Mayberry knew there was nothing left for her but jail time and grief. There was only one other option. With shaking hands, she shot herself in the chest with a yelp. The children fainted on the floor one by one at the traumatizing sight. The policeman took the wailing blonde lady to the hospital…and found Mrs. Mayberry’s body lying next to her husband’s on the blood-stained floor.

The blonde lady Martha stared lovingly with a brown uncovered eye at her new muscular husband Ralphie wearing an orange plaid shirt. He had brown hair and an athlete/superhero build. Their two children stood by her bedside as she recovered. The room had bouquets of colorful flowers in every corner. Camera flashed as news reporters talked to her.

“How does it feel to have survived such a crazy bitch?” a newswoman asked.

“I just hope that sick woman finally found peace,” Martha drawled in her hospital bed.

Her husband comforted her, head lowered.

“You are so brave,” the reporter commended to Martha. “Here’s $2 million dollars!”

The woman’s face lit up as she was handed a large golden check. “Oh thank you!” She smiled at the cameras with her husband like she was a movie star.

The stereotypical America family lived in a house near the woods and by a lake. Martha dressed like a housewife with a long polka dot skirt. Her daughter had brown pigtails, a lavender shirt with a tie, and a red skirt, with boots. The younger boy had a beaver-skin cap, a white shirt, brown pants and camouflage boots. On the outside, they were the perfect typical family.

“You’re a hero,” said more news people as she stood elegantly at a VNN (Vivienne News Network) podium.

“You’re a hero, girl,” admired a brown skinned jogger with short blonde passing Martha by. Martha basked in the attention and wealth. Who knew that getting shot at would change her life for the better.

“My mama’s a hero!” declared the son.

“She is a hero!” The brown haired casher agreed down to him as the family went grocery shopping.

“Ooooh…You’re a hero!” moaned her husband as he thrust his penis wildly in and out of her as they made love in their bedroom. Their walls were covered with pelvises and newspaper clippings of Martha under “local hero” headings.

“You’re a hero,” smiled an old praying priest who stood by her at one church meeting.

Even worse for Mayberry, a new class of children cheered, “You’re a hero!” to Martha when she taught a “How to deal with trauma 101 class.”

“Oh you’re a hero!” another man groaned as he wildly gave her anal.

“That’s gotta be her,” Blitzo whispered. He then chuckled darkly. “This is too easy.” He looked over at Moxxie. “Moxxie, do you want this one?”

Moxxie looked stunned and smiled nervously. “Me?”

“Yeah, this one’s simple enough for you to handle. It’s just a happy mother who just got out of the hospital.”

Moxxie stood up and looked through the window. His face fell as he looked at the happy family enjoying dinner. A pig’s head was at the center of the table. The house was decorated with axes and guns on the walls. A lamp stand seemed to be made out of a spinal column. Ralphie and Martha affectionately rubbed each other’s noses, Martha holding a dinner platter in her hand.

“You snooze you lose, Mox!” Blitzo called out.

He got out his gun, which was black with flames painted on it. The reflector was an upside down cross and it hovered over Martha’s face. She smiled with large doe eyes and blinked innocently.

“And I’ve got you, bitch,” Blitzo murmured.

“Wait, are we actually killing a family?!” Moxxie asked in disbelief.

“No, don’t be a puss, we’re just killing a mother,” Blitzo remarked. “We’re running a family.” He grinned and clicked his rifle, positioning it.

“But…” Moxxie began. “Hold on, hold on, let’s just think about it…”

Moxxie lifted up the rifle just before Blitzo fired. The bullet hit a glass mirror in the house, causing the family members to gasp in fear.

“What was that, Ralphie?” Martha asked her husband, who sat at the table.

Ralphie shook his head. “I don’t know Martha, but whatever it is…”

He stood up with a sharp-toothed grin, holding a rifle in his hands.

“They’re gonna be tomorrow night’s dinner!”

Martha set the platter down on the table, downed a glass of wine and smashed the glass on the floor.

“Alright, kids! Guns out!” She called with an evil grin. The kids, too, grinned evilly as they pulled out smaller guns. The boy pulled out his from his brown beaver-skin hat.

“Looks like we’ve got some rabbits to catch, youngins!” Ralphie said with an evil chuckle.

A bullet fired through the wall and shot Blitzo in the arm. He cried out as black blood splattered.

“A new hole!” Blitzo cried in terror. “Scatter!”

Blitzo and Millie leapt into the air just as another gunshot created a larger hole in the wall. A grinning Martha and Ralphie leapt through the hole and chased after them, guns drawn. Moxxie peered out from behind the bush, rapidly looking around. A child’s hand grabbed Moxxie’s pointed tail and he yelped. He only saw a barrage of fists from the children before passing out.

Millie flipped backwards along a cobblestone trail before diving into the lake.

“There you go, little critter!” Ralphie called, firing another bullet. He stepped onto the wooden dock. “Y’all can’t hide long from me!”

Millie had her head above the water under the dock, a knife in her mouth. She broke through the dock with a crash before landing with a grin, knife at the ready. Ralphie swing a beer bottle at her, but she moved behind him out of the way. Millie jumped up in the air, knife in both hands. Ralphie swung the bottle upwards, hitting her in the head. The glass shattered and she fell to the ground with a loud yelp. Millie struggled weakly to stand, but collapsed onto the dock, eye twitching. Ralphie grinned down at her as the sky spiraled red. He picked her up and headed deep into the woods.

Moxxie opened his eyes and gasped with a squeak to find his hands and body tied with rope. He appeared to be tied to a stitched up headless dead body sitting on a chair. Moxxie’s face fell in fear as he stared at the boy and girl in front of him. Both their eyes were red and devious grins formed on their faces.

Moxxie tried to defuse the fear. “Oh. Hello there little ones. Aren’t you cute?”

The children spoke in low distorted voices:

“It’s nice to have a new critter to play with.”

Moxxie glanced up in terror at a red spotlight above him. The light revealed a human head high up and several limbs on plaques. The wooden walls were stained with red blood. Tow plaques held stitched up faces of skin. A larger plaque displayed a dead man with long white hair, arms crossed, eyes and teeth bulging out. His upper chest was connected to the plaque. A picture frame made of bones displayed another face made of skin inside it. Human skin was tacked to the wall with “bless this mess” stitched onto it. Moxxie looked and saw a dead human body on a platter, an apple in its mouth. Organs were displayed in a nearby bowl.

Moxxie took one look at the dead body and whimpered. “Aw. Crumbs.”

Meanwhile, Blitzo was running for his life in the woods. Four gunshots rang out as Blitzo darted through a bush, leaves falling to the ground. Martha’s evil echoing laughter quickened his pace. The imp slide down a grass hill, landing on his feet. He crouched under the bushes, looking around. He panted, catching his breath.

“I know you’re hurtin’, little devil,” drawled Martha in a sing-song voice.

Blitzo darted behind a tree, taking in deep silent breaths. His back was pressed against the bark. He covered his mouth, not daring to move.

“I promise that I can make that pain go real quick.”

Martha walked through the woods, not too far away, in shadow. “Just come let Mama Martha put a bullet in that pretty little skull!”

Blitzo sighed in relief after hearing the footsteps fade.

Out of nowhere, Blitzo found himself being pinned against the tree by the bottom handle of Martha’s gun.

“Got ya!” she grinned. Bltzo’s phone was on the ground, Stolas still talking.

“So, you’re a little devil, huh?” she asked, a wide grin. “Come to drag me and my kin to Hell? Well not today, Satan!”

She pressed the gun further into Blitzo. “Gonna send y’all back where ya came from!”

She hit Blitzo hard and he slumped to the ground. She took him and headed off into the woods.

Back at the house, Moxxie struggled to free his tied up hands and body. In the reflection of the window, he could see the orange yellow lights of fires. He gasped.

“Millie!”

The two kids stared deviously at him. He froze when the girl revealed a long sharp knife in her hands. Moxxie glared, determined. As the girl raised the knife, Moxxie shoved her backwards with the chair. There was a thud as the chair toppled over onto the floor. Moxxie grabbed the knife and cut the rope loose, freeing himself. A “Live, Laugh, Love” sign and a hangman’s noose hung from the wall. Moxxie burst through the round window, a shadow silhouette with glowing yellow eyes. Wasting no time, he raced into the woods and toward rows of torches. Hanging from the trees were red Satanic symbols. There were also tents around the area.

A full moon appeared in the sky from behind thin clouds. Down below, Blitzo and Millie were tied to a stake decorated with black spikes at the top. Ralphie laughed as he poured gasoline onto the ground by their feet. Martha stood nearby, holding a torch in her left hand. Her blouse was torn and low cut, with polka dots on them. Her eyes were red and she wore skull earrings.

Blitzo groaned in frustration. “I had that fucking shot. God dammit, Moxxie.”

“Satan!” Martha declared. “We return your filthy creatures back to the pits of Hell!” She raised her torch. “May the root of evil remain honored as we continue thy work!”

Martha tossed the torch underneath Blitzo and Moxxie, who still struggled to free themselves. Ralphie laughed again. The stake soon lit up in flames…

…leaving the imps unscathed.

“Yeah, that’s not exactly how it works, lady,” Blitzo explained. “Sorry, your fire doesn’t really hurt us, but I mean I could fake it if that’ll get your dick hard.” He smirked and Millie giggled.

“Oh. Shit.” Martha stared confused and rolled her eyes. “I don’t have one.”

Then she got a better idea and grinned. “Well, I’ll just shoot you in your smart-ass mouth!” She held her rifle in her hands.

“That would be more effective,” Blitzo mentioned.

“Blitzo!” Millie spat.

Martha laughed again as she raised the rifle, two barrels pointing at the imps. The imps closed their eyes and flinched.

A loud bang and a yelp was heard. Martha’s eyeball flew from her socket and she collapsed to the ground.

“Moxxie!” Millie cried, seeing Moxxie hold a gun in his hands. Moxxie raced over and untied Millie and Blitzo.

Back inside the house, the boy and girl were in their father’s arms in a corner.

“Don’t move!” Moxxie demanded, pointing his rifle at them. The boy and girl looked scared and innocent. The girl even had a dark gray stitched up teddy bear with her.

Ralphie chucked. “What are you gonna do, little guy? Kill us?”

“I should!” Moxxie replied, stepping back. “You people are monsters!” Then he lowered the rifle. “But… you should have a chance at a life and a purpose. Look at your children. They have their whole future ahead of them! You are going to face your crimes, justly.”

He picked up a remote from a stand. “I am calling your earthly authorities and they will make sure you are dealt with, fairly. I am handing this, my way.”

He pressed a button and a television turned on in the adjacent room. A black and white program played. Moxxie gasped in surprise, then looked down at it.

“Oh shit,” he muttered. The black remote had pink and white buttons reminiscent of a smiling goofy face.

“Uh do you…do you have a phone to summon 911?”

“Yeah, it’s in the kitchen,” Ralphie mentioned behind him.

Moxxie held the remote. “Then what’s this for?”

“It’s a universal remote,” Ralphie replied. “Got it for the kids.” The kids smiled and he pulled them in a hug.

“Aww,” Moxxie smiled, eyes shining.

He called the police and hurried back to the portal in the dark woods.

Moxxie heard the whirl of blades and flashes of light. He turned around. There were police cars and a helicopter in front of the house.

A voice over a loudspeaker said, “We got em’ boys!”

A missile fired at the roof and the entire house exploded in a fiery inferno. Something hit Moxxie in the face. He stared at the ground and found the head of the teddy bear that had flown off. He stared with a shocked look of disbelief on his face. The family that had a chance to be better was now dead.

Blitzo grabbed Moxxie hard by the neck and pulled him through the portal.

***

Hell, Pentagram City

Mrs. Mayberry

October 31st 2020, morning of Murder Family

Mrs. Mayberry woke up staring at a crimson red sky. Her form had completely changed… Mrs. Mayberry was now a purple demon with stripped curved horns on her head, wearing rectangular glasses. She wore a pale red shirt with x stitches on it, along with an eye where her pendant was on her chest. Her hair was long and white and pulled back with a black bandana. She wore a dark skirt with an upside down cross on it and heels. She also had sharp yellow teeth.

After finding a place to live and shying out of sight from shady strangers, Mrs. Mayberry had the chance to continue her career where she left off. So she did. It took some learning and adaptation to Hell’s culture but fortunately...it was pretty simple.

Mrs. Mayberry was soon hired at “Pentagram Penitentiary Place,” one of the top public schools in the district. It was a large school for grades K-12. The name of the school was in black letters surrounded by a red downward facing pentagram over the black front doors. “All grades in one place!” read the slogan. The building was of red-orange brick with three rows of low cracked windows facing the front. The outdoor playground consisted of rusted basketball hoops, a jungle gym, dark asphalt and a swing set that made squeaky sounds every time it was used. The slide was high up and made of metal, so that it was always painfully hot for the young demon children to slide down. A barbed wire fence with swirls of wire at the top surrounded the prison-like school.

A bunch of middle schoolers were bouncing a demon skull around and tossing it into the basketball hoops. Little preschooler demons rough-housed on the grass-less ground, laughing. One small green dragon kept making burping sounds, emitting orange sparks much to the delight of his peers. A dinosaur used his tail for a black eyed doll girl to use as a jump rope. There was even a little scary-go round that furry bird-like kids went on to test their flying and spin out of control in the air. One white bird crashed against the fence and slid down with a flop.

“Loser!” taunted a bulky blue cyclops kid wearing a baseball cap. He spat on the bird’s upside-down head and laughed with his goons. An older demon with a rhino’s horn was spray-painting teal blue penises on the walls.

“Watch your back!” he called out to a centaur who fired an arrow from a bow, startled. The green lizard demon tied to the target glanced down at the arrow that had almost gotten him in the crotch. He sighed with relief, only to have an ax lodged into his head, thrown by an orange goat teenager.

Nearby were two purple demons with silvery snake hair sitting on a concrete window ledge, wearing blouses, sequined navy skirts and shoes. They were listening to music from their Eye-Pods. One of them was painting her nails and the other took a drag from an e-cigarette. Every kid had a multiple digit number temporarily tattooed on their necks. An E, an M and an H were before the numbers, for elementary, middle and high school. The following number indicated their grade and the last two numbers were their position in alphabetical order. K or a P next to the E stood for kindergarten and preschool.

A loud buzzer rang at the top of the roof, signaling class starting. The children were lined up in front of their respective teachers. Mrs. Mayberry stood in front of her line of preschool demons.

After singing a song about a demonic turtle drowning in a bathtub with the class, she counted each child as they made their way to homeroom. They all filled in and sat at their wooden desks. The demonic alphabet was listed on a nearby poster with translations into English and other languages.

“Good morning!” Mrs. Mayberry trilled in the windowless classroom, scrapping her chalk against the blackboard before catching it with a twirl. “I hope you all did your homework.”

The kids fearfully nodded.

“Hmm, I don’t think you did, EP-04,” she scolded a demon boy wearing an orange shirt with no paper in front of him. “Go sit in time-out.”

The boy groaned and sat on a stool facing the wall. The white dunce cap burned on his head.

“The pledge of allegiance,” Mrs. Mayberry led. The class stood up with their hands on their hearts.

“I pledge allegiance and my soul to the banner

Of His Majesty Lucifer and Her Majesty Lilith

And to the unholy Inferno

For Pentagram City

One nation under Satan

Indivisible

With liberty and chaos for all!”

They sat back down.

“Now let’s sing,” Mrs. Mayberry ordered.

The demonic class broke out into song:

“We love to do our homework and learn stuff every day.”

“And when I throw in these hard questions, you should know just what to say,” Mrs. Mayberry sang.

“Okay!” they cheered.

She wrote an equation on the board. “Divide this number by…”

“Zero!”

“Our favorite paint is…”

“Bloody red!”

“And when there’s a stranger danger…”

“You stab them in the head!” they answered, making stabbing motions with their arms.

“A poison for a deep sleep?” she asked.

“Wormwood! Does no good!”

“The geological components of Hell?”

“Fire and brimstone!” added a girl.

“If you can’t use love…”

“Use hate!”

“Now it’s time for us to say the day and date.”

“Your death day was on January 8th, right?” piped up a boy in the back.

Mrs. Mayberry stopped short. “Hush up! We don’t mention that date.” She turned to the class. “Go on.”

“It’s 3 in the afternoon…” said a boy.

“On October 31st,” said a green girl.

“Hell’s heat is still hot,” said another girl, sweating.

“Let’s watch the episode first!” reminded the dunce boy.

The demons went “la la la” as Mrs. Mayberry stared at the board, red eyes wide.

“Oh my suns! Stop singing children. Shut up!”

The demons fell silent.

“I forgot it’s the new episode! I’m supposed to be off to pursue my revenge!”

“Maybe you could scare your enemies at a death-day party!” a girl suggested with her hands up in the air.

Mrs. Mayberry looked at her hell-phone and saw the last seconds of an I.M.P. commercial. She stood up to walk away.

“Wait! Mrs. Mayberry,” said a girl, taking hold of her hand. “Remember what you taught us. Act before you think.”

Mrs. Mayberry pat her head. “I think not. Work on your timestamps and assignments, children. I’m off to pursue a little education of my own.”

A horn-covered sub man walked in and bellowed, “200 pushups on the double! Or it’s back to your cells!”

The demons got up from their seats and bent down to do the pushups.

Mrs. Mayberry called a taxi outside and it drove her off.

Up on a screen outside her window, Mrs. Mayberry saw a full commercial where she learned of an assassination company called I.M.P.

“Hi there, I’m Blitzo, the “o” is silent and I’m the funder of I.M.P.! Are you a piece of shit that got sent to Hell? Or are you an innocent soul who just so happened to get fucked over by someone else?”

The next shot showed a bulky red demon with horns, wearing a white Ohio shirt/jersey. A sign read, “Some guy who hired us!” The demon spoke:

“After lovingly killing my wife for fucking a delivery man, you could imagine my surprise when I wound down here, after the State of Ohio killed me.” He rammed his meaty fists. “I really wish I could stick it to that yappy jogger who saw me hiding the body!”

“Guess I’m not the only one who murdered my spouse,” she thought. “I’ve also never seen a guy with…such muscles before…”

Blitzo appeared again. “Well luckily for you, thanks to our company’s special access to the living world…we promise to take care of your unfinished business by taking out anyone who may have screwed you over when you were alive!”

The sounds of the imp jingle motivated Mrs. Mayberry as the taxi pulled to a stop in front of the I.M.P. building. She got out, climbed up the stairs and knocked on the office door. It opened and out popped Blitzo.

“Is this I.M.P.?” she asked.

“Yes,” Blitzo said.

“I figured, since I saw the commercial. I have one bad bitch that needs to be killed. And I’ve got a lot to say.”

“Well, come on in then,” he said.

Mrs. Mayberry paced Blitzo’s office at I.M.P. headquarters as she told her story.

“I was a good person before it all went down,” she narrated, pacing to and fro. “I was good my entire life.”

She continued on, adding details about her personal life. She held a cigarette in her hand. Apparently, it was easy to get into unhealthy habits in Hell.

“You do everything right in life, play by the rules, and still get sent down here with all the Hitlers and Epsteins of the world. After one measly massacre propelled by blind rage. So that’s why I’m here. To get my revenge.”

“I mean was she hotter?” Blitzo remarked with a smirk.

The demon’s eyes flared red in anger, her face partially in shadow by the drawn blinds. A lemon tree was in the background with a sign that read “no whores” beside it. Blitzo casually lounged in his office chair.

“I’m just saying I had a hard time understanding the unprompted melodrama you just spat at me, tits,” Blitzo chuckled.

Mayberry growled and her body briefly glowed red. Her cigarette bent in her hand.

Blitzo rolled his eyes. “Anyway I don’t think you quite understand how we’re operating down here.” He stood up and Mrs. Mayberry glared at him. “You see we take revenge on the living and it sounds like the core cast of your sitcom of a death frankly are all probably down here in Hell with you. Boop.”

He bonked her on the nose.

Mayberry’s pointed tail twitched, her purple claws clenched. Her skirt was torn with holes and her feet were cloven hooves. This imp guy was worse than the demonic children she taught.

Mayberry extended her left claws. “Not all of them. That whore survived. Now they all call her a hero.”

She continued. “Between the talk shows and bullshit donations she made so much goddamn cash. Getting shot was the best thing to happen to her.”

Mayberry bashed her fists into the ground, creating cracks. “She’s not a hero!” Mayberry yelled, getting in close to Blitzo’s face.

“Yeah, okay, yeah, my thoughts exactly,” Blitzo stuttered in a rapid nervous voice. He frantically pressed a red button under the desk multiple times. The red light flashed under the “Deranged Client” label on a dashboard. The other labels read, “More Coffee,” “Soiled My Pants,” “Horny Client,” “Client Giving Birth,” “Ghost,” and “Stolas.”

Blitzo later burst through the door, followed by Mrs. Mayberry. “Guys, I’d like you to meet, our newest client!”

The room suddenly burst into flames…Blitzo was furious. He quickly led Mrs. Mayberry outside where she hopped into a taxi to wait back home.

“Bye and don’t worry,” called Blitzo to her, “We’ll get that skank in less than 24 hours or your first kill is free!”

She could only hope that crazy imp and his team could do their job.

As it turned out, Mrs. Mayberry later found out that not only had I.M.P. killed Martha, they also killed her crazy Satanic family. Mrs. Mayberry was very impressed. She held a piece of cake and laughed with the I.M.P. members for a special celebration. Millie talked about how it was okay to kill someone if they tried to kill you back.

“That’s messed up,” mentioned Mrs. Mayberry. Then she smiled. “But I paid for it!”

Everyone laughed again. Mrs. Mayberry felt good among her new allies. She had embraced her past at last.

After the celebration, she got back into the taxi but instead of heading home, she headed further into town.

There was a red Ohio demon for her to thank.

Hell, Pentagram City

Martha

Sometime after Murder Family

Blood red sky. Thin clouds the color of smoke. A giant spinning pentagram hovering in the sky above buildings. A figure slowly got up from the street, stretching their arms and legs, looking around. They slowly got up and looked at their reflection in a window.

Martha’s eyes glowed fiery red as she stared at her new form. Magenta red colored skin and messy thick white hair extending down along her back. A curved piece of white hair covering her missing right eye, which was covered by a red X, like the X on Vaggie. Long slender fingers with sharp black nails. A row of sharp white teeth and pointed horns on her head. Her feet were now cloven hooves and she had a long pointed tail. Succubus bat wings extended from her back…she was now a succubus demon.

In addition, she was wearing the same clothes she had worn when she died: torn dark pants, a belt with a skull on it and matching skull earrings. She wore her torn up white bra with little red hearts on it. She also wore red heels fitted onto her feet that somehow didn’t make her lose balance. Her bracelets around her arm were red, with small glowing pentagrams on it. She wore red lipstick.

Not too far away, Martha saw bodies stirring from the sleep of death. There was a man slowing getting up with two kids.

“Ralphie?” she asked, peering closer. Her feet made soft clopping sounds as her heels made contact with the cracked asphalt.

Ralphie opened his large orange eyes. He had still retained his muscular build from when he was alive, even wearing similar jeans and a torn plaid shirt that was now red instead of orange. His skin was dark gray like a wolf’s and he, too, had a row of sharp teeth. He had beefy arms with fur on them, even having pointed wolf ears as well. Having wolf-like traits, he appeared very much like a hunter. A hunter for his mistress.

Standing up, he rammed his thick fist into a nearby demon, sending the creature into a nearby brick wall. He snatched up the critter’s rifle and tested it in his hands.

“Mama? Papa?” asked two little voices.

Ralphie looked down and gasped. “Kids! You’re alright!”

The formerly white boy was now a small beaver demon, still wearing his shirt, pants and beaver skin hat. His stripped beaver tail had small spikes on it. His sister was wearing her skirt and leggings but this time, she had light pink skin, her two orange pigtails now small living snakes on her head.

“Chuck! Ebony!” Martha cried, embracing her little creature children.

“I knew you’d always be my hero,” Chuck said, straightening his furry cap and backing up along with his sister. “You can live through anything!” His eyes glinted with mischief like a raccoon getting into trouble.

Chuck then paused. “Wait, where are we? Are we…dead? I don’t feel dead.”

“This must be an afterlife,” Ralphie said, scratching his hairy chin.

Martha took in the bustling city filled with demons, the area bathed in a crimson light. The essences of trapped sinners who had died, peered at the group in the forms of eyes from the walls. Her grin spread across her face and she spread out her arms.

“Not just any afterlife…this is Satan’s domain!”

“Hail Satan,” the kids chimed together after a moment.

“We’re in Hell?!” Ralphie exclaimed. “I…I can’t remember what happened. I was holding you two, I heard a loud thunderous boom…our whole house shook like a twister was ripping it apart. And then there was this flash of light, a searing heat and…”

He seized up at the recent painful memory. The kids hugged their father again, Martha running her hand through his matted gray fur on his head. The girl sniffled a bit.

He examined the wandering demons around him, with a raised eyebrow. “Can’t believe I’m still alive, I think. If this is Hell… I thought the creatures would look more red and horny.”

He looked at his wife who titled her head. “Um…besides you. I mean, where are the pitchforks and fire?”

Martha walked over to him, a small sway of her hips. “Ya think I’m horny, huh? I think I had some ideas about what I could do with my horns…someplace.” She gave him a wink and Ralphie smirked. The kids stuck out their tongues and made sounds of disgust.

“Well, first of all, we need to find a place to stay,” Ralphie said. “I have a feelin’ this city ain’t too friendly around newcomers. He held his gun and clicked it a few times.

“But where would we go?” Martha asked. “If our savior Satan were here, he could help us. And we obviously cannot go back to our original home.”

“Let’s take shelter in the woods,” Ralphie said. “We’ll find some game to hunt and continue our previous routine.”

“Let’s get going,” Martha said. She led the way, followed by her husband, who held his children’s hands. The boy’s beaver tail trailed along behind him.

“Look,” called a voice coming from a slender red goat woman with her friends. “Is that Martha?”

Martha spun around. “How’d you know my name?”

“Everyone knows who you are,” she said, a shine in her eyes. “You’re our hero!”

Martha put on her most charming smile. “You bet I am! Still a survivor even after that sick woman tried to kill me.”

“I remember you donating to the church back on Earth,” said the goat. “I wanted to meet you in person but instead I met Covid 19 beforehand. But now…here I am, in front of my idol!”

She let out a squee like a fangirl and eagerly shook Martha’s claw.

“It’s very nice to meet you,” said Martha.

“You’re new here, right? Hell can be pretty dangerous. I’ll give you some money and a place to live, how about that?”

“Oh thank you!” Martha beamed innocently, pleased to have allies even in Hell.

A few weeks later, the four family members were settled in a house very similar to their previous one, next to the woods by a lake of lava. Ralphie hunted demonic animals for their dinners and gave miniature guns to the kids. It was surprisingly simple to get weapons in Hell (sadly, angelic weapons were too expensive, even for them.)

Martha’s fame on Earth made her recognizable in Hell, by friend and foe alike. She and her family made it known that they were not to be messed with. Just one aim from their guns was enough to get other demons to back off. Martha was back in business, sometimes hosting a cooking show with Jeffery the serial killer. She became a fan favorite and a Satanic cult leader. Now instead of just her family supporting cannibalism and dark rituals, Martha had other allies on her side as well. The more allies she made, the more money came in. The family bought new clothes made from the skins of animals, demons and on rare cases, humans.

The two children relaxed on the couch, staring at an old TV, complete with knobs on the right side. A universal remote was between them, the buttons resembling a face. They were currently watching a show in black and white: “Buck Dynasty!” popped up in slanted white letters as old-time preppy music played. The scene cut to a moving forest where a lone stag was walking through the snow.

“There’s the fine specimen, a white-tailed deer calmly grazing over there,” a man’s voice whispered from a distance. He listed off some hunting tips such as using the wind and distance to eliminate scent. “The best way to stalk is by moving slowly and reducing unnecessary body motions.”

“The easiest times to hunt deer are the rut, or breeding time, which usually occurs during late summer or early fall.”

A diagram of a deer’s anatomy popped up on screen, showing the ideal places to shoot them. An arrow pointed to a spot behind the deer’s shoulder, one-fourth up from the belly.

The scope hovered near the shoulder area as the scene grew quiet. The man took a deep breath with focus, using the pad of his index finger to pull the trigger…

The stag stumbled and dropped to the white ground shortly after the loud blast was heard. The kids watched in amusement.

The man posed behind the fallen animal, grabbing the antlers and displaying a bright white smile. He had dark skin, short hair, glasses and wore a simple white vest with a bow tie. His pants and boots were dark.

“Deery me, that was a good one! I seem to remember Bambi’s mother suffering a similar fate many winters ago. Not a fawn experience for him, I’m sure.”

Audience laughter followed and the boy chuckled.

“Those jokes are so lame,” Ebony rolled her eyes.

The next clips showed the man hauling the carcass into a truck and field dressing it to preserve the meat.

“Get it to a processor soon, or if you’re skilled enough in skinning, get started sooner rather than later,” he said, a cigar briefly in his mouth. “I know I’ve made my share of mistakes when hunting, but practice makes polished. No, not perfect because let’s face it, no one’s perfect in this world. Once you’ve got that nice fresh venison, you can use it in many different dishes. I personally love adding it to jambalaya for Mardi Gras. Nothing like a tasty classic to excite your taste buds!”

“How does this show even exist?” the girl asked her father when he came in.

Ralphie just shrugged his shoulders. “Just one of those random classics that I enjoy from time to time.”

A colored commercial came on, advertising Vox’s Voot Floop cereal. A teal blue box showed blue circles of sugared cereal bits falling into a bowl as electronic music played in the background. Vox’s robotic voice came on: “The sugary sensation of the modern nation! Only $666! Box also comes with a free mini Vox figure inside. Collect all three V figures, today!”

“Mom, can we get that cereal too?” the boy asked. “I want that Vox figure.”

“Too damn expensive,” Martha called out.

“I can get it for ya Chuck,” Ralphie said.

“Thanks dad,” said Chuck.

The next ad showed a strip club and Valentino posing with two of his female clients, Dia and Summer. Angel Dust was pole dancing in the background; behind him was a glowing pink spider web with a heart in the center. Groovy electronic music played as the women’s hands stroked the pimp’s purplish skin. A box of cigarettes was shown on screen, surrounded by smoky pink hearts. “Feel the love and rush, with Valentin Vapors.” Valentino’s eyes twinkled under his pink heart sunglasses.

Another commercial came on, this one displaying a revolving dollhouse with a land made of candy in the background. Stitched up dolls in velvet fabric were shown being played with by smiling demon girls. A music-box tune played as one of the dolls held a lollipop in one hand and a little plastic knife in the other. The plastic heads of the dolls moved from side to side at the push of a button. The toy dolls sat at a table with a set of teacups in front of them and a multicolored toy castle nearby. “Velvet’s Tea Party!” was displayed in glittery pink letters on the screen. “Free shipping on your order when you like and subscribe to Lady Velvet’s profiles!”

“Oooh!” Ebony smiled in delight, pointing at the screen. “I want one of those Velvet dolls for Christmas!”

Martha smiled. “Maybe Krampus can get one for you…that is, if you behave.”

“I don’t want him to punish us,” Chuck said with a worried look.

“Ah, you’ll all be fine,” said their father. “Christmas is only a month or so away!”

For the next few minutes, the siblings fought over who would control the remote.

“I wanna watch Buck Dynasty!” Chuck said.

“No, it’s mine!” cried Ebony. “Fizztastic Circus is on and Robo Fizz is gonna do his grand act in Loo-Loo Land!”

“Mine!”

“It’s mine! Let go!”

Martha stepped in and turned off the television, the white circle shrinking into black.

“It’s time to go to bed, kids,” she said.

“Awww,” they groaned.

“None of that. You guys have school tomorrow.”

The next day, Ralphie took the children to school: Pentagram Penitentiary Place. Chuck and Ebony got their school supplies, got in the car and Ralphie took them to the brick building.

“Have a good day,” Ralphie smiled. “And make sure you behave yourselves.”

“Yes papa!” they called out, waving goodbye as the car drove off.

They headed into the classroom and took their seats across from each other. A purple colored demon with white hair and glasses stood at the front.

“Good morning!”

“Good morning Ms. Mayberry!” the students chimed.

After doing some addition, writing and reading, the demon children spread out in the room.

Ms. Mayberry led a song and dance. The children curled up on the floor, pretending to be asleep.

“Lots of little demons were sleeping on a rock

In the fiery pits of Hell”

The children slowly stood up.

“They lifted up their heads

And shook out their tails…”

The children shook their heads, butts and tails.

“And they said, ‘let’s go killing.’”

The music sped up as she sang, “Let’s go killing, let’s go killing.” The demon kids screamed and danced and got into wild fights with their classmates. Ebony choked another demon girl and laughed in childish delight.

“Yeah let’s go killing, in the flames of Hell.”

The music slowed down.

“Then the little demons got very, very tired

“That they came back to the rock

They put down their heads

And they put down their tails

And then took a little nap.”

The children pretended to yawn and slowly went back onto the floor. They curled up into balls and pretended to sleep.

The music paused, then started up louder again at the next verse.

“And when they woke up

They were a little bit bored

So they took a shower.”

The children pretended to wash different parts of their bodies.

“And they washed their ears

And they washed their tummies.

And they brushed their teeth

And they washed their spines and tails

And they washed their toes.

And then they said, (the children stopped and spread out their hands and repeated what was next.)

‘Wait a minute! We’re demons! We don’t take showers!’”

The music sped up again as Ms. Mayberry sang, “Let’s go killing, let’s go killing, yeah, let’s go killing.” The children ran around the room, bashing other’s heads, biting and causing a real ruckus.

“Yeah let’s go killing, in the flames of Hell.”

The music slowed down and again, the children pretended to fall asleep on the floor.

“Then the little demons got very, very tired

“That they came back to the rock

They put down their heads

And they put down their tails

And then took a little nap.”

Princess Charlie peered into the room for a visit, pleased to see the children laughing and having fun.

“And when they woke up,

They decided to spread kindness.”

The demon children stood up and danced together. They gave each other hugs and pretended to say nice things. “I love you.” “You’re a wonderful person.”

“Let’s bake cupcakes.”

Charlie’s eyes welled with happy tears as she watched the sight.

“And so they gave each other hugs

And they did chores

And they sang songs

And they gave each other gifts

And said nice things

And then they said,

‘Wait a minute! We’re demons!’”

Charlie’s face paled and her smile fell, mouth open in a gasp.

The class all declared: “’We don’t play nice! Let’s go killing!’”

Charlie covered her mouth as blood sprayed everywhere. She ducked as a chair smashed against the wall. The song continued on. She brushed tears from her eyes, left behind a Happy Hotel flier and left.

After class, Ebony found a lone picture of Ms. Mayberry in her human form lying on the desk. She slipped it into her backpack and followed her brother out the classroom door. She was thankful not to have to scrub toilets or run laps like many older kids.

Ralphie picked them up and they headed back home. Martha arrived through the front door not long after.

“How was work, honey?” Ralphie asked, licking his wife on the cheek.

“Marvelous!” she exclaimed. “I helped perform five sacrifices to Satan today. I was named in a magazine as “the next potential priestess of the Satanic temple.” The services went by smoothly and we even raised money for the homeless.” She was hiding the fact that she had been showing off her cleavage to another male cult member on her break.

“That’s marvelous,” Ralphie said. “Even in this hellhole, you still do great things.”

“Hey, look what we found!” Ebony said. She took out the picture of Ms. Mayberry and handed it over to Martha. “I think our teacher drew a human.”

The kids ran off.

Martha’s red eyes narrowed as she examined it closely.

“I know that woman…”

Martha had seen her…flashbacks of an angry Mrs. Mayberry shooting wildly at her after making out with Jarold. Then she thought back to her death and the imps that had been sent after her.

Martha spoke in a low voice, almost to herself. “That sick woman…of course she’d be down here in Hell. She’d do anything to get in my way, after my casual fling with her lover.”

She hovered a claw over the picture. “Could she have something to do with those filthy creatures sent to kill my family?”

Martha seethed and the picture in her hand burst into flames, ash falling to the floor. Her form glowed with an evil, red aura. Sooner or later, she was going to find those bastard imps and give them literal hell to pay.

And for Mrs. Mayberry? The old widow would be vilified by everyone in the city. Then she would die alone, alone and painfully without any lover or children to comfort her. Martha thought she would make a great offering to Satan.

The dark pink succubus let out a crazed determined laugh. “Not today, Satan, not today!”

Hell, Pentagram City

“Some Guy”

2021

The Buckeyes were playing at a large black coffin-shaped basketball stadium, more specifically the Rottenstein Stadium. The beefy red-skinned demon who had killed his cheating wife and died by the electric chair, used to play for the Ohio men’s basketball team in Columbus, Ohio on Earth. He had hired I.M.P. to kill the person who had alerted the police when he hid the body. Did they accomplish their mission? He didn’t know.

“Hey Mando, over here!” called a voice. The red buff demon caught the basketball from his scaly cyclops teammate just in time. He dribbled it down the black wooden court, wearing his white jersey with “Ohio” on it in red letters. His white sneakers squeaked as he dashed across the floor. The cheers of the crowd and the sports announcer discussing the game motivated him on. Only ten seconds left…

“Outta my way!” he roared as a bunch of hunched wolves in blue jerseys tried to close in. His rows of four sharp teeth were visible. Mando maneuvered the ball quickly between the palms of his hands, dodging the gray arms trying to reach for it. His bulky body did its job in knocking his opponents back. Seeing no clear path toward his teammates, he decided to keep going. With as much strength as he could muster, Mando leaped up and tossed the ball with both hands. The ball soared in a high arc toward the hanging hoop on a wooden casket…

And by a stroke of luck, it fell right through just as the buzzer sounded. Mando stood up and cheered with his teammates as the zombie coach blew the whistle nearby. The scoreboard read Buckeyes 99, Wolverines 96. A crowd of demons wearing red and white held up signs that read “Go Buckeyes!” “Bullseye for Buckeyes!” One mascot was dressed like an eye with antlers arching along the top. The wolverine team of werewolves howled in disappointment.

“Yeah!” Mando grinned as he spun the basketball with one of his fingers. “Down go the doggos!”

“Nice shot, man!” complimented the cyclops teammate. “At this rate, we’ll be able to face off against the Bee-zelbubs and the Dragons in no time.” Mando took several deep breaths and wiped his face with a nearby cloth. He gulped down an entire can of Monster energy drink before following his teammates to the locker rooms. After washing up, the large demon smashed a hole for himself through the wall near the stadium entrance and headed down the street. Streetlamps shaped like eyes at the top and held together with bones, flickered above him. He snatched a beer from an unsuspecting demon and guzzled some of it. He let out a loud burp, sending other demons scattering.

The red demon took out his Eye-Pod and listened to some rock music with rap lyrics. Another song had the vocals of Lilith backed up by her group of performers. He even bobbed his head to “Inside of Every Demon is a Rainbow” and the I.M.P. Jingle. Although he wasn’t that much into musicals, he could see why so many in Hell loved them.

He saw a poster of I.M.P. and glared like a snorting bull. He hadn’t heard anything back from them yet ever since the time he appeared on their commercial. What was taking so long? He hadn’t even gotten his check yet because according to another I.M.P. billboard, it took several weeks to arrive by mail. (He did get a pile of meat and a small bag of money but it wasn’t the same.) Anger boiled up inside him, it took all his effort not to punch the nearest building or demon.

Wrath had been Mando’s main sin, no doubt. As soon as he leaned that his wife had been having sex with the local delivery man, he lost all control and beat her to death. Then, of course, a jogger had spotted him trying to hide the body in a park and alerted the police. He was sent to jail and then died by the electric chair. He hadn’t forgiven those in his life…not even himself. At least he somewhat had lived up to his father’s expectations for him to be a star athlete.

He stared in disgust at a magazine depicting a blonde demon wearing revealing black underwear barely covering her exposed butt and standing by a mailbox. “Your Special Delivery!” was written in bold letters at the top. Mando blew fire from his mouth and the magazine crumpled to ash. He sighed and continued on.

Why did his wife have to cheat on him behind his back? It was natural instinct to become jealous and illogical after finding out your lover was unfaithful. Apparently, she had said the delivery man was charming, generous with letters and “free of any anger issues.” She had emphasized that last part much to his disdain.

Mando lived a lonely life in an old apartment in the Ring of Wrath, the same district where Moxxie and Millie lived. The district was full of fire, poverty, angry people and fights on boats over the River Styx. He was glad he was not one of the unlucky wailing souls trapped beneath the water. Hell was like Chicago but with monsters and magic. His bedroom was small and cramped, with basketball posters on the walls and sets of lifting weights.

But Mando wasn’t ready to go home to annoying side neighbors and cigarette filled rooms. The exercise had made him hungry. He smiled and spotted a nearby café, the sign in the shape of a white bat up on the top. The top had an awning that looked like part of a torn up circus flap.

A guy with glasses and shaped like a purple serpent held the door open for the buff demon. His shoulders and belly got stuck on the way in. He first tried to stuff his way in, to no avail. He growled in anger, even as the purple guy said, “back up, sir.” Mando punched the glass doors, making them shatter, while also knocking the purple guy aside.

“Table for one!” Mando said, barging in and staring at the frightened blue fish server. A black neon cat holding a saxophone in a corner looked at the blue fish with concern but the blue server smiled, saying “I’ve got this one.”

“Right this way, sir,” the fish said, opening the door as wide as he could for the red demon to strut outside. He found a larger chair at a table to support his weight and sat down. The server placed a dish of deviled eggs onto the table as Mando glanced at the menu. He popped a few into his mouth as he admired the garden and pavilion. A black iron fence separated the area from the street. There were rose bushes nearby as well and a few ravens were pecking scraps of food from the grass.

Mando finished his plate and was about to leave.

Then, his eyes spotted a random beauty sitting at an adjacent table.

She was a purple demon with long white hair who was drinking a cup of tea. A clipboard with a piece of paper labeled “lesson plans” was in front of her. She was wearing a torn black shirt that reached the lower part of her legs and a reddish shirt with stitches on it. She had curved horns, a black bandanna and a red upside down cross on her skirt. Her large red eyes met his with a brief glare before turning away. A cigarette dangled from her mouth.

Mando took a deep breath and decided to say hello, just to give it a shot. He stood up from his chair and made his way over to the table. He sat down across from her, fiddling with his black spiked bracelets. The woman looked at him again, a look of confusion from her face.

“Can I help you?”

“Uh, just wanted to say hi and stuff.”

“Well then, hi.”

There was an awkward silence that stretched out for a moment.

“Sorry, I guess I’ll just leave,” the red demon began but she said, “wait.”

The woman peered at him closely, fingers up to her chin. “You look familiar. I think I saw your face on that I.M.P. commercial.”

“You know about I.M.P.?” Mando asked.

“Of course,” she said. She held out her hand. “I’m Ms. Mayberry. Some still call me Mrs. Mayberry but that’s unnecessary since, you know, that time…”

She trailed off, her face briefly turning pink. “Sorry, getting off topic.” Their hands met for a handshake, Mayberry’s lavender hand small within the red demon’s palm.

“I don’t recall my human name. My peers call me Mando. Not sure why.”

More silence.

“So,” Mando said scratching his chin, “You were saying you know I.M.P.?”

Mayberry held her cigarette in one hand. “Yes. I found them after watching the ad. Walked up to their headquarters in Imp City and talked business with their leader.”

“Oh? You hired them too? How’d it go?”

The woman smiled with sharp teeth. “They did their job well. They traveled to the living world to kill my husband’s whore. Ended up killing her whole family.”

Mando grinned and chuckled. “My, my! You must’ve been satisfied after that.”

“I guess you could say that. I remember you saying you…killed your wife, right?”

Mando nodded, cracking his knuckles. “Yeah she was asking for it.”

Mrs. Mayberry briefly seethed, hiding her fear. “If you even think about…”

Mando backed up, holding out his hands, “No, no, no, I’m not gonna hurt you, ma’am. I might have a bad temper but I can still control it…sometimes.”

A red aura glowed around Mayberry and Mando gulped. The glow faded away.

“Anyway…yeah I hired I.M.P. to go after a person who saw me hiding her body. Haven’t heard back from them yet. I’d like to see that guy’s head in front of me if possible. What did you do next?”

“Well, I obviously hired I.M.P. to go kill Martha. And it worked out well, like I said.”

Mando beamed, his black eyes shining. “What a coincidence for us to have so much in common! This is wonderful!”

Mrs. Mayberry had to smile herself. “Don’t get ahead of yourself, yet. I do need some time to collect my thoughts.” She inhaled smoke from her cigarette and exhaled.

Mando leaned slightly back. “As do I. I completely understand.”

“Do you though? You’re not a school teacher who murdered her husband in front of your schoolchildren. And then took your own life.”

Mando visibly winced at that. “I…I’m so sorry. Then again, you’re not a former basketball player who died in an electric chair after being caught. I didn’t get to choose how I died.”

Mayberry’s face showed a hint of kindness. “That must’ve been hard as well. But strangely enough, I.M.P. brought us together.”

Mando laughed. “Yeah, who would’ve thought that would ever happen!”

After that, the two of them were content to just sit quietly drinking their drinks and eating various snacks. Their conversation became more light-hearted.

“Yeah I know I.M.P.s not perfect,” said Mando, “You should’ve seen Blitzo’s misspellings on the billboard. ‘Come to I Am Pee?!’ No wonder their business has been slow.”

Both of them laughed out loud.

“That imp can be annoying. He should come to my spelling classes,” Mayberry giggled.

“But I’m willing to give them another chance…for you.”

“You still don’t know me well,” Mayberry deadpanned.

“Heh. Sorry. Have a tendency to rush into things. Literally as well.” He rubbed his head.

Mayberry chuckled. “You must’ve gotten knocked in the head a lot, I imagine.”

“That’s what happens in sports. Oh, good news, I just won my recent game this morning.”

“Congrats!” Mayberry said. “Wish I was there to see it, but I have my job.”

“Where at?”

“Pentagram Penitentiary Place.”

“Ah, the boot camp school. Pretty strict over there, I heard.”

“It’s not too bad. The atmosphere helped me toughen up when I first applied. Even in Hell, it still brings me joy to sharpen the minds of the youth. Though I do wish there was less emphasis on murder all the time.”

“Says the one who murdered her husband and tried to kill his lover.”

“Oh shut it.”

Mayberry sighed as Mando smirked playfully. “I just wish things were…better, you know. Don’t you ever wish you could somehow magically change yourself and go off to a better place?”

“Mhmm,” Mando nodded. “But like they all say, ‘Hell’s a one way trip down.’ We’re stuck here forever. Might as well make the best of it.”

Mayberry thought back to when she collected the Happy Hotel flier that Charlie had left behind when she peered into the classroom. Redeeming demons shouldn’t be possible, yet Hell’s own princess firmly believed in it. Could it really be true?

Mando saw her pondering in thought and thought of something to brighten things up. “Hmm, maybe if you’d like, I could come by and coach the kids on some basketball moves when I’m not practicing or playing.”

This time, Mayberry’s eyes sparkled. “That would be wonderful, sir! The kids haven’t had a proper gym instructor in months. The last one got his head kicked off by wild teens. They’ll need someone to look up to.”

Mando grinned and pounded his fist into his palm. “You bet I can keep them in line. I’ve learned a few things from my coaches…they’ll be in tip top shape in no time!”

“Just…please don’t hurt them,” Mayberry pleaded.

“You have my word miss,” he said.

Mando couldn’t help but stare at her beautiful face and features. It wasn’t a face of youthful beauty, but it radiated wisdom and strength.

Mayberry looked unsure. “It’s been a while since someone has looked at me like that.”

Mando chuckled in embarrassment after staring at her breasts under her shirt. “My bad.”

“No it’s…fine,” she trailed off, eyes looking off to the side. It was a look of lust, but not entirely. It was almost like the way her husband looked at her before…

She brushed the memory aside. There was no reason to trust this guy…at least not completely. He was just a friendly acquaintance. Even still, she revealed what was plaguing her mind.

“I worry sometimes that that Martha person, might be down here,” she said. “I don’t wanna have to deal with her again after what happened. I mean, we both died and did bad things…”

“Don’t worry about it,” Mando assured her. “From the looks of things, you know how to take care of yourself.”

Both of them got up from their seats. Mayberry stood up straighter, pleased with the reassurance. She kept telling herself to be strong, but hearing it from someone else made her feel…lighter, less weighed down by her thoughts. Mando stood up, towering over her.

Mando fished into his shirt and gave her a card with his name and number on it. The Ohio State logo was on one corner.

“No, no, I’m not ready for that yet…”

He still held it out in front of her. “You don’t have to do anything with it,” he said. “Just know that I’ll be around if you ever feel unsafe.”

Mayberry stood still, left eye twitching. It almost felt like she was betraying her husband by talking with another man. She had promised herself that she would remain faithful to him in life.

But now things were different. She was in Hell, a place where she could do what she wished. It was her second chance.

With shaking, hesitant fingers, she gripped onto the card and took it, putting it in her purse.

“It was lovely to meet you, Ms. Mayberry,” Mando said.

“Same to you,” she said.

“Want to meet up together next week?”

“I’ll do a rain-check,” Mayberry said.

“Be careful, the acid rains here aren’t too pleasant without umbrellas.”

Mayberry snickered a bit. “We’ll see.”

“I’ll go ahead and support I.M.P. with you,” he mentioned. “Those crazy killers need more recognition. You never know when you’ll need someone eliminated.”

“Agreed,” Mayberry said. “Using the grimoire to enter the living world is no small feat.”

“See you around!” he called, as he broke through the wrought iron fence, sending birds flapping and scattering.

Mayberry watched him stomp off before she exited through the cafe door. Maybe things wouldn’t be so bad after all.

The murder of crows swooped down and landed on another table partially shadowed among the rosebushes. There were several wilted rose heads on a plate and a mug of coffee. The birds landed on the shoulders of a figure behind a white newspaper. One gloved hand stroked the bird’s feathers. The paper lowered slightly to reveal two large glowing red eyes.

#martha #mrsmayberry #helluvaboss #murderfamily #hazbinhotel #imp

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peaches-of-1 · 5 years

Text

Peachtober | Day 24: Forever

University Student / Vampire!Reader x Teacher / Priest!Namjoon

Warnings: Blaphemy kink, sex in a classroom, sex in a church, questioning faith, biting, blood play, Vampirism, angst, smut, multiple partners, voyerism, no condom (all gifts are better wrapped), male masturbation, stepping on genitalia, wet dreams, death mention (let me know if I should add others)

Citrus Scale: Buddha’s Hand

When one's will is stripped away, oftentimes the outcome will be rebellion. A direct or passive fight against their oppressor(s) in one way or another in order to regain their sense of freedom. In this specific case, it was the denial of a dream college to follow their parent's ideal of being a servant of their Lord that one was not exactly loyal to. More like questioning instead of lack of belief. However complicated one's relationship with His Holiness may have been, the rebellion of not being able to go to the school of their choice led to late parties with non stop drinking and laughter that sometimes turned into tears. Such parties and celebrations of indulgence were against the rules, of course.

As it was a Friday, one snuck out of a white marble dormitory in clothing fit for Mary Magdalene as it was skimpy and sheer and perfectly fit for a party bound Harlot. All of this under a casual black coat due to recent rain and to get under the radar of any of the nuns and priests who asked where a young being was going so late. If spoken response was needed, the reply would be something forgotten in the library or a quick prayer session in the on campus cathedral which was always open for troubled minds.

Yet the escape went smoothly. Coats were taken at the door and libations were spread all around in joyous celebration of the weekend. A sense of concern had washed over the shy companion one had decided to come out with.

“More for me then.” was the intoxicated response as another red solo cup of mystery spirits was downed.

As the night went on, the shy one wandered off, no longer in the mood for loud music and drunken partiers bumping into them. Out onto the back porch where something rather large hid behind a tree.

“Hello?” they called out into the night. “It's ok. I won't hurt you. I just needed some fresh air. Inside just smells like vape juice.”

A hand touched the side of the bannister and felt something wet and sticky. In the amber lighting, it was a reddish color.

“Are you bleeding?”

No response and so the compassionate stranger approached too happy to have a quiet place and someone to talk to. Their scream at the realization that what they had stumbled upon was not human and it was not their blood that came from its body was not heard over the loud pop music inside.

Although the original partier as well as the whole campus was being told to stay in dorms and on campus even more than normal, they were not told the reason why. But they knew. One had seen the corpse of their quiet and reserved friend in the back yard when the bathroom was full and they needed to piss and ran back inside to call for help. Police were called soon after. People gave their condolences not just for their lost friend and fellow student, but more for the punishment those in attendance would be receiving.

That punishment being cleaning the cafeteria at the end of the day for the rest of the year. As this was the first day of doing so in this righteous university based on religion, morale was low. Several students were dressed in the school uniform of navy plaid bottoms, white socks, black shoes (with black laces), a button up dress shirt with a collar, and a navy blue Thom Browne blazer which had been approved through one of the CEO’s children going to the school but hating the previous uniforms. They all moaned and groaned at the prospect of actually having to work for forgiveness.

“You should have thought about that before you snuck out to a dangerous party.” Father Namjoon said. “You will stay here until the place is spotless. I will be back within an hour to check on you. I have confessions from the Faithful to listen to.”

And so the young man who was constantly praised for this love of his God and the passion of his sermons went to the booth and waited to listen in on the sins and guilt the Lord's followers had been holding in. Most were the usual things, they had lied or said something wrong. They lusted over the unattainable or felt as though they weren't faithful enough. Some just had burdens too heavy to deal with alone and so Namjoon would pray with them.

That is until the unmistakable sound of Y/N's voice came in and shook the young man's own piety. She had teased him ever since she arrived only a few months ago, but he never gave into her antics. However, they still stayed in his mind so much that he prayed for her. Because of silence on that front, he knew she was just a person in his path to test his faith. Namjoon would never admit that she was doing a rather splendid job at doing so.

“Sorry, Daddy, I've been a bad girl.” Her saccharine voice said.

“Now you know that is not how we do this, Y/N.” Father Namjoon replied.

She giggled, “Yet I know you are listening to me more closely than anyone who has ever said such things properly, aren't you, Father Joonie?”

Every word that came from her mouth taunted the young man and pulled at the Father's heart and other parts inside of him. He stammered out that he needed to get back to his other duties and this needed to be quick.

“I do have a real concern.” The young lady spoke with an irresistible pout in her voice. “It would be irresponsible for you to ignore it, Father~”

“Speak your heart's worry to me, my Child.” Namjoon sighed.

The woman spoke of wanting to claim not only the heart, but also the mind, body, and soul of a man. She claimed to have done this before but not in a very long time and it had never been so difficult for her to approach him in a one on one situation.

“It is not within the right of man to claim another as his property.” Father Namjoon replied with such conviction it surprised him and the woman on the other side of the wooden partition, his body turned to face her.

His hand set on the space in the partition and her hand set on top of it.

Y/N smiled, “What if I am not a man? Nor am I human.”

Brown eyes met ones as bright as rubies. In the darkness of the confessional, the coloring was clear as day. Namjoon felt his hand move but was not sure if he wanted to stop it until his own flesh touched the soft fabric covering her own skin... which body part was this? A quick squeeze and he jerked back his hand. It had been her breast he had grabbed and so he bolted from the booth due to the shock of the action. He felt the need to hide away from everything she was. God knew he had not meant to touch her body like that. It was what she had wanted but the feeling wasn't mutual. Namjoon had taken to a tree in the middle of the courtyard to catch his breath.

“Good afternoon, Father Namjoon. Are you alright?” Father Yoongi asked.

His long time friend and Namjoon's adopted sister who had followed his God given plan into becoming a nun. Both were dressed in their own black and white robes with looks of concern upon their faces for the man they cared so much about. He gave the two a smile and laughed.

“I... I am fine. I simply got frightened by a bee that got too close for comfort.” He would ask the Lord's forgiveness later for lying to his dear friends.

His sister laughed, “They must have mistaken your aura for a physical flower.”

Yoongi chuckled and then asked, “Would you like to join us in getting some craft supplies from in town? We could always use an extra pair of hands.”

“Perhaps another time, Father Yoongi. I have been given the duty to watch over those who attended that party, their punishment that is.” He pushed his hair back. “I was just on my way to check in on their progress.”

“Best of luck to you, dear brother.” Said the little sister.

After polite bows and words of farewell, Namjoon finished the evening quite quickly after the cafeteria was cleaned and decided to work on his sermon for the week.

~~~~

There had not been another incident for a few days. Nothing as big, that is. Instead it was Namjoon's own mind that he was fighting against for the past evenings. He knew she would be back today after the sermon. The man with hair like honey was sure of it, like a well kept promise. He'd keep himself under control and not get caught up in her teasing, he would do his best not to take her bait. Wanting to claim a man for herself. All of him.

He almost wanted her to come back so he could learn more.

And so she did. Within the grated separation, crimson eyes glowed. She smiled, her giggle sounding more like a threat than actual joy.

“So, Father. It seems you have been expecting me.” Y/N announced as the door creaked shut and she sat on the aged red cushion where thousands of students and guests had sat before for years on end.

“Of course,” the blonde man swallowed deeply and ignored the cotton on his tongue in order to speak correctly. “You are a student at this university and so--”

A cute laugh that sounded like the sweetest doom poured from her lips, “Don't play dumb with me, Joonie~ I see how you force yourself not to look at me in class. Why don't you?”

Namjoon replied honestly--as he always did, “You don't wear your uniform properly. It's immodest.”

“But I keep that part unbuttoned just for you. No one else, I swear.” Y/N spoke what appeared upon first listen to be candied false promises.

He scoffed quietly, “Forgive me for not believing that coming from someone like you.”

She pouted, “You should. I don't want anyone else but you, and I intend to make you mine sooner than later.”

“You should repent your lustful and commandeering ways and try to walk in the Lord's light. It is not too late for someone so young like you.” Candid were the words which came from the man who promised himself to the Most High

“But you have the choice to be in MY light, Father. Make the right one before it is no longer a choice you can make.” Her tone alone put the sin in sincere.

“What are you?” Namjoon asked quietly, not sure if he wanted to know the answer.

Y/N made a sighing hum, “Me and my kind have been called many things and depicted millions of times in your media in half as many years. However, I think the common term is Vampire.”

Namjoon gasped and his blood went cold as he knew this was the only truth. That it would explain her eyes and her enchanting ways. Why the men of the school followed her and adored her in the most carnal of ways and fooled themselves thinking it was pure intentions they had with her. Wasn’t that how they were? He saw it in their eyes. Yoongi would sometimes smack them in the back of their heads when he read the thoughts that dripped from their hungering eyes such as the drool from their gaping mouths.

“V-V-Vam-Vam-” The priest stuttered out. The word gripped him like an iron maiden.

Her teeth glinted in the little bit of amber that snuck through the cracks of the ancient confessional, “Yes. Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned for nearly a thousand years. Lately I’ve been biting into some of the more beautiful of the young men that come here and women too. Even those who would rather not subscribe to gender no matter how much it is forced upon them. I am not picky. Blood is blood though it does taste better when I see those beautiful faces become twisted in horror and their eyes roll back when I finally sink my teeth into their alluring necks and wrists. The school uniforms to very well at hiding the scars until they heal.”

Y/N’s voice was tinted with true revelry in those moments that must have been the terrors for others. She had in fact created a harem of students to do her bidding in the sunlight where she could not go, right?

“The sunlight,” Namjoon asked. “How do you?”

“Do you really think vampires can live for millenia and not find some way to thrive even in sunlight?” She laughed. “We have many scientists in our ranks who have created ways of surviving in the sun. That along with natural evolution.”

A knock. Time’s up. Apologies exchanged after hushed guarantees to visit later. Y/N had promised to claim him. He could either submit to her by choice or by force. Was there not some way to defeat her?

Namjoon tried his best to continue to perform his daily duties as a priest, as one of the most looked up to men in this lifestyle. Vampires were demons! He could not let himself succumb to her and her unbuttoned top and her plump thighs in her too short skirt. It had been required for girls to wear shorts underneath, but she never did. Instead she bent over and displayed herself for anyone with the pleasure to pass by.

A pleasure? No. It was wrong. Sinful. Gaudy. Women needed to respect themselves and hide their precious bits for someone special. Their husband. Though Namjoon believed women were allowed to do what they wanted with their own bodies, there was a time and a place for everything. The school hallways during the changing of classes were not appropriate options for either. No one else had ever called her out on it, so neither did he.

There had been a few like that. Skipped through classes with no regards for the rules and omitted their pants, but that was the cause of money. The wealthy child of a wealthy benefactor. A single feigned outcry of unfair treatment could cause for their abundant donations towards the school to be pulled. So many sinners in a house of God, but Namjoon knew that was the way it was supposed to be. He knew they wouldn’t be like this forever. They’d see the light of his Lord and see the fault in their ways. Some had in the few months he had been there.

They had become good little cherry blossoms. Had decided to become part of the flock of sheep that took God’s Word to heart. Some mere liars. Goats hiding their horns. However Y/N had been the lion among the lambs, making peace and friends and yet simply bringing them elsewhere to be devoured. All of this occurring away from the eyes of the herders. Right behind them, but they refused to turn and look because they were blinded or simply ignorant by choice.

Had this been her first slip up? Eating the young woman from the party? The DNA found on the body had belonged to a woman thought to be dead for over a hundred years. In the short week after the celebration gone wrong, the case had been thrown out due to evidence tampering. However, it all made sense with one of the few truthful confessions the taunting young woman ever told. The DNA found did in fact belong to a being over the age of 100. It belonged to Y/N, not as if anyone would believe the man no matter how faithful and honest he was.

With heavy feat and a foggy head, Father Namjoon began to disrobe and pray before troubled slumber claimed his night. All he could dream about was Y/N. Belonging to her and giving into desires he had cast aside in the name of following the Lord. Tasting her sweet nectar below, making her hips roll in an attempt for him to go in deeper to her sweet and tangy tasting core. Eyes opened in fright but the second attempt at a G rated dream was even more pornographic. She was feeding on him and he shuddered in joy.

Her eyes like two glowing cherries.

Would a vampire’s bite be so calming? So intoxicating? With Y/N, it could be. He knew that for sure as if the words were spoken to him in a prayer of promise. From his own heart. Yet being fed from above was not enough for her. She also wanted her sacred garden to be plowed and seeded by him.

“Begone, Daemon!” The tall man said into the empty and simplistic room.

His own. Not the den where she had...that he had dreamt. The black iron framing of the bed contrasting the white quilt placed upon it for the colder nights and the equally white walls. Light seeped through the thin linen curtains and showed the specs of dirt dancing in the morning rays of pure and comforting light. Namjoon quickly went to his knees and prayed for the fear to go away. To purify and forgive him for his impure thoughts of a student he was supposed to help guide.

“Heavenly Father, please forgive me. I do not know what has gotten into me, but I promise I will not stray from your path, Dear Lord. You are my light. You are my Savior. I refuse to let the lustful thoughts of that young woman lead me astray. I ask for your guidance now more than ever, God. Oh, God.” He wept. “Please help me.”

When one sacrifices himself for his Lord, when one gives himself to his faith completely, it tends to twist their outlook. It gives someone confidence they did not have before because they feel they have backup. That they are not alone. That is what Namjoon felt as he walked into the class to teach his class for the day. He had truly believed in this morning’s “Amen.”

As a man trained in philosophy until it left him with more questions than answers, he brought that into teaching his class of young adults about God’s word. His promises. He taught about His protection today. With renewed strength, he slammed his ruler on a giggling girl’s desk and asked her to read her texts allowed. Nothing but lustful tones filled the abbreviated letters and messages to someone in a different class.

Y/N spoke up, “As if you are one to judge, Father Joonie. I would not doubt if you had dreams of exploring a woman’s ‘Garden of Eden’ from time to time. Tasting the honey that drips from her at the mere sight of your own sun kissed face.”

A ball of guilt and craving entered the man’s stomach and he hesitated to look at the young woman he now knew was a vampirinc daemon. He feared all weaknesses would be clear in front of her. But he had his Lord and Jesus Christ and even the Holy Spirit on his side. Standing up straight, the young Father smoothed his black robes and met her eyes now their imitation of human coloring instead of the demonic garnet shade he was familiar with.

“I am not one to judge on anything. That is a job reserved only for our Lord Jesus Christ. I simply am stating that her mind should be on the lesson and not matters of the flesh.” Namjoon spoke with a straight spine. “As for your guess as to what I do in my own privacy, in my own head, that is not for you to know.”

“Then I am right.” She said with a knowing attitude and a sharp glare.

Brown eyes defied his inner doubt and said, “You have every right to think so and you also have every right to button up your blouse.”

A false pout sat upon her plump lips, “Even Jesus hung out with harlots.” and folded her arms which made her chest seem even more voluptuous than before, creating stronger cleavage to be seen through her opened dress shirt and blazer.

“I am not Jesus, but I am in charge here. So please conduct yourself properly.” Namjoon said.

“Feeling brave today, aren’t we, Father Joonie?” Y/N said before deciding to follow the rules. . . in her own way. “Taehyung-ssi~, will you button up my shirt for me? I’ve hurt my thumb this morning.”

The beautiful young man with skin like caramel stammered and eventually nodded and blushed as he ghosted his hands above her chest, having to look directly at it to do what he was commanded to do. He even bit his lip. As the moment stretched out, she smiled and looked at his face. His heartbeat had to have been loud. Namjoon’s heart was beating louder and was biting his lip even harder. Why? He should’ve said something when she made the request in the first place.

Instead jealousy made the strong jaw tense as both hands gripped firmly on the podium in front of him.

“That’s--” Father Namjoon began, starting to get fed up with how long this was taking.

“Done. Is that fine, Y/N?” The younger man asked, forcing himself to look into her eyes and his cheeks became scarlet.

She gave a smile, “Yes. Thank you, Taehyung-ssi.”

Both students sat in their seat and the lesson continued as the sun was high in the sky, beating down on all of the rich campus. The sun that gave all of the world life and light began to sink soon after the final lesson and Namjoon decided to finish grading the last test at home. As he passed by what was supposed to be an empty hallway since it was nearing dusk, he instead heard labored breathing and primal grunts alonged with muffled moans.

“Be quiet, or someone is going to hear you.”

Was someone in trouble? Had someone given into their lustful urges and gone after an innocent student?

The sunkissed man with a heart of gold and duty towards bettering humanity sped towards the source of the sound. Moans and grunts got louder as the concerned teacher traveled empty halls to find who would be visiting the Headmaster and getting extra sessions in the confessional.

It was not any sound of pain, but pure erotic rapture taking place on the sturdy tables attatched to the floor. Pure whites and blues being tarnished by the sweat and friction it takes for at least two bodies to engage in intercourse. The bodies belonging to those who engaged in what turned out to be subtle foreplay of buttoning a simple blouse in front of a class of 13 other students and a fuming teacher. Who else better to approach the scene of discarded navy blue blazers now?

“Oh, I do love your blood the most, Taehyung-ssi. I would take more, but I wouldn’t want your cock to suffer any loss since I find that just as delicious if not more.” purred a familiar voice. “Yes! Oh yes! You are such a good pet, TaeTae.”

Deep growls responded, “Take as much as you want, Mistress. I’ll produce more blood. Ah! Ah, I want to serve you, Mistress.”

She moaned at his repeated penetrations, “You serve me so well, my pet. I assure you. Mmmm, right there. The most--oh--sought after boy on this incredibly dull campus approaching me my first day here, mmmpph and not backing down even after you found out what I was.”

“I just wanted to be yours, Mistress. I didn’t care how. Feed on me more, my beloved Mistress. Please.” Taehyung’s labored voice begged.

“You’re close, aren’t you, my pet?”

A desperate voice answered, “Mmmm, gya. Yes, Mistress.”

Y/N’s unforgettable laugh, “Ok, one more bite.”

Namjoon watched through the cracked doorway, unable to tear himself from the sounds of such passionate and primal coitus in an empty classroom. He remembered the time in high school when his heart led him to do the same with his crush, but it became the reason why he was sent here in the first place. It had been seen as too dirty and sinful when the love they had was as pure as freshly fallen snow.

Now, to see the one he said would claim him instead claim another, it...it hurt. It clouded his once confident mind with doubt and complex feelings. Had she lied to him? Was he really something so special when she had claim to half if not all of the student body at this point? Did such a pain that shot through his chest even deserve the name of heartache?

The sight of her removing the white dress shirt from Taehyung’s shoulder and sinking her glistening fangs into the area made something shift inside Father Namjoon. A brief wish to be in the young man’s position instead of standing stunned in fading sunlight flitted through his mind as he stared, mouth agape and stomach being filled with the most sensual of sins in the highest concentration. Such an act was being performed right in front of his snout which rested a pair of glasses.

As if fate wanted to make sure he saw every moment, every thrust, every bead of sweat as clear as possible.

Eyes like Hellfire looked directly at the frightened but enticed priest, assuring him that she had known he was there the entire time. The smile telling him not to look away even as the black framed lenses landed on the floor.

“Mistress! I feel so dizzy~” Taehyung whined. “Can I--?”

“Go ahead, pet.” She responded.

With blue plaid bunched around ankles, the student thrusted deeply into his Mistress with a broken moan. He begged for Y/N’s kisses and she gave them to him for being so good for her. As the affectionate action was done, a troubled pious man ran away. Out of sight, out of mind, right? That was his goal.

“Mistress, who was that?” the pet asked, breathing heavy and mind full of fog in part due to blood loss.

Y/N caressed his head and felt his creamy offering inside of her, “No one, my dear. Rest now. I’ll get you a nice comfy place to rest. Don’t you worry.”

With the door shut firmly behind himself, the call of concerned friends asked the reason for his quick pace and strained face. He assured them that it had just been a long day and he had just been in need of rest and it would be best if he were left alone for the time being.

“I just need to pray.” the young man with hair like a sandy beach promised himself.

But there was something that needed to be dealt with before he uttered a word up to the Heavens to hear. The growing problem in his pants making them even tighter, now pressing up against the zipper. It...it had to be handled now. This was the first time Namjoon had been on his knees not to pray, but to instead relieve the lust that created a fire in his groin. A fire as bright as Y/N’s ruby eyes. Unbuttoning pants and moving down black fabric and white underwear to free his thick and throbbing phallus. More upstanding than he was perceived by everyone on the other side of the door.

He just had to make it quick, and so the horny representative of the Heavenly Father began the task of sliding his hand back and forth along already moisturized skin. Friction was decreased due to his own precum leaking onto the rest of his cock. Biting the hem of his robes to keep quiet and keeping it out of the way, the man imagined himself in the place of his student, serving his Mistress in the most carnal of ways. He thought of her flame filled eyes looking at nothing but him.

Mistress. Mistress. Please don’t let anyone else serve you but me, Mistress. I’ll do anything. Please! He tried to stay true to the live script but instead let his own desires come forth. You were right. I do think that way. I haven’t thought about any of this stuff in a long time, not until you revealed what you were. Please!

He imagined Y/N’s hands scraping down the front of his chest and landing on his aching cock which she soon took over and began stroking with fervor. She teased him for being so desperate and laughed at him for making things so hard on himself when he could have just given in. Namjoon could just deliver himself unto his urges and into her and then maybe he’d be rewarded with actually getting to cum inside of her. Father Namjoon just wanted to let his snake explore her bush for the rest of his Earthly years..

The constricting heat of it. Her voice calling him precious names and soon enough his own voice was begging just like Taehyung’s had been. The small bit of sense left in the priest’s mind caused him to bite on his own arm as his white seed fell onto the barren land of a carpet a few shades darker due to it being traveled by many feet, making his sin even brighter and apparent.

Guilt soon constricted his heart and hot tears of regret burned and flowed down his cheeks. This was no way to live! He could not serve two Masters! He had to choose and Namjoon was sure his body had already decided against all reason, all logic, all sincerity to his life and love of serving his Savior God.

The next day in class, it was difficult to look at the one he had imagined pumping his cock for less than 24 hours ago on his bedroom floor. She noticed very early on in the teachings and had been torturing him thought the entire lesson, spreading her legs too wide while in her seat and even while in groups, she made sure her back was towards Father Namjoon and bent over the desk to reveal the scandalously thin and lacy thong she had decided to wear.

Blood rushed to all extremities of the teacher with a war inside of him. Which to follow, his Master or a new one that would rather be called Mistress? One was certainly real in a physical plane as well as mental. He no longer hesitated to believe in her power, though his troubled thoughts were stilled by a hand tapping his arm.

Father Namjoon jumped out of his skin, making the others laugh for a moment.

He then turned to the face of a young woman known as Lisa, “Father Namjoon, the timer? It’s been going on for a while.”

The beeping of his phone was silenced and then he had the groups go through and speak about the Biblical topic they had chosen. Research had been done as a group, but only two would present to class until the bell rang. Once the charming ring of wind chimes sounded, the students were released to their next class. The honey haired priest then cleaned up the room before his next class came for his teachings.

There was a folded note with his name on it in the seat in which Y/N every day as things were organized by surname. Namjoon’s heart jumped in excitement and anxiety at what the letter contained. It was a time and a place. A smile broke out on the teacher’s face so bright and broad that he had to cover it with his hand.

Next class came in. The same lesson was taught. The sun went down slower than usual.

Soyeon raised her hand, “Father Namjoon, why do you keep looking at the time? Are you looking forward to something?”

“Nothing in particular. I just hear that it will be a full moon tonight, so I am excited to see it once it’s up.” The man gave a polite smile as the timer went off.

Once the silver moon was high in the star speckled sky, Namjoon travelled to the location which was written on Y/N’s note. It was the old church that had been abandoned years ago after a great fire years before Namjoon ever showed up to this university. With only memory and a flashlight to guide him, the priest was clad only in a pair of black jeans with a white button up shirt tucked into them. The sleeves were rolled up to right below the elbow since he no longer felt wholly right in wearing his robes.

He opened the charred wooden doors with a groaning creek. Invisible small animals ran among scattered leaves.

“Hello, Y/N?” Namjoon called out. “A-are you--Are you here?” His voice reverberated upon the walls of the dilapidated cathedral.

No reply. He was stupid, and for what? Where had all of his rational thinking gone? The priest should have stayed with his God and his books. This may have been the day he died. It was just his imagination, all of this. The 100 year old DNA was just evidence that had been tampered with. She wasn’t a vampire. They didn’t even exist!

“Now now, don’t say that.” Y/N’s voice echoed. “I was just putting on the final touches, Father Joonie~”

Namjoon’s gaze fell upon the beautiful woman’s form, the vampire who had awoken years of suppressed lust inside of him. The one he wanted to serve more than almost anything.

Her shape was covered in a tight rose colored dress which left little to the imagination as it had no sleeves and only straps to hold up a beautiful bosom that glittered in the moonlight due to the chains that dangled from a black lace choker with a ruby as red as her eyes in the middle. Her fingers were adorned with black rings and she was holding red wine in a crystal glass. Her red and gold studded heels clacked on the aged dark wooden floor. As she tucked her hair behind her ear, the earrings she always wore winked in the moonlight along with a rosy bracelet.

“How do I look?” She asked, spreading her arms revealing lace underneath her breasts allowing her skin to peak through.

The man choked on his own words and was unable to reply. She had really arrived at the meeting spot for him. Of course, she was the one who set this all up in order for her to claim the man.

She smirked, the tip of blade like fangs flashed, “Thank you. I must say that you look quite delicious as well. I do quite despise those robes for doing such a good job at hiding such delectable and supple shapes like yours.”

“Y/N,” The man spoke softly. “I have come to give you my answer.”

“Is it the right one?” The woman stood in front of him and batted her eyes.

Namjoon nodded and could not meet her cherries, “For me, yes. I cannot be yours as much as it pains me. My heart and soul belong to my God.”

She frowned and the glass shattered in her hand as wind picked up, there was a crack in her usually calm and cocky exterior, “It’s a shame that I have to do this by force, Joonie. I had really hoped you made the correct decision.”

Hands were put up defensively, such is the way one should hold themselves in an attempt for self preservation.

“Please, hear...hear me out. I want. I want you. I want to be yours, Y/N. There are feelings that I have never felt before, and I doubt they’ll just go away.” His voice was soft as the sky and had a rasp which matched the crinkling leaves. “But I cannot serve two Masters--”

“What if I told you that you can keep your priesthood and still belong to me?” Y/N said.

Was such a thing possible? “. . .I’d take that option in a heartbeat.”

Her smile returned and the wind died down, “Alright, then. Your heart, body, and half of your mind will belong to me, but He gets to keep your soul and the other half of your mind.”

Namjoon gave an eager nod, “Yes. Yes, please! What do I have to do?”

In an instant, Y/N ripped off the startled man’s shirt Sharp talon like fingers dragged up the abdomen which flexed underneath her touch. A firm hand then gripped his chin and forced them to look at her. Shaded eyes looked up with a devilish grin with showed the entirety of fangs sharper than any needle the desperate man had ever seen. He let himself get lost in her red beryl eyes and felt himself losing all of his will as two lovely canines sunk into his neck. A bit of warm wetness trickled from the wounds, dying his shirt a romantic crimson. Tears of pure bliss dropped from his eyes. It was painless as he felt himself relax under her ministrations, his legs starting to give out.

Father Namjoon soon found himself kneeling in front of her red dress as she licked her scarlet stained lips. Her heel cover shoe then stepped on the oh so attentive cock hidden beneath thin trousers. The man hissed in a breath and felt as though he could orgasm then and there.

“Hmp, I finally have you, don’t I?”

She then began walking away from him and floated up the stairs and sat herself on top of the pulpit and spread her legs. Unlike earlier where there was a piece of black lace separating YN’s already deflowered garden from the harshness of man, there was nothing except flowing river of her honey. The half turned priest licked his lips.

“Equivalent exchange, my dear. I take some of your lifeblood and you take your fill of my body. Anything you desire no matter how sinful it is, I will happily fulfill. Now devour my nectar.”

“Yes, Mistress~” Namjoon said without missing a beat and then walked towards her dripping pussy, taking a deep inhale. “Oh, God. It smells delicious.” He hovered his nose right above her heat and breathed in again, his torso pressed against the pulpit’s wooden cross and adding much needed pressure to his sheathed length.

Y/N shoved his head forward, “No more talking! Become mine already!” obvious impatience after months of hard work was expected and rewarded.

Everything Namjoon had ever imagined over the past 6 years of learning and eventually becoming a teacher at the school came forth. All thoughts that had been shoved to the deepest parts of his mind were given new life as he took his fill of her body. His pants were now discarded somewhere off to the side as he became hungrier and more unhinged.

He wanted to be hers and he wanted his God. With this oath, he was promised both. Jesus died for man’s sins. It would be a waste if he died for nothing, right? Every thrust inside the vampire he adored was like a prayer and her moans a matching hymnal loud enough for Him and all of His angels to hear.

“Mistress. Oh, Y/N. Thank you. Thank you for choosing me. Thank you, Mistress Y/N.” Father Joonie panted out as he rutted with no sense of fatigue. “I don’t know why I tried to fight it. I can really have it all with you.”

She giggled and moaned out his name, “Oh yes, Father Joonie, yes you can.”

“Don’t be with anyone else. Please. Keep your eyes on me. At least when we’re together. Don’t play around with Taehyung or anyone else.” He sounded so pitiful, begging a student that he taught not to play with his heart.

“If I ever play with anyone else, you will be there to make--oh goodness--to make sure they’re doing it right. You’re my number 1, Joonie. I wanted you and so I’m going to have you ask much as I can.” She was a moaning mess under him as they screwed, using the pews as support to blow out a Vampire’s back.

The fiercely tender words went right to the priest’s cock, “I’m gonna. Mistress Y/N, I’m going to cum! Let me seed your garden, please!”

His fluttered as she once again sank her teeth into him and sucked.

“Fuck! Yes! Oh God, yes!” The priest orgasmed deep inside his vampire student.

Father Namjoon no longer cared about him being her professor or that she was a vampire. All he could think about was how most of him belonged to her now. He slid out of her and got onto his knees to lay his head in her lap once she sat up. She caught her breath and started to smooth his head. Maybe she had pushed him too far for their first feeding.

Her own clothing had never been removed completely, only pushed out of the way to free her bosoms and create better access to her now filled and dripping pussy. She did not attempt to correct any of this as she adored the exposed feeling of it all.

Then her most prized possession in several centuries said to her in his dazed state, “I want to be yours for the rest of my life, Y/N.”

“And you will be.” She promised.

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pamphletstoinspire · 4 years

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Mammon’s Grip on the Catholic Church

As the story goes, Mother Teresa was offered a million dollars by a Catholic with deep pockets, and Mother took the check, gave him a hug, and said she’d be able to open five new orphanages.

The millionaire drew back, cleared his throat, and said, “That sounds real fine Mother Teresa, but you don’t seem to understand. If you invested that million dollars you’d have regular income that would pay for the running costs of all your orphanages AND you’d still have the million dollars!”

She smiled and said, “No. You don’t understand. You see, if I spend the million dollars to build five new orphanages, then another millionaire will come along and give us two million dollars.”

This saintly quality of standing conventional wisdom on its head has always thrilled me. I grew up with stories of miracles told by missionaries, wondrous answers to prayer, preachers who sang in prison, and feisty ladies like Mother Teresa who changed the world with not much more than hard work, hours of prayer, and a certain Christ-like cunning that pulled the rug out from millionaires and pulled the plug out of secular power systems.

If I could choose one criticism above all others of the ecclesiastical establishment it would be this: the hierarchs are enslaved by a secular system and a salvation-by-works mentality. By referring to the “ecclesiastical establishment,” I am not singling out Catholics, but pointing a finger at all those poor souls who lead our churches while unthinkingly serving mammon rather than their Master.

“Mammon” is not just money. It is a whole way of looking at the world that cannot see beyond business plans, balance sheets, and newspaper headlines. The church leaders are too often held hostage by a materialistic and utilitarian understanding of the Church—as if were were just another 501(c)(3) government-approved charity, such as the Girl Scouts, the Rotary Club, or the United Way.

As such, the ecclesiastical structures are dominated not by Their Eminences, but by éminences grises—grey-suited men like Mother Teresa’s millionaire, who are laden with financial sense but no faith sense. The secular triumvirate that dominates our whole society also dominates the Church. That unelected triumvirate are the lawyers, the financial advisors, and the public relations experts. Deadly afraid of being sued, losing the Church’s assets, and losing face, the members of the hierarchy make cowardly decisions that have little do with the Faith and everything to do with protecting assets and asses.

When his persecutors demanded that Saint Lawrence hand over the wealth of the Church, he famously pointed to the poor people of Rome, declaring they were the wealth of the Church. Church leaders today, however, sacrifice their people to protect their possessions. So decisions are made time and again that actually hinder the Church’s mission and not only restrict her ministers but too often throw them under the bus in order to “protect the Church.” Let’s not deceive ourselves. The programs are not designed to protect our children, to protect the bishop, or protect the Church. They are designed to protect the insurance company.

Time and again, decisions are taken from a purely secular point of view. Great fundraising initiatives with lofty ambitions but vague objectives are initiated. Dioceses hire companies that take their percentage and come in with glossy brochures, paid fundraisers, slick videos, and costly mailings.

Is this the way the saints operate? I don’t think so. Instead, a faith project begins with one person who sees the need, rolls up his or her sleeves, and gets to work. As the work is done, the funds roll in and the ministry expands. The witness to the world is clear, the Lord’s work is accomplished, and the faith of the people is strengthened—and all at a fraction of the cost in terms of the money and manpower that the big secular systems would employ.

This kind of faith project exemplifies the Catholic principle of subsidiarity—that problems should be solved and initiatives taken at the lowest local level possible. This kind of grass roots project gets the job done without high-level interference and costly experts. This kind of faith project includes an element of risk and always has, from that thrilling moment when Saint Peter first stepped out of the boat to walk on the waves. It is the instinct of the financial advisors, the insurance executives, and the public relations gurus, however, to avoid all risk at all times and quash any initiative that involves a whiff of risk.

I am the priest in a small parish in a part of town that is economically and socially challenged. We don’t have historic endowments, investments, or high rent property. Some time ago in a meeting of our finance council, the members were biting their nails over what looked like a grim financial forecast. I chuckled and said, “Folks, we’re actually in a terrific situation, because if we don’t have enough money we can all learn what it means to live by faith and see how the Lord provides. No need to worry. We’ll live within our means and you’ll see. If we are faithful, we will always have enough.”

When a church or a family, a school, a diocese or a religious order lives this way, they see abundant blessings. Their finances are fluid even if they are living hand to mouth. They see an increase in vocations. The faith comes alive in the hearts and homes of their people. The gospel is proclaimed in word and works, and all because they have heeded the gospel and learned to trust in God, not mammon.

BY: FR. DWIGHT LONGENECKER

#mamons grip on the Catholic Church

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ask-marcus-cally-and-ari · 4 years

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Only Human

Chapter 9: Breather

As the van made its way through the forest, Marcus asked, “So what’s your deal?”

“Doctor kidnapped me and a Sniper, cut us up, then put my head on the Snipers body,” Spyper shrugged. “I’ve been stuck as a hybrid ever since.”

Marcus winced. “Oh… wow. Uh. That sucks. What happened to the other head and body?”

“The Medic made another hybrid. Sny. Me and him are good friends, although it does get kinda weird at times since...Y’know, he has my body. And we both have this weird tick where we’ll switch into the other's voice for a moment,” Spyper replied, gesturing to his neck.

“Oh. What does that even feel like?”

“Uh… It's hard to explain. Have you ever had sleep paralysis? Where you know you’re awake and you’re aware of what's going on, but you can’t do anything about it?”

Ari nodded. “I know what that is.”

“It’s kinda like that. My brain gets paralyzed for a moment and I can’t do anything when that tick starts going, even though I know it's happening.”

Marcus winced. “That must suck.” Briefly, the teen looked up at the van ceiling, hand on his gun.

“You okay, kid?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Bad experience with things above me.” Marcus relaxed upon seeing nothing on the ceiling. “You understand, right?”

“Yeah, I understand. I once fought Brutal myself.”

“Oh, wow!” Ari beamed. “Did you win?”

“I did. Cut his head right off,” Spyper chuckled, punctuating his words by sharply jerking his hand across his throat.

Ari whimpered, suddenly very pale- and far less excited.

“Hey, he was terrorizing a team, and I just happened to drop by,” Spyper shrugged.

Marcus leaned over. “Real talk, man,” he whispered, “Please try not to go into detail with stuff like that. Ari… isn’t that kind of person.”

“Oh, sorry. It’s not often I meet people who are faint of heart. Y’know, I hang around Freaks all day. ‘Faint of heart’ isn’t exactly common with us.”

"That's obvious," Cally responded dryly.

“Jester and Pure fit the bill, though,” Spyper added, glancing back at Ari and Cally. “Well, not so much Pure.”

"Who?"

“Christian Pure Spy. He’s a priest that lives nearby.”

“Who’s he running with as far as other Freaks?” Marcus asked.

“He’s friends with me Intelligent, and looks after Chaos Kin and Jester. He’s also friends with Polite Spy...But uh...That’s about as far as his good connections go,” Spyper said awkwardly.

“So he’s a good guy?” Ari asked.

“By himself? Yes. But he has some… questionable friends outside of the ones I listed.”

“Define questionable, please,” Cally requested.

“He’s friends with Christian Brutal Sniper and Gentlespy,” Intelligent answered, looking up from the chessboard.

Marcus twitched, then sighed. “Yeah, let’s stay our @sses away from there.”

“Yeah, good idea,” Ari winced.

“What about that Jester person you keep mentioning?” Cally asked.

“Count Jester is their full name. They’re on the more lighthearted side of Freaks,” Spyper replied, clearing his throat.

“Friends?”

“Me, Intelligent, Chaos, Pure, Pancakes...A whole bunch of people, actually.”

“Who’s Chaos?” Ari asked. “Good guy?”

“Chaos Kin? Yeah, she’s a good guy. A bit aggressive, but that’s really only towards people she doesn’t like.”

“Can we trust her?”

“Against Freaks like Brutal? Yeah, you can trust her,” Intelligent said. “She’s helped several good Freaks since becoming a Freak herself. She’s helped Medizard, Dr. Dum and Mr. Dan, SomeCleanTrash, Weaselcake, Bellatrix…” Intelligent listed off a handful of different Freaks. “If you asked her, she’d probably help you.”

“How many Freaks can we trust?” Cally asked. “And is there a database for you guys?”

“There is, but HECU are the ones who maintain it, and are the only people who can access it,” Spyper replied.

Cally raised an eyebrow and pulled out her laptop. “Let’s fix that, shall we?”

“Like you can get through HECU’s firewalls-”

“I just did. Marcus, Ari. Check this out.”

Marcus snickered at the look on Spyper’s face. “Impressed?”

“How did you get past their firewalls!?” Spyper spluttered.

“With my laptop. Alright, let’s see here...”

“All you have is a laptop, and aren’t you 17? How on Earth did you get past the firewalls of such a heavily guarded agency?” Intelligent implored, taken aback.

“The only reason whoever sent Christian Brutal Sniper and Gentlespy found me is because I got past the firewalls guarding the plan to cause basically the end of the world as we know it.”

“How you got these skills, I will never understand.”

“My parents used to refuse to feed me if I forgot to do something or didn’t do a good enough job. I had to make money somehow. Ethical hacking was a good way to do it.”

Ari whined upon hearing this. “They what?”

Intelligent and Spyper gave each other pale and mortified looks.

“What?” Cally asked, tilting her head.

“That is so beyond not ok,” Spyper grimaced.

“Got me the hacking skills I’m probably gonna need.”

“Jester has their work cut out with you,” Spyper sighed turning back to the road.

Cally shrugged and went back to the laptop.

Rudra was bowed over her desk, hunched over her computer and rigorously scrubbing through every piece of footage of the three teens she could get her hands on. First was the viral video of them fleeing Brutal, then there was a series of videos from the motel they had stayed at, and finally, a very short clip of them fleeing that very motel at night. It wasn’t much, but visuals on the teens could at least help her agents pinpoint the exact people they were looking for. And this combined with the knowledge they already had would make the process of searching for and identifying these three when found all the easier.

A knock at her door, along with a soft white glow, interrupted her process.

Rudra sighed heavily and sat back in her chair. “I knew you’d show up eventually.”

“I was given a tip that the Heart, the Brain, and the Body had awakened, so I came to talk to you.” A black woman in a white robe stepped in. “What can you tell me about them?”

“All three of them are teenagers. Barely out of high school,” Rudra replied dryly.

The woman, who had been sipping a drink, choked on it. “What?!”

“I was just as shocked as you are. Why do you think my agents are running around like mad trying to find them?”

“This is preposterous! They were supposed to select ideal hosts!”

“Well, I guess they took that a bit too literally. From what I can tell, instead of picking people who already possess the qualities the powers are best suited to, the powers decided to build ideal hosts from the ground up by literally joining with them in the womb,” Rudra sighed, rubbing her temples. “I mean, why else would the powers decide to join with literal children?”

The woman put her head in her hands. “This is not how it was supposed to go!”

“Was there no way to ensure the powers would go to people who already possessed the qualities they needed, Mercy?” Rudra implored. “Was there no way to ensure they wouldn’t go such an extreme route?”

“Had I thought that this option was on the table, I would have forbidden it.”

“And now three kids are stuck with having to save the world,” Rudra sighed incredulously.

“Oh, bother. Do they at least show promise?”

“They do. From the security footage we pulled from the motel they stayed at, we can see their powers activating. Most notably with Ari, the bearer of the Heart.” Rudra pulled up the video feed and turned the computer monitor towards Mercy.

“Hmm. Ari did not take the negative emotion well. They’re tender-hearted, aren’t they?”

“Seems like it. They’re an empath. Ari wears their heart on their sleeve. Literally. Look where the Heart’s mark showed up.” Rudra pulled up the feed from Brutals confrontation with the teens and showed it to Mercy.

“The girl with the Brain. She has not used her powers yet.”

“No, but she has already demonstrated intellect indicative of the Brain. She managed to get past the firewall that kept outsiders away from the plan to convert the Earth's population into Freaks. Her breaking down the firewall is actually how they even got into this mess.”

“Given how I overheard a few members of your cybersecurity team panicking on my way here, I believe that’s not the only firewall she got past.”

“Excuse me?”

“Apparently, within five minutes of the first breach, an attacker broke into your system and downloaded your Freak database before leaving the system. Your team is still trying to figure out what happened.”

Rudra exhaled sharply and held her head in her hands, going silent. “I didn’t fight a war just to be saddled with this sh@t,” She groaned.

“I didn’t get cut in half to handle this either.” Mercy sighed. “I understand why she did it, though. The Brain’s purpose is to gather information and utilize it correctly. Information concerning what she and the other two are up against would be a great help.”

“My question is: Why didn’t they come to us for the information? HECU literally builds itself on protecting people from Freaks, why wouldn’t HECU be their first option as far as refuge goes?”

“Perhaps paranoia. Given their situation, paranoia is perfectly justified,” Mercy pointed out. “I recall attacking you and the Legion at some point the first time you visited my hideout over paranoia.”

“And the fact that I was at the forefront of the army should have tipped you in that we were not there to fight,” Rudra sighed, dragging her hands across her face in exasperation.

“You have never liked me. Besides, it had been a long thousand years. Paranoia was justified given the situation. Speaking of new situations, how are the wife and daughter? Did she like the sword staff?”

Rudra jerked her head up. “...Sword staff? I don’t even own a sword staff. Mercy, what did you do?”

“I gave her a present. And trained her on safe handling. You knew the possibility existed when you asked me to babysit.”

“I expect this from Hero, not you,” Rudra groaned.

“We both know I have an affinity for bladed weapons.” Mercy looked around. “Does the bearer of the Body share that affinity?”

“No. The only weapon we’ve seen him wield is a handgun he carries.”

“Oh. Is he good with it?”

“He is. And he’s cunning. He faked being shot to get Brutal to lower his guard, then shot him in the heart.”

Mercy grinned. “Impressive,” she mused. “Mankind might actually have a chance.”

“Now if only the powers didn’t choose a bunch of kids to be humanity’s saving grace,” Rudra groused.

“Indeed. Or, as you mentioned being possible, create them,” Mercy sighed. “I certainly hope it never enters their heads that they are weapons if that’s the case.”

“No. The last thing these kids need is to act like they’re weapons and nothing more. That’ll do more damage than it’ll help.”

“I am aware. Especially the empath. When I think about it, perhaps the power to take on others’ emotions was not a good idea to give them without them first learning to control it.”

“You think?”

“I would have prepared for that had I known it would happen,” groaned Mercy. “As it stands, I will keep close tabs on them. I suggest you do the same.”

In Spyper's van, the Trio was reading over the database. “So, Spyper, you have a clone or something? Or just someone created the same way? What is RED Spyper to you?”

“An enemy. I’m pretty sure the doctor who made me created him too as a form of spite,” Spyper groused, scowling heavily. “He’s basically my evil counterpart. A doppelganger, kind of.”

“An evil twin? Like on TV?” Ari asked.

“Eh...I guess.”

“Cool!”

“Cool to you. Not to me! That Spyper’s been a pain in my a$$ for years!”

“Oh. That’s bad.”

Marcus glanced at Cally, who was staring at the screen, tattoo and eyes glowing pink, face void of emotion. “Uh… Cal? What’s going on?”

“Is something wrong back there?” Spyper asked, looking over his seat.

“Cal?” Ari whined. “Cal, cut it out! Say something!”

No luck. Cally gave a noise akin to a computer hum.

“Hey, hey! Kid, come on, snap out of it!” Intelligent urged, shaking Cally by the shoulder.

Cally didn’t reply; she locked eyes with Intelligent, keeping at least one hand on the laptop.

“Kid? Kid, can you hear me?” Intelligent implored, growing increasingly worried by Cally’s continued silence.

Cally’s eyes shone, glowing pink voids, hungry for… something. And then, in an instant, the light fell away, replaced with the soft brown eyes she had normally. “Ugh,” she groaned, “my head.”

“Cal? Are you ok?” Ari exclaimed, climbing to Cally’s side.

“I- huh? What happened?”

“You blacked out, Cal,” Marcus replied, crossing his arms.

“Oh… crap,” Cally groaned. “Good to know. We need to get help.”

“And that’s exactly where we’re going. I’m bringing you three to HECU. In the meantime, you three should probably get some rest. It’s a long trip there,” Spyper said.

#marcus #cally #ari #spyper #intelligent heavy #rudra #mercy

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theparanormalperiodical · 4 years

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The Thornton Heath Poltergeist - The Most Haunted Places In The World That You NEED To Hear About #2

January.

A time of self doubt as you take on the latest fad diet. A time of personal struggle as you return to the 9-to-5 and question why in the hell you decided to work in this goddamn office. And a time of thirst as you realise Dry January does indeed include Echo Falls despite their Rosé being mostly sugar and aesthetic.

Is there any hope left in the world?

Oh, dear reader - you didn’t tap on this blog in the hope of reading some article about a cheerful, positive topic like little rabbits with big flopsy ears, did you?

You’re here for the dead. And the demonic. And all manner of terrible things.

Goodbye, Patches - hello, Poltergeist.

Today, we are going to be discussing one of the most iconic paranormal cases from the UK that no one has ever heard of: the Thornton Heath Poltergeist.

But it turns out that there’s not just one poltergeist in Thornton Heath.

Oh, no.

There’s two.

And these two pesky spirits are far from alone:

Croydon might not sound like the setting for the next cult horror hit, but this London borough is actually known for its rather macabre history - and the legacy of its dark past.

Whilst your chowing down on a Gregg’s sausage roll you might hear rumours of one of Elizabeth I’s maids-in-waiting traipsing around a school, and perhaps you’ll even see a few children who were killed during the war skip past the local Chicken Cottage.

On top of that - like most areas of London - Croydon is actually a relatively ancient town, with the first settlements appearing in the 6th century.

This place clearly has a lot of paranormal promise.

However, despite setting the scene for 2 key cases of poltergeist activity, though do appear to be unconnected. Nevertheless, together they provide a lot of insight into a specific form of supernatural activity that tends to get forgotten.

This is especially true since poltergeists have dominated the horror genre for many a year, inspiring iconic films such as Poltergeist (1982), and litter stories which involve any trace paranormal activity.

The thing is, although frequently mentioned, the actual concept of poltergeists is kind of ignored, particularly the debate surrounding them. These 2 cases, however, provide an overview of the different approaches to poltergeist activity:

One case looks into debunking the paranormal, whereas the other presents the typical haunted house case you clicked to see.

So, today’s article is going to take us through the 2 poltergeists of Thornton Heath, and the paranormal theory behind poltergeists.

Strap in folks, and let’s get spooky.

First, What Actually Is A Poltergeist?

Anyone speak German?

Poltergeist is a mashup of two German words, and it literally means “noisy spirit”.

Based on that translation, it is a type of spirit who has a thing for physical disturbances. Loud noises, objects moving, biting and pinching are the common symptoms of such a haunting. And despite sounding pretty minimal - well, maybe not the biting and the pinching - such poltergeist activity often represents the first traces of far greater hauntings.

But unlike most paranormal theories, it turns out that poltergeist activity is pretty well investigated (as this post will demonstrate).

Heck, poltergeist activity has been reported since the 1st century!

It is claimed that it lasts typically around 5 months, but some say it can stretch out to several years.

On top of our knowledge of the duration of such activity, poltergeists allegedly haunt people, not places - a bit like demons. This does contrast with the 1972 haunting, but we all know that supernatural theories lack the accuracy we expect of an exact science.

And so we come back to the debates and the debunking which always ends up stalking the supernatural. It’s for that reason that Poltergeists are such a valuable component of spiritualist theory because of the intense debate and study surrounding them, as the 1938 case will show.

Indeed, the first of the scientific theories debunking poltergeists swap the paranormal for the patriarchy.

It's called the Naughty Little Girl theory.

Obviously, it suggests that young girls create activity to get attention because women can’t breathe without doing it for attention, right? The Conjuring 2 is one of the few films that picks up on this concept, showing its use by the media as it was utilised in the real life case.

A less misogynistic theory instead claims that the paranormal activity could be down to seismic activity or water stress, creating noises and physical disturbances often blamed on poltergeists.

Or, it could all come back to the theory of psychokinesis:

It claims that when we are stressed, our fucked-up brains can have a physical impact on the objects around us, making it look - and feel - like we are living in a perpetual Paranormal Activity film.

Well, that or a rom-com; it turns out the poltergeist was really within us the whole time...

The 1972 Case - The Official Thornton Heath Poltergeist

Welcome to the the era of the occult - the 1970s.

The obsession with the paranormal experienced a revival in the late 20th century thanks to the affectionately named Satanic Panic and the rise of hippie-dom. And because so many reports of the paranormal crop up in this era, we have to be wary – blaming shit on the paranormal was nearly as common as institutionalised racism, ensuring that claims were often amped up by fear.

Got your pinch of salt to hand? Good.

Our story begins in the heat of summer - it’s August 1972.

A family are fast asleep after, well, I don’t know, what did people do in the 1970s? Listen to too much ABBA?

Anyway - their peaceful slumber is interrupted in the middle of the night when a radio switches on all by itself and blasts out full-volume-raise-the-roof level musings from a foreign radio station.

This is where the activity begins.

The following nights, lights turn on and off by themselves, mirroring the first hour of a Paranormal Activity film before Katie makes some off the cuff comment about being besties with a demon during puberty.

Yet despite the suggestions of something supernatural, it suddenly just chills the fuck out.

Well, that is until the most wonderful time of the year! Only for this famalam, this are about to get a little less wonderful, and a little more what the fuck.

Probably in the midst of an ABBA jam-sesh, a small antique figurine is plucked off a shelf by an invisible hand, and flung across the room, hitting the patriarch of the family with such a force that it knocks him to the floor.

If that wasn’t enough for one day, the Christmas tree then joins in the freaky festivities, and starts shaking.

And that only just scratches the surface of the supernatural events soon to haunt this family.

Cut to a few days later, and its New Year Eve.

Ok, right, let’s be honest here: any activity reported was at times when there would have been a couple of bevvies, a few late nights among friends and family…

Who hasn’t seen a demon picking cashews out of the mixed nuts bowel when they’re a third of the way through that bottle of Echo Falls?

Regardless of my suspicions, they supposedly started to hear loud footsteps upstairs, and during that very night, a member of the family awoke to see a very tall and very angry man staring at him, giving off very threatening vibes.

But it wasn’t just the son of the family that saw these mysterious goings on.

Some visitors to the house reported similar activity:

At a dinner party (*sigh*) a door began to violently shake, nearly coming off its hinges. The living room door then followed suit, and swung open. Every single light in the house then began to follow the trend and turned on and off.

No matter how many bottles they were deep by then, there’s no doubt that shizz was getting weird.

In response to this shizz getting weird, the family did the right thing: they called themselves a priest, and got him to check the shizz out.

However, as a result of his holy presence, the activity worsened. A medium shortly followed, and on his visit deduced that this was a farmer of Chatterton. A quick visit to the library and a rifle through the odd archive later, and the story is confirmed:

This was the spirit of a farmer from the 18th century, and as the medium claimed, he was angry that these trespassers were on his land. So, like all landlords, he kept his cool and was trying to treat these people with the fairness and respect that all landlords hold dear.

Nah, who are we kidding - instead of charging them £60 for not pulling a weed out from underneath the wheelie bin, he manifested as a poltergeist.

The escalation then, uh, escalated.

Following the appearance of the ghost patriarch, his wife then turned up and made a point of targeting the matriarch of the family.

Despite the coincidence of most claims of boozy nights on the heath, these hauntings that mirror the heads of the household really support the case as it sticks to this line of opposition to the “intruders”.

The ghostly matriarch’s favoured haunting was following people up the stairs; when you turned around, you would see wisps of a grey bun and the outlines of a faint figure which would then vanish into thin air.

But on top of the wife getting involved, the farmer himself made a commitment to being spooky AF.

Its for that reason that the creepiest haunting of the year award goes to the farmer.

Why?

Because he would turn up on their TV.

Like, I don’t know if he was on bloody Blue Peter à la IT, or if the screen would go blank and this bitch would rock up and just be there…

But just like fuck that, no thanks, congratulations, and just take the award ugh.

So, like anyone would, this family were like nope screw this, packed up shop, and moved the fuck outta there. After they moved out the activity ceased - like all hauntings tend to do, confirming that it could be due to their trespassing.

Well, or that it was all faked but as the gullible young woman I am, I’m going to deny all traces of this family’s excessive drinking and say that the farmer did indeed turn up on Blue Peter and take a badge with him to the afterlife.

For privacy reasons, the actual address is unknown to the public for the obvious reason that innocent families don’t want some Jake Paul wannabe pulling up in a jacked up Ford Fiesta and whipping out a GoPro to make a quick buck on YouTube.

Heck, I don’t know if anyone lives there now! But this is still recognised by paranormal fanatics are one of the greatest hauntings to come out of the UK.

Well, I say the greatest…

It has to compete with the Thornton Heath poltergeist of an odd 40 years before.

The 1938 Case - Thornton Heath Poltergeist 2: The Prequel No One Asked For

Now we turn to the former haunting of Thornton heath in 1938.

But this poltergeist isn’t set against the scene of some cosy pre-war family home, nor are any long dead farmers getting involved.

This story, on the other hand, follows the scientific study of the paranormal, and to this day is an unsolved mystery that has left both investigator and individual alike without answers.

And it starts with this bloke called Nandor Fodor.

Fodor lead the argument that poltergeists are manifestations from the subconscious mind, and to prove his claims, he investigated the tales of terror that had been experienced by one woman in a small corner of Croydon.

He followed his scientific studies all the way to a little place called Thornton Heath.

Sure, this case could have been linked to the Chatterton farmer, but the focus of their investigation was on the nature of paranormal beliefs, so there was no study of what spirit could be behind it.

All we know regarding the haunting is that the victim of this poltergeist was a woman only known to us as Mrs. Forbes. She was studied at an institute, and in an attempt to be sure she wasn’t creating the hauntings, she basically had to get undressed in front of them, and wear special clothes to prove she wasn’t concealing anything.

Nevertheless, the weird shizz we saw in the 1970s still seemed to follow her.

Dishes would float in mid-air and then crash to the floor, glasses would suddenly appear in her hand (*insert middle aged facebook meme with a minion in the background*), and objects from her home would appear at the institute.

Her house was 10 miles away from the institute.

But beyond her possessions appearing out of thin air, Mrs. Forbes frequently described different entities that would appear and attack her.

These beings included a vampire which would on occasion bite her neck - and left her with two physical wounds in her neck, and a tiger which reached out and scratched deep gashes in her arm. Just like the vampire’s supposed attack, these markings were also found on her body.

However, one of her claims went too far, and was used to challenge every single incident she claimed was caused by a poltergeist:

Alongside the vampire bite and the tiger’s scratches, Mrs. Forbes also had several burn marks scarring her neck. Seemingly coming out of nowhere, Forbes believed it was due to the spirit of a man strangling her with a necklace.

However, shortly after making this statement, she professed a deep desire to kill this man.

Fodor drew from this that she thought the man was inside of her, and thus she tried to kill him by choking herself. That’s the burn marks explained - what about everything else? All it took was a quick check of her body and clothing to find small items concealed under her left breast.

That’s right; she has conjured up this “poltergeist” out of thin air.

Having connected the dots, Fodor deduced that she was both schizophrenic, and burdened by repressed sexual trauma.

Another day, another hoax.

Unsurprisingly, faked activity vis-a-vis this case is pretty common when it comes to the paranormal, and this label is pinned by non-believers onto, well, basically anything we just so happen to report.

And despite how frustrating this can seem, it is a necessary disturbance in our research of the supernatural. In fact, the original Thornton Heath story brings this into play when we discuss poltergeists, particularly as their basis centres on physical disturbances which can be both faked or misinterpreted.

Croydon might seem yet another area of London Prince Andrew would pull out of the hat to defend his reputation, but it instead represents a much wider discussion of the paranormal.

From the fake to the unknown, from the mysterious to the mentally unstable:

How we investigate the supernatural starts in a little place called Thornton Heath.

What do you think?

Did the family really witness poltergeist activity first hand?

Or was it all just conjured up by women that purely wanted attention i dont know about you but i just love attention oh gimme attention look I WANT ATTENTION NOWSUFH[HB’[Egb’???????!1//1/1/1!//????

Ahem.

Wanna hear about more spooky shizz like this? Wanna hear about a new haunted location everyday? Then go ‘head and hit follow!

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kariachi · 5 years

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Fic! Namely fic of the Joneses reaching their final straw and damn well doing something about it.

Warning: This fic is not nice to Gwen or pro-Gwen people. It’s not nice to Charmcaster either, but y’all should expect that from me by now.

Valerie ‘Turbine’ Jones wasn’t really any more concerned for her baby cousin’s safety than was normal for anyone related to him at first. The girl in the picture he sent her- his new girlfriend- was vaguely familiar, but nothing seemed too amiss.

When Suzana called though, teeth snapping on every other word, to bitch about her baby brother dating a Tennyson- a word she snarled like a curse- a bit of a niggling started up.

When rumours started going around the family of her being rude, and passive-aggressive, and not treating him with the respect he deserved as a person, nonetheless one with overprotective relatives, the niggling got worse.

When Kevin called her in the middle of the night, midway through a breakdown and just so tired, in pain, half sure everything was his fault-

Well.

That was where she drew the line.

She got the call at 10 pm. By 11 pm she and the boys were back on the road with a new pair of big rigs under them. By midnight she’d gotten ahold of JJ and she was heading west too. There’d been a strong urge to call Molly and Auntie Eva, but they were only a few hours away from him. She’d call in the morning.

It was a two-day drive if you paid attention to things like traffic laws and speed limits.

Through the power of coffee and Val’s protective rage they cut it down to sixteen hours.

It was agreed, during the early morning phonecalls, that they would go in as one unified force. Strength in numbers and all that. Just a wall of Jones clan and associates bearing down on the university like a tsunami. After all, Kevin had survived this long, he knew they had his back even if he didn’t know they were coming, and if something did happen to him they’d just burn the entire fucking campus down in retribution.

The fact JJ agreed to that said more than anything.

Kevin was in the library when they showed up, at 3 pm. There was shock, relief, bonecrushing hugs from all sides, and a look of dismayed hope when they told him they were there to get him gone that just got everyone’s hackles up all over again.

They stormed into his apartment as a team on a mission- pausing only long enough for Auntie Eva to literally throw that murdering whats-her-fuck Tennyson’d moved in out with a string of curses that would’ve killed Gran to hear them come out of one of her children. There were some Kevin had to rush and write down because they were in Oneida and none of them had heard them before.

Hopefully they would be forgiven in the afterlife for being present for it, given the circumstances.

Kevin had so much shit. So. Much. Shit. It was a good thing they’d brought the big rigs because they really needed them. Enough so that Kevin took one look at them, and at the first load of boxes, and immediately set to work rigging some sorta tech up inside that just, made more shit fit. Without changing the space at all.

“How does that even work?”

“Trust me, Baron, the geometry alone would have your brain meting out your ears.”

As soon as he was done with the trucks JJ pulled Kevin into his little kitchenette, outside the view of the rest of them, claiming that the whole lot of them needed feeding and his fridge pantry was gonna need clearing out, so may as well hit two birds with one stone.

She came out five minutes later, gloves gone, tears in her eyes and murder in her step, and ordered Molly- as soon as they were done there- to go back home and make it known the Jones clan and the Bellwood pack were no longer having anything to do with Tennysons or those who supported them.

She didn’t have the authority to make either call, but the look on her face had Auntie Eva backing her and Uncle Luka surely would too.

The university’s Osmosian population trickled in slowly, all curious about why the High Priest’s apartment was being cleared out by strangers and just as much willing to help move him out. They didn’t even need to know why, just to get his assurance that yes he was moving out and yes the people helping were kin (and the boys were too choked up on hearing that, given she’d met them fresh outta high school and been bringing them to Solstice for years). It did his mood wonders to have them all join in on packing and moving his things, handling every book or machine like it was an ancient holy relic, and wishing him only the best.

It was especially nice for there to be that barrier around him when Tennyson showed up. Not that she managed to get an actual statement out given Auntie Eva took one look at her, nostrils flaring same as they had when she’d seen the other bitch and her aura, and nearly caved her head in with a tire iron. JJ probably would’ve helped if Road Rage hadn’t been close enough to get his arms around her waist before she could throw herself into the fray.

Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on your point of view, the girl was smart enough to just retreat, but that was all any of the young Ossys needed to see to figure out exactly what was going on. It was a treat Val had never expected, getting to see the information travel through the small pack and the change in every one of them as they decided their schoolmate was clearly an enemy.

That many packs were going to be joining the Bellwood one in their stance against the Tennyson family.

Good.

Auntie Eva may have been the eldest member of the family there, and technically the family matriarch with Gran gone, but Val was the one running this show and so it was her job to plan shit out. With the extra hands the Ossys granted she was free to figure out where they were going to put Kevin’s shit, and more importantly where they were going to put Kevin.

Because she didn’t trust the Tennysons as far as she could throw them, and she’d be damned if they came within a mile of her baby cousin.

In the end she started by calling up Argit and suffering through the screeching tirade that came with admitting she’d not called him earlier so he could come out and help. A flowerbed died next to her. It was almost worrying if she didn’t know hurting clan was a line he wasn’t about to cross, for Kevin’s sake if nothing else. She did manage to convince him to go a warding, giving him the relevant address and grinning when he started ordering his robots into action before even hanging up.

Then, she called up Mary Jo. It was short notice, but if anyone was going to understand it was her woman, right? Right. There was a reason she loved her, beyond the enthusiasm and brilliance and pure showboatsmanship, and that was solidified when Val got as far as ‘we need to hide my cousin Kev for a while’ before getting a bright ‘he can stay here’. The only other words she got in were ‘keep in mind, he tries to keep kosher and has a strawberry allergy’ and ‘thanks babe, bye’ before Mary Jo was darting off the phone to go prepare for her guest. Hadn’t even gotten to tell her Argit was coming to ward the place. Still, she’d probably take it in stride.

Damn, she loved that woman.

Kevin did not make his way to Mary Jo’s alone. Fuck no. He had a whole fucking convoy of escorts, because the Joneses were fucking done. His shit would get stowed away, and everyone would go home, once they knew for certain he was safe and sound and not a heartbeat before.

Mary Jo, of course, welcomed him with open arms, once she got the chance. Argit got there first, snapping and hissing and checking him over frantically like he might have lost a leg or something in the weeks he’d been out of his sight. It was charming, in its own way, and Val wholly expected her brother to react the same way the next time they saw each other.

She sent the boys off at that point, to get his things squared away, but the family? Oh, the family stayed the night. To make sure Kevin was alright. That he settled in. That Val and Mary Jo were properly teased and subjected to half-hearted ‘leave room for propriety’s. It was worth it though, to know that now all her cousins were as safe as she could make them. To stand by the cot that’d been set up in Mary Jo’s office, where Kevin was curled up with Argit draped over him like a spiky shield, and know he was going to be okay.

With a bare smile, she reached out and mussed his hair, just like she had when he was small and she and Casey were a step down from gods in his view.

From now on, they were going to keep a closer eye on things.

#fanfic #jones #nothing is detailed but #it's made very clear gwen has Fucked Up Big Time

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smalltragedy · 3 years

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looks away as i finally post his intro after being kinda awol fr however long. i love him a lot n hes also bri’s character mercy’s younger brother so u hv to be nice to him. think abt mercy’s life. then think abt ducky. im sry in advance tht his intro’s a little longer ive hd ducky fr like. a year or two n i’ve been playing him a While <3 as always like this if u’d like 2 plot n i’ll try 2 msg u bck bt otherwise im gna just hop right into threads bc obv i need to. change my methods.

ABUSE, VIOLENCE, DRUG ABUSE, EYE INJURY, GANG MENTIONS TW.

mini playlist.

statistics.

full name: donovan mercer.

nickname(s): ducky.

birthday: march 15th, 1999.

zodiac: pisces sun, aquarius moon, aquarius ascending.

mbti & temperament: intp & theorist / phlegmatic.

label: the despondent.

hometown: hell’s kitchen, new york.

sexuality: bisexual (bt not out).

pinterest.

biography.

to the point where he stopped trying, simply. he never graduated high school.

all for nothing, the moment vinny discovered it, the edge of a map sticking out after a rushed morning.

eye injury // corneal scarring, impairing his left eye. astronaut dreams destroyed, but not in a matter of seconds. in the matter of an hour, maybe more - and that’d been much, much worse.

he stopped trying to run away after that. tried to be more like their father, more like mercy - more brutish, less feeling. spoke less, and less. spoke hardly at all, unless spoken to first.

still didn’t matter. still lived his days in fear, still knew it’d never change. nothing would ever change.

personality & facts.

has maybe half the amount of clients that mercy does, but he’s working on it.

overall just … he’s a soft boy, with a big heart - bigger than anybody else in his family, that’s for sure, but his exterior is far different than that, and it’s hard to tell.

wanted plots.

#abuse tw #violence tw #drug abuse tw #gangs mention #eye injury tw #irvingintro #( ducky mercer. ) about. / ice boy.#sighs sm #also sry fr hw embarrasingly late this is #did i even spell tht rigth? no #did i spell tht one right? bno.#fuck.

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dailyaudiobible · 5 years

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04/15/2019 DAB Transcript

Joshua 11:1-12:24, Luke 17:11-37, Psalms 84:1-12, Proverbs 13:5-6

Today is the 15th day of the month of April. I’m Brian, it’s great to be here with you today. I was just thinking, are we in the middle of the month? And I guess we’re about dead center in the middle of the month of April already. So, three and a half months into this journey together and what an adventure, what a joy to be together with you every day around this global campfire that we call home and let God's word speak to us. So, let's get to that. We're reading from the New Living Translation this week. We’re working our way through the book of Joshua, which of course is the story of what comes after Moses, right? Moses was responsible for leading people out of slavery and Egypt and through the wilderness for more than a generation, bringing them right to the precipice of the of the Jordan River. And then he stepped back and Joshua took leadership and is taking the people into the land of promise and we have been witnessing all of the intriguing conspiracy about that, how different kings would ally themselves and attack Israel and then Israel would defeat them and take the land. And, so, we are moving our way through of the conquest of the promised land. Today Joshua chapter 11 and 12.

Commentary:

Okay. Today we have the story in the gospel of Luke of Jesus moving through the border between Galilee and Samaria. So, Samaria, Samaritans, right, the remnant of the northern kingdom who were…they were not really accepted as Hebrews at all because they were very, very intermixed and we’ve kind of covered that territory before, but the tension between the two camps was and is apparent in the Scriptures. And, so, there's these ten lepers, they’re not identifying as Hebrew or Samaritan or anything else, they're just unclean and outcast because they’ve got a degenerative disease and Jesus tells them to go show themselves to the priest, right? And t’s the one, it's the Samaritan one, it’s the one on the way, who realizes that he's healed that comes back to talk to Jesus and Jesus asks, “where are the other nine?” And the implications are fairly apparent. It's a well-known story and yet, I can't read this well-known story, even though I've known this story as long as I can remember. This is a Sunday school story and I grew up in Sunday school. So, this is a flannel board story for sure. I still, even having known this all my life, I'm still struck by why the other nine people would continue forward. Like, they were gonna die from this disease, it was gonna eat them alive, literally waste them away, disfigure them until they were unrecognizable and kill them. So, if you see and you look down and your skin is clean, I mean, on the one hand, I guess you go to the priest and you get declared clean. I guess what maybe picks me a little bit, pricks me little bit about the story is how entitled we can be as believers. We will claim who we are in Christ and we will work on our identity and we will claim and wield our authority and we just expect like, you know, we’ll claim, “I am a child of the most-high God.” And it's all true. And yes, we are supposed to have that identity. And yes, it's true nut then we just come to expect God to kind of be the pushover father that just happens to be rich and just really wants…will write the check to keep us from bothering him and so we come to expect this stuff. And, so, easily we can just take and take and take and take and still be dissatisfied, right? Take and take and take the provision of the Lord and it still not be enough and it never is enough, and we’re always dissatisfied and we’re always grumbling to God about what else we need rather than being like the one and looking down and seeing, “hang on a second. I'm clean and I know what filthy feels like inside and out and I'm clean” and just go fall at Jesus feet. We’re clean, we’re not owed something, we’ve received something that is eternal. So, as you go into your day give that some thought. Invite the Holy Spirit into the places that you are overwhelmingly blessed and it's still not enough and you are ungrateful in spite of it all. And on one level or another that's probably all of us. Let's lay that down as we continue through this season of repentance and sitting with what it cost to offer us our salvation as we move toward Easter. Let's sit with this today.

And then also in the book of Luke today, Jesus kind of drops a bomb. It's very common, we know it well, but when we sit down and think of the implications it's pretty huge stuff. Everyone's asking Jesus about when this kingdom, He keeps talking about when this is gonna happen, when is the kingdom gonna come because they’re looking for this. Like, they are looking for the kingdom of God and they are looking for a messianic leader to usher in the kingdom. And, for them, it's the restoration of ancient Israel, for them, it's the reclamation of the land so that they can self-govern and get rid of all the mixture and get the Romans out and try to wash away all the Greek influence in the Hellenistic era that...they want to start over with a Messiah that will lead them back to God and give them their kingdom back. And, so, they are certainly interested in what Jesus is saying because he’s talking about the kingdom of God. And, so, the obvious question is, “okay, you’re saying the right things, when is this going to happen?” And we do kind of wonder the same thing, “when is this gonna finally happen? When’s He gonna show back up? When’s he gonna establish His kingdom upon the earth? When will this happen?” And Jesus answers the question and it should rivet us, it should give us pause. “The kingdom of God can't be detected by visible signs. Just let that sink in. Won't be able to say here it is or it's over there for the kingdom of God is already among you this let that sink in. If this is the first time you can…it’s becoming apparent. It's already happening. We are it. It's already upon the earth. We are the sons and daughters of the most-high God. We have the same Spirit that raised Christ from the dead living within us according to the Scriptures. It's now. The state of the kingdom is in our hands. Is it on earth as it is in heaven? This is our prayer, but this is also our work. So, although we’re contemplating how we can be ungrateful and how we can be entitled toward God and how we should run back to God because we’re clean be like the one, we also must understand as we take that posture of humility before the Savior realizing we are clean and made new that it is onto something, it is for something, it is because we are here to perpetuate the good news and bring the kingdom, reveal it, make it apparent, make it seen. It's here and we must reveal it and we do that through our lives. So, at some point we have to decide whether we’re gonna to continue this mixture of light and darkness within ourselves. And that's going to be the story, is our own personal struggle against our own personal darkness is or if we’re gonna surrender to the light utterly so that all that comes from us, all that emits out of us is light and life and good news because we are like our Savior, we have become Christ like in this world. Big thoughts for today, big thoughts as we head into our workweek.

Prayer:

Heavenly Father, we thank You, we thank You for the rhythm of Your word and how it will just lull us and comfort us and tell us stories that we can see ourselves in and then it will also confront us head on and force us to actually examine what it is we’re doing here and what it is we believe and what it is Your word is telling us is. And, so, Father, we first humble ourselves and come to You as the one. We know what it's like to be dirty, filthy, diseased, wasting away, dying inside and You washed us clean, You restored us. We are thankful, and our response is to be in this kingdom that no one can say it's over there or here it is, because it's already among us. Come Holy Spirit, may we reveal Your kingdom today in this world. We pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Announcements:

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We want to continue to pray for all of the women who were at the Moore Gathering, who have arrived or are arriving home. Continue to pray over them and all that God is doing in their lives and what that will represent in their communities.

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

Community Prayer and Praise:

Good morning Daily Audio Bible friends and family, this is Amazed by Grace in Massachusetts. Actually, my name is Sally, but we have another Sally Massachusetts whom we haven’t heard from for a while. Praying God’s grace in your life Sally. I just want to pray today for our sister Christine in Washington, that God will just give you wisdom sister in how to deal with this abusive marriage and for your children as well for wisdom and grace to them. And I pray today for Paul and others who are singular Lord…who…Paul in Wales who called in. Lord thank You for the grace You give us to be pure and holy before You and the many singles and for married people Like our sister Lord who’s tempted away from her marriage. Lord I lift up to You today Margo in Uganda and her husband as they wait for the next step, may they just to be a light for You right there in Uganda and minister as they wait upon You for their next step. And I would pray today Lord for Blind Tony. Thank You for his poems and his prayers and his faithfulness. Lord we pray Your grace and strength to this brother. Think of JJ and for Jay Lord, for Christie in Kentucky and for Victoria, Lord for Pelham and Molly we pray Your grace. Oh Father, I just thank You and praise You that You are with us as Your children drawing us to Yourself and growing us in grace as we get to know You better and better. Thank You for Brian to and Jill and all the team that makes this possible. We pray Lord for the finances to come in to help this community to…

Hi beautiful family, this is pastor Gene from Bradenton Florida refusing to allow blessings and sadness prevent me from reaching out to family that I love with all of my heart. Please join me in prayer. Father we love You and we praise You. We know that sometimes blessings come through raindrops. We know that healing comes through tears and we know that a thousand sleepless nights sometimes is what it takes to know that You’re near. We know that the greatest disappointments and the aching of this life is but nothing of the revealing of a thirst this world cannot satisfy. We ask that as we go through trials and tribulations we will remember that we have a God that remains faithful and a high priest in You that went through every human emotion we go through so that He would be able to have compassion. Thank You that You came not only to die for us but to lead and show us the way to the Father. Thank You. Father we lift up our sister Cherry Chase and our sister Treasured Possession both of them are going through significant trials of a different nature but both going through physical trials at work. Father in the name of Jesus we take authority over the forces of the enemy that are using this trial to torture our sisters and to keep them sad Father and this causes __ and destruction in their life. And we pray __ forces of darkness and we ask them, order them to go back in the name of Jesus, to withdraw in the name of Jesus. We are asking for the deliverance of both our sisters and for the strengthening of their faith. Father we just love You and praise You and we commit our sisters to You in the mighty name of Your son Jesus. I love you family, pastor…

Hi Daily Audio Bible this is Jared from the Midwest. I just heard…I think her name was Christie…call from Washington who’s praying in faith and remaining hopeful for God’s work in her marriage. Thank you for your call Christie. It gives me great hope as I’m trusting God in my marriage. There was also a woman and maybe it was you too who has been separated for six years on the community prayer and I was also encouraged by your hope and your continued faith in God to work in your marriage. Lord I pray for all of us who are in these situations where our marriages are experiencing discourse and a break of harmony and misunderstanding. Lord I pray for your humility to fill us that we would be able to see our spouses through your eyes and walk with tender forgiveness and understanding and compassion for each other. We pray for all the marriages that are in trouble. We ask your mighty hand of power on them. In Jesus’ name.

Hi this is Jane in New York. I just really need to reach out to my family my DAB family because I don’t have any family air. My son Joshua, 14, he has become an atheist in the past two years since we’ve been here in New York. Last night we just a horrible conversation, how every other word is a curse word and he’s just saying, “how you’re stupid” and, you know, “you push your Christianity on everyone”. And he’s doing a paper in school about his life before America, before he came here. And I said, “well, make sure you include that Christ was part of your life”. He says, “you’ve been forcing me to believe in something that doesn’t exist” and it was really ugly. Though it wasn’t just that…it was really some ugliness that was coming out. I just pray that the Lord would reveal Himself to Him, that he would just continue to keep Him safe and not make decisions that will hurt Him or hurt others. And Father God I ask You to please just bring Him back to You Father. This is so hard to watch, how he has no hope and no joy and no future. “So, I’m going to hell”, that’s what he says God. And we know that You don’t want that. So, Lord I know there will be thousands coming alongside me praying for Joshua. I pray that his heart would be open Father, that he would remember the God that he was served and loved and pray to. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Good morning Daily Audio Bible family, this is Alfya calling from Delaware. Let us pray. It is an __ in time that we meet here together for the sake of our sisters and the precious daughters of God in this Daily Audio Bible family. As we dedicate them for the upcoming More Conference Lord Jesus we are humbled for our sisters, Your daughters. You know the struggles that they go through. You know the work that You’re doing in their lives. You know each one of them and every detail of their lives. And Father at the upcoming Daily Audio Bible family More Conference we just want to dedicate the event into Your hands, that the forces of the evil one might be broken down, that Lord Your Spirit might shine and at More You may do a great work that not only will start here at this conference for each and every one who will be in attendance, Father that it will be a legacy that will be carried forward for a better world. We pray that each one of them might leave there clear, with a clear vision of all that You want to do in their lives, of all the places that You want to renovate, of the things You want to maintain. And above all, we pray that not only this work may be started but as the bible says, You will carry it unto completion the good work that You will start. May they be willing to follow Your will…

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