#◟༺✦༻◞ fragments of light from the roots of truth ┊reference.┊

[twilightichor]

◟༺✧༻◞ Mysterious box in a secret compartment.

Every line on this sheet of paper has a matching one right under it. From the handwriting, it looks like a child wrote on this first before an adult stepped in, held their hand, and taught them how to do it the second time. A piece of it has been burned away, and the remaining parts show signs of having been rescued from that same flame. The writings are as follows:

◜Remember always that it was the Alberich Clan, who did not have royal blood, who stepped in as regents when the strength of the one-eyed king Irmin failed. Though we could not restore Khaenri'ah to life, we of the Alberich clan should lead lives as those who blaze like fire, rather than those who wallow in the embers.◞

◜I saved this one memento from the fire "Father" made while he wasn't paying attention. This was in violation of our principles. Our clan's affairs should never be recorded.◞ [...]

[reginrokkr]

Sin infests the firmament, calamity unfurls across the universe. You are free, and none now may proscribe you— yet your destiny remains bound to that of this world. [...]

— Vedrfolnir, the Visionary.

[sweetheartsofpanem]

Twenty-year-old Y/N returns to the ruins of District 12, seeking something—anything—of the life she lost. Grieving, self-contained, and carrying the weight of a brutal past, she finds herself quietly drawn into the lives of Katniss, Peeta, and Haymitch. As unexpected friendships form and long-buried parts of herself begin to resurface, Y/N starts to wonder if it’s still possible for something soft to survive the wreckage.

Pairing(s): Haymitch Abernathy x Female!Reader (romantic), Katniss Everdeen x Female!Reader (platonic), Peeta Mellark x Female!Reader (platonic)

Warnings: themes of grief, past emotional and verbal abuse from a parent, past physical abuse from a parent, past self-harm (cutting), past alcoholism (Y/N) / ongoing alcoholism (Haymitch), references to non-consensual sexual experiences (no explicit scenes), PTSD, mental health struggles, age gap romance between adults (20s and 40s), eventual smut, death, descriptions of death/gore, mentions of bombing, descriptions of district 12 after the bombing, might be slightly divergent from canon, peeta was not hijacked

All heavy topics are treated with care, but reader discretion is advised.

this is basically just a suuuuper long slow burn friends to lovers. Y/N’s backstory is very detailed but i have not and will not describe her appearance. the first 5 or 6 chapters are basically just providing Y/N’s background and building a foundation for the rest of the story.

Shadows of the Past - Six months after the Second Rebellion, you return to the ruins of District 12. Haunted by memories and loss, you wander through the wreckage—until a flicker of light draws you toward something, or someone, unexpected.

Fragments of Home - In the unfamiliar stillness of Victor’s Village, you find yourself cared for by an old friend and a stranger. As wounds are tended to, new connections begin to take root—quiet, cautious, and strange in their kindness.

The Space Between - You move through the stillness of what remains, caught between memory and reality. In the space left by loss, something quieter begins to grow—unspoken understanding, and the first fragile steps toward connection.

The Club - A nightmare drives you outside in the dead of night—and you’re not the only one who couldn’t sleep. An unexpected conversation beneath the stars begins to chip away at the walls you’ve built.

The Quiet Shift - You wake to a new day and begin to settle into your new reality. A simple visit turns into something more, as laughter and conversation spark the beginnings of something long forgotten: friendship.

Porchlight - Three months into your return, you’ve slipped into a quiet routine—baking with Peeta, trading late-night banter with Haymitch. But comfort doesn’t come easy, and even the smallest moments of ease shine like a porchlight in the dark.

The Shape of Warmth - You spend the day with Katniss, Peeta, and Haymitch—what begins with a truth leads into something softer, steadier. Something that feels almost like belonging.

Shoulder to Shoulder - The weight of your thoughts pulls you under, but an unexpected knock reminds you that not all doors stay closed. Some nights don’t feel as heavy when you’re not alone.

Dust and Danish - The distance between you and the people around you is starting to shrink. Not all at once—but in the soft space of banter, taste testing, and old memories that still ache. You don’t trust it yet. But you’re trying.

Mint and Memory - You spend the morning in the woods learning the quiet language of herbs, your scars aching in more ways than one. In the comfort of kitchen light and soft laughter, something fragile and steady begins to form. But even in the warmth, some voices still echo.

What’s Waiting Inside - You leave with a smile that doesn’t quite reach, and a voice in your head that cuts too deep. But when you ask not to be alone, you’re met with quiet understanding—and something steady enough to lean on.

Something Real - As summer settles in, so do you. What once felt unfamiliar begins to feel like home. You spend a day with Katniss, Peeta, and Haymitch—harvesting herbs, sharing dinner, teasing each other in the living room. And somewhere in the middle of the quiet laughter and small comforts, you realize you’re not surviving anymore. You’re living.

Almost Subtle - A quiet afternoon puzzle turns into something softer—shared teasing, easy silences, and the kind of presence that lingers longer than either of you mean it to. When Katniss and Peeta suggest a trip to the lake, you drag Haymitch along, sun and sarcasm pulling something looser from him. You see him—truly see him—and say something you didn’t mean to. Maybe he doesn’t mind. Maybe neither of you do.

She Fell First - You wake up with one goal: figure out what the hell is wrong with you. Why does your heart do gymnastics every time Haymitch talks? Why do you want to be near him 24/7 like some kind of emotionally confused barnacle? Naturally, you barge into Peeta’s house to demand answers and are promptly diagnosed with a crush. Disgusting. Mortifying.

Totally Chill - You’re totally fine. Completely normal. Not at all losing your mind over accidentally massaging mint balm into Haymitch Abernathy’s scarred, shirtless stomach. Nope. Nothing to see here. Except maybe the part where you sprint to Peeta’s house afterward to dramatically declare your emotional demise. Totally. Chill.

Paper Spine - The sharpness guts you like it always has—like it did before anyone ever said your name gently. You fold, crumple, unravel. And when the panic finally breaks you wide open, all you can do is hold your chest and hope it doesn’t stay like this forever.

Back to Steady - A few days after everything cracked open, you find your way back to normal—soft sarcasm, warm tea, and limbs pressed a little too close on an old couch.

Pinecone Problems - You spend the day with Katniss and Peeta, basking in cinnamon bread, emotional whiplash, and whatever flavor of denial you’re currently fermenting. Feelings are talked about. Trauma is unpacked. And Haymitch—unfortunately—still exists, looking unfairly good doing absolutely nothing. You’re not in love. You’re just dramatically inconvenienced.

Pinecone Emergency - You’re pretty sure spraining your ankle after dramatically chasing Haymitch through the woods wasn’t part of your character arc, and yet—here you are, face down in the grass, in pain, in denial, and in love. Probably. Unfortunately.

He Fell Harder - Haymitch starts the night in a classic spiral—staring at a wall, brooding about feelings he definitely didn’t mean to catch. Then Y/N shows up at his door (again), and things only get worse. Or better. It’s hard to tell when she’s stealing his couch, insulting his snacks, and looking entirely too good while doing it. He’s not in love. Definitely not. He just… likes her a little. A lot. Maybe forever. Who knows.

Storm Spirit and Sunshine - You feel the storm coming in your knees and immediately decide it’s your entire personality. Haymitch thinks you’ve lost it—until the sky starts throwing tantrums and the power goes out. Cue unexpected darkness, shared candlelight, emotional trauma bonding, and accidental (but very intentional) hand-holding. Turns out, thunder’s not so scary when you’ve got a grumpy ex-victor and his veiny arms beside you.

Tension? What Tension? - You go to the lake to cool off, not to feel warm all over. But between the splashing, the teasing, and a few glances that linger a little too long, things start to shift. It’s just a normal day with friends. Nothing’s different. Nothing’s changing. Except maybe it is. Not that you’ll admit it.

Don’t Ask Me How I Slept - Something wakes you in the dark. You follow it upstairs and find more than you expected. A name, a moment, a quiet unraveling. You stay. And when morning comes, everything feels a little different—though no one says it out loud.

Just One Good Day - It starts with laughter and leans too close to something real. For a moment, it almost feels safe—almost. But soft things are fragile, and you learn again how quickly warmth can vanish. When the silence finally breaks, it leaves you reaching for someone who’s still here.

One Good Day, Gone - You try to hold onto something soft. He tries to push it all away. But some silences say more than words, and when the quiet settles, it leaves you both with nothing but the truth—and the space where one good day used to be.

As Long As It Takes - You don’t expect to see him. He doesn’t expect you to stay. But when the night unravels and the ghosts are named, you offer him the one thing he’s never been able to ask for—time. You don’t know what this is. You just know you’ll wait. As long as it takes.

Casual, Right? - You and Haymitch are fine. Totally normal. Just two emotionally stable people moving a table and not at all panicking about how close you’re sitting. But when the teasing turns soft and the space between you disappears, you start to wonder if pretending it’s casual is getting harder to believe. Especially when Peeta and Katniss walk in and feel every inch of tension in the room.

This Year is Different - On the day before his birthday—and what would’ve been another reaping—Haymitch starts to unravel. You stay. Through the silence, the memory, the ache. And by the end of the night, with moonlight on the sheets, something shifts. He lets you in. You let yourself stay.

I Hope It Keeps Becoming - On the morning after everything shifts, you wake to the warmth of something you’re scared to name. There’s laughter. There’s teasing. There’s a quiet moment where something almost happens. And later, after the chaos settles and the kitchen quiets, you let yourself hope this softness might stay.

What We’ve Been Becoming - A quiet day drifts into something warmer, softer—something that feels a little too good to question. You spend it in good company, with laughter and teasing and quiet truths. But when the evening settles and it’s just the two of you again, something finally shifts in the stillness you’ve both learned to trust.

Now, Not Then - You wake up from the past like it never left you. But this time, you’re not alone. And even when the words won’t come, he stays—gentle, steady, and real. This is now. Not then.

Without Needing to Say It - You end the night wrapped in warmth, in quiet, in something that feels a lot like love. You both haven’t said the words. But you don’t need to. Not when it’s already there—in the way you touch, the way you stay, the way you keep choosing each other. Again and again.

Clinginess Is a Symptom - He’s got a minor fever and a major case of “don’t leave my side.” You make the tea, the soup, the rules—and he, apparently, makes whiny affection into an art form.

The First Time It’s Safe - In the quiet before sunrise, wrapped in shared breath and steady hands, you and Haymitch finally speak the truth that’s been living between you for months.

Soft Things Stay - You and Haymitch settle into something slow and safe—until Katniss and Peeta burst in, convinced you’re dead. The rest of the day is filled with teasing, toast, and sunlight, the four of you slipping into a rhythm that feels like home.

Soot Sprite - You return to the ruins of District 12 for the first time since coming home, with Peeta beside you. The walk is harder than you expect—but softer, too. Just as the past begins to settle, a reminder of the settling past latches to your leg.

Did You Just Whimper? - With Soot spending the night at Katniss and Peeta’s, you and Haymitch finally get the alone time you’ve been craving.

We Are Not a Normal Family - Soot causes chaos. Peeta makes up a game with no rules. Haymitch suffers. You laugh until it hurts. And for a moment, under stars and mismatched blankets, you remember what it feels like to belong.

I’ve Been Yours

Epilogue

[balrogballs]

Coming from Cast in Stone, I would love to read the part you said you cut out, about Maedhros musing about history. These insights are the best part of the fic imo, so if you're happy to share on Tumblr like you said, I'd love to read

Of course! Just a note to literally anyone else seeing this, this references my Silm fanfic Cast in Stone which has MaeMags in TA 2900s realising that Elrond has built a massive, rather fuck ugly, statue glorifying their redemption, but have fully omitted all their (less redeemable) deeds from the histories he wrote as loremaster. Basically I mentioned in the chapter that I cut some sections out because it made it too 'academic' but had said people could ask to read them here, hence...

_________

Maedhros didn't think that 'chopping wood in the Shire' was necessarily the task most suited to a re-embodied prince with one hand, but he had to admit that the dull thunk-thunk cutting across the Tooks' barking sheepdog brought to him a sense of stability that he had missed for - well - most of his life. Like the thunk-bark-thunk-bark was a heartbeat, like it was saying he was integral, important, and constant. 

He thought again about what the boy, Legolas, had asked: what would a history written by the Fëanorians look like? What silenced stories would be spoken, what unknown truths would be brought to light, and what explanations would he be allowed? And the implied, though not directly asked, what branches would be chopped off and what stories would he silence?

Maedhros was impressed that the boy even implied it, that he had looked Maedhros in the face and insinuated that if Elrond would bury histories he could not bear to face, then what would he, Maedhros, have buried? As if silencing and burial came hand in hand with the writing of history, like it was a knack that the Eldar had, for brushing over and cleaning up their worst memories - a sort of survival weapon, like a waterskein in the depths of Rhun. 

What would he write about his father? What would he write about the boys? 

(Not his boys, but the blonde boys in the woods - the ones he remembered only some weeks ago).

The two volumes of Histories of the First Age written by Elrond did not make a single reference to those boys, and Maedhros had spent two weeks furious about the arms-length whitewashing. But as he stood here in the Shire, detached from who he was and will be, with sweat soaking into his tunic from his inexpert wielding of a woodcutter's axe, the question turns on its head. 

If Maedhros had written the Histories of the First Age, would he have written of it? He, who could barely think of their names without shaking? 

History was, at the end of the day, a kind of junglecraft — survival of the fittest. Version after version of the past contending for survival; new hybrids of truth and lies taking root as ancient violence faded, buried in obscurity. Only the strongest, most palatable narratives were allowed to live. The quiet, the defeated, the nameless left behind only fragments —  scattered pages, forgotten heroes, traces of lives lived under boots. History remembered only those who wrote it; the relationship between history and historian both a bond of power and a shared captivity.

Could he blame Elrond then, for not putting such violence on the page? Was Elrond, when asked to write the Histories of the First Age, not then being shackled to the book and told to pen down his greatest traumas, the unbearable truths of what his fathers — who loved him, whom he loved, loved, loved — were and had done? 

What would Maedhros have written of Fëanor? What would he have written of Aqualonde, or the moment stone touched flesh? Here, now, even the memory of it made him shake, brought tears to his eyes. But at the time, he had felt nothing whatsoever. 

[pumpkin-the-girlie-girl-vixen]

Born from Toxicity: A Gift Unveiled

In the cradle of chaos, where darkness resides,

Chosen ones awaken, with wisdom as their guide.

Born into families, tangled in strife,

They carry a spark, igniting new life.

Toxic roots may anchor, with thorns all around,

Yet within lies a power, in silence profound.

Through pain and through struggle, they learn to embrace,

The depth of their being, their own sacred space.

The lesson of love, though twisted and frail,

Teaches strength and resilience, to rise when we fail.

From shadows they blossom, with hearts open wide,

Transforming their sorrow, they refuse to hide.

For in every wound, there’s a story untold,

A path forged in fire, where the brave are bold.

The gift lies in knowing the truth of their worth,

That light can emerge from the depths of the earth.

They gather the pieces, the fragments of pain,

Transforming the darkness, like sun after rain.

With empathy flowing, they seek to mend,

The cycles of hurt, to heal and transcend.

So here’s to the chosen, who walk through the fire,

With courage and purpose, they rise ever higher.

For born into toxicity, they learn to create,

A legacy of love, transforming their fate.

Through trials and tribulations, their spirits ignite,

As they break down the barriers, revealing the light.

In the depths of their being, they find their true song,

In the dance of the universe, they finally belong.

Understanding the Journey of the Chosen Ones Born into Toxic Families

In a thought-provoking video from the YouTube channel "Vibration of the Universe," the topic of individuals often referred to as "chosen ones" and their experience of being born into toxic families is explored. This discussion delves into the complexities of these situations, presenting the idea that such experiences, while challenging, can be reframed as profound gifts. Below, we outline the key themes and insights presented in the video.

1. **The Concept of the "Chosen One"**

The video begins by defining the term "chosen one." This concept typically refers to individuals who feel a unique calling or purpose in life, often characterized by heightened sensitivity, awareness, and a deep sense of empathy. These individuals may feel different from their peers, often possessing gifts or talents that set them apart. The video posits that many chosen ones are born into dysfunctional or toxic family environments as part of their life’s journey.

2. **Toxic Family Dynamics**

Toxic family dynamics can include a range of harmful behaviors and patterns, such as emotional abuse, manipulation, neglect, and control. The video emphasizes that growing up in such environments can be incredibly challenging, leading to feelings of worthlessness, confusion, and emotional pain. However, these experiences also serve a purpose in shaping the chosen one's character and resilience.

3. **Transformational Gifts of Adversity**

One of the central messages of the video is that the struggles faced by chosen ones in toxic families can ultimately be transformed into powerful gifts. The narrative encourages viewers to view their hardships as opportunities for growth. Adversity can cultivate strength, empathy, and wisdom, allowing individuals to develop a greater understanding of themselves and others.

The video highlights how overcoming difficulties can lead to a unique perspective on life, enabling chosen ones to become healers, mentors, and guides for others who face similar challenges. This transformation underscores the concept of "post-traumatic growth," where individuals emerge stronger from their struggles.

4. **Empathy and Sensitivity as Strengths**

Chosen ones are often characterized by their heightened sensitivity and empathy. The video discusses how these traits, which may have been criticized or dismissed in toxic environments, are actually valuable strengths. Sensitive individuals can sense the emotions and pain of others, making them natural healers and advocates for change.

By embracing their sensitivity, chosen ones can channel their experiences into meaningful action, creating a positive impact in the lives of others and contributing to the healing of collective wounds.

5. **The Power of Self-Discovery and Healing**

The journey of the chosen one involves significant self-discovery and healing. The video emphasizes the importance of recognizing one’s worth, breaking free from toxic patterns, and reclaiming personal power. This process often includes:

- **Setting Boundaries**: Learning to establish healthy boundaries is crucial for protecting oneself from further harm and fostering self-respect.

- **Seeking Support**: Engaging in therapy or support groups can provide valuable tools for healing and personal growth.

- **Practicing Self-Care**: Prioritizing self-care and nurturing one’s emotional well-being are essential steps in the healing journey.

6. **Embracing a New Legacy**

Ultimately, the video concludes with a powerful message about embracing a new legacy. Chosen ones have the opportunity to rewrite their narratives, transforming their pain into purpose. By healing their wounds, they can break generational cycles of toxicity and create a healthier, more loving environment for future generations.

This legacy of healing and empowerment can inspire others, encouraging them to rise above their circumstances and find their own paths to fulfillment.

Conclusion

The video from "Vibration of the Universe" offers a profound exploration of the experiences faced by chosen ones born into toxic families. By reframing adversity as a gift and embracing their unique strengths, these individuals can embark on a transformative journey toward healing and self-discovery. The insights shared in this video serve as a reminder that even in the depths of pain, there lies the potential for growth, resilience, and a brighter future.

For anyone who resonates with the struggles of being a chosen one, the message is clear: your journey is valid, your experiences have meaning, and you possess the power to create a legacy of love and healing.

[owlmam]

I've been overthinking in this art piece, so here is the analysis

(the shadow) Roman - Remus: Knight

Janus: Queen

C!Thomas: King

Orange - Patton: Bishop

Virgil - Logan: Rook Those chess pieces are not black or white, they just grey (they both can be useful and harmful). If they powerful enough which mean they have the way to checkmate on the chess board, they all can push each others. Of course they have way to checkmate the king.

Logan: He is Logic so i put him as the Rook, he can completely straight into the situation as the Rook is goes straight. But recently you know c!thomas was a bit listening to other sides more than Logic. So I put him a bit far from the King. And if the King and Roots was in the first place, they can swap places, just like in WTIT if c!thomas listened to Logan, we won't saw his rage. And he got snap at temple 'cause of thinking, snap at the bottom (it's cause by blinding rage), snap at the glasses. (Well, i want to put broken blue crayon in very much but that's the poster things so maybe it's a point or may not.)

Roman: Of course, fragments like his brother (obviously). He stand in Logan (Root) way so he can be checkmate any time. He even can be checkmate by Janus (queen). He got snap on his eye cause the throw from Logan LNTAO ep. He got snap at the left chest cause he used to hurt feeling cause the broke morality and fail to be a hero (which is almost he thinking). Well, he's c!thomas's ego so he easy to broke or check, his way can not check anybody. He does the stronge chess piece but not rightnow in this time in the story. Both Logan and Roman look at the bright light so as they want good things for c!thomas.

Patton: Almost lighting on him so we can see how he is very base of c!thomas (the heart). It's also mean he very strict at Black and White Morality which is so toxic (I mean he try his best to clear out what morality is but basically morality is grey, it's grey enough to either hurt or empathy about something). He's a bishop so he's very strong, he can push c!thomas, he not in Janus ways which mean he win the course in Sv.S ep. He got snap on the glass just like Logan, he got snap at his neck means he did except Virgil before others else. A small details reference to my old art (april 13th), he snap at his right eye, just like how c!thomas used to snap, it's cause mentally to c!thomas. Even how many crakes he got, he always look at c!thomas and smile, even c!thomas knows he's sad. Well, he's morality, it's grey and we can't deny it.

Janus: The way he looks back the light doesn't mean he bring bad to c!thomas, his face aware of the way Roman and Orange sides, he aware of how Roman want the call back so bad and how the Orange can move any move. But he's not perfect, he got snap at his snack mouth which mean he can't say the truth but he's the Queen so he can shut any body else, he can shut Roman and hide Orange (the chess move). Also, he's the sides that make the story got deeper so we can know how powerful he is, but that doesn't mean he can do anything, the point is queen usually use to protect and hunt the king, like the way c!thomas lie to himself.

Virgil: He got a lot of crakes which mean he used to be dark side and make a lot of mistakes. He's a Rook, he can push c!thomas and remus (chess move), he can straight into the problems too. Just like the way when he powerful enough he can push anything (Nostalgia2: he push c!thomas to break the phone). But c!thomas does learn how to control so ye, c!thomas can stop Virg (chess move of the King). Virgil got snap at his neck like how him hate himself, he got snap at the bottom and some on his hoodie, that's how anxious he is. He look at c!thomas like a alarm wait to ring when something important happen.

Remus: he fragment likes his brother. He looks at another way just like how base the imagination can be. When you see anything then that anything can boop into your head just like how imagination is, it's rough and harsh, it haven't been though any filter. Also he look another way like the way he don't care anything gonna happen, or he care more like how c!thomas got any legacy. He a knights he can push c!thomas (chess move) but if in a situation that we don't have Roman anymore, we have to accept him to be an army just like how c!thomas accept him in DWIT.

Orange: well, as till now we know orange is rage, and not review yet so i break the chess piece like how it snap in rage, but if he be a chess piece complete, who knows how powerful he is. He can strict like Patton so they're bishop. We even know the word "Blinding Rage" in POF, so I think he do strong enough to shut anyone but in some situation, cause after all he's just a Bishop, a chess piece.

C!Thomas: King, well it's both useful and useless. He is the king so he can decide the chess board is win or lose, he can use the piece to beat another piece but also another piece can checkmate him. He's the real person one cause other are sides, the clothes of course it's take place around April 13th, he look at Janus cause that time he accept Janus. So take place at the chess board to hope that he can be a bit more selfish cause we know the aftermath. In chess, the more you move the more risk and the more you can win, you can't stop the Pawns to go back, like decisions can not take back, time likes an arrows, it's just keeping going, sadness or fillfullness we don't know, but we have to keep going.

Thanks for reading till this line, my vocabulary has limit, I hope you understand what I try to tell. And If you want analysis my art, don't be shy, I love to read, please write it down!

Next step?

Close up

[popcornbutterflymedia]

this film delivered in ushering in the promised new age of star cinema supported by a tradition of reliable storytelling (need we specify sc writing techniques? there's a lot and my nerdy self was so happy) a general ode to classic star cinema, references and easter eggs personal to this pair that their fans will recognize with a refreshing but already recognizable petersen vargas treatment.

unhappy for you is an anatomy of a break up, built on differing perspectives, and subjective memory, truth witheld and weaponized. it maximizes the idea that men and women are from entirely different planets and the reality of fragile and eventual toxic masculinity with the promise of the hard, painfully earned lesson on self-preservation.

this one hurt, but not to the point of ruin. I was prepared to be wrecked, but I wasn't. I was prepared to cry. there was a lump in my throat, but no tears. early on, the break finality of the break was inevitable and necessary. I am not sure if I grew a sturdier spine, but I did not root for the characters to get back together. if that was the point, to not want a romantic reconciliation, then this movie knew its assignment.

an anatomy of a break up calls for an investigation, an excavation of said break, and that's where our cast of characters come in, made up of all great, great actors who are masters of subdued but powerful delivery this movie calls for. there are obvious favorite dramatic moments, but in this movie, to me, the quiet moments are my favorite - a pause. a look. a breathe charged charged with intense emotion.

it is impossible to take sides in this movie. all emotion is valid. the manifestation of these emotions is up for discussion. that is the story being told. fragmented memory represented by the sometimes dreamlike, blurry visuals of a non-linear but parallel narrative. oh my gosh, it's a visual treatment that relies heavily on light and shadow and color and distortion that makes you question the characters' judgment.

now, the gender roles. I do not claim this was taken into consideration. it could be just me, but there's something to the women letting the men speak, letting them make assumptions, just letting them, and taking it all in until the saturation point that ultimately triggers a reckoning.

it's ironic on the surface for the audience to develop empathy for the main man in this story who is both vulnerable and toxic, maybe unintentionally so but makes the case for the normalcy of default male privilege. it left the female lead to attempt to fix things, pick up the pieces, and ultimately make the difficult choice that will paint her as a villain in a patriarchal society. oh my gosh. in the end, even the new man in her life takes advantage of this default privilege on her. oh my gosh, I am just seeing the gender commentary as I am writing this and goodness the goosebumps!!!!!

of the performances, julia barretto will always be a reliable performer. she will only get better and better.

joshua garcia, the actor that he is! at this point, he is one of the best actors today. there are no words. part of why such a flawed character as juancho is, still captures hearts is because he is joshua garcia's. he commands your attention. he makes you understand even the most unflattering, questionable choices his character makes. I found myself tracking him throughout the movie. as long as I can see where he is in the movie, physically, emotionally, I know where I am within the movie.

these two only elevate each other's performances. the comfort level brought about by a shared history, an understanding, an intimacy is uniquely their own. they can use this to their advantage if they so choose to work together down the line. but this is enough for now. it is bittersweet. not what could have been, but what was. it was beautiful. it still is. it will continue to be.

walang pagsisisi sa pagtanggap. salamat sa pagdaan.

thank you, indeed, for passing by.

--

(omg! I haven't written something this long since a couple of years ago. been having a hard time writing these days, delivering on promises to write, but oh my gosh I surprised myself just now. I miss the movies so much. I miss writing it hurts. did not cry over the movie.

crying now. - p 11192024)

[koasinag]

Is your mind falling apart?

New Post has been published on https://koasinag.com/is-your-mind-falling-apart/

Is your mind falling apart?

3 John 1:11 (AMP)

Beloved, do not imitate what is evil, but [imitate] what is good. The one who practices good [exhibiting godly character, moral courage and personal integrity] is of God; the one who practices [or permits or tolerates] evil has not seen God [he has no personal experience with Him and does not know Him at all]. [1 John 3:6]

  “Detri-mental”

Q: Will they know you serve Christ?

A: I was not sure what to write about today, but the word DETRIMENTAL popped up in my mind when I read 3 John 1:11.

Let us break down detrimental: Some common synonyms of detrimental are baneful, deleterious, noxious, and pernicious. While all these words mean “exceedingly harmful,” detrimental implies obvious harmfulness to something specific.

Detri~ stems from Detritus which is a term that refers to loose material that results directly from disintegration. It can be rock fragments or organic particles. The word “detritus” comes from the Latin word “detritus,” which means “a wearing away”.

~Mental (adj.) (early 15 century.), “in, of, or pertaining to the mind; characteristic of the intellect,” from Late Latin mentalis “of the mind,” from Latin mens (genitive mentis) “mind,” from PIE root *men- (1) “to think.” In Middle English, also “of the soul, spiritual.”

Let’s try putting it in layman’s terms: The disintegration and wearing away of any intellectual character pertaining to your Mind, Soul or Spirituality. Basically, a Fragmented Mind or Fragmented Soul.

We can see this in our world and communities today—our society is fracturing at the seams because emphasis is put on pleasure and self-signification. People’s minds are slowly disintegrating into nothing as all sense is put aside. Mental illness was treated not so long ago, now you can just be “detrimental” and all is well—it is your right to be unstable and unhealed.

It is very important to understand that what we bring into our homes is so important and can be detrimental to family life and the church. What we allow as the norm will set the pathways for our children.

As we are creatures that exist mostly in our minds and souls, we need to control what controls us! If you think like the world, you are of this world! You will walk and talk like them. Only if we are led by the Spirit of Truth will we be able to differentiate the lies from the truth.

Let the change begin—renew your mind! [Romans 12:2 amp]

Ask yourself this today:

Am I doing enough to set myself apart for the kingdom of God? Will they truly know I’m different from them?

Let’s Pray:

Father, the keeper of my soul, I bow down and submit my life and will to the knowledge, truths and precepts of your Kingdom.

Help me to understand the importance of standing out, to SHINE my light and not shy away from difficult conversations with those you set on my path.

I bless you and praise your Holy Name. May my actions not harm (Detritus) the minds (souls) of those who are seeking you. I surrender!

In Jesus’ name. Amen!

[freedfromthegalactichivemind]

Balls

She-Ra fanfiction  Entrapdak Entrapdak Mini Month Rated PG - Slightly crude language / slang. (But probably nothing any 8 year old hasn’t heard).  Day 3 - Fear  Summary:  Hordak was confused about certain Etherian expressions.   -----------------------------

Balls There were some common Etherian expressions that Hordak, for the life of him, would never get.  When the truth of much of what had happened in his life had come out – old records of the Etherian Horde’s founding from lifetimes ago that he had only the vaguest memories of to the record of what had happened during those last moments with Prime in his last dedicated-Vessel aboard his ship, there was an expression of admiration (of all things) that was passed around.   The record of what had happened between him and Horde Prime may have been lost if Entrapta did not have hidden equipment on her person as part of her infiltration-mission.  She was his wondrous genius, brighter than any light Prime had ever provided and hers was a warm light, not a cold, sterile illumination.  Because of her, it was there for all to see.  It had been used as evidence in his trial.  It had quite probably saved his life.   The expression that Etherians used around him – especially his former soldiers, but quite a lot of people really, particularly the rough and the scuffled, Crimson Wasters and anyone hard-bitten was this:  “Hordak, man… he’s just got balls of steel!  Big, swinging balls!”   In learning the nuances of the Etherian common language – that which his in-built translation software did not pick up, he had known for a long time that “balls” in certain contexts referred to reproductive anatomy.  This was what caused his frustrating confusion.  His people’s reproductive organs were internal (and, as Horde Prime had chemically restricted them) unsuited for any actual reproduction. They were vestigial, a part of the root-species that they had been uplifted from before the cloning process began eons ago.  Prime had felt no need to do away with them entirely, but they did not function in the manner that similar structures on Etherians functioned and they certainly were not “swinging,” nor were they made of steel.   Entrapta helpfully explained to him that it was slang for “courage.”  She didn’t entirely get it, either.  One of the things she did not get about it was why female organs were not commonly employed in similar slang.  There was one culture that she knew of – the harpies if she’d remembered correctly, that did employ “boobs” in a similar linguistic quirk, as in “She’s got real boobs!” to denote “she’s got real boldness!”   Still, that was a rare phrase.   So, Hordak lived confused at the assertion that he had “humongous swinging steel balls” for surviving impossible odds, and for standing up to Horde Prime.  Even becoming educated about the slang left him puzzled.   After all, how could he be brave when he had been filled with terror? From the time he had been “taken back” into Prime’s fold, a coldness had run through his very bones!  With his mind reformatted and his body reconditioned, he remained afraid. He did not know if he had always felt that way. He’d wandered the halls of the Velvet Glove with this vague sense that things had been different for him, with the ghost of a memory that he had once been powerful.  He was supposed to have his chief joy in serving Horde Prime, yet what he’d actually felt, in hindsight, could only be described as fear.   When Catra had spurred his memory, he was afraid when he’d approached Prime for forgiveness.  He’d wanted so badly to rid himself of the uncomfortable feelings that he’d had – the fragmented tales of the Etherian Horde, his Horde, and its failure, of his broken conquest with Catra, and, most of all, Entrapta’s loss. That fragment had been the worst shard piercing his brain – that someone precious to him had died because of his failure.  He had believed that she had betrayed him and had left her to die.   He was fearful of the pain of the Mental Reconditioning Pool.  His own memories of having witnessed Brothers being immersed within it had shot the horror through him.  Had he been in it before?  Yes, although he could not recall specific times.  He knew, however – the pain keen in his mind.   His grief, however, had overcome his fear. There was terror, simply terror.  He was not courageous.  How could he have “balls of steel” when he had felt so weak and so small?   When Entrapta had been brought before Prime and he was before Prime’s throne, standing by as the Emperor was conducting a Little Brother at the Drilling of the Heart, he was smaller and weaker than he had ever been.  He was standing on his feet and armed, as a guard to Prime, but tremors ran through his hearts.  He kept himself controlled, however.  Perhaps if Prime had not been distracted upon the great Project, he would have been found out for his disloyal emotions and punished – or eliminated.  Entrapta was calm, even smiling and speaking words of defiance to Prime.   It was she who had the “balls” – or the “boobs” of steel.   Hordak was torn between his two lives then – the life of fear and the life of… love.   One was bound to overcome the other.   Entrapta, generally fearless, explained to him that he was acting in spite of his fear, which was the very definition of courage, and that, of course that overcoming was the “ballsiest” thing of all. He wished that he could believe it during the depths of the night when dreams of Prime came to him – but when Entrapta told him that he “had balls,” Hordak believed her.   How could he not?

[memxntomxri]

ｏｎｅ ｄａｙ

ꜱᴇʀɪᴇꜱ ᴍᴀꜱᴛᴇʀʟɪꜱᴛ | ᴍᴀꜱᴛᴇʀʟɪꜱᴛ | ʜᴏᴍᴇ

𝘱𝘢𝘪𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨 - kuroo tetsurou x kozume kenma

𝘨𝘦𝘯𝘳𝘦 - angst

𝘥𝘦𝘴𝘤 -

dear tetsurou, i wish i had the courage to kiss you that night on the dorm roof, you know? or, kuroo wants to love kenma, but kenma won't let him because he knows he's leaving kuroo behind

written for kuroken week 2021 - day 1: domestic/college au/"sorry i didn't kiss you" - bubble gum by clairo

𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘥 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘵 - 1.5k

𝘵𝘸 - su!cide, depression, anxiety attacks, generally horrible mental health, h0mophobia, one slightly gory scene (they’re watching horror), really bad anime references

𝘯𝘰𝘵𝘦𝘴 - straight up angst, also REALLY dark. DO NOT READ IF YOU CAN'T HANDLE STRAIGHT ANGST

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Dear Kuroo,

If you’re reading this, I’ll be gone, and I’ll be finally fulfilling your wish for me to use your first name

I wish I had kissed you that night on the dorm roof, you know?

The wind whipped around the two of them, biting into their coats and making Tetsurou’s hair even messier, if the bedhead gods would even allow that. Kenma wheezed like a broken record as he trudged up the last few steps, groaning as he collapsed next to Tetsurou on the ice-cold concrete, breath coming out in short, panting puffs.

“Why are we here, Kuroo?” he asked tiredly.

“Kenma, look! We can see the entire city from here! I come up here to think sometimes, or when I can’t sleep.” Tetsurou exclaimed.

As Kenma sat up from his prone position on the floor, he caught sight of the twinkling lights of Tokyo. It truly was beautiful, like jewels spilling out of a child’s toy box and catching on an ethereal light millions of kilometers away.

Tetsurou turned to look at Kenma, and the slight movement caused a bit of air to breeze through Kenma’s hair. He realized that they were oh-so-close, close enough that he thought he could count the individual eyelashes, as numerous as the stars, close enough that he could lean in and…

Kenma turned away, and for a moment, Tetsurou’s heart dropped. But then, Kenma’s soft voice filled the air.

“Not like this, Kuroo.”

Tetsurou backed up. For Kenma, he would wait forever.

He didn’t know how literal that would become.

I’m sorry I’m so selfish. I wish I could’ve let you go, let you move on, but I have so many things I wish I could’ve said to you.

Do you know that the day I knew I was in love with you,  it wasn’t anything special? I know that I always say that I want something “interesting” and that boring isn’t for me, but that day, we were doing the most mundane things.

It was the time we binged the horror movies and you were screaming the entire time. Do you remember? Do you remember how I held your hand, even though I was tired? Do you remember how I ignored my parent’s calls?

Do you remember how you smiled at me?

Tetsurou plopped down on the couch. “KYANMAAAAAA!” he called into the kitchen, where the bleached-hair male was making popcorn for their horror movie night. “It’s about to start, come on!”

From the other room, Kenma sighed. “Kuroo, you’re the one who insisted that we ‘had to have’ popcorn for horror movie night,” he said as he walked into the room carrying an overflowing bowl of said snack.

Without replying, Tetsurou grabbed an overflowing handful of popcorn and stuffed it into his mouth. Kenma sniffed. “Have some manners and stop eating like a 19th century barbarian, won’t you?”

Tetsurou rolled his eyes and patted the spot next to him. “Come on, Kenma! I even got your favorite blanket.” Kenma reluctantly sat down next to him, closer than he probably should have if he had wanted to keep his distance.

As the movie progressed, Tetsurou got increasingly louder and closer to Kenma, ending up clutching Kenma’s arm as a clown jumped out of nowhere and blood sprayed all over the screen. Suddenly, the suspenseful atmosphere was broken by the insistent ringing of Kenma’s phone. Kenma glanced at the screen, then put it on silent.

Tetsurou peeked at the device. “Hey, aren’t those your parents? Don’t you have to pick it up?”

“Nah.” Kenma replied shortly.

Tetsurou’s face broke out in a radiant smile, one that was genuine and looked like warm honey and bright days laying in sunflower fields.

“You know you looooove me, Kenma!”

He hoped there was some truth behind those words.

I’m grateful to the universe for pulling us together, even though sometimes I wish they hadn’t.

If we had never met that day in lab, I wouldn’t have stayed so long and let myself be broken more.

And you wouldn’t be hurting now.

I’m sorry, Tetsurou.

Tetsurou’s ears perked up as he heard an emphatic curse word filled his ears. Oya? What was this? He glanced over and caught sight of a boy with bleached hair and dark roots growing out shaking his hand. Oh wow, cute. Wait, what?

Tetsurou knew he was bisexual, but he’d never had this reaction so soon after just seeing someone for the first time. Whatever. The boy probably needed help anyways, and Tetsurou was just this kind.

He sidled up next to him. “Need some help?” he asked.

The boy glanced up at him in shock and actually hissed. “I’m doing fine just the way I am.”

Tetsurou put his hands up in a gesture of surrender, “Hey, just offering. Also, that isn't sodium. Kuroo Tetsurou, by the way.”

In the end, Tetsurou ended up helping Kenma the entire class, even through the smaller boy’s (half-hearted) protests.

He also figured out why Kenma intrigued him so much.

Hey, don’t beat yourself up for this, okay? It was inevitable.

You helped me so much, Tetsurou. Even though it hurt to stay for so long, I also saw so many beautiful things with you. Thanks to you, I was happy before I had to leave.

If you’re still not convinced, do you remember that day when Akane wouldn’t stop trying to touch me?

That was just one of so many times you saved me, Tetsurou.

Tetsurou ran after Kenma, calling his name (softly, he knew Kenma could be set off by noises sometimes). There was a girl in Kenma’s group in Business Management class, and she couldn’t seem to take a hint, always trying to toss an arm around his shoulders or tug him somewhere.

(Tetsurou did all that, but he knew that if Kenma actually didn’t want him to, he’d know by now.)

He found the smaller boy crouched in an empty classroom, arms over his head. “Hey, hey, Kenma. It’s okay. She’s gone now.” he said gently, kneeling down next to him.

“Can I touch you?” Tetsurou asked tentatively.

When he got no response, just a blank stare and tears running down Kenma’s face, Tetsurou sat down next to him, leaving a careful distance between the two of them.

“You know, I saw this new game at the electronics store the other day.” he said, trying to distract Kenma. “I think it’s the newest version of Mario Kart? If you want to, we can go pick it up this Friday then spend the entire Saturday playing.”

Still no response. Kuroo tried another tactic.

“I’ll buy you apple pie…” he attempted bribing.

“K-Kuroo?” came a muffled, broken voice next to him.

“Yes, kitten?” Kuroo asked, immediately attentive.

“Can you just… hold me?”

“Of course.”

That day, Tetsurou resolved to never let Kenma face anything alone again.

I told my parents about you. We both know how well that went. There’s a box of things from my childhood that I want you to have. They’ll mail it to your dorm.

There are so many things I wish that we could have done together that we never will. The first of those is that I wish I could have brought you home to my parents, but that’s not possible.

Did I ever tell you what they said that day?

Tetsurou paused outside of Kenma’s dorm room, apple pie in hand. He hadn’t dropped by in a week - finals were a bitch - and had planned to surprise Kenma with some of his favorite dessert as an apology for flaking on their weekly horror movie night.

The sound of his name paused Tetsurou in his tracks.

“Mom, I swear, Kuroo-san isn’t like that - and even if it was, it’s got nothing to do with you.”

“M- Oh, Dad. Dad ! Uh-huh.”

“I’ve told you before, hanging out with a bisexual person who I might like will not turn me any gayer.”

“Mom, please, you’ll like him, he’s nice, has a great sense of humor - he’ll talk volleyball with Dad, Mom, can you please just try to listen?”

The sound of a phone hitting a wall.

Even though we never got to be together, thank you for the memories, Tetsu.

I hope you didn’t have to see me in the end.

Cold, so cold.

Why was his hand so cold?

Deft, agile, flying across a screen-

Alone.

Left alone, both searching for a way to pick the broken pieces up.

Why, why, why?

Why didn’t you tell me?

Why didn’t you let me help?

Why now?

Why, why, why?

Why wasn’t I enough?

Because I love you, so much that I know that you deserve someone who can give you all of themself, not the jagged edges and fragmented pieces that I would’ve handed over without a second thought if I had stayed.

One day, I hope we can meet again when I’m good enough for you.

I love you, Kuroo Tetsurou.

Kenma.

The two of them laid in a field of flowers, heads turned toward each other and bodies curled so that they looked like two sides of a heart, reaching for each other, yet with a gap that felt like a million light years separating them.

“Hey, Kuroo…”

“Yeah?”

“Nothing.”

I really tried.

｡o°✥✤✣ 　　 ✣✤✥°o｡

© ʙᴇᴛʜᴇʏᴅᴏᴄʀɪᴍᴇᴡʀɪᴛᴇꜱ 2021 - ᴘʟᴇᴀꜱᴇ ᴅᴏ ɴᴏᴛ ᴄᴏᴘʏ ᴏʀ ʀᴇᴘᴏꜱᴛ ᴡɪᴛʜᴏᴜᴛ ᴄʀᴇᴅɪᴛ

[twilightichor]

◟༺✧༻◞ Perinheri (I).

This is a story from very ancient times indeed. It is said that in those days, birds had not yet split into domestic and wild kindreds. In those days, a crimson moon shone down upon the subterranean realm, and not the dark sun of latter days.

Due to the Kingdom's unique position, things from outside this world were always leaking into it. The Kingdom's weapons would wipe out the calamities slipping in, but what of all the other objects? Such as, say, a child who may have come from some destroyed world?

[...] (Naturally, no oceans in the traditional sense lay within the Kingdom's borders. The earliest founders of the Kingdom had once seen the majestic silhouettes of the mountains blur under the sun's searing glare, and the rippling reflections of the moonlight falling upon the sea's surface like a scattering of pearls. But at the time the story took place, only outsiders and those few who had left the Kingdom on official duties and returned could describe such sights to the ruler. The ocean and the sea were often used as a metaphor for the space projected by the stars.)

In anticipation of the arrival at their Kingdom of gods from beyond the so-called ocean — or rather, the arrival of beings who could transcend the gods — they founded an organization, an orphanage to take care of such children. In latter days, the orphans of the Kingdom and those who wandered in from outside were accepted as well.

[...] Perhaps it was the fear brought on by the darkness combined with hunger and exhaustion, but Perinheri did indeed see an illusion. The crimson moon, hanging high in the pitch-dark night sky, suddenly turned around, revealing itself to be a titanic, horrified eye.

Though the crimson moon set, and the dark sun descended into a yet darker dusk, that transcendental person from beyond who the Kingdom orphanage was awaiting never arrived. But unusual individuals they had aplenty, and many of those who strode forth from the gates of that orphanage became great knights of the Kingdom.

[reginrokkr]

◜I can hardly remember the last time I looked after a friend or was looked after by one. Perhaps when I was younger, I might have helped my comrades with family matters or relationship troubles— but the details escape me now. Out there on your own, you only have yourself to rely on.◞

— Ifa collected miscellany.

[mustafa-el-fats]

universal law

When we apply this Universal Law to improve the energetic structures living inside our own physical form or improve other types of structures we have operating in our lives, we will achieve beneficial, clear and efficient results. This is because we intend to live in harmony with the Law. All energetic structures, containers, houses, bodies or entities, must be defined to determine the energetic content and vibration within the structure. It is important to understand that this is a Universal Law governing energy and form. (See the third item) If the energetic or physical structure is not defined with a clear mission, purpose or intention, it means that the structure, container, house, body or entity will be invaded, infiltrated or used by dark forces who will take it over for their specific agenda. The act of commanding one’s space is participating with this Law, by defining the authority of which energies one allows into their body, container or house. This responsibility is with the individual person to command their space and defend their right to choose their authority. This is not something that God source or Christos families can do for you. This is because the Christos families are obedient to the Natural Laws of God, which never allow superimposition over another being’s personal will to choose. Unless the personal will is to annihilate or intentionally harm another species.

Three Layers of Ego Mind

In order to understand the Internal Structures of Ego, which we also refer to as the Houses of Ego, requires the awareness that there are three main layers. The three layers of mind work together to serve the functions of the ego in all human beings. Each energetic layer has separate functions yet all three layers are interconnected and directly impact each other. As we learn about the layers in the internal structure of the ego, this clarifies the purpose of identifying what the ego is and how it operates within us. When we understand how ego operates inside our mind we are better equipped to heal the energetic imbalances.

1D Memory Storage Unconscious Mind

1. Abuse 2. Trauma 3. Shock 4. Devastation

First Internal Layer: This is the root layer of our unconscious mind and it functions like a hard drive for the ego. In this hard drive is the cellular memory storage from all of one’s lifestreams. This means that cellular memories from past lives, present lives and future lives may all be stored in this memory hard drive. These memories are not given value when they are recorded, whether one may perceive them as good or bad these many multiple memories are stored on the root hard drive of every human being. Whether one was a fetus, baby, in between lifetimes, or unconscious when the body suffered abuse, it was recorded in one’s memory storage whether one currently remembers that event consciously or not.  

Because the planet was invaded and our individual memory and identity of those tragic events was erased, most all human beings have four main areas of cellular memory record in their unconscious mind at varying degrees. Those four main areas are: Abuse, Trauma, Shock and Devastation. Some people will feel these painful memories but not know what caused them or where they came from. Others will suffer from shock and will have shut these memories down completely as a coping mechanism. Others are very successful clearing these memories through emotional clearing practices such as with hypnosis and past life regression. Since this 1D unconscious mind controls our autonomic nervous system and autonomic bodily functions, unhealed trauma memories in these four main areas creates many kinds of physical symptoms and disease. These devastating memories have been partially described in twisted half-truths as the fall of humankind, or the genesis story of Adam and Eve in the bible. Starseeds have an earth mission to heal these memories and timelines in a multitude of ways.

2D Walls of Separation Instinctual Mind

1. Unworthiness 2. Shame / Guilt 3. Lack of Trust / SelfDoubt 4. Betrayal / Abandonment

5. Anger / Rage 6. Fear 7. Entrapment / Enslavement

Second Internal Layer: This is the instinctual layer of ego, which for many people remains a part of the unconscious mind as many do not pay attention to the cause of their instinctual drives or addictions. The first part of healing is to be willing to pay attention to drives though dedicated self-awareness. The second layer is directly impacted by the first layer to the degree the painful memory is experienced in the person’s hard drive. This second layer could also be called the pain body. It is the location where unresolved pain memories will manifest as instinctual drives within the person’s ego. If the 1D storage memories are not identified or cleared, the pain of these memories creates walls of separation in the 2D layer, as a pain body. The pain body further creates walls of separation which manifest in the ego as the seven primary mental and emotional states identified above.

These walls of separation isolate the ego self in the person, and as the person identifies with that ego state, they become disconnected from their inner spirit. This disconnection from the inner spirit creates a wall where another part of the ego identity may split off and may hide itself. This identity could have been created when one was a baby, a six year old child, a teenager, or even in other timelines. This phenomenon is called ego sub-personalities, and they may be hidden behind the walls as a result from deeply experienced trauma. These traumatized sub-personalities also hold a fragment of our spiritual energy. The goal of Satanic Ritual Abuse (SRA) is to intentionally create these traumatized sub-personalities, which fragment the mind and spiritual body, thereby causing harm to the internal energy structures of the person’s aura. The current way this is enforced en masse on planet earth by the N.A.A. is through the Victim-Victimizer software program. When we are separated from our inner spirit, we are disconnected from our experience with God Source. The result is more Pain, Disconnection and Disease, which exacerbates the ego walls and perpetuates the cycle of misery. The goal of our inner spirit is to find and locate those sub-personalities to heal them, reclaim them as Children of God, so that the spiritual light can be reintegrated and brought back into wholeness.

3D Houses of Ego Conscious Mind

1. Addiction / Lust 2. Wrath / Rage / Vengeance 3. Greed / Avarice 4. Envy / Jealousy

5. Gluttony / Waste

6. Laziness / Discouragement 7. Pride / (+/-) Self-Importance

Third Internal Layer: This is the conscious mind layer of the ego, which we all perceive as a self or personality. If one pays attention to their conscious thoughts, one becomes aware if they are having negative ego thoughts as defined above by the Seven Houses of Ego. All Houses of Ego are formed by making judgments of people and the external circumstances. The third layer is directly impacted by the first and second layer to the degree the painful memory has created walls of separation and traumatized sub-personalities. If the main areas of the walls of separation are not dismantled and the sub-personalities brought into transparency for healing, these hidden influences control and manipulate the strength and power within the person’s Houses of Ego. Essentially the more weak and in pain a person is, the more strong their walls of separation and pain body, which create the judgments which build the Houses of Ego. In most cases the houses are also created as a coping mechanism to deal with the harshness experienced in the 3D world.

The Houses of Ego are a direct rejection of God’s spirit and repel the Christos spirit from dwelling within one’s body.  If the Houses of Ego are extremely strong and the person replays its characteristic behavior repeatedly, that ego behavior builds an internal house, which then attracts a spirit.  As an example, if a person has an addiction problem sourcing from unhealed trauma and replays the addictive behavior repeatedly, a House of Addiction will be built as an internal structure of the ego mind. Once that House of Ego is built internally, it attracts a spirit with the same consciousness energy that will match the vibrational quality in the internal house. The Spirit of Addiction is a demonic spirit.  So as one builds a House of Addiction inside their mind and body, it attracts a demonic spirit to dwell within their house. As the laws of energetic structure states, one has built an internal house and has thus created the energetic agreement for a demonic spirit to dwell inside that house. This is the consensual agreement that unaware humans make for demonic spirits to dwell inside their body, and then later the consent they give the predator force to use their body as a dark portal

[mbcoldstorage]

Transcendence of the analog image

https://forum.arsenal-berlin.de/forum-forum-expanded/programm-forum/ste-anne/essay-transzendenz-des-analogbildes/

"Art is magic, freed from the lie of being truth" (Theodor W. Adorno)

A return to a culture of origin - or an attempt at self-determination that can only succeed if you make peace with your past? STE moves between these two poles . ANNEfor a long time without clearly giving preference to one direction over the other. In any case, it is a film with biographical borrowings: The title of the feature film debut by the Canadian Rhayne Vermette refers to the city in the province of Manitoba where her family once settled. Even before any narrative constriction, there is a poetic evocation: Vermette's film is an ode to the land of her ancestors, who, like herself, are members of the Métis, an ethnic minority that, at the end of the 18th century, emerged from the union of French-born settlers and indigenous people Population groups emerged.

In the film, the land, both a visual object and a “state of mind”, appears as close as it is remote. Close, because for Vermette it is a familiar environment, a landscape that she knows all too well; enraptured because the landscape in STE. ANNE does not offer a realistic setting through which the protagonists move habitually. Rather, it is de-familialized here from the start: Even the first recordings of the film, shot at the interface between day and night, allow viewers to pass a kind of threshold, enter a twilight zone . One looks at painting-like images of a steppe-like nature with mighty cloud formations, in addition to the chirping of birds and a restrained ambient sound that briefly swells threateningly.

Scar in the family structure

The woman who tiredly walks through one of these pictures is called Renée. Years after her mysterious disappearance, she returns to the settlement where her daughter Athene lives, who has since been raised like her own child by Renée's brother Modeste and his wife Eleanor. Before we learn anything about Renée's motives, Athene addresses her mother, who was believed to be lost - in an intimate voiceover monologue, she expresses the hope that she can finally get closer and share the spirits that haunt her with her.

Vermette embeds this inner monologue by Athene in a scene of communal commonality, the film keeps coming back to scenes of this kind: people gathered around a campfire, a folk song is sung; People who gather at the table. After the atmospherically ambiguous beginning, the joy of meeting now prevails. However, the separation has left a scar in the family structure - not least, athenes self-image is challenged. Does she now have two mothers, is she “just lucky,” as she once put it to a friend?

For both her mother Renée and herself, the reunification leads to an attempt to get to know her own roots better. Vermette tells this process of approaching and confronting the past with the rules of a fiction that falls back on conventions. You can see repeatedly how mother and daughter leaf through family albums together, but in the first of these scenes the depicted father himself appears as a transparent ghost in the image section. This is not scary: he is eating an apple and looking down at the others in a friendly manner. One can take the scene as the first indication that STE. ANNEit is more about juxtaposition: about images that can be memories, visions or views or several of them at the same time, but which are rarely realistic documents.

Photographs have a special status as artifacts in film. Renée has a crumpled old picture of a Ste. Anne, which she has acquired and where she would like to settle one day. The picture is an object of longing and at the same time a hand oracle that shows her the way into a self-determined future - although her project only seems possible via the detour of the fulfillment of a mythical prophecy. Athene, in turn, pins her mother's photo from the family album on the wall. When she touches it, this seems to trigger a chemical reaction that trembles the film image and, in the form of changing shades of color, apparently activates an inner intensity of the image, its affective potential.

Physical interweaving of image and world

According to the semiotic Charles S. Pierce, the photographic image (on film material) maintains an indexical connection to reality. It is a physical sign, a light print and at the same time the result of a medial transmission. With her work, Vermette consciously connects to this physical interweaving of image and world. She even goes beyond that when she ascribes a magic to the picture, an excess or residue of transcendence that must remain hidden from the naked eye. Horror films (just think of the horrific photo of the girl at the beginning of Nicholas Roeg's DON'T LOOK NOW) have repeatedly appropriated this mysterious charge of images. In STE. ANNEit is more about a spiritual-cosmic flicker, about the coexistence of different levels of time and being. Images seem most likely to be able to connect to the cyclical principle of the Métis culture. The time level of the film therefore remains deliberately unclear, past and present seem to overlap; At the same time, however, the camera has always been the medium for Vermette itself to relate to these traditions in the present. The fact that she herself can be seen in the role of Renée (and various family members appear) gives this artistic examination of her own history of origin even more urgency.

Recourse to the filmic carrier material is essential for Vermette's aesthetic approach. She shoots with a Bolex camera on 16mm and already with this practice refers to methods of experimental or avant-garde film; in interviews she mentions the tickle that results from the fact that you never know for sure what the finished image will look like in the end. In her short films, she made the materiality of the film an even more explicit topic, or rather linked the fiction itself to the volatility of the medium. In LE CHÂSSIS DE LOURDES (2016), who with STE. ANNE corresponds most strongly, she reflects on her flight from the family network and then works through the films and photographs that her father made with a camera that he passed on to her, as it were from the newly gained distance.

With the help of a flowing, yet high-frequency montage, she creates an undertow with the recordings from the house of her childhood, which, with the help of the medium of film, deconstructs that imaginary place that is commonly referred to as “home”. Memory is identified as a construction and the private environment, which one walks through again in pictures or rather scans through, is expanded into a collective space. By making the film material, the individual frames, the soundtrack and the perforation of the film strip visible, Vermette also turns the semantic units outwards. It rearranges and animates (right down to the processing of the individual cadre) the source material, not least through the sound,

LE CHÂSSIS DE LOURDES, as a (re) appropriation and extension of one's own family history, is nevertheless a differently polarized home movie than STE ANNE. Because only her feature film poses the question of how belonging to a traditional but already fragmented culture can be combined with the individualistic demands of a modern woman. Instead of following a progressive plot, Vermette creates passages which she then relates to one another using a method similar to sampling (she describes hip-hop artist and producer Madlib as one of her role models). Motifs are intoned, take a back seat and are taken up again later. One is the matriarchal structure of the Métis community, which is shown early on in the film in social togetherness, in which anecdotes about the past are exchanged. That sequence is particularly haunting in which the women in anachronistic costumes go from house to house as nuns with their faces wrapped in bandages. If you first believe yourself in a horror film, the scenario is later identified as a ritual that ends with the exuberant feast of the captured delicacies - a rebellious act that creates common ground among the women.

Metaphysics in moving images

Vermette embeds such passages in impressionistic landscape panoramas in which nature (and its spiritual forces) come to an independent present in the materiality of the film. The shots of barren autumn forests, wintery snowy landscapes and rivers, which have fragile textures and changing color intensities, do not just work as poetic inserts. Rather, they form the larger resonance space for the changes that are emerging in the family structure. The grandmother is repeatedly seen looking out into the night, at the moon and a stray dog, as if she saw a portent in them. Nature has a somatic quality that also manifests itself in the grain of the 16mm pictures or the veils of color that flicker around the pictures - an effect which is enhanced by the complex sound design. Once wrinkled hands plunge into a body of water, which seems to trigger a chain reaction on the sound level. When ice flowers on windows, ornate enamel and the swirl pattern on a body of water come together in a figurative dance, then it also tells of a cosmic roof over people and things.

This is also borne out by the highlighted scene in which the immanence of this community - one feels reminiscent of a film by Apichatpong Weerasethakul - emerges most clearly in the film: As in a daydream, Renée first climbs a hill in slow motion with tents on it. Then the horns of a bull glow in the dark, it snorts like a god of nature, while Renée tells of her premonition of a coming disaster. Did it create these pictures? She asks the being. Or is this just the sad result of someone else, i.e. representation itself?

That stays in STE. ANNE, of course, in the balance; But when you think about these questions you inevitably think of the director herself, the real originator of this metaphysics in moving images. Renée's path to independence is not only to be had at the price of breaking with the culture of origin. The idea of ​​standing on her own two feet with Athena paradoxically brings her closer to her own roots. The decisive factor, however, is the film medium, which prepares the ground for the reconciliation of the opposing worlds: their real life and the spiritual space of family tradition. Only this gives form to magical thinking.

Dominik Kamalzadeh is the cultural editor of the Vienna daily Der Standard and member of the editorial board of the film magazine Kolik.Film . He lives in Vienna.

[365daysofsasuhina]

[ 365 Days of SasuHina || Day Three Hundred Thirty-Eight: No Remorse ] [ Uchiha Sasuke, Hyūga Hinata, Uzumaki Naruto, Haruno Sakura ] [ SasuHina ] [ Verse: A Light Amongst Shadows ] [ AO3 Link ]

It’s one of the questions he’s asked most often...to the point where he’s become - quite frankly - rather exasperated with it.

“Do you regret it?”

��It’ being a rather vague term, but one way or another, the word typically refers to any or all events from the time he left Konoha, to when he was dragged back. From the moment he’s back within the village, it seems to be the one thing anyone really cares to know about the time he spent outside it.

The simple answer is...no.

But most people aren’t satisfied with that. If he tells them no, and doesn’t explain...they get that look. One that tells him that he really should regret it. That he should be ashamed of the things he did.

At first, such a response doesn’t really bother him. He honestly couldn’t give less of a shit what anyone in Konoha thinks about him, really. Their blind loyalty to a place that’s - in actuality - committed a number of crimes, not just those regarding his clan, leaves him with a rather unfavorable opinion of most of them. Granted, your typical shinobi - let alone civilian - hardly knows about Konoha’s wrongdoings. But even those who do - his team, primarily - don’t really seem to have much concern about confronting them.

Something he isn’t going to let slide.

But that’s to be handled later. For now, he’s still stuck dealing with the dredge of the villagers’ opinions.

Because in reality...he doesn’t regret a single thing he did. Some things he might have done differently given his knowledge...but he also knows there’s no point in such thoughts. There’s no changing the past. And even if there were...the unknown outcomes of such changes may very well be even harder to cope with than his current circumstances.

He does, admittedly, regret killing Itachi. But he also knows it was his brother’s wish: his attempt to keep the peace, keep Sasuke blinded to the dark truths of their village...and end his own suffering. But the elder brother’s death - and the revelations Sasuke received after, from both Obito and Itachi himself - led him to the truth. To his current path.

And he can’t bring himself to regret that.

He doesn’t regret killing Orochimaru. Or his later decision to revive the snake sannin. Getting his teacher out of the way was necessary...just as much as it was to later revive them. Part of him may very well think that having the serpent alive is a risk...but it also was one that, overall, panned out in their favor. Orochimaru has done despicable things...but so too were they instrumental in overcoming obstacles.

Taka...is a difficult subject. Despite his best efforts to remain neutral toward them, there was no fully killing his need to protect people - to connect with them. As much as Karin annoys him, as much as Suigetsu prods at him, and as closely as he has to watch Jūgo...he couldn’t have done what he did without them. They aren’t exactly...friends. He can’t bring himself to call them that, but friend is a difficult subject for him. They’re an odd...in-between.

He certainly doesn’t regret killing Danzō. While he knows the rest of the council won’t receive the same fate - and maybe they don’t quite deserve it like the head of Root did - their actions were the direct allowance of the massacre. Danzō’s greed for their power and his want to remove them from his path was something Sasuke could never forgive - never let go unaddressed.

He had to die.

So, in truth...while some things have been harder for Sasuke to accept than others...he’s had to, really. He’d go mad overthinking it, doubting it all, asking ‘what if’ whenever it gets too quiet. He made his bed, and he’ll lie in it. There’s no getting his clan back. His brother back. His life back.

This is his reality. Regretting it will bring him no peace...no justice.

All he can do now...is move forward.

“Ah -!”

Dragged into a group outing, Sasuke pauses and glances over as one of their troupe seems to stagger. It’s currently him, Sakura, Naruto, and Hinata. The Hyūga has been hanging around the rather-fragmented team seven as of late. And it’s she who seems to crumple mid-step.

Being the fastest among them, it’s Sasuke who reacts first. With an arm around her waist, he keeps her on her feet, dark brows furrowing. There’s a rather violent ripple in her chakra.

Something’s wrong.

“Sakura,” he barks, bluntly but not unkindly.

Noticing as much herself, the rosette wastes no time in approaching. As Sasuke eases Hinata to sit (a bit difficult to do, given their position in the crowded shopping district), Naruto follows up.

“Hinata-chan! What’s wrong?”

“I...I’m fine,” she insists, tone a bit wispy as Sakura puts a hand to her chest, chakra shifting to a jade shade. “It’s just...m-my chest.”

“Your heart? Or your scar?”

“Heart…”

“When was your last cardiology appointment?” Sakura asks, immediately in medic mode.

Sasuke, serving as a bit of a chair at the moment, lets his brow furrow. Wait...her heart? She’s only seventeen, why would she -?

...oh...now he remembers. Their chūnin exams. Her spar against Neji. The blow to her chest that stopped the organ and required her to be evacuated to the hospital. He remembers hearing about her extensive hospital stay, and the weeks of therapy it took to strengthen her heart.

She’d nearly died that day.

“About, um…” She pauses to think. “...two months ago. Everything’s fine. It just f-flares up sometimes. I’ve been told it’s normal, I just need to rest.”

Sakura doesn’t look fully convinced, but relents. “...we better get you home.”

“But -?”

“We’re not about to keep dragging you around when you feel like this!”

“I don’t want to r-ruin it…”

“...I’ll take her home,” Sasuke then offers. “I’m not contributing much as it is. You two stay and finish up. I’ll make sure she gets there safe.”

For a brief moment, something flickers across Sakura’s face. “...all right. But if anything happens, you take her straight to the hospital! No ifs, ands, or buts!”

Hinata almost seems to pout, but doesn’t argue. “...I’m sorry, Sakura-chan.”

“Oh, please - a little outing is a lot less important than your health. Go get some rest. We’ll see you again soon, okay? Take it easy!”

“...I will…” Letting Sasuke carefully haul her back to her feet, Hinata starts leading the way back to her clan’s grounds.

Sasuke keeps his gaze on her from the corner of his unveiled eye, watching for any signs she’s worsening. She seems a bit out of breath, but otherwise passable enough. “...is this from the chūnin exams?”

With a small, weary sigh...Hinata nods. “...my heart is healed, but every so often I have a bout of arrhythmia. It’s never been anything serious, not since my therapy ended. It’s just something I have to deal with. Everyone always makes it so dramatic…”

“People worry about you. And if Sakura’s worried...there’s surely reason to be.”

“It’s been four years. I r-really don’t think I’m going to relapse. My primary medic says I’m fine, and she’s as diligent as they come. I keep up my appointments...everything else is just unnecessary fuss.”

“...all right, then.” He’s not about to argue. But then the other part of Sakura’s questioning surfaces.

“...Sakura said something about a scar…?”

To his surprise, she actually pauses. “...yes.”

He too slows to a stop. “...what was that from?” He likely has no idea - he was gone for quite some time, and odds are he just wasn’t around when it happened.

“...when Akatsuki attacked Konoha, I interfered with Naruto-kun’s fight against their leader.”

Subtly, his eye widens.

“I knew I wasn’t any match...mostly I just w-wanted to be a distraction. Maybe help free him so he could continue the fight. But I was overpowered before he could get loose, and the enemy impaled me with one of his black rods.”

At her words, a memory surfaces: that of Madara turning Tobirama into a pincushion with rods like that. Right before he -

“It went into my side, and...caused a lot of damage. Due to the rush, it was healed over very quickly, and I had a few c-complications that had to be fixed later with further surgeries. The scarring is a bit tight, so...sometimes I have trouble t-twisting my torso. I do yoga and kata to help with flexibility, but...it twinges sometimes. Sakura-chan likely thought that might have been what had me flinch.”

Sasuke considers her for a long moment. They’re still stopped in the middle of a road, currently empty beyond the two of them. “...you got that trying to help Naruto?”

“...yes. After I was stabbed, he flew into a rage...utilized his bijū and got free.”

“...I didn’t realize he cared about you that much.” It’s a blunt statement, but an honest one. From what he can remember...Naruto always called her strange. While Sasuke (and just about everyone else) could see it was due to her crush on him...the blond was always blind.

Hinata, however, doesn’t flinch. Instead, her head bows slightly. “...that was the day I told him I loved him. I don’t k-know if that had anything to do with it. He never mentioned it after that.”

“...wait.” Disbelief slackens his face. “...you confessed to him, risked your life for him...and he said nothing?”

“T-there was a lot more to consider - Akatsuki, the village, and -”

“But even after all this time...he hasn’t answered you?”

“...not directly.” Her tone quiets. “...but I t-think his reply is rather...o-obvious.”

“...that stupid prick,” Sasuke mutters.

“It w-wasn’t his -”

“You don’t regret it?”

His interruption makes her hesitate.

“...nothing? No remorse? I saw what you did during the war...you tried to do it again. All this effort doesn’t feel...wasted?”

She stares at him, expression unreadable. “...Naruto-kun doesn’t feel how I felt. And I h-hardly want him to force it, or...or lie. That doesn’t mean I regret doing what I did. I wanted to protect him. I w-wanted to prove I was strong enough to stand beside him. I might not love him anymore...maybe I never did. Not truly. But I can’t regret risking my own life for someone I care about. Even if we aren’t right for each other...I still care. I still want him safe, and happy. If the choice came up again...I wouldn’t hesitate. Naruto-kun is precious to me. I might not be what I wanted to be to him...but I’m still his friend. His comrade. So no...I don’t regret my choices.” Unblinking, she doesn’t censor herself. “...I thought y-you of all people would understand.”

For some reason...her words sting in a way he doesn’t expect. But rather than feel a need to lash out, or reply with snark...he recoils, suddenly unsure. He never thought her capable of such a remark.

When it’s clear he isn’t going to rebuke, she sighs. “...I’ve given a lot for other people. But I’d never take any of it back. Just because it’s left me in a deficit doesn’t mean I should regret it. I still feel like I made the right choices...even if others might disagree. They’re mine to make...and mine alone.”

“...fair enough.”

A pause.

“...you don’t have to walk me back, I’ll be fine. You probably want to go home.”

“It’s not that far.” And he isn’t about to walk away from her rather bold statements. “Besides, Sakura will skin me alive if she finds out I left.”

“...all right.”

They don’t exchange any more words on the way, and Hinata turns back as she passes through the compound gate. “...have a good evening, Sasuke-kun.”

“You too. Get some rest. Remember, doctor’s orders.”

To his surprise, she manages a smile. “I will.” With that, she turns and soon disappears.

Mind full of thoughts he had no intention of entertaining, Sasuke eventually sighs...and turns back toward home.

                                                          .oOo.

     This isn't QUITE what I want it to be, but...it's late and I don't have time to redo or tinker xD      Sasuke, in my mind, fully accepts all of his decisions. Maybe a bit less out of actually finding them to be the best he could have done...and more just doing so for his own peace of mind. Sure, he has things he know he could have done better, but...only AFTER seeing how they played out. For his sanity's sake, he can't regret them.      Hinata, on the other hand, feels that she DID do the best she could. And while others might criticize her, especially her actions concerning Naruto, she doesn't regret them. Just because their bond didn't pan out how she'd wanted doesn't mean she'd NOT do her best to help him. He still matters. Her feelings still matter. They've just...changed. But that doesn't change the past, or how she views it.      So, two different interpretations. And I think that's an interesting comparison between them!      ...but it's also 3 am and I'm tired so maybe that's the only reason I'm so rambly xD      Either way, that's all I've got for now, and it's WAY past bedtime lol - thanks for reading!

[kcrabb88]

In a Mirror Dimly

Summary: Enjolras and Valjean bond at the barricade, discussing love and something they share in common. Written for Ace Mis Week 2019. 

Note: Aromanticism and asexuality definitely overlap here! That’s my personal experience/orientation, so that comes naturally for me when writing about ace things. Also, the title is a reference to a verse from 1 Corinthians. Thanks to @aflamethatneverdies and @librarianladyx for beta’ing! 

Valjean knows he shouldn’t get attached to these boys.

Because these boys will probably be dead soon.

Young men, he corrects himself, because they’re not children. But he has a habit of making any youth a child in his head.

He can’t help but feel fatherly toward them.

Perhaps he can convince them to run? Then again, maybe not. And how could he lead them through the dark of Paris unnoticed, even if he got them out?

Surrender? He flinches, digging his fingernails into his palms. That might mean prison. He swallows, unwilling to imagine these vibrant young men under that weight.

He looks over, seeing the one called Enjolras whisper something in Combeferre’s ear, a soft smile sliding onto the chief’s face.

He remembers seeing the tear running down the lad’s cheek after he shot the artillery sergeant. He remembers watching him step away for a moment and take a deep breath, because there isn’t time for grief.

Not here.

Enjolras brushes a stray strand of astonishing fair hair out of his eyes, not yet noticing Valjean studying him. Paris feels dark in this space before true daylight comes, clouds sweeping across the sky as a slice of blue edges into the black night, just a hint of red lingering on the horizon. There’s no light from the usual window lanterns, the few they have near the barricade emitting a dull yellow haze. The scent of gun smoke lingers in the air, never allowing Valjean to forget where he is.

He’d sensed the revolt in the air for weeks, months, before he heard news of the barricades today, but France has been roiled so many times since his birth that he can never tell when a spark will turn into something or when it won’t. The revolution was in progress when he was shipped to Toulon, and he remembers hearing news of the changes inside France: the revolution ending, Napoleon’s coup, and years later, his disastrous defeat in Russia. Then, Waterloo.

Nothing changed inside the bagne.

Valjean’s surprised when he glances up and sees Enjolras looking at him.

Then walking toward him.

“I was grateful for your help with the mattress to block the grapeshot, citizen,” Enjolras says as he approaches. “And for your bravery in giving your uniform to send another man away. My friends and I are thankful.”

Always citizen, rather than monsieur. Valjean’s intrigued again, even if he doesn’t quite know what to say. He can’t really say why exactly he’s here, though he’d heard Marius say I know him, so what might the other men here suspect? Perhaps nothing. Perhaps that Marius has only seen him in the street.

He realizes how much he’s used to keeping secrets. Always secrets, because he carries Toulon with him everywhere. The secrets grew heavier when he tore up his yellow passport and became someone else, when he took the bishop’s silver and started a new life. But with his secrets he also gained a sort of freedom. The freedom to be someone other than Jean Valjean and the damage that name carries with it. He’s only Jean Valjean at night, when he’s alone with his scars. Wearing another name gives him the chance to help others. It gives him the chance to love his daughter.

Valjean folds his hands together, praying he can get Cosette’s young man out of here even as the National Guard gets closer and daylight breaks into the night, the first hints of dawn reaching the barricade. He recalls Enjolras’ words from the speech he gave not long ago, the words cutting into Valjean’s heart because he doesn’t want these young men to die.

We are entering a tomb all flooded with the dawn.

Enjolras sits down on the paving stones, the first strains of morning light creeping toward his feet through the shadows as if drawn to him. The glow casts his youth into relief and washes the gravity from his face, the knowledge that this lad might perish—and soon—making Valjean’s chest ache. Smudges of gunpowder stain Enjolras’ hands black in places, but he’s bafflingly free of even a small injury.

“Do you have anyone worrying over you at home?” Valjean asks, because he doesn’t know what to say. He so often feels like he doesn’t know what to say, only what to do.

Enjolras pulls his gaze away from the sunrise. “My parents are at home in Marseilles, but hopefully they aren’t worrying yet because news won’t have reached them.”

“No wife or children like those men you sent home?”

Valjean wonders if there’s any way he might convince Enjolras to go home. He looks barely more than seventeen or so, even if he must be a good bit into his twenties. Valjean isn’t opposed to the politics, because he knows just how desperate so many people are, right now. How desperate they’ve been for years. He understands the inequalities and the cholera and the poverty. Those were the things he was trying to fix, in Montreuil, before it all went wrong. Those are the things he wants to help alleviate now, where he can, person by person.

But he doesn’t want these young men dying over this. He wants them to find another way, because there’s enough death in these streets already.

Enjolras smiles, possibly catching onto to Valjean’s motives. “No. I have never been very interested in romance or the…” red creeps into his cheeks, and Valjean suspects he doesn’t blush often. “…the other activities my friends occupy themselves with. So no mistress waiting, either.”

Valjean shifts the gun resting between his knees. “Too busy wanting to change the world?”

Enjolras runs a hand through his over-long fair hair, and the small movement makes Fantine appear in Valjean’s mind with a flash of vibrant, tangible memory, her golden hair cut short and ruined by the cruel edge of a knife. All these years later and he still aches over the fact that he couldn’t save her.

He probably can’t save all these boys either, only the one he’s come for, the one his daughter loves, and it hurts.

Truth be told he doesn’t even know if he can save Marius.

Even in the last excruciating moments, there had been hope in Fantine’s eyes, hope that she might see her daughter again. Even as she died, Valjean saw the life in her bursting at the seams with nowhere to go. He never had the chance to know Fantine, just as he won’t ever know Enjolras, but despite their differences in circumstance and age and gender, he recognizes the same radical, indestructible hope in both of them. In Fantine’s last days he sensed that she was never just surviving, but always looking for the tiniest fragment of joy in the dark, even if she was only holding on by her fingernails. He senses that same spirit in Enjolras, watching it shimmer in the air around them like a living thing.

If he could, he would give some of his years back to Fantine, so she could see her daughter again.

He would give some to these lads, too, and save them from the bullets awaiting them on the other side of the barricade.

But he can’t.

Enjolras’ voice draws him back toward the moment at hand, every second feeling precious, because death’s shadow creeps over the barricade even as the orange-red glow of the sunrise bursts over the Parisian skyline. “That is always time consuming, but my friends also find plenty of hours in the day for both their mistresses and their politics. I suppose I never felt the impulse.”

“I thought I heard one of your friends teasing and saying you were rather intrepid for a man who had no woman he loved,” Valjean says, finding himself talking more with Enjolras than he does with most people other than Cosette. “But I thought perhaps they just might not know that you did.”

Enjolras laughs softly, but there’s grief within the sound. “Oh, no. I keep no secrets from my friends. We are a family, after all. Bound together by love of the same cause, and years of friendship.” Enjolras’s voice cracks ever so slightly, his words growing heavy.

“You’ve lost good friends today.” Valjean almost clasps Enjolras on the shoulder, but he isn’t sure if the touch would be welcome, so he refrains, for now. “Not just compatriots.”

“Two of the best men I knew.” Enjolras glances over at Courfeyrac, Feuilly, Combeferre, Bossuet, and Joly, who stand nearby, a gleam of deep love in his eyes. “Bahorel and Prouvaire. Bahorel had a laugh you could never forget, and a formidable loyalty to those he chose as his own. Prouvaire had an absolutely astonishing soul, and poetry that could make any man cry, even if I don’t understand the finer points of the art form.” Enjolras touches his undone cravat, a bright-red against the more muted colors of the rest of his clothing. Perhaps a gift from the friends he mentioned. Then, his voice goes deeper, a dangerous anger puncturing the words. “Some of the national guardsmen executed Prouvaire point blank. It’s why I’m afraid the police inspector inside will meet his end here.”

Valjean tenses at that, Javert’s presence is a problem for him in a million ways even as he wishes to get him out of here unscathed. Javert is a thorn in his side. Javert could turn him in. Javert keeps turning up, and yet Valjean doesn’t want to see him killed. A strange sympathy for the police inspector wells up in Valjean’s chest, a sympathy of which he doesn’t entirely understand the root.

“I’m sure some people find it odd,” Enjolras continues, his words holding the ring of a confession. “My lack of a mistress or interest in marriage. But I have all I need with my friends.”

Valjean pauses, hesitant to share anything about himself with anyone, the instinct ingrained so deeply within him he doesn’t know how to undo it. He’s afraid to undo it.

“I understand.” Valjean speaks the words before he’s ready, but he does understand, and it’s almost a relief to hear Enjolras make his own admission. Their lives are very different, but that feeling is the same. “I have a daughter, you see. Not my blood, but…” Valjean trails off for a moment, an image of Fantine coughing until her whole body shook overtaking his memory. “…but my own nevertheless. The life I’ve led has never truly offered me the opportunity for marriage and the like, but then again I also haven’t found I desired any of that. So I don’t find it odd at all, if you want the opinion of an old man.”

Concern floods Enjolras’ face, his eyes widening in alarm. “You have a daughter and yet you gave yourself up for another man to leave? I didn’t know…I…” Enjolras is inarticulate now, and it’s a far cry from the beautiful ease of his earlier speech, the words he spoke to the crowd like a hymn caught in the wind. Valjean remembers how those words sunk into his old soul, watching as the flames of hope came alive in the eyes of the men surrounding him. Not hope for their own lives, necessarily, but hope for the future they all believe in.

Valjean does clasp Enjolras’ shoulder now. “Easy, lad. I know what I’m doing. I’ll be all right.”

Enjolras frowns, the earlier gravity returning. “I am far from certain that any of us are going to be all right, I’m afraid. I hate to see your daughter lose you. I’m sure she needs you.”

“I’ll be all right,” Valjean repeats.

He cannot say I faked my own death to escape a prison ship. He cannot say I once snuck into a convent by hiding in a coffin. He cannot say I have been through stranger things, and somehow survived. He’s honestly not sure if he will survive. But he has to try. He has to try to get Cosette’s young man back to her. Even if it means losing her, Valjean wants her happiness. She deserves her happiness. She deserves more than an old man like him.

Valjean’s eyes flick to Marius for the briefest of moments, and it doesn’t go unnoticed by Enjolras. Enjolras looks at Marius and back at Valjean again, some kind of recognition flashing in his face that he doesn’t voice.

“I don’t suppose there’s any way I can convince you and your friends to leave the barricade?”

Valjean speaks before Enjolras can, hardly knowing what he’s saying.

A sad smile graces Enjolras’ features as the sun comes up fully over the barricade, gold dripping from the ends of his hair when the light strikes him.

“We will not surrender. My friends and I will do this together as we have so many other things in our lives these past years. We will survive together, or we will not.”

There’s a finality in Enjolras’ words among the grief and the hope and the unshakeable love Valjean hears.

“That kind of family is a beautiful thing to possess,” Valjean says, his words turning tremulous, and he clears his throat against the wave of emotion crashing over him. “That kind of family, and something to believe in.”

Enjolras blinks, wiping away a stray tear falling from his eye. “Those two things are all I have ever needed. Perhaps some might say that my lack of a mistress means I do not love, but that is not the truth.” Enjolras glances over at his friends again, and then at the sun casting the barricade in a golden glow, the light of a new day dawning. The dawn of the sixth of June. “I love so much I feel it might burst out of me at any moment. And sometimes it does.”

“I understand.” Valjean stands up at the same time as Enjolras, putting out his hand for the lad to shake. “I truly do.”

Enjolras accepts the handshake, his hand warm with life and kindness. “I hope that you find your way back to your daughter, citizen. Her name is?”

“Cosette,” Valjean says, something powerful filling him up as he says his child’s name, even more determined to get the Pontmercy boy back to her. He has never felt the kind of romantic feelings for someone like she possesses for that young man, but he does know what it is to deeply love, because she taught him.

“Cosette,” Enjolras repeats, handling the name with care. “Thank you for sharing a piece of yourself with me. It’s always nice to share something in common with someone when you didn’t expect it.”

Valjean nods, letting go of Enjolras’ hand. “It is. Thank you for talking with an old man.”

Enjolras smiles again before going back over to Combeferre and Courfeyrac, who each put an arm around him.

There’s still the matter of Javert inside the Corinthe. There’s still the matter of getting Cosette’s young man out of here. There’s still the matter of surviving long enough to do that. But Valjean marvels at the life on this barricade that is so obviously destined to end in death.

He marvels at the love all around him.

More words from Enjolras’ speech echo in his head, louder than the footsteps of the soldiers and the cannon fire on the other side of this chaotic, mismatched pile of wood that is the only thing standing between them and eternity.

Whence shall arise the shout of love, if it be not from the summit of sacrifice?