#'or will they reject that which has been cradled in moral hands?'

[deepwaterwritingprompts]

Deep Water Prompt #2904

Angels don’t always fall so dramatically. Most of the time it’s on accident, a failure of fledgling wings. We are not supposed to touch them, or feed them cup ramen.

[thetriumphantpanda]

HAS ANYONE SENT THIS ONE YET I'M SORRY IF THEY HAVE BUT - “I love that no one else has seen you like this, that no one else has felt you before, been inside you. they don’t get to have you, but i do.” wiiiiiiith Frankie please ily

HANNAH YOU ABSOLUTE MENACE WHAT HAVE YOU DONE 🫠 you agree the first to request and I am happy to deliver but GOD ALMIGHTY IS IT HOT IN MY ROOM OR WHAT?! I LOVE YOU. THANK YOU FOR SUCH A GOOD REQUEST. I hope you like this 🫶🏼

Pairing | Frankie Morales x Female Reader

Word Count | 1K (THESE WERE MEANT TO BE QUICK AND EASY DRABBLES WTF)

Warnings | Soft!Frankie (He needs his own warning), loss of virginity, unprotected PiV sex (Seriously, don't do this kids) and just general fluff.

This is part of my 500 followers celebration. If you want to request a 500 word Drabble, check out this post and head into my ask box. The more the merrier. 

Main Masterlist

 You can feel the nerves coursing through your bloodstream as Frankie stands at the edge of the bed and takes his shirt off. You’re trying to catch your breath, and failing miserably, after he’d teased two orgasms from you with his mouth within half an hour. He’d kissed all the way up your naked body, soft and wet open-mouthed kisses until he was pressing his lips to yours and you were tasting yourself on his tongue. All of this was new and whilst you were thoroughly enjoying yourself, you couldn’t settle in yourself that there was still plenty of time for it to all go wrong. 

Frankie had never been planned like this. He’d been your friend, first and foremost, but somewhere along the line things had changed. He’d flirted back with you; he’d started buying you drinks and making excuses to see you on your own without the rest of the guys around. Then, a week ago, he’d kissed you. You’d pulled away almost immediately and for a second, he thought that was it, rejection and the end of your friendship, until you took his hands in yours and told him the real reason. You were scared because no-one had kissed you before. Scared because that meant no-one had touched you either. Scared because surely that made you weird, right? 

Frankie had softened immediately, pulling you into a bone-crushing hug before placing a kiss to the crown of your head. He promised to not pressure you, promised to let you do this on your terms, when you were ready. He wanted so badly to make you feel good, to show you how much you meant to him, but only when you were ready. 

“Are you sure, hermosa?” He whispers to you now as he crawls up your body, just as naked as you are, “You sure you want me?” 

You cradle his face in the palm of your hands and bring his lips to yours in a kiss as your hips widen to accommodate his frame between your legs, “Yes Frankie,” You whisper, almost as quietly as he did, “Please make me feel good again.” 

He doesn’t need to be told twice. He runs his fingers through the seam of your pussy, gathering the slick that he’s drawn from your already onto his fingers before he’s using his fist to spread it over himself, he wants to make this as easy as he can for you. You hold your breath as the tip of his cock nudges your entrance and he’s looking straight through your eyes and into your soul. 

“Relax baby,” He breathes into your ear, “Just breathe for me and it’ll be okay.” 

You let out a deep sigh and watch his face as he slides himself in. He’s got one hand gripping the curve of your waist where it meets your hip whilst he’s leaning on his other hand which is placed next to your head. It’s uncomfortable, but you curse all the romance books you’d read in your life up until now for saying it would hurt, because despite Frankie’s size, there’s nothing painful about this. 

His thrusts are slow and he’s searching your face for any signs of discomfort. When you throw your head back and moans your name, he knows you’re okay, he knows he’s giving you everything you wanted, and he’s spurred on to move faster, just enough that whenever he pushes his cock back into your deliciously tight heat he’s pulling a moan from you, or your fingernails are digging into the skin of his shoulders, and then eventually you’re moving your hips to meet him. God, you’re the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen in his life. 

He leans down and presses soft kisses to the corner of your mouth because he doesn’t want to drown out the sounds he’s pulling from you, “Are you okay baby?” He asks, “Is it okay?” 

Your hands are back on his face again and you manage to breath out, “Ohmygod, yes Frankie, it’s so fucking good,” Your turn your head to his and kiss him, “Is it okay for you?” You ask. 

He thinks it’s the most adorable thing he’s ever heard. He’s the first man you’ve ever had sex with, and you’re worried about him enjoying himself? God, where did he find you? 

“I love it baby,” He growls into your ear as his hand moves between you, rubbing at your clit, he’s sure he can get you to come again, “I love that no one else has seen you like this, that no one else has felt you before, been inside you,” He can tell from the frequency of your moans and the clench of your pussy around him that his fingers are so close to bringing you over the edge again, “They don’t get to have you, but I do.”

All of a sudden, you’re arching up into him, his name is shouted from your lips and your pussy is fluttering so hard around his cock that he has to still himself in you whilst he works you through your third orgasm. 

“Good girl,” He moans into your ear as he starts to move again, “Such a pretty girl when you come for me like that.” 

He could say anything at this point, and it wouldn’t matter because all you can focus on is how it feels like he’s set you alight. There’s pleasure in every inch of your body, your skin is hot, you’re overwhelmed but it just feels so good. It’s takes very few movements for Frankie to bring himself to his own orgasm inside of you. His hips still and you can feel him filling you up. He’d asked if you wanted him to buy condoms before he came over that night, all you had to say was that there was no need, praising the lord for your birth control pill. 

He collapses on the bed next to you, dragging you into his arms as tears prick at your eyes. You bury your head in his chest and try and hide the soft sobs, but he’s always been a clever man. 

“Are you crying?” He’s moving your chin with his hands to look at him, “Did I hurt you?” 

You shake your head, “I’m just happy Frankie, you were perfection.”

He’s wrapping you up in his arms again then, pressing soft kisses to the crown of your head, whilst his hands are rubbing soft patterns on your skin, “Sleep hermosa,” He whispers, “Sleep, and then I’ll show you what else you’ve been missing.” 

[squirrels-are-sleeping]

Brennan is right, we do tell stories to make sense of the world. But stories do more than that; they don’t only describe the world, but also shape and change it. Stories propose what may be possible: they are world-making.

Donna Harraway, mother of cyborgs, compares storytelling to a game of cat’s cradle. She finds in games and stories “patterns for participants to enhabit”, “giving and receiving patterns, dropping threads and failing but sometimes finding something that works, something consequential and maybe even beautiful, that wasn’t there before, relaying connections that matter”.

Calamity is a marvel of collaborative storytelling not only because it’s thrilling (which it is) and beautifully told (which it is), but also because of the worlds it proposes (and the worlds it rejects). Let’s talk about the stories that were negated by what actually happened.

It would have been so easy for Calamity to be a morality tale. The players took the assignment to heart: they showed up with characters who reflected all the flaws of the age they were about to leave behind. (I think Aabria and Marisha were especially courageous, because they took on character traits that are often punished in women: social power, ambition, single-minded focus on their vocation, indifference towards social graces.)

Calamity could have so easily become about savouring these people's downfall, and thus indirectly reassuring the viewer: they were prideful, they were full of hubris, and therefore they hurtled towards their downfall and received their due. (Whereas you, gentle viewer would neither slurp up 50% of your city's resources for a secret invention, nor attempt to fuck atone the lord of hells with a 1st level spell. Your flaws will never damn the world.)

It would also have been easy for Calamity to be a tale of futility. It was, after all, conforming to history of Exandria as written: release of Betrayers, centuries of war, eventual Divergence. It could have conformed to the tropes of horror, where every choice, every attempt at exercising agency makes things worse until there are no choices left. It could have said: these people don't know yet, but their fate has been written, all that's left for them is to submit to the inevitable. Their world is doomed; let them give us a lesson in submitting to the inevitable in the most thrilling way possible.

It could also have become a boring recasting of prime deities as villains and betrayers as victims, which would have required us to retcon the actions of the Laughing Hand and Jurrael, and made fools of Caduceus, Pike, and everyone else playing a cleric of a prime deity in Exandria as a setting. (Frankly, I didn't think there was much danger of this face-heel turn, but there were a lot of odd takes on Asmodeus after Ep.2 around these parts.)

Brennan and the cast navigated around all these narrative traps, and instead told a different story. Not of moral failing and punishment, but of grappling with your flaws and striving to do your best anyway. Not of bowing to your sealed fate, but of fighting to exert your agency until your last moment. Not of selfishness, but of care. Of buying your friends, your children, your world, a fighting chance. Of mattering.

Calamity is not a scripted play nor an improv sketch, but a show of a game, and so part of its magic is the story that happens above the table: between the DM and the players, between the players and the characters, between the story and the dice. To have erred on the side of cynicism and despair within the story would have threatened, I think, the rest of the patterns and points of connection. Instead, in its totality, told through all these relationships, Calamity is thrilling, and cathartic, and romantic, and hilarious, and scary, and sincere, and kind.

Calamity, a story about the end of a world, is magical because of the kind of world it describes, and also the world it builds.

I'm so grateful. So, so grateful.

[braxdaekko]

@mothernatureknows // v; crying on the bathroom floor in which daesuk -- in a literal sense -- takes maddy’s life into his own hands

most times he enjoyed watching the life drain from someone’s eyes…but this time was different. this time daesuk’s victim was maddy; a murder of love, of sacrifice. he had spoke with her quite seriously in previous days about taking the next step of their lives together. he’d wanted maddy to accept immortality; to completely surrender to his love and devotion. clearly, his proposal hadn’t been very successful. see, daesuk has control issues, that’s well-known. there are times the shade can accept a simple no, but those are rare, minor inconveniences. maddy rejecting his request for her to spend the rest of eternity with him? well, that wasn’t an inconvenience. that was purely heartbreak; an emotion the creature had yet to experience until recently.  

now, there’s no records in any book that a psychopath can fall in love. according to research, that’s impossible. but what a psychopath can feel is possessive. daesuk is extremely possessive over maddy. he looks after her like she’s his most valuable possession; sways her from straying too far from both his sight and knowledge. but everyone’s convinced — himself included — that he’s dangerously in love with this girl… a girl with morals. a girl who cares for the living and strives to keep them alive… a girl that’s completely different in definition than a person like daesuk could ever be. daesuk’s cold. he’s a serial killer living in the shadow of a life-saver. their relationship makes no sense in hindsight, but could that perhaps be what draws a monster like daesuk so deep into a loving soul? for what he lacks in himself, maddy possesses in her. it’s complicated, but daesuk is certain he has no desire of letting maddy out of his grip.

so she lay bleeding on the marbled floor of his condo’s kitchen, fingers and limbs twitching as the very last drops of life leak through the wound across her body. daesuk towers over her, face wet with tears as the grip on his knife — a knife that has taken many lives before his girlfriend’s — loosens and clambers loudly to the floor. the shade stares down at his partner’s lifeless corpse, his own dead eyes swimming over to the doorway nihilus and noah appears in. he allows himself to sniffle once before finally stepping away, exiting the room to check on his daughter. his living, breathing daughter.

their newborn is a life sucker just like daesuk. every time maddy was tasked with breastfeeding the baby, she became tired, weaker. daesuk would always think about the traits their offspring would take on the most. would she be soft and caring like maddy? would she be a cold predator like daesuk? or would she grow to be a conflicting morph of their two personalities? he’s seen good and evil melded together as one before. that proof lies within the pink-demon standing behind him.

“I can’t take her,” noah says, finally breaking the unnerving silence hanging in the air. “she didn’t want this.”

“and if I take her,” nihilus chimes in, “there’s a chance this foolish plan of yours might backfire,”

“how so?” daesuk speaks so casually as if his lover isn’t lying dead in the next room over. somehow, his words still read like a challenge to both angel and demon. but when daesuk smells the smoke burning from the palms of noah’s hands, he chooses to clarify. “I’m serious.”

“well, let’s see,” nihilus says with a sardonic chuckle, lowering his head while resting his hand atop of Noah’s shoulder. “my job is to help cross innocent souls into Heaven. once through the Gate. I’m only here for that purpose. noah, on the other hand—“

“traps and releases damned souls into the Eternal Flame. maddy’s soul is untouchable.”

“which means she’s Holy. if I bring her to God, you of all people, will never see her again.”

daesuk stands quietly, cradling the baby in his arms, yet no discernible expression crosses his features. for the first time, the shade’s expectations have withered. his flawless scoreboard of getting his way has seen its first failure. for the first time, he also feels like a fool. “Angels can breathe life back into the dead.”

noah groans. “but at what cost? that would require nihilus sacrificing his own immortality and—“

“as lovely a girl maddy is, this is your mistake. I will not be taking the brunt of your own foolish actions.”

“you’re an Angel, though,” daesuk argues. “Angels were designed to make selfless sacrifices. dying for her would be an honor.” and just like that, daesuk has failed again, as nihilus reduces himself to a blinding glow that dissipates slowly, leaving spots in both daesuk’s and noah’s vision. “fleeing responsibility, I see,” daesuk grumbles which only earns him a growl from his demon companion.

noah stares for a few beats before sighing. “you’re an asshole. a huge one.” he leaves daesuk standing alone in the nursery and returns to the kitchen. he crouches over the lifeless corpse of his dear friend, bowing his head and allowing a few tears to fall. he knows this is daesuk’s mistake, but maddy is not just a friend to noah.  she’s his partner’s sister. his family. the demon draws in a deep breath before scooping the girl into his arms, standing carefully as to not let her fall. it’s when he hears the front door close and eve’s voice call out asking why no one buzzed her in that he freezes.  

[shih-coulda-had-it]

Shimura family movie night?

Nana Lives!AU's latest installment? Why not! Context: Nana survives AFO, Sorahiko got Kotarou back, and Toshinori's adopted into the Shimura family. This is just some fluff. ╰(*°▽°*)╯

//

When Kotarou comes home from college for winter break, he’s escorted the short distance from the train station to home by his older brother. The evening air is brisk enough that their breaths form visible clouds, and the weak glow from the surrounding streetlights lend the world a foreboding atmosphere.

As infuriating as it is to be babied still, Kotarou is grateful for Toshinori’s presence.

Toshinori, even when he’s not using his All Might form, is taller, broader, and much more jovial than Kotarou. He is also carrying two brown paper bags of groceries; they look heavy to Kotarou, but Toshinori cradles them as easy as he lifts babies.

“Who bullied you home, Toshi-nii?” Kotarou asks, stuffing his free hand in his overcoat’s pockets.

“My co-workers,” says Toshinori cheerfully. “They think I’m overworked.”

Kotarou eyes the new shadows lining the bright blue eyes and doesn’t voice his agreement. It’s hard to argue with Toshinori about that kind of stuff, a fact Kotarou learned approximately five seconds into the first lecture Toshinori gave him on philosophy, moral responsibility, and social contracts. Instead, Kotarou says, “It was tou-san, wasn’t it.”

“... It was Torino-sensei.”

“Hn,” Kotarou grunts, and yanks at his suitcase. One of its wheels is jammed. “How long have you been home?”

“Two nights. I’m supposed to be on leave for another three, but…” He glances down, but abstains from offering his help when Kotarou shakes his head.

“Is there work here?”

“There’s always work where I go,” says Toshinori wryly. “The difference is that I, ah, stumble upon it here, instead of being assigned long-term things. Torino-sensei’s instituted the curfew again, by the way.”

“What? What’d you do?”

“Who said I did anything?”

Kotarou groans. Toshinori absolutely did something, if he’s sounding preemptively defensive, and by the degree of righteous outrage, then Kotarou assumes their father will resort to drastic measures to keep everyone inside the apartment overnight. Instead of complaining, Kotarou knocks his elbow against Toshinori’s and says, “Glad you’re home, Toshi-nii.”

“Glad to be back, otouto.”

This camaraderie lasts through the welcome home and dinner, and then, just as Kotarou plans to retire (and slip out with Toshinori, who could be cajoled into buying midnight snacks), the law is laid down.

It’s a movie night.

It’s an All Might: Series movie night. In spite of their protestations, their father bullies them into the living room with a gimlet glare. They shuffle towards the couch, exchanging glances that say, ‘Let’s run!’ and ‘Run?! From Torino-sensei?!’

“Which one is it?” Toshinori asks with appropriate trepidation. He joins their mother in the middle of the couch. She has a quilt over her lap.

“Mm… Power of the Pillar?” she suggests.

“Ew,” says Kotarou.

“I hate that one,” says their father. “I’m putting on Journey to Justice.”

“But I’m not in that one!” their mother protests, shaking her fist. It’s a familiar complaint. She says it every year, every time, every movie, even though she knows that her exclusion is a matter of personal security.

The screenwriters always claim that they thoroughly research for their All Might: Series movies. It’s a matter of pride for them, and it’s totally fake.

Toshinori has ditched no less than five actors aiming to follow him around for the sake of their method acting. He also routinely rejects ‘tell-all’ interviews, despite his PR and Marketing Team’s best efforts.

“You’ve ruined these movies for me,” says Kotarou acidly, but he takes a seat on the couch all the same, wrapping a blanket around his shoulders. He leans against Toshinori’s side. “Every time my friends want to watch a new installment, I’m reminded of you and tou-san picking over accuracies.”

“It’s the principle of the thing,” their mother responds, affecting a prim and proper attitude.

“It’s to deter Toshinori from thinking he can get away with their shit choreography,” their father adds. He grabs the remote and joins them, armed with not only another blanket but a pen and notebook.

“Torino-sensei…”

“Remember the time you thought All Might: Flash Memory had a decent concept for a new Smash move?”

“Montana Smash works, I told you I crunched the numbers,” Toshinori immediately protests. The infamous (fictional) move involved a bear-hug, leaping into the sky, and generating extra propulsion force to crash onto the ground. Kotarou also remembers their father immediately calling Toshinori and warning him not to even bother.

“I know it works,” their father bickers. “The problem is that it destroys more property than the villain’s will to fight, especially if you’re self-sacrificing your back so you don’t kill them.”

Kotarou interrupts with a bland, “It’s weird that movie Toshi-nii has more moves than real-life Toshi-nii. What’s up with that?”

“Fifty ‘super-moves’ don’t exactly ring as ‘super,’ otouto--”

“I meant your love interests.”

Toshinori splutters. Their mother cackles, and their father cracks a smile. Journey to Justice opens with the violins’ sharp, intense build, and Kotarou grins to himself as his family settles in to watch and commentate on this self-important projection of All Might’s rise.

[nagitoshopejar]

Took me about two hours with lotsa distractions

And has 1561 words

Theres two prompts in here. In this timeline, everyone's alive. But also this is the second motive. Byakuyas secret surprises everyone(the longer part) and a game of truth or dare(not as long sorry) its 11:44 at night and I'm tired as all hecc

@fluffomatic here you go. Although I didn't exactly use inspiration based off the art you made. I'm really tired and barely know what I'm doing.

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"As your school principle, I am supposed to motivate you! So, for your second motivation, I'll be handing put secrets! Its your decision what you want to do with it." The build a bear reject says. "How am I supposed to get you guys to kill eachother?" Monokuma adds under his breath then disappears. Everyone looks at each other in confusion.

"Secrets?" Aoi had questioned the bear authority despite it already having left. Several thin papers were scattered like snow from what looked like it could only be the ceiling. They all scrambled to pick up the small pieces that had their secrets written upon them.

"Whatever man. Lets just forget about them." Mondo was about to walk out when a certain compass moral stopped him.

"Wait. Lets all share our secrets so that its no longer a motive!" Taka introduced the idea.

"Well, it cant hurt us if we do." Makoto states looking down at his own secret. They gather around in a circle like oval. Chihiro starts.

"... I uhm. I'm actually a boy dressed as a girl. Because people would bully me for being to "weak" or "feminine"." Chihiro looks down as if to be ashamed.

"Theres no need to be ashamed!" Taka gives the small boy a soft smile. Chihiro gives a small smile back, looking up.

"What about yours Taka?" He asks

"Oh! Right!" He lets out a small giggle and unfolds his, "...I uhm oh. I ran in the halls! I'm so sorry everyone! I know, this must be disappointing to hear the ultimate moral compass broke a rule." He acts as if it is shocking.

"No ones disappointed Taka! Its ok to break a rule if its a rare thing to happen." Makoto says.

"Well? Whats your secret?" Taka asks.

"Oh, I uhm. I-" Makoto looked away, a blushing mess. "I wet the bed 5th grade." Makoto said quietly but everyone heard him. A silence overcame them like a light in a dark room.

"I guess its my turn!" Byakuya says, wanting people to not bully or embarrass his boyfriend. "I've never... What?" Byakuya looks confused. "How is this a secret? I've never been tickled." He squints his eyes. Everyone looked shocked. Even Makoto looks shocked.

"Hold up. You've never been tickled?" Yasuhiro had asked.

"Well, for the ultimate progeny, his childhood would be not as "

'childish' as others." Kyoko had said, a hand placed on her chin.

"Agh-!" Byakuya had yelled after he was tackled. Leon had dug into his ribs getting sudden laughter pouring from his mouth. "WAHAHAIT!!" Byakuya was squirming.

"Hey!" Leon got tackled down by Toko. "What the? Why did you do that?" Leon yelled at the writer.

"You're being to rough with him!" Toko yelled at the baseball man. Byakuya started giggling and everyone looked over to see Makoto lightly tracing his abs and ribs.

"Nohohoho!" Byakuya squirmed, trying to get away from Makoto.

"Uh-uh. You're not getting away from me." Makoto teased. Kyoko walked up to Byakuyas squirming body and poked it earning a high squeak amongst the giggles.

"Noho! Dont dohoho that KyokO-" Byakuya started giggling harder when Kyoko started light scribbles on his ribs. He tries to grab her hands but ends up revealing his under arms and having Kyoko quickly shoot into them. "Hohold ohohohon!" He shot his arms down as soon as she did that.

"Oops. My hands are trapped. Guess I'll have to keep tickling you until you put up your arms." She shrugged with a sly smile on her face.

"Hehehehey stahp!" Byakuya reluctantly put up his arms above his head to make Kyoko stop. That only pushed her more. She sat on his hands but made sure not to hurt them and continued her relentless attack. Makoto was going ham on his sides and moved to his belly. Byakuya ended up squirming more than than ever, his laughter going up a few octaves. "HOHOLD ON! STOHAHAP IT PLEAHEEHE-"

"Nah. I'm hungry for a happy Byakuya!" Makoto said leaning down and nibbling ever so lightly on his belly. His eyes shut and a wide smile planted on his face emitting loud giggles like a speaker. Makoto also began dancing his hands hands along his sides, ribs and belly changing suddenly and with no pattern as well.

"Aw. You're so much fun!" Kyoko added some teases to the mix.

When it got to the point of Byakuya not being able to for words they stopped their attacks to give Byakuya a breathing break.

"Hmm. Should we try..?" He looked at Kyoko and she nodded. Makoto made his way down to his ankles. He sat on his calves. He cradled the progeny's ankles in an arm lock. He started snickering and giggling again cutely when Kyoko ran finger down and around his neck. He scrunched up his neck and made a little whining sound which turned into a ridiculously cute sight. Makoto laughed and smiles at this and turned back to his 'assignment'. Makoto traced a finger down the middle of the boys sole. And instantly his giggles went up a little. He messed around and drew shapes with the tip of his fingernail. Byakuya squirmed. Under the weight of his two lers. Makoto used his entire hand to scribble along both of Byakuyas feet. He thrashes, giggling violently.

"Ohohok did I do sohohomethihing?" Byakuyas head was tilted into his arm to try and stifle his giggles. Kyoko and Makoto took this as an opportunity to stop. Makoto walks up towards his head.

"You're so cute Byakuya." He kissed his boyfriends nose making Byakuya more rose coloured. His smile was still widely spread across his face and tears were both streaming and had stained his face. Makoto helped Byakuya up. "You ok?" The small boy said.

"Yea.. I'm fine. Just a little worn out." Byakuya said straightening his glasses ans fixing his hair. They heard a loud obnoxious laugh.

"OK OK IHIHI WOHONT BE SO CAHARLEHESS!" Leon yelled as Toko was going nuts on him.

"Promise?" She asks slyly.

"IHIHIHI PROMIHISE!!" He yelled, squirming under her. Toko relented and let him catch his breath.

"This is a school environment! You cant just do that!" Taka pouts angrily.

"Whatever Taka." Kyoko giggles. "We should hang out tonight. After 10. Truth or dare. Get closer yknow?"

" like a date then." Hifumi says.

"Not you. You're not allowed to come." Kyoko states glaring at Hifumi.

"I guess we should wait until then. I'm off." Makoto said dragging Byakuya to his room. Byakuya and Makoto were cuddling until something actually happened Makoto was being the little spoon. "Mmm Byakuya-" he tried to stifle his giggles as his boyfriend traced shapes on his belly.

"Wow Makoto. Your skin is so soft." He smiled, tracing the skin around hus navel.

"Byahakuyaaaa stoooop!" Makoto squirmed in the progeny's thouch.

"Aw. But such soft skin deserves to be caressed and needs attention." Byakuya cooed at the smaller boy.

"Heheheheh!" Makoto was giggling so hard he could barely make out any words. Togami smiled mischievously. He dug his fingers into Makoto belly on both sides of his navel. "BYAKUYAHAHAHAH! NOOOOO STAHP!" Makoto laughed out loud and threw his head out.

"Aw. Your face is sooo cute Makoto." Byakuya teasy complimented him and stopped his attack. They slept until 10 pm. It was the Monokuma night announcement that woke them up. They headed to the gym still a little groggy from their nap. As soon as they opened the gym doors, the light blinded them.

"You made it!" Aoi cheered happily.

"Yup!" Makoto smiled. They once again, sat in a circle wondering whos gonna go first.

"Taka! Truth or dare!" Aoi asked excitedly.

"Uh.. Truth." Taka answered a bit scared that if he said dare, Aoi would make him do something bad.

"Do you like anyone?" Taka was taken aback by such a common question coming from Aoi.

"Oh uhm. I like Mondo." Taka answered without hesitation. Mondo became a blushing mess and looked away.

"Makoto. Truth or dare?" Taka asked the small boy of hope.

"Uh dare."

"Hmm... I dare you to uhm.." Taka looked around a bit. "I dare you to throw that garbage away!" Makoto was surprised and not surprised but did it anyways.

"Hey Byakuya. Truth or dare."

"Dare. Truth seems to be to boring." He looked at Aoi. Aoi seemed to look through his soul.

"Let us tickle you." The small boy said.

"What?" Byakuya was taken aback, surprised.

"Let us tickle you." Makoto smiled at this thought.

"Well, the ultimate progeny doesn't count on giving up. Very well." He lifted up his arms leaving all his spots free to whoever wanted to join. Makoto slipped his hand under Byakuyas shirt and scribbled. Byakuya started laughing instantly. "Makohohoto!" He whined, knowing he couldn't beg for Makoto to stop.

"Whats wrong? Why are you laughing? Nothings going on? Whats so funny?" He asked and byakuya had never answered. Makoto lifted the taller boys shirt up leaned his head down. He blew the longest raspberry anyone has ever seen. He laughed louder and shot his hands down. Makoto stopped his attack. "You didn't last to long." Makoto says.

"Yea. You should lengthen that by training with Aoi and myself." Sakura said with a sly smirk. They continued the game for most of the night the headed off to bed.

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I hope you liked it!

[mandoinevarro]

Red Steam

Words: 2.5k

Rating: E

Warnings: Masturbation, mentions of violence

Part II here because i’m not that mean 

 The Twi’lek healing baths aren’t exactly a brothel.

Although “healing baths” is definitely a euphemism used to deviate the attention from some of the obscure services offered inside the tall building in the outskirts of Nevarro, its name very literally delivers on its premise. There are actual healing baths inside, along with other relaxation chambers, and the most erotic service you can get from an employee is probably just an oiled massage, but you’re not stupid enough to think that the droopy-eyed visitors you saw leaving through the front door had those drowsy smiles permanently glued on their faces from a particularly satisfying massage.

Still, it’s not a brothel. At least not the section you’re in.

The steaming chamber is a manmade cave completely crafted from some smooth black mineral that you’ve never seen before. Unlike other rocks, its surface exudes the opposite temperature of its surroundings, so the one you’re sitting on right now is frosty against the backs of your legs. Apart from a long bench made with the same material that surrounds all four walls and a tall rectangular table in the middle of the room, there isn’t much of a decoration inside. There’s one door, no windows, and a single grating on the floor from which more sweetly scented steam gushes out when the old one starts dissipating. The only source of light is bright red; it dyes the vapor floating around and your dripping skin crimson.

Some of the women around you are chatting quietly, but most of them sleep with the light fabric everyone was given beforehand covering their naked bodies.

You sigh. You really needed this.

Mando’s bounty is apparently hiding somewhere in the maze of steam and pools and mysterious rooms that make up the healing baths. It’s supposed to be an easy enough job: The son of a wealthy Rebel official had…dishonored a high society girl who was already engaged and skipped town. His own family put the bounty on him. All Mando has to do is shake him up a little to teach him a lesson and deliver him to his father. It isn’t the kind of job he’d usually take, but the money’s good and the risk low, and he can’t really afford to reject sources of income with an extra mouth to feed.

A woman walks out of the steaming cave, and most of the vapor streams out of the room, which lowers the temperature of the chamber but increases the one under your fingertips.

You tagged along because you figured some rich brat lounging in the more questionable corners of the local business wouldn’t be too dangerous. Plus, you’re sick of the Razor Crest’s shower, whose only temperatures are cold and fucking freezing.

You honestly can’t remember the last time you were allowed to relax for such a long time.

The steam rises again, and you swear it’s a little thicker than before. You’re sweating more. Your skin tingles.

To your left, a female Togruta and a woman are talking on a corner, a little too close to each other. The Togruta is murmuring on the other woman’s ear and brings a hand down to caress her knee. You only catch a word: “upstairs”. She nods slowly and takes her companion’s hand. They stand up and leave the room, the vapor following them out.

You haven’t even been here that long. The grating has only emitted new vapor three or four times, but your mind is already slipping. The mist is heavy on your shoulders and its odor lovelier every time you inhale. You could swear it started smelling of wild flowers, yet now it reminds you of burnt wood and rain. Of metal. Of him.

Fuck.

You throw your head back, bumping it against the cold stone.

You’ve been torturing yourself with daydreams of the Mandalorian for months now. They were gentle at first, only innocent musings about him that you entertained because they made you feel giddy and naive. Could he ever see you as anything more than an employee? Could it ever develop into something more intimate? You started wondering how he’d move his lips against yours; how he’d hold your face in his large palm.

It was all still chaste enough, but that didn’t last very long. You see him every day, hear his every breath, grunt, and dramatic sigh. You study the way he moves, his powerful build, the carefulness of his arms when he cradles his son and his violence when manhandling his prisoners. It all got crammed inside you and, soon enough, your fantasies turned darker. Could he ever see you as a woman? Would he claim you, if given the opportunity?

You usually weed these fantasies before they can take root. You’re painfully aware that you can’t have him. He’s a serious person—consumed entirely by his child, his Creed, and his work. More importantly, he’s a good man who’s always been courteous to you and doesn’t deserve to be at the receiving end of your filthy yearnings.

And yet, right now…right here, where the women’s mumbling sounds like whispered confessions and his scent is crowding you and you have to work for every single breath you take and your better judgement stayed at the Crest…right now, you don’t stop them from coming. And, fuck, you know he’s here somewhere, hunting for his prey. What if he found you? What would you be willing to—

A loud crash and a man’s shriek interrupt your train of thought.

The remaining women in the chamber exchange panicked stares and, as if bouncing on springs, suddenly sprint out of the room, taking most of the steam with them. The screaming continues, along with a few grunts and some bangs. A couple of doors slam shut.

You melt further into your seat. It’s Mando. He’s found the quarry.

The brat’s apparently putting up a fight, because the sounds of chaos keep coming from different parts of the building. You feel completely relaxed.

An exhalation of the lattice makes up for the lost mist. Droplets condense on your flesh and mix with your sweat. You raise your wrist to your nose and—sure enough—his smell is there, but now it’s mingled with yours, and the blend creates an addictive aroma. Is this what it would smell like, if you two ever had an encounter? Would he be willing to bare his skin to you and allow the moisture of your bodies to blend into one? Or would he fuck you clothed and urgently, barricaded by his armor?

A blaster goes off, and something plummets into the floor, but you’re a lot more focused on the way the flimsy cloth you were provided with is sticking to your chest. It’s soaked at this point and doing very little to cover you, so you lift a heavy arm to work it off your body. Your bare ass is warm when in presses back down on the bench, which makes the stone cooler. You try to imagine it’s beskar.

You know you’re losing it when you start feeling sorry for the quarry. He’s probably just some rich idiot who was looking for a quick fuck with a sense of danger, but what if he isn’t? What if he and the girl truly wanted each other and could no longer hold back? If someone knows what it’s like to want someone out of your reach, it’s you. If someone knows that agonizing desire…

It takes you a little too long to put a finger on the third smell that’s mixing in the room. It’s been weeks—probably months—since you last touched yourself. With your responsibilities on the Crest, you barely have time to sleep and shower, let alone take care of your other, more primal needs. So, you don’t immediately recognize the pungent odor of your own arousal. Once you do, though, you know it won’t relent.

And, even though the feverish fog filling the room more by the second is entering your ears and scrambling your resolve, you still find some moral righteousness in you that judges your desire to pleasure yourself to the thought of the Mandalorian. Because he doesn’t deserve to be disrespected like that. Because he doesn’t think of you like that.

But your hair clings to your damp face and neck, the mineral presses icy against your backside, and beads of sweat and moisture drop from your slippery nipples. And maybe…maybe if you only feel yourself. Not explicitly masturbate, but maybe if you just rub your body a little some of the ache will go away.

You place your hand on your left knee, because it’s only a knee and nothing bad has ever happened from touching one’s knee. You draw circles around it with a finger, then your entire palm. You try to stretch your leg and support it on the table in the middle of the deserted room, but it’s too far back for your foot to reach, so you bend your leg towards you and rest your heel on the bench. By the time your hand slides lower to your calf, gathers the moisture there, and rubs it on your ankle, the raucous sounds outside are almost completely muffled by the ringing of your ears. The red steam grows denser, and you have to open your mouth to breathe in as much oxygen as you can, which is why your exhale sounds like a moan. That’s what you tell yourself.

Hands sliding against your sides and drawing lazy patterns around your ribs, you wonder how he’d touch you. He could be gentle and take his time exploring you, trying to enjoy the rare instance of feeling someone else’s bare skin come to life under his touch. Your hands scoop your breasts and test their weight. Or, perhaps, he’d be in a hurry, drunk on the sensation and unable to control himself at the first caress of your soft curves. It’s difficult to know which one you want more.

Both of your hands sail down aimlessly to your belly and press there. How big is he? You’d like to be able to feel him between your legs afterwards, after he’d go back to being the Mandalorian, as a reminder that he let himself be something else with you. Ten digits land on your thigh and massage there, slowly gliding together up, up, up, until they’re almost where you most want them most. They stop. You’re panting and you swallow hard.

“Maker,” you mumble to yourself. You’re obviously more worked up than before, so you can either stop right there and keep your moral high ground, or…or—

The answer comes from somewhere outside the cave, when you hear the thump of something substantial hitting the door, followed by a low, unequivocal groan. The modulated baritone sends a flood between your legs.

And, just like that, you give up.

You spread your legs and lean your hips forward, pressing your open cunt against the gelid surface; it’s so cold it burns into you. A ragged whimper pushes past your mouth, but your ears don’t register it, since you’ve started rocking back and forth against the black ore, finally throwing wood into the fire that started burning months before. You picture cold beskar instead, thrusting back and forth between your folds to bring you to your release, strong thighs moving lively beneath you.

You’re suffocating. The first time your clit brushes the edge of the bench, you throw your head back, bring your right hand to your breast, and hold on to it for dear life. Your small fingers knead the fat there, but it feels better if you imagine coarse leather doing it instead. Fuck, would he be as quiet and stoic as he always is? Or would he let you hear every moan and grunt? Would he whisper every dirty thing he wants to do to you or would he let you guess? The pace of your back and forth rutting quickens and your guts knot tighter. 

“M-mando…” You try to be quiet; if you can hear him outside he can probably hear you too. You limit yourself to a few tortured sobs, but the blood-red vapor is making it harder to breathe, sweat covers every inch of your skin, and all openings of your body feel horribly empty.

Your scoot back on your seat, open your legs wider, and sink your right index and middle fingers inside your pulsing hole. Two fingers of your left hand go inside your mouth. A loud, long moan of relief pushes through your fingers and lips. You’re too far gone to care.

The digits inside your pussy stretch you open, swirl in circles, move in any way that will cure the awful ache you’ve been fighting for fucking months. What about the helmet, would he leave it on? Blindfold you? Maybe he’d take it off, but get you down on all fours and grab your hair to prevent you from looking back.  

Your eyelids drop. A fat droplet drags down your spine and into the crack of your ass. Your tongue licks your own skin eagerly, tasting their salty sweat and fantasizing about your Mandalorian’s fluids. It’s not enough; it can’t be when you can still hear him outside the door, when all you want is to have him inside you, anywhere inside you.

Your fingers will have to make do, so you curl them and hit something that makes your legs cramp. The five-letter nickname everyone calls him bubbles past your throat in an exhausted gasp. You drag your digits out and smear the thick cum they gathered around your inner lips and walls. Your mind races with endless possibilities: Would he demand you cum or forbid it? How many times would he take you? Where would he touch you? Where would he cum? What does he taste like? Is he patient or demanding? You shut your eyes tightly. Something that feels like a tide is steadily climbing to your chest, making your every muscle rigid.

The fog recedes a little. You’re dizzy with pleasure and every fiber of your body is pulling tighter by the second. Your tongue is still sucking at your fingers—picturing pulsing veins and velvety skin—when you start drawing quick circles around your clit. The stone under your ass grows a little warmer. Drool spills out of your mouth. 

You’re close. You’re so fucking close. Your panting turns erratic, your hips buck forward, one of your leg stretches, and your toes brush the cold material of the table.

“S-stars, Mando…!”

You’re right there, right there, and—

Wait.

Your toes are brushing the chamber’s table. The same table you couldn’t reach earlier. You stop grinding and remove your fingers. New vapor spouts out of the gratings.

The table moves.

Sweat stings your eyes when you try to open them, hesitantly, not really wanting to see what’s in front of you.

You blink a few times and see an opaque silver mirror where your disheveled appearance stares back. One of your hands reaches forward unprompted and brushes the cloudy layer of condensed water on the mirror’s surface. It’s beskar. It’s Mando’s beskar cuisse.

You lift your face and see a T-visor floating in crimson fog, staring down at you. Panic and adrenaline pump in your veins, but you both stay like that for half a second, almost drinking each other in. Waiting.

Until his hand starts moving, so slowly, towards your body.

It’s hard to tell where it’s heading.

[thecasperanfamily]

Can we get a sock monkey part two? Maybe taking place in the present?

(Link to Part One)

I am sooooo sorry about the delay on this one. First I had a solid week of ADHD Brain Doing Its Thing, then a dentist appointment, then my bedroom flooded, then a migraine...ANYWAYS I hope this was worth the wait!

~~~~~

They say that behind every great wizard, there is a great witch. Whether or not this was a universal truth or just a nice-sounding sentiment someone came up with to discourage squabbling between witches and wizards, Lin couldn’t be sure. But he did know that it was true in his father’s case, if nothing else. Hisirdoux Casperan was an immensely powerful wizard in his own right, capable of feats of magic unlike anything seen since the age of the great Merlin Ambrosius. But he was also what Lin’s mother liked to affectionately call “a mess. An absolute disaster. Gods, it’s a marvel you’ve survived this long.” To which Douxie would inevitably reply with, “The only marvel is you, my love.” And Lin would always immediately leave the room because he had no desire to witness whatever came after that. But Douxie did have a point, albeit one that felt a bit lost underneath all the sap and sentimentality. The fact of the matter was that Master Wizard Hisirdoux Casperan likely couldn’t be a Master Wizard without his wife. Archie could protect Douxie in battle, Nari could heal and encourage him, but Zoe was their last and strongest line of defense. Be it a desperate struggle against an ancient and horrifying monster or simply keeping the household running, when all others fell, she continued to stand, often pulling them back up and keeping them on their feet with her own strength. Douxie once said that he could face his own fears because he knew Zoe was standing fearless by his side.

In hindsight, he really should have chosen his words more carefully. Because when Lin handed his mother his oldest, most beloved toy from childhood and asked her to repair it, “fearless” certainly wasn’t what came to mind when beholding the look of intense discomfort on Zoe’s face as she eyed the offending object.

“...It looks normal to me,” she said stiffly.

“It....there’s a massive rip on her side?” Lin replied hesitantly. “That’s not supposed to be there. And Comet tore off one of her eyes, too.” The boy shifted awkwardly, still cradling the abomination in his hands, since Zoe had refused to touch it. “I-I mean, I know it’s stupid, but Georgina--uh, I mean, this old thing...it means a lot to me. Been with me for a long time, and all. I just--”

“Fine, fine, I’ll patch it up for you,” Zoe blurted, snatching the cursed thing from his hands. “Now go get ready for school. You’re running late as is.”

“...It’s Saturday,” Lin reminded her.

“Then go bother Archie or something. I can’t fix this thing if you’re breathing down my neck the whole time. Restorative magic requires concentration.”

“...I’ve seen you piece a broken mug back together in five seconds flat while also fighting the endgame boss of War Dudes 7.”

“Out, Lin.”

“Alright, alright!” He raised his hands placatingly and swept out of the kitchen, calling back over his shoulder “Thanks, Mom!”

The moment he was out of sight, Zoe pitched the sock monkey as hard as she could against the opposite wall. It landed on the counter with a sad little flop, looking no less abominable for its current state of disrepair.

“I hate you,” she told it quietly. “I know you know I do. I can see it in your one remaining eye. I’ve endured your mockery of me for the past seventeen years for Lin’s sake, but this...” She raked her fingers through her bangs furiously. “...Oh, get a grip, Zoe,” she muttered. “It’s just a stuffed animal. It’s only ever been a stuffed animal. It will never best me. I’m one of the greatest hedgewitches of my time. I am Zoe Casperan, I am she who remains when the masters have fallen, I am--”

“Introducing yourself to someone, are you?”

Douxie was very fortunate that he did not touch Zoe when he spoke up from behind her, because the pulse of electricity that surged through her veins would have certainly laid him flat on his back for at least a week. As it was, Zoe’s wand was pointed at his throat before he could so much as blink, a few angry pink sparks spitting from the end.

“Woah, woah, okay, nope, bad time for jokes, I got it! Take it easy, love.”

“Don’t do that!” Zoe hissed, stuffing her wand back into her belt as her cheeks warmed with embarrassment. “I could have hurt you.”

“Trust me, I’m well aware,” Douxie replied, taking one of her hands and pressing an apologetic kiss to her knuckles. “I didn’t mean to startle you, I’m sorry.”

“Stop being sweet.” Zoe grumbled. “It’s distracting.”

“Distracting you from what, exactly?”

“Lin wants me to patch up that...thing that Barbara gave him all those years ago.” She flapped a hand at the sock monkey sprawled pathetically across the counter.

“I didn’t even realize he still had that,” Douxie remarked, taking in the damage with a critical eye. “Mm. She’s certainly seen better days.”

“I want it to see worse,” Zoe seethed. “...But Lin still loves it, gods only know why.”

“Bit of a moral conundrum, eh? Take your vengeance on your worst enemy and break our son’s heart, or grant her mercy for Lin’s sake.”

“This isn’t funny, Douxie.”

“It is, just a little bit.”

“You know I can’t stand even looking at that reject voodoo doll. How am I supposed to cast a restoration spell when all I want to do is douse this thing in gasoline and throw it on a bonfire?”

“Attempting a restoration spell with that mindset would likely end very badly,” Douxie agreed. “My feelings towards the lady in question are far less hostile. Perhaps I should take this one for you.”

“No! No, I-I...” Zoe sighed and ran a hand through her bangs yet again. “...I don’t want this thing to get the better of me. I’ve never backed down from a challenge before, and I definitely don’t want this to be my first time. Besides, you’re pretty sloppy when it comes to restoration magic. Lin will know right away who performed the spell just by looking at it, and I don’t want him to feel like I let him down.”

“With the utmost respect, Zoe,” Douxie replied hesitantly. “I think Lin would prefer a messy patch job over the many ways this spell could backfire if you’re the one performing it. You do understand that swallowing your pride isn’t the same as cowardice, right?”

“Pride or not, I will not let my son experience the shame of knowing his mother was defeated by an ugly stuffed animal,” Zoe countered. She stalked up to the counter and arranged the bedraggled sock monkey carefully, nose wrinkling in disgust as she ran her fingers over the material.

“Zoe, darling--” Douxie tried to protest again.

“Shush. I need to concentrate.”

“I really think you ought to let me--”

“I said shush, Douxie. I know I can do this.” She brandished her wand and, with a few quick motions, guided her aura to surround the sock monkey, which began to float a few inches off the counter. She pushed back against the wave of revulsion that crashed over her as her spirit made contact with the cursed object, and managed to spit the spell out through clenched teeth. “Refectio.”

The moment the spell was activated, Zoe knew she had made a mistake. The feeling of disgust she had tried so hard to stifle refused to detach from her aura. Her magic flowed out of her in a hot, angry rush, and the sock monkey writhed and contorted as though possessed.

“Zoe!” Douxie pulled her back from the counter, arms wrapping around her as his own aura flared defensively. The sock monkey gave one final shudder, then flopped back onto the counter.

“It’s fine!” Zoe insisted. “Look, see? It’s fixed.” Indeed, the sock monkey appeared to have been restored to mint condition. The rip had closed, the missing eye had returned from wherever Comet had hidden it, and the old stuffing had softened and puffed out again. “I told you I could do it.”

“That could have been a disaster, Zoe,” Douxie scolded.

“Any spell has the potential to be a disaster,” she argued. “But I had to try. And I feel so much better now that--”

The sock monkey twitched.

Douxie’s arms tightened around her, and Zoe instinctively brandished her wand again. The toy twitched again. Then it shuddered. Then it flopped over. And then, like a phantom from a nightmare, rose to its feet and slowly turned to face them, black button eyes cold and lifeless.

“...Okay, yeah, this is a disaster,” Zoe breathed. The sock monkey hovered in place for a moment longer.

Then suddenly, it was zooming across the kitchen. Douxie shoved Zoe to the side, but the vengeful toy didn’t seem to notice her at all. It gleefully slammed into the Master Wizard’s head and began wrapping itself around his face. He stumbled back and fell against the counter, sending a few dirty dishes crashing to the floor as he clawed at the soft little demon that was attempting to suffocate him.

“NO!” Zoe screeched, and before she could think twice, there was a blinding flash of bright pink light and the crackling snap of a thunderbolt. The sock monkey exploded into a cloud of stuffing and fibers that fluttered to the floor and dissolved into ash.

Zoe dropped to her knees, wand still outstretched in her trembling hand. Douxie leaned back against the counter, sucking in huge gulps of air.

“...Well,” he wheezed. “At least you finally got your revenge.”

“...No. Oh, no no no,” Zoe whimpered, dropping her wand and burying her face in her hands. “Oh gods, what have I... Lin is going to... Gods, Douxie I’m so sorry. Are you alright?” She emerged from her hands to see him giving her a thumbs-up and a sympathetic smile.

“The only damage done was emotional,” he assured her. “...At least where I’m concerned.” His gaze drifted across the floor, taking in the ashes scattered all over it. Silence hung between them for a few long minutes. “...What do we do now?”

“...Do you have your phone on you?” Zoe asked. Douxie nodded. “Give it here.” He pulled the item in question out of his pocket and tossed it over to her. She scrolled through his contacts list until she found the name she was looking for, then pressed call. Douxie pulled himself to his feet and began searching for a broom. There was a click on the other end of the line.

“Barbara Lake speaking.”

“Hey, Barbara? It’s Zoe. ...Yeah, I’m using Douxie’s phone. Long story short, we’ve had a bit of an accident and I need to know where you got Lin’s sock monkey from...”

*****

“Hey, Lin.” Lin looked up from his sketchbook to find his mother standing in his bedroom doorway. “Catch.” She tossed a familiar grey and white figure at him.

“Wow. She looks like new,” he observed, turning the sock monkey over in his hands. “...Very new.”

“Yeah. That’s...why it took me longer than usual to fix her. Take good care of her, alright? I don’t want to have to fix her again any time soon.”

“Yep. Thanks, Mom.” He watched her leave, then looked back down at the toy. “...Huh. I don’t remember you ever having these tags, Georgina...” The sock monkey smiled up at him benignly. “Weird.” He shrugged and sat the stuffed animal up on his desk before bending over his sketchbook once more.

Meanwhile, Zoe went to brew herself a very strong cup of herbal tea.

A very special thanks to @poetryinmotion-author and @rikalovesrice for helping me with this one, and to @dreamsarelikedragonflies for beta reading. ✨

[medeafive]

Blood and Stone - 23

Masterpost

“Bruce, I- He’s not waking up.”

“Hm? Oh, sorry. Who?”

“Steve. I went over, just wanted to check because he has been asleep for so long, and- I think he’s not waking up anymore. Could you just take a look?”

“That sounds bad.”

She hears scrambling and a door falling shut and then she must have nodded off again because the next thing she hears is “Nat. Nat!” She pries her eyes open. Bruce is standing next to her bed, looking panicked. “Nat, I need the drip. And the bed. Quickly. Sorry.”

She blinks, slipping her feet out from under the blanket. Cold outside. “What’s going on?”

“He has sepsis, probably,” Bruce replies briefly, pulling the needle from her arm. “Sharon, get Sam, and Bobbi, tell her we need to do a white blood cell count, obtain blood cultures- sorry, Nat, you really need to get up.”

She has no idea what’s going on but Steve, who Bruce drags in on the stretcher, really looks bad and Sharon, before she disappears, looks very pale, so Natasha pushes herself up, even though her heart starts drumming. “Put something on it so it doesn’t bleed too much,” Bruce orders. “You’ll find something. Could you- no, just get out of the way.”

Oh, this is bad. She moves slowly to the cabinet with the bandages, holding onto things in order not to fall over. Bruce starts dragging machines towards the stretcher, one of them the ventilator. “What does that mean, sepsis?”

“Inflammation,” Bruce replies briefly, changing the needle on the IV drip. “Immune system goes into overdrive, then stops. Leads to organ failure, leads to death.”

She takes one of the bandages, presses it to her arm. She’s feeling dizzy. Shouldn’t have gotten up so fast. “Can I help?”

“You stay where you are,” Bruce rejects, pressing two fingers to Steve’s neck and checking his watch. “He has a fever, he’s breathing hard, his heart rate is up- did he seem confused?”

“Well, yeah,” Natasha replies, gripping the other table for stability. “Of course.”

Bruce gnaws on his lip. “Shit. It’s probably the lungs. Where’s the sphygmomanometer?”

She’s about to ask him what the fuck that is when James rushes in. “Are you okay? You’re bleeding.”

Of course he smelled that. “She’s okay, he’s dying,” Bruce returns. “Oh, there it is.”

Her head tumbles off her shoulders just then, or that’s what it feels like, but James catches her before she drops like a stone, narrowly avoiding the edge of the table. “Take her away, give her fluids and food,” Bruce’s voice says. “I can’t right now. Oh, did she hit her head?”

“She’s fine, just weak,” James replies, cradling her head. “Can I do anything for him?”

“If you have no idea, just get out,” Bruce returns. “God, I should have monitored him better.”

Someone else comes rushing in. She blinks until Bobbi’s frame slowly sharpens. “Fuck. Did you take blood already?”

“Blood pressure is low,” Bruce reports. “Help me move him to the bed first. One, two-”

“Are you okay?” James asks, caressing her cheek.

She blinks, still dizzy. “Think so.”

“I’ll take you upstairs,” James suggests. “Is it okay if I carry you?”

She nods quietly. Bruce and Bobbi have moved the body, Bobbi has a syringe- James picks her up. Sam comes through the door. “How bad is it?”

“Very bad,” Bruce states. “I think it’s the lungs, pneumonia, his breathing-”

She’s out of the door by then. All of this is surreal. James is moving slowly, carefully. “Is he really dying?” she whispers.

“I don’t know,” James replies, shifting her head so it rests against his shoulder. “But he smells really sick.”

  James puts her on the couch in the common area and the others slowly join there. She eats cornflakes and an apple and some sausages, despite not having any appetite. Sharon's crying quietly, Pepper stroking over her hair while Fury asks her questions about the vampire fledglings from their last patrol. Natasha dozes off again, James right arm around her. Tony went downstairs a while ago, trying to help, but came up empty-handed. Clint's staring into empty air.

It's tense and it takes hours. Natasha eats and drinks mechanically, like breathing, just her body keeping itself alive. "I thought he was getting better," Sharon whispers to herself.

"Rumors spread," James remarks to Fury. "Even if vampires don't necessarily like each other, there's still a sense of belonging. Schmidt will take advantage of that and declare war on specific cities or regions. All the vampires, young or not, sanctioned or not, know they can go there and bite and kill as many people as they want, without penalty, and they will. He did it in Moscow, he did it around Sarajevo and he tried it in Northern France."

"So there will be more," Fury states. "A steady flow of vampires into Prague."

Tony snorts. "Well, isn't that just what we need."

"But did he really declare war on us?" Pepper asks. "Is that what you heard?"

"I didn't hear anything," James replies bluntly. "If he sent me a message, I made sure not to receive it. But that's probably what he did, keep you busy and wear you down while he gathers black cloaks for the final strike."

Fury frowns, which is probably the height of his facial expressions. "Rumlow won't clean them up anymore?"

"It's an unspoken deal," James states. "They help take the city, they get to live. If you call this living."

Someone's coming up the stairs. Sharon spins quickly. "Is it- how is it- is he-"

"Not good," Bruce admits quietly, wiping his glasses on his shirt. "I'm afraid we're going to have to make a decision."

"What decision?" Fury asks.

Bobbi sits down heavily. "He's in very bad shape. We gave him antibiotics and fluids, put him on ventilation and tried to drain fluid from his lungs but- I'm afraid it's too late."

"We also gave him a blood transfusion, and vampire blood as well," Bruce adds. "200ml, what we gave Nat. But it's just not enough."

"What's the choice then?" Tony asks. "Turning him into a vampire?"

James' left fist contracts, metal clacking. "I don't want to bite him."

"We could give him a lot more vampire blood," Bruce explains. "His blood pressure is very low so he could easily take a few liters. Of course we have no idea what will happen, but I would say we try it. Bobbi disagrees."

Bobbi sighs, wringing her hands. "I just don't think we can save him. He's so weak already. Either it kills him or does nothing to stop him from dying, or it turns him into something completely unknown to us. And that's going to be a lot harder than losing him now."

"We three can't make that decision," Bruce remarks. "And so we thought… you two are the closest to family he has."

"Me?" James replies incredulously. "Sorry but I don't even remember anything about him. I can't decide over his life."

"Killing people is also deciding over their life," Clint remarks.

James hisses. "I don't kill people, I kill vampires. Most of the time."

Sharon groans, rubbing her swollen eyes. "I should have checked on him earlier. If we found him earlier-"

"We haven't been able to identify what he's infected with," Bobbi explains. "So even starting earlier might have been useless. And we should have all monitored him, that's not your responsibility, but there was just so much going on."

"We really don't know what will happen when we try the treatment, Bobbi is right," Bruce says. "Natasha can correct me but I don't think anyone ever got injected with so much vampire blood."

She shakes her head weakly. Somehow, she feels like this is all her fault. "If you give him the vampire blood," James asks, "would you still have enough for Natalia?"

Tony snorts. "Oh, don't worry about that. We could pump both of them full of it and still have leftovers."

Sharon's chewing on her nails. "So it's my decision."

"Sorry," Bruce replies. "I think we should, Bobbi thinks we shouldn't and Sam said you should decide."

"We're not sure this won't turn him into a vampire, right?" Clint questions. "Or some other monster. What do we do then? Hope we can reason with him? Kill him?"

"I can do that," James offers quietly. "If it comes to that. I wouldn't want to place that burden on any of you."

"James," Natasha interrupts, alarmed. "Don't do that."

"Maybe this doesn't make sense but-" Sharon sighs. "I can't believe he got all this way here, the crash, the ice, the- just to die now? There has to be a way."

"I thought we were going to give him a lot of vampire blood anyway, initially?" Tony adds. "What changed?"

"Natasha and I had something of a plan," Bruce admits. "She told me about experiments with vampire blood that I didn't know about, that went horribly wrong, and- if it had gone wrong, we would have taken him out and told you it just didn't work. Spare you the pain."

"You're all a bunch of self-sacrificial idiots," Fury hisses. "Why didn't you tell me about this?"

"It was Alexei," Natasha whispers. "Alexei went farther than anyone else, than anyone ever should, and- I burned the evidence, I killed him, I made sure nobody would ever find out and get the same ideas."

"Oh, you really killed him yourself?" Tony questions. "So you're even worse than what they say."

"He was building an army of mindless drones," Natasha hisses. "He was going absolutely insane. I couldn't make him listen anymore. So yes, I cut off his head, and then the fledglings tore him apart, covering it up. And I'd do it again."

"Where are the mindless drones coming from?" Fury asks calmly.

Natasha sighs, staring at the ceiling. "When you- when you inject dead people with vampire blood, they get up and move again. But they'll only do what you tell them. Whatever you tell them."

"Oh, like zombies," Tony remarks.

"Like brain dead," Bruce corrects him.

Natasha snorts. "Well, we had a lot of bodies. And enough vampire blood. And Alexei had enough desperation and broken morals to- it was the only way to stop him."

"So you had no problem tearing your boyfriend's head off," Clint remarks bitterly. "And now you think you can have a baby ?"

"That's not fair, Clint," Pepper admonishes. "I'm sure that wasn't easy for her."

It was too easy, though. That's the problem. "Hey, plenty of people who shouldn't have kids have them anyway," Tony interjects. "Like my dad. Or yours. If she thinks she can do it…"

"Guys," Fury interrupts. "There's someone literally dying in our basement, so get to the point."

"Is that the worst that could happen?" Sharon asks. "That he turns into a mindless drone?"

"He could turn into a vampire," Bobbi replies. "Or something like that. He could try to kill us."

"But maybe even that wouldn't be so bad?" Sharon insists. "Maybe it's from seeing Natasha's friend, or maybe I'm just hopelessly naive but- I just can't imagine Steve being anything other than Steve."

"I wasn't always like this," James mutters, tracing down Natasha's arm to the wound from the needle. "I don't remember much of the early years. It took decades until I had any semblance of control."

"Okay, but she's optimistic and she wants to try?" Tony asks. "Is that right, Sharon?"

Sharon bites her lips, swollen glassy eyes. "I- I can't give him up."

Bobbi sighs, slapping her hands on her thighs, straightening. "Then- I guess we'll just restrain him and try. Hope for the best."

"Should I come with you?" James asks.

"We'll have to prepare first," Bruce replies. "Wait here until we'll get you."

Sharon presses her face into her hands while they disappear down the stairs again. "Fuck."

"It's going to be alright," Pepper mutters, hugging her. "Either way."

"You're remarkably calm, for just having found out she beheaded her last boyfriend," Tony remarks.

"I killed the fledglings," James admits. "They told me they found him already dead. Nobody else knows. I assumed she had her reasons."

"So did I," Fury admits. "Or I would not have accepted her here."

"Well, you definitely earned your nickname," Tony decides. "And I guess turning him into a martyr was better than everyone finding out even he was losing his mind."

"Today is really great," Clint mutters. "We're gonna get overrun by vampires, we're doing crazy experiments with people who can't say no, and also Tasha personally murdered the biggest icon in the fight against vampires. Isn't that great."

  James has to go down eventually and from there on, it's even more of a nail biter but somehow, Natasha still manages to eat another bowl of cornflakes and to fall asleep. She should probably get another dose of vampire blood but she doesn't want to ask. Somehow, this is her fault. If she hadn't taken up all of their attention, they might have had more time for Steve-

She wakes up because someone’s moving. God, she must have slept forever. The lights are off and the shutters are closed. “Oh, you’re awake?” Pepper’s voice asks.

Natasha stirs. “Uh, I guess. What’s- anything new?”

“No,” Pepper replies. “We thought we’d go downstairs and check. Do you want to join?”

Natasha groans. She really should get up. “Yeah, just wait a second.”

“Just gonna throw in a quick look,” Sharon states nervously. “I don’t wanna disturb, or endanger anyone-”

She doesn’t want to know, and simultaneously has to find out. “Oh, I’ll help you up,” Pepper offers, coming closer. Natasha’s eyes are getting used to the dark. “There. Should I lend you an arm?”

“Thanks,” Natasha mutters, grunting as she pulls herself to her feet. “Oh fuck.”

“Maybe Bobbi should take a look at you later,” Pepper suggests, steadying her. “Take it slow.”

They make it down the stairs, Sharon ahead and turning around nervously because they’re so slow. But then they’re down there and Natasha leans against a wall while Pepper takes a deep breath and cracks the door open, Sharon right behind her, biting her nails. There’s voices inside but Natasha can’t really see or hear, so she just leans there, eyes closed. She can hear her heartbeat in her ears. Oh, maybe she should sit down. “Oh, hey,” Bobbi’s voice says. “Just wait, I’ll be out in a second.”

The door closes. “Was that…” Sharon starts.

“Yeah, right?” Pepper remarks. “Weird.”

Natasha pries her eyes open. “What?”

“It looks like-”

The door opens again. “Sorry, we were too busy and forgot we should update you," Bobbi says. "He's stable but not waking up."

"But it looked like he-" Pepper starts.

Bobbi giggles. "Oh yeah, he's super jacked now. Sorry, I shouldn't laugh, he's not out of the woods yet- but I'm just exhausted and that was super weird."

"But what about the inflammation?" Sharon asks, worrying away at her lip. "The lungs? Is that better?"

"Slowly," Bobbi replies. "But his lactate went down and the fever as well, blood pressure is normalizing- basically, the symptoms subsiding. And his muscles are growing huge, which is unexpected, but whatever."

"And he hasn't attacked anyone?" Pepper asks. "Or, you know, grown fangs or anything?"

"Not yet," Bobbi admits. "I reserve judgment until he wakes up. And you should be prepared, even if he doesn't try to hurt anyone- he's probably not going to be the same. Physically, mentally, personality-wise."

"You think it was- right?" Sharon questions. "Trying it?"

"Let's say it doesn't look too bad," Bobbi admits. "But the jury's still out. And if you hadn't tried, you'd beat yourself up about that, too."

"Should we leave you to it, then?" Pepper asks. "Let you go back to work?"

"We're still trying to identify the microbes causing the infection," Bobbi agrees. "Less urgent now, but still. Uh, Natasha, your friend is still in there, I hope it's okay if we borrow him a little longer."

She nods. Not that she likes this, James thinking it doesn't matter if he kills another person, that it's less bad because he's already a monster- he's not a monster. But she needs Bobbi, Sam and Bruce to be safe and James can keep them safe.

"Well, Nat, you should keep eating and drinking, even more now without the IV," Bobbi recommends. "And then we'll do your check-up later, if that's okay."

"We'll look after her," Pepper assures her. "So you can focus on Steve."

"Thank you." Bobbi grins. "I'll let you know when he grows an eight-pack."

  Once again, she eats and drinks, and then she's tired again. This time, she uses the opportunity to sleep in her own bed again. It smells like James, the cold, less human one, the old book. It's been a while.

She wakes up countless hours later, and it's again dark outside. Normally, somebody would be out on patrol. She's not so sure now. But she feels- okay. Someone, either Pepper or Sharon, probably Pepper, left a sandwich on her nightstand while she was sleeping, plus a glass of water. Natasha's hungry. She swallows the sandwich and downs the water, feeling her heartbeat in her throat. It could be wrong but she thinks the baby's moving, though it's not kicking as hard as that one time.

She decides to go downstairs, where there turns out to be no one, then goes down to the basement, slowly cracking the door open and peeking in. Bruce is looking through the microscope, Bobbi is surveying the choice of drugs or antibiotics or whatever, Sam is just sitting there, arm splayed across a table, dozing. All of them look very tired. James smiles at her, standing a bit away from the patient. She slips in, closing the door behind her. "Is it okay if I stay here?"

"Hm?" Bruce looks up and boy, those circles under his eyes. "Oh, yeah, sure. Just stay over there."

She takes a chair and sits down next to James. The guy- Steve, he's nothing like before, now he's broad and muscled and- he doesn't look real, to be honest. There are black straps all over him, keeping him down on the bed. He doesn't move, though she can see his chest heaving and lowering. His face isn't swollen and red anymore, just- normal. His eyes are closed. "Do you think he's better?" she asks quietly.

"I think he's going to make it," James states, staring at the blonde man strapped to the bed. "But he smells nothing like anything I've ever smelled before."

That could be good or bad. She stares some more. He's really- he looks less like a man and more like a statue. "I really hope you don't have to kill him."

"I don't want to kill him," James admits. "Maybe I've been staring at his face for too long but- I don't remember him but I know that face. And I- I feel a certain way about him, even if I don't remember him. Like I have to protect him."

She smiles. "That's sweet."

He snorts. "Well, we'll see. Did you get some sleep?"

"A lot," she returns, brushing her fingers through her hair. "And I ate a lot and drank a lot. And now- now I just want to sit here and do nothing."

"Mhm." He shakes his head, still staring at the comatose body. "That's fine by me."

[ajokeformur-ray]

I got somethin: write headcannons about Erileck. Your own, personal view. Gotta give my favorite ship some love, and also more ideas when I write you stuff 😈💜

OMFGGGGG omgomgomgomg skskksskk I’ve been stockpiling this for a few days bc I gotta think even though it’s my relationship sksksk but I hope this hits your OTP spots + helps as a future ref.

This is written in 1st person bc it’s Joker + I. I hope that doesn’t bother anyone skkssk this is gonna be so much fun I’m hyped!!! There’s no organisation to this lmao so there are jumps all over the place pfft.

Warnings for mentions of trauma, anxiety, depression, also smoking, swearing. Also NSFW bc duh xp 

Word count: 3, 207 (woops?)

Questions or comments on my relationship with Joker are welcomed!! I’m sure there are things I haven’t even considered skskks and ngl I do love talking about our relationship pfft.

Joker and I… sksksk I’d be lucky.

Someone like him loving someone like me??? Ridiculous. A dream.

Someone like me loving someone like him??? Don’t be silly.

… And that’s precisely why we work so well together.

We choose to love each other each and every single day. Again and again, no matter what, we find the time to come back together at the end of a long, exhausting day.

I was with Arthur from the very beginning of the film.

I bumped into Carnival outside Kenny’s Music, and I stood to the side to watch him spin that everything must go! sign. 

I’m scared of clowns but something about this clown captured and maintained my interest and so it was that once this particular rendition of Temptation Rag was over, I approached Carnival and sincerely thanked and complimented him on his performance. 

Both of us blushing, both of us unsure, but neither of us can resist the almost magnetic pull which the other gives off. So I invited him to coffee and dinner (and I paid for everything, of course) and neither of us ever looked back.

I fell in love with Arthur before I even knew his name, and when I love it’s… intense and I fall hard, and I fall fast, and I can never stand back up.

I’ve been told before that I love “too intensely” and it’s “too much” for people (I was told this by my abusers so I suppose they were lying but… it’s a very open, raw wound which I battle daily), but for Arthur the way I love is just right. He needs that clinginess, that reassurance.

I’m already in tears thinking of everything I feel and everything I want to say lmao…

I turned my entire life upside down for him without a single regret, forethought or anything like that, and I never looked back sksksksk.

I stayed with him as Arthur and I did everything I could for him - bought his prescriptions, bought him food, helped him to keep the apartment clean… there were arguments because he thought I was merely looking at him as a charity case, or he was wary in case I was just after something…

But with time, patience and persistence I managed to get Arthur to be at least comfortable around me.

We fell in love together but neither of us said anything. We’re both too shy, too scared of rejection…

I don’t know how we got together, it’s just that one day I stayed overnight at Arthur’s apartment to help him take care of Penny and to take care of him, so exhausted was he…

… And I never left.

I was with him through it all and I made it known only to him that I was proud of him every time he stood up for himself. They all had it coming, anyway (I have a flexible morality lmao).

I love his jokes; he and Bill Hader are my favourite comedians (shush I know Bill wasn’t around in the 80s but work with me) and I adore it when he shares them with me.

The darker the better, imo. My favourites are the ones you laugh at because there’s no other reaction to give.

But I digress.

So. Present day. 

He’s Joker and oh, if I thought I loved Arthur… 

I have a very deep, very raw and passionate love for Joker. He is… he’s my entire world and I love him so much I’m tearing up while I type this. He’s so beautiful it makes me cry daily.

Every time I cry because of how beautiful he is, I go straight to Joker. He deserves to see how loved he is. Sometimes I get upset because I don’t feel satisfied with the level of love I’m showing him; it’s never enough and he deserves more.

This most often happens at night, because I get very Soft™ at night.

As such, Joker and I have a very special nightly routine. 

We spend all day thinking about it but we don’t do this particular thing until nighttime, when we can put our lives away and just soak in each other’s presence.

I cry very easily. Happy, sad, angry, frustrated, upset, elated, joyful, sorrowful… any mood you can think of, I will cry if the emotion reaches a certain intensity.

It’s not unusual for me to come into the living room late at night when I’m in my pyjamas (an oversized t-shirt and a pair of undies - yes, even in winter lmao just pile on the blankets) with tears in my eyes, for whatever reason.

Every time Joker looks up to see this sight, his eyes roam over my body and he smiles, a soft “awwh” leaving his lips as he straightens his legs so I can sit down on his lap.

I sit on his lap and cup his painted face in my hands and I smother him in kisses. I start off slow and then I speed up as the love within my heart grows, and Joker always ends up holding my wrists in his hand and giggling under my touch. 

It usually ends up with one or both of us crying. Joker’s so shocked and so awed that I’m still with him even now, and I just love him so much I can’t do anything else.

Joker’s lap is the best seat and it’s my favourite.

I study there, I sit there, I sleep there. 

Cockwarming is also a common occurrence.

If he’s sat a certain way so I can’t sit on his lap, I’m not afraid to press down on his uppermost knee so he straightens out so I can get comfortable on him.

“Can I have my seat back, please?” or “You stole my seat” are common ways of asking for him to move for me.

He is also my clown blanket skkksksk our favourite sleeping position is for me to lay on my back and for Joker to lay atop me. He becomes everything I can feel and his head rests either on my chest or on my stomach, depending on what he wants. My hands are in his hair… and we sleep.

So, naturally, there are copious opportunities for Joker to love me awake ;) many a morning do I awaken to the sensation of fingers gripping my hips, holding me down while he worships me with his mouth.

We don’t do NSFW things .v. often, we prefer to cuddle and just be close. 

Both of us are virgins and shy ones at that, lmao, so it took awhile for things to even get to that point.

We discovered we just prefer to cuddle over full out sex; less messy, for one.

Full sex is usually for the times when words aren’t enough; after an argument, or when either of us is especially sad or just needs something.

When I want to do this, I usually say, “how about you werewolf and go wild on me now?” and he howls before breaking out in laughter, which I stifle with a kiss…

If Joker wants to, one look from him and I just know. He doesn’t even have to say anything.

My answer is always yes. There’s nothing I won’t do for him and he knows it; it’s okay, though, because he’s the same way for me. We balance each other out really well.

During the rare times I’m awake before Joker is, I’ll kiss him awake; his face, his neck, chest, those adorable soft curves on his stomach… 

Any and every excuse which I can think of do I use to love him. 

It’s a daily goal to love him so hard that he doesn’t know what to do with himself. He deserves nothing less.

I steal his red blazer… often.

If Joker can’t find it, it’s either in the wash or I’m wearing it.

As soon as he takes it off, I’ve got it cradled in my arms, holding it to my face to hide my smile. I wear it when he isn’t, I sleep in it when I miss him (even when he’s right there beside me I still miss him), and I often use it as a pillow.

“Are you sure you don’t love that blazer more than you love me?” // “No.” // Any pout he gives me is kissed away and he giggles against my lips because he got what he was after all along.

We can’t sleep without each other. Joker needs to know that he’s needed, and I need to know that my clown is there for me to keep me safe from the things which my mind tells me are in the dark.

Joker does get annoyed with me sometimes because we both know I’m scared of the dark and I have a vivid imagination, and those two things are difficult to handle on the best of days, but I also love horror films.

Slasher ones are my favourite but I also really enjoy the ones which are dark, gritty, the ones which are based more in the psychological than obvious jumpscares.

I know how Joker can get when I watch them, though, so I tend to watch them when he’s out of the apartment or when there’s nothing else to do.

He never stops me from watching them because I’m a grown ass woman, but he makes his disapproval known by by saying he won’t be comforting me that night when I get too scared to turn the lights off.

In the end, though, there isn’t much he can say because he has unhealthy coping mechanisms just as I do, so he wraps me in his arms and hides my face in his chest or in the crook of his neck. “Close your eyes so you can’t see it’s dark.”

“I love you” is said often between us. 

And never just once: “I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you - “ it can and will be said multiple times.

It makes the other person giggle and get teary eyed. We’re slightly obsessed with each other and we love the way we love each other.

There are other ways we say those three words, spoken too much yet never enough:

“You got what you deserved, Joker” // “I suppose I did.”

I wear my outfit sometimes and go out in it, and on rarer occasions (I have acne so I have to be careful) I even do my face like his.

When I really make to say ‘I love you’, I’ll do both. It never fails to make him cry.

The Way You Look Tonight by Frank Sinatra is our song, as is The Carpenters songs Close to You and Yesterday Once More. 

Every time those songs are on, Joker spins me into him and even though I have two left feet, he dances with me.

The slow, eerie dances he does are my favourite and I love watching him. He knows and he loves it. He always throws me a wink and it never fails to make me blush and emit such a high pitched noise that I feel compelled to pull my shirt collar up and over to cover my face entirely.

Joker always coos and plays peekaboo with me when I do this to coax me out of hiding.

Neither of us want children but we have two pure black rescue kitties whom we love dearly!

That’s Life is another favourite. I love that song and it never fails to make me smile, even when I don’t want to. I play it every day and Joker always dances with me. We prefer the instrumental version; it reminds us of the simpler times when he was still the unseen (not by me, by Gotham in general) Arthur Fleck.

Aaa, Fleck…

I proposed to him. Kinda.

Joker wanted marriage from day one but I was unsure; I despise the institution of modern marriage but one day I caught sight of a ring I liked the look of in a magazine and I took it over to Joker.

I didn’t say anything, I just held the magazine out at that page for him to take, barely able to speak was I through the depths of my emotions.

It took him ten minutes to stop laughing before he dipped a hand into his blazer and withdrew a small box. 

Neither of us said yes and neither of us said no. 

We just put the rings on the other and that was that.

The next day, I went and got it registered with a cackling Arthur in tow. 

I can be emotionally distant at times; if I’m feeling too much, I tend to withdraw into myself rather than upset Joker by burdening him with what I’m feeling. 

He hates it when I do that, though a lot of the time I’m not even aware I’m doing it, and it upsets him and then he withdraws from me.

When Joker starts to pull away from my kisses and stops accepting hugs, that’s usually my holy shit what the fuck, Erika? moment and then I do my best to apologise to him.

I’m always forgiven after it’s made clear that I hurt his feelings, and then we don’t let each other go for the rest of the night.

When I need a reminder of why I love Joker or when I just need to see him for all that he is, I watch his segment on the Murrat show (that’s not a typo - I know what I said.) and I’m sobbing in seconds.

*sigh* “Why do you do this to yourself, Erika?”

“I needed to - you were in so much pain and I - “

He pulls me to him and shushes me. I tuck my face into the warm crook of his neck and lavish him with kisses and I just hold him and hug him as hard as I can and I apologise again and again.

Joker doesn’t understand why I watch it sometimes and tbh neither do I but I do and he always comforts me even though I feel like I should be comforting him.

As I said earlier, I’m scared of the dark and I drink as much coffee as Joker smokes (I can easily reach 18 cups a day. Easy.), so night times are... interesting. 

It can take up to an hour for me to sleep. Not really because of the caffeine (I’m used to it by now and I feel calmer with it than I do without it) but because I just can’t get comfortable or because I’m convinced something just moved in the corner of the room.

Even with my nightlights, I’m still scared.

It annoys Joker when he’s really tired or trying to sleep and it’s not unlike Joker to grumble “lay the fuck still” and wrap his arms around me so I feel obligated to stay still for him.

Joker never holds me so tight that I can’t move, though. I have trauma relating to body autonomy so he makes sure that I know I can move if I want to.

I prefer to sleep either on my back so I can have my clown blanket or on my side so I can face Joker. I keep my phone by my bed so when I miss Joker or need to see him at 3 AM I’ve got pics and GIFs right there, scared am I that I’ll wake up and he’s just a dream and I’m alone again, so I appreciate seeing him when I wake up in the mornings.

Sleepy morning sex

He’s also at perfect liberty to start things when I’m still sleeping, too.

I gave him an all time free pass - that is how much I trust him. It was the biggest display of trust I could think of, and I’ve never gone back on it or regretted it.

I really just want Joker to know, to know, that he’s loved and cherished. I do my best to let him know that he can be his entire self with me, that I want him to, and he does the same for me.

Fair’s fair though so I’m at liberty to start things when he’s sleeping, though I rarely do because he sleeps so little as it is because insomnia, nightmares etc.

We steal each other’s clothes a lot of the time. 

I wear really baggy clothes (my shirts can pass as short dresses) so Joker fits into them easily.

Joker’s very needy and physically affectionate and clingy and even on the days when I don’t want to be touched (again, for trauma reasons), I still allow him to do with me as he pleases.

Not because I feel like I have to, but because I trust him and I know I’m safe with him. When I’m with Joker, I’m the safest woman in the world.

We only use each other’s names - Erika and Joker (Arthur for serious situations) - when attention is needed now or when it’s a deep situation which requires total candour.

Otherwise, for me it’s “my girl” (I melt every time), “my Erika”, “my Queen”, and then generics like darling, sweetheart, love, angel.

For Joker, it’s “my Joker” (he melts), “my King”, “my clown” and then generics like darling, angel, love, honey. 

We do anything for each other and we always do small gestures for each other; Joker makes me a cup of coffee and I slip a cigarette between his thin lips before I light it for him. He changes the batteries in my nightlights without saying anything and I hand scrub the blood out of his clothes while it’s still fresh.

Things like that tell us, even without words, that we want it to work.

When he comes home from whatever he does as Joker (I don’t ask and he doesn’t tell), I check him all over. Any bruises, scraps, cuts... 

The ‘rule’ is this:

As long as he comes back home to me without even a paper cut, then he can do what he wants as Joker, the reputation he didn’t want or ask for.

We do everything together and with each other and of course we get space from each other when it’s wanted or needed; a lot of the time we’re in the same room doing our own things. 

We argue, though I’m not sure what about - but we always make it up to one another. We don’t go to bed angry, either, and we both get upset during fights so tears are shed and wiped away, apologies whispered against trembling lips.

It’s not an easy relationship and there are probably things I haven’t even thought about lmao, but we work hard and the amount of love we have for each other is so strong and so deep it’s bigger than both of us. 

We choose to love each other every single day, no matter what, and that’s why we’re still together

Erileck met: 4/10/2019 // married: 26/3/2020. We skipped the engagement. We’re in love and we know it, so why wait?

[fifteenleads]

an accident of luck

Written for @thesuccessorchallenge 2020. (Theme: Spark).

AO3 | FFNet

.

Once upon a time, there was a princess asleep in a tower in outer space, waiting for her prince to come rescue her and wake her with true love’s kiss.

This isn’t that story.

Squall regards the latest entry in the literary section with much distaste. It is one thing to be subjected to such saccharine drivel once every week; it is another thing to have to beta-read such saccharine drivel before its publication, then still have to be subjected to it anyway over morning coffee that same week.

He really should have accepted the scholarship Garden had offered to him back then— he would have been an elite rank SeeD by now, going on missions around the world, maybe actually even saving said “princesses asleep in outer space towers,” if he were luckier.

Scratch that; it is Zell who cares more about these things; he has always been the more romantic between the two of them, by far. Squall would describe himself more as pragmatic, if anything, as long as it puts food on the table and pays the bills. He didn’t summarily reject life as a rich bachelor for nothing, after all— he wanted to prove himself, and his father was only too happy to let him when he had asked. “Expand your horizontals, my dear son,” were Laguna’s exact parting words to him the day he moved out and never looked back.

For the dear life of him, Squall could never fathom how on earth his father had managed to become CEO of Galbadia’s largest multimedia outlet with questionable command of language and grammar, but he set that aside in favor of a wordless, tacit understanding and gratitude that he is, at least, a proper parent in most other aspects, all things considered. Life as a single parent is hard, and Squall did his part to help make life easier for the three of them. Once Ellone got married, however, those nagging thoughts of gaining some measure of independence for himself reared its ugly head, and he finally decided to act on them.

And look how that has gone now, he bites back a grumble as he finishes his breakfast and returns the magazine to the top of the pile. Next week’s issue is due today, and he wishes he had added that double shot of espresso to his tray when it had been offered to him.

In his utter confusion on his way out, Squall does not notice where he is going and literally crashes into someone else, spilling their hot coffee all over the front of his shirt. Double espresso, he immediately recognizes the taste as he licks what had splashed onto his lips— not at all how he wanted to get his caffeine on a stressful morning, really.

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry!” comes the hurried apology, as the lady brings out a handkerchief and some wet wipes in an attempt to at least blot out the coffee stains. It makes Squall pale in mild embarrassment, both for the ruckus they have caused and for having caused said ruckus in the first place— a “double yikes,” as Laguna would have called it.

“I-It’s fine,” he momentarily stumbles on his words, because for some reason, the space between him and the lady has all but disappeared, and the distance between their foreheads as she looks up into his eyes has his heart skip several beats and his breath hitch for longer than he is comfortable with. A light, floral scent permeates from her clothes, which, along with the strong scent of roasted coffee, unexpectedly assaults his nose all at once, and he suddenly sneezes with all the force of an enraged Marlboro charging in for the kill.

Luckily, Squall had the presence of mind to turn his head aside before that happened; years of having allergic rhinitis had trained him well for these moments. The mild embarrassment he had at the beginning increases by tenfold, and he is sure that the pallor on his face has already morphed into a deep flush by now. The lady quickly clambers off him, looking aside, too, just as awkwardly, clutching her stained handkerchief close to her chest. A few people have already started to gather in the hallway, albeit maintaining a respectful distance from them both.

“Sorry,” he mumbles weakly as he takes the lady by her wrist and quickly leads her away from the onlookers, potential gossip be damned. Not how he wanted his morning to go at all, but he’ll deal with the consequences later. For now, a trip to the washroom is in order— separately, of course.

-

“I know that was only an accident and all, Leonhart, but this will be hard to explain to HR when they come breathing down our necks in the next audit,” Quistis admonishes him, rubbing her temples in a circular motion; she tends to get migraines when she is stressed— and for her, that would be all the time. She never addresses him by his surname, still, despite that. For her to do so now means either she is thoroughly done with the incessant calls inquiring about the incident, or he has messed up big time— and for Squall, both mean the same thing.

“They probably won’t, Quis,” the lady reassures with a teasing but flippant tone; she hasn’t stopped sniffing at her coffee-stained clothes in the laundry bag, of which Squall is holding an identical one right now. They have been given a couple hours leave on the clock to deposit the items at the laundromat across the street, just to get things over with. Benevolent bosses are always a blessing in every single job and field of work.

Quistis sighs at the probably-unwanted nickname. “Look, Ri- Juliet, you’ve barely started working here. You have no idea how fast HR updates itself on the rumor mills, especially in the News Department and in ours,” she explains, giving Juliet a pointed look as she does. Squall could only fathom the depth of the undue stress the morning’s incident has brought Quistis now, and she doesn’t deign to hide it behind her shiny spectacles, either.

Juliet only shrugs her shoulders in response as she rises from the couch. “Nah, they won’t,” she repeats herself, this time with more confidence, as if she already knows all of this like the back of her hand. “It’s an accident, like you said; they’ll probably send a written inquiry, at most, and the Good Sir Leonhart and I need only submit our written responses in, like, twenty-four hours. An easy thing for writers, really. Right, Good Sir Leonhart?” She nudges his side with an elbow, as if prompting for moral support.

Too close, again, Squall thinks, resisting the temptation to facepalm, like he is wont to do in ridiculously awkward situations like this. A “Whatever” does slip out, though, before he could stop himself. It makes Juliet groan indignantly in response, and she strongly pinches the outer edge of his arm, eliciting a surprised yelp from him as he yanks his hand away and takes a couple of steps back. “What the hell?”

Juliet merely sticks her tongue out at him, pulling at her lower eyelid with a thin finger as she does, like an overgrown child bullying at the playground. “That’s what you get for being a big, fat meanie, Good Sir Leonhart,” she crows triumphantly, and Quistis only buries her head in her hands at her desk in sheer frustration. This incident is what HR should send a written inquiry for, Squall thinks to himself wryly as Juliet stalks off with her laundry bag, but not before turning back at the door and sticking her tongue out at him again, this time with a blowing sound. He does a facepalm for real this time, tiredly taking Juliet’s place on the couch before Quistis’ desk.

“Quite a handful, isn’t she,” she observes with a smile, making Squall raise an eyebrow in inquiry. Decidedly in a slightly better mood than earlier, Quistis nods at him, beckoning him to come closer. She slides a thin folder to him across the desk— probably the next article to look over for the day. Next week’s issue is due today, after all.

What greets him instead is a CV and portfolio of one Juliette Heartilly, new writer for the Creative Department of their small publishing company, and apparently, his new partner.

“I meant to send for you this morning, but the CEO suddenly called all the department heads for an emergency meeting earlier,” Quistis explains in that same level tone of hers— that is, when she is about to deliver bad news, which for Squall, is most of the time lately. “You will be editing for Juliette, too, starting the issue after next week. As you can see, she has her quirks, but I imagine you won’t have a problem working together, seeing as you both have excellent work ethic and the output to show for it. Do you have any questions so far?”

“I don’t even know where to begin.” To hell with brain-to-mouth filters for today; he hasn’t had his morning coffee, and is therefore not awake enough to play nice yet. Luckily, Quistis understands that part of him very well, over the ten months now he has been working with her. She cradles her chin in both her laced fingers and smiles, as if prompting him to speak now or forever hold his peace. It is a smile that has unnerved many of the Department’s employees when they are at the receiving end of it, and as ashamed Squall is to admit it, he, too, finds it uncomfortable.

“I’ll send an email to you when I think of one,” he decides on saying instead. He needs a few hours to himself to process this weird turn of events first before he ends up doing anything stupid again, like spilling someone else’s coffee all over his shirt— something that, speaking of which, he has to replace sooner than later. He makes a mental note to pass by the fancy café two blocks over after depositing his clothes at the laundromat.

Mind made up for now, Squall nods at Quistis for additional measure, taking the folder with him. Her smile changes to one of warm approval, and she courteously dismisses him with a wave and an encouraging “good luck, Squall”. She does not say “with her”, but Squall hears it anyway as he takes his leave from the office, feeling his steps grow heavier yet lighter by the second. It was definitely a nonsensical way of putting it, but it is how he feels at the moment, and he won’t deny it for now.

He hopes nothing else will happen anymore; he’s had more than enough excitement for one day, and he still has next week’s issue to look at later this morning. Maybe he’ll get himself that double espresso on his café run, too, while he’s at it.

-

It turns out Squall needn’t have bothered with deciding what pastry goes well with brewed coffee on a chilly morning. He watches quietly from his place in the line, two customers back, as Juliette points excitedly at a pistachio muffin and another item he couldn’t identify except for the generous cheese on top. It feels as if fate is playing a ridiculous trick on him for some reason, having them both run into each other for the third consecutive time that day, now, and at very close intervals, too. It hasn’t even been half the day yet, and he is already decidedly exhausted.

“That will be one hundred gil, ma’am,” the cashier rings up the total amount, and Juliette happily slides over a silver-plated card on the counter. Squall lets his mind drift off again as he waits for the transaction to be finished, secretly relieved that he need only buy the coffee now. There are only so many things he knows about fancy food, despite having been raised in a relatively fancier household than most others. Their family did appreciate simple music and art, though, spending time every week in their small studio as Mom played (and bungled) piano pieces by their collective favorite singer, Julia.

Now, where has he heard that name before, Squall wonders for a moment.

His thoughts are promptly cut off by a small incident at the counter area. “W-What do you mean my card’s been declined?” Juliette stammers, her entire face pale as she picks back up the card, hand trembling ever-so-slightly. “I haven’t even reached half of my credit limit for this month yet,” she defends herself, her last few words ending with a raised intonation, as if she were asking a question instead. The cashier looks at her with genuine sympathy, but says what he has to, anyway: “I’m sorry, ma’am, but we’ve already tried swiping your card twice on both portable terminals; your card really has been blocked for some reason. Would you like to pay for your order in cash instead?”

“A-Ah, right.” Juliette fumbles at her wallet, nervously counting the remaining bills and coins one by one on the counter top. The small ruckus has the people behind Squall tapping impatiently, with one grandma even mumbling something about “stupid, spendthrift young’uns spending beyond their means” in a decidedly snide tone Squall didn’t care for at all, both because of its ill timing and its utter insensitivity. Juliette may have struck him as weirdly eccentric in more ways than one, but she is definitely not stupid, and certainly does not deserve such comments thrown at her.

So he decides to take matters into his own hands, swiftly cutting to the front of the line and sliding his own card onto the counter before Juliette could finish counting her money. A cursory glance at the small pile reveals that she is still around twenty gil short, despite how bulky her wallet had seemed to be at the start. The cashier, wearing a face that is between startled and starstruck, lets her eyes frantically wander around as she fumbles around for the right words, but Squall gives her a pointed look before she could even so much as open her mouth. “I’ll pay. Add two double espressos to-go, as well. Make it quick.”

The manager, having heard the small ruckus from the inside office, quickly steps in for his terrified employee, and wordlessly rings up the orders in an instant. “Go prepare their food,” he calmly instructs, and this brings her back down from her jumpy episode. She then proceeds to the back and helps wrap up the pastries while the barista there prepared the coffee. The transaction goes smoothly this time, and Squall quietly takes Juliette with him to the waiting area, just like that.

“... You didn’t have to do that, Good Sir Leonhart,” Juliette says in a small voice, twiddling her thumbs in a restless manner. Her hunched form and bowed head lets her hide her eyes behind her loose hair, and for once, she is very different from the playful and confident woman that she was back in Quistis’ office. “A woman’s heart is a deep ocean of secrets,” Laguna had quoted an old movie to him a few years back, in one of the rare moments he has gotten his metaphors right, for once. It makes Squall smile a little, to this day— a good thing Juliette doesn’t see it, lest she starts teasing him again sooner than later.

It’s funny how, in a mere couple of hours, he has already managed to witness different facets that made up Juliette Heartilly— kind, assertive, coy, sensitive. Suddenly, the thought of working with her becomes a lot more bearable, now— interesting, even. He smirks at the feeling, just a little, this time lightly nudging Juliette with his elbow. “It’s for the coffee I spilled earlier,” he explains without looking, noting how she shyly raises her head at him from the corner of his eye. “Also, welcome to the team, Heartilly.”

He is definitely not blushing as he said that. The cold air merely prickles at his face during this time of the year, and he need only take antihistamines for it tonight— another mental note, he reminds himself as he tries not to sneeze like that again.

Juliette seems to sense his bashfulness, though, returning to her usual annoying self as she returns the light elbow nudge with playful jabs of her own. “Awww! And the Good Sir Leonhart’s idea of a warm welcome is to take their newbies on coffee dates? I like that.” Her smile is decidedly a wicked one, and it takes all of Squall’s concentrated effort to not facepalm and/or snark back— whichever comes first— like he is wont to do when he is irritated.

He settles for a professional smile instead, like a team leader imparting wisdom to errant members so they don’t get funny ideas. “I don’t, actually, but today is an exception. I expect you to work hard. Do you understand, Heartilly?”

Just then, the barista rings the bell, calling for “customers Romeo and Juliet” with a nervous stutter. This elicits a wave of quiet laughter from among the dine-in patrons, and Squall, realizing that the hapless worker was referring to them, instantly freezes in place, while Juliette leaps off the high stool and approaches the counter with a light spring in her step. “Coming!”

Squall doesn’t remember how long he remained that way, but the next thing he knows, Juliette is already tugging at the sleeve of his long shirt, carrying their food in a paper bag. “All done! Let’s go back now?”

“R-Right,” he nods in agreement, taking the carrier for the drinks from Juliette’s other hand and heading for the door. Juliette follows him excitedly, good mood fully restored for now. The walk back to the office is quiet amidst the bustle of activity around them, and the festive mood makes Juliette softly hum a tune— one of Julia’s songs, he recognizes.

“By the way, Good Sir Leonhart,” Juliette stops as they reach their office building, “I never got to learn your name.” The sudden question also stops Squall in his tracks, and he looks back at her from the door, studying the quizzical look on her face. She raises an eyebrow at him, prompting an answer. “I can’t keep on calling you Romeo forever, you know.”

“Indeed,” Squall agrees, lest the joint nickname sticks with everyone else and they become the newest comedy duo HR will come breathing down their necks on in next month’s audit. Also a fair enough question, given their new working relationship, really. The initial embarrassment is always only temporary, after all. “My name is Squall. Don’t get any funny ideas, Heartilly.”

“Oooh, a storm. I like that,” she quickly dodges that trap, joining him on the top of the steps and ringing the doorbell for them both. “Also, call me Juliette. Or Juliet. Whatever.” She punctuates this with a coy smile of her own, and Squall almost snorts at how fast it took for her to imitate his favorite expression, down to the bored intonation. She is definitely playing with him now, and he feels that he will fall into this trap sooner than later— but not right now.

“Juliette, then,” he ends the topic with a tone of finality, allowing no more room for further discussion. The door opens for them, and they nod at the receptionist in thanks as they head inside. “Next week’s issue is due today,” Squall instructs as they head up the spiral stairs. “We typically stay past five, but we try to wrap up before it gets too dark. Will that be okay with you?”

“Not a problem,” Juliette says with an excited squeak in her voice, the old steps creaking as she quickly runs up ahead of him. “Come on, Squall! Race you to the office?” She does not give him a chance to reply as she darts off with the food, like an overgrown child cheating at the playground. He only shakes his head as he ascends the steps only a little faster. “I’m carrying drinks, you know.” Not that Juliette would even hear it, given how far ahead she has already gotten, but it just has to be said.

Once upon a time, there was supposed to be a princess asleep in a tower in outer space, but by the time the prince arrived to rescue her and give her true love’s kiss, she was long gone, having escaped on her own and returned back to earth, just like that.

Squall only smiles in amusement at that. Maybe this is the unlikely spark he has been looking for in this life he has chosen for himself, and it’s not a bad thing— not bad, at all.

[thevividgreenmoss]

1. On What the Road to Hell Is Paved With

There is nothing in all Freud’s writings that I like better than his assertion that artists’ work is motivated by the desire “to achieve honour, power, riches, fame, and the love of women.” It is such a comforting, such a complete statement; it explains everything about the artist. There have even been artists who agreed with it; Ernest Hemingway, for instance; at least, he said he wrote for money, and since he was an honored, powerful, rich, famous artist beloved by women, he ought to know.

There is another statement about the artist’s desires that is, to me, less obscure; the first two stanzas of it read,

Riches I hold in light esteem And Love I laugh to scorn And lust of Fame was but a dream That vanished with the morn— And if I pray, the only prayer That moves my lips for me Is—“Leave the heart that now I bear And give me liberty.”

Emily Bronte wrote those lines when she was twenty-two. She was a young and inexperienced woman, not honored, not rich, not powerful, not famous, and you see that she was positively rude about love (“of women” or otherwise). I believe, however, that she was rather better qualified than Freud to talk about what motivates the artist. He had a theory. But she had authority.

It may well be useless, if not pernicious, to seek a single motive for a pursuit so complex, long-pursued, and various as art; I imagine that Bronte got as close to it as anyone needs to get, with her word “liberty.”

The pursuit of art, then, by artist or audience, is the pursuit of liberty. If you accept that, you see at once why truly serious people reject and mistrust the arts, labeling them as “escapism.” The captured soldier tunneling out of prison, the runaway slave, and Solzhenitsyn in exile are escapists. Aren’t they? The definition also helps explain why all healthy children can sing, dance, paint, and play with words; why art is an increasingly important element in psychotherapy; why Winston Churchill painted, why mothers sing cradle-songs, and what is wrong with Plato’s Republic. It really is a much more useful statement than Freud’s, though nowhere near as funny.

I am not sure what Freud meant by “power,” in this context. Perhaps significantly, Bronte does not mention power. Shelley does, indirectly:

“Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world." This is perhaps not too far from what Freud had in mind, for I doubt he was thinking of the artist’s immediate and joyous power over his material—the shaping hand, the dancer’s leap, the novelist’s power of life and death over his characters; it is more probable that he meant the power of the idea to influence other people.

The desire for power, in the sense of power over others, is what pulls most people off the path of the pursuit of liberty. The reason Bronte does not mention it is probably that it was never even a temptation to her, as it was to her sister Charlotte.

Emily did not give a damn about other people’s morals. But many artists, particularly artists of the word, whose ideas must actually he spoken in their work, succumb to the temptation. They begin to see that they can do good to other people. They forget about liberty, then, and instead of legislating in divine arrogance, like God or Shelley, they begin to preach.

In this tale, The Word for World Is Forest, which began as a pure pursuit of freedom and the dream, I succumbed, in part, to the lure of the pulpit. It is a very strong lure to a science fiction writer, who deals more directly than most novelists with ideas, whose metaphors are shaped by or embody ideas, and who therefore is always in danger of inextricably confusing ideas with opinions.

I wrote The Little Green Men (its first editor, Harlan Ellison, retitled it, with my rather morose permission) in the winter of 1968, during a year’s stay in London. All through the sixties, in my home city in the States, I had been helping organize and participating in nonviolent demonstrations, first against atomic bomb testing, then against the pursuance of the war in Viet Nam. I don’t know how many times I walked down Alder Street in the rain, feeling useless, foolish, and obstinate, along with ten or twenty or a hundred other foolish and obstinate souls. There was always somebody taking pictures of us—not the press—odd-looking people with cheap cameras: John Birchers? FBI? CIA? Crackpots? No telling. I used to grin at them, or stick out my tongue. One of my fiercer friends brought a camera once and took pictures of the picture-takers. Anyhow, there was a peace movement, and I was in it, and so had a channel of action and expression for my ethical and political opinions totally separate from my writing.

In England that year, a guest and a foreigner, I had no such outlet. And 1968 was a bitter year for those who opposed the war. The lies and hypocrisies redoubled: so did the killing. Moreover, it was becoming clear that the ethic which approved the defoliation of forests and grainlands and the murder of noncombatants in the name of “peace” was only a corollary of the ethic which permits the despoliation of natural resources for private profit or the GNP, and the murder of the creatures of the Earth in the name of “man.” The victory of the ethic of exploitation, in all societies, seemed as inevitable as it was disastrous.

It was from such pressures, internalized, that this story resulted: forced out, in a sense, against my conscious resistance. I have said elsewhere that I never wrote a story more easily, fluently, surely— and with less pleasure.

I knew, because of the compulsive quality of the composition, that it was likely to become a preachment, and I struggled against this. Say not the struggle naught availeth. Neither Lyubov nor Seiver is mere Virtue Triumphant; moral and psychological complexity was salvaged, at least, in those characters. But Davidson is, though not uncomplex, pure; he is purely evil—and I don’t, consciously, believe purely evil people exist. But my unconscious has other opinions. It looked into itself and produced, from itself, Captain Davidson. I do not disclaim him.

American involvement in Viet Nam is now past; the immediately intolerable pressures have shifted to other areas; and so the moralizing aspects of the story are now plainly visible. These I regret, but I do not disclaim them either. The work must stand or fall on whatever elements it preserved of the yearning that underlies all specific outrage and protest, whatever tentative outreaching it made, amidst anger and despair, toward justice, or wit. or grace, or liberty.

Ursula K. Le Guin, Introduction to The Word for World is Forest

[xxsovereignsarayaxx]

Elizabeth Mikaelson - What If? Chapter 11

Authors Note: Chapter 11 is here! So glad your enjoying Elizabeth’s story so far and it only gets better I promise! You can check out the previous chapters or my other works here. Sending love xoxo

The last few days really made me think about the people I call my family. The Mikaelson's. Yes over the centuries we've been at each others throats, siblings have been daggered, necks have been snapped and hearts almost ripped from one an-others chests but the one thing that keep us together was the fact that we were immortal. But now learning that Elena wishes to have Mikael return to help kill Nik was a step over the mark. 

Mikael was dangerous and not to mention chased us all for years trying to hurt us. You can call me contradicting as a time before Elijah promised to end his brothers life but now, families fight and I wouldn't change my them for the world and I was hell bent on keeping it that way. I stepped away from helping the doppelganger and her friends and in the meantime was classed as the enemy. 

Elena tried to find out as much as she could about Mikael from myself and Rebekah to which reciprocated with threats mainly on behalf of Rebekah herself. But having this disagreement made me think that my vows of 'Always and Forever' meant a whole lot more.

I paced around the room while Elena stood still looking eye to eye with Rebekah 

"Always and forever even though you've been locked in a coffin for ninety years?" Elena asked my sister in law. 

"We're vampires. Our emotions heightened. I'm stubborn, Elijah moral, Lizzie protective and Nik...he has no tolerance for those who disappoint him. Over a thousand years as a family we've all made that mistake at least once. I've made it several times." Rebekah snapped back her reply. I took a seat on the edge of Stefan's bed and let out a sigh. 

"Nik hates to admit that he has grown fond of me over the centuries, he would never do anything to jeopardize my existence. Heavens he knows that Elijah would hunt him to the ends of the earth if he did. I know in the past I've been a handful and Nik has used it to his advantage as you've clearly seen beforehand but at the end of the day Elena he is our family. How would you feel and act if it were your brothers life that hangs in the balance? Or Bonnie, Caroline or Alaric? You would fight till your last breath to try and save the people you love so why treat us any differently." I ranted at the doppelganger. 

"But you both still love him?" She asks us. Rebekah walks over to me and sits next to me I rested my head on her shoulder. 

"He's our brother. I'm immortal. Should I spend an eternity alone instead? You've heard the story, it's time to go. I don't know what you're up to, but I'm no longer playing along." Rebekah says almost reduced to tears. 

"I'm just looking for one reason why we shouldn't wake Mikael." Elena pleads. 

"And I've given you a thousand. But you will anyway. I know you want him to help kill my brother I'm not stupid." Rebekah cries out standing up from the bed. 

"It's no secret I want Klaus dead, he has a hold over Stefan's life, over mine" Elena shouts at her. 

"Wake Mikael at your own peril Elena. But know this you come after Niklaus or anyone else in my family, you no longer have me as an ally." I warned her from my seat.

Other then prying to get family history from us Elena and co had spent the days trying to get Stefan is humanity back to which so far has been unsuccessful whilst Rebekah and I had been planning homecoming, we never had the chance to experience one and well we thought why not live a little. We had just finished having our nails done whilst I was trying to find the perfect dress. Hoping to find that extra something to make it special as I was hoping to have Elijah freed by then. It was then the moment was completely ruined when Rebekah was in the middle pouring a drink for us both when Elena returned to annoy us. 

"I thought I told you to leave?" Rebekah snapped. 

"How do you know that Mikael killed your mother?" Elena asked her. 

"I do believe that is an inappropriate question to ask Elena." I told her looking the girl up and down. 

"Nik was there, he told me." Rebekah replied to her. 

"He lied to you."

I could tell from the tone of her voice that it was no lie and that she indeed did speak the truth, I knew all about the family history but even this news was shocking to me. 

"And how do you know this Elena?" I asked her. 

Elena handed Rebekah some photos. "The cave where you carved your family's names is covered in symbols. The story of your family. How your parents arrived, how they made peace, the spell that turned them into vampires, and this. This is the symbol for hybrid. It's a combination of the werewolf and the vampire symbol. And this is the one for your mother." Elena started to explain. 

"Her necklace..." Rebekah interrupted quietly. 

"And this is the story of her death. The hybrid killed the Original Witch. Not Mikael. Klaus." Elena carried on speaking. 

"No! NO! He wouldn't." Rebekah shouts, her breathing intensifies I rushed over to her holding her protecting her as best as I could while she was told this nightmare of a story. 

"She put the curse on him, made it so that he would be the only one of his kind, and then she rejected him. With the werewolf gene comes aggression and violence...when he turned, all of that was heightened. He killed her, Rebekah. And then he made up this entire lie about your father, so that he wouldn't lose you." Elena finishes finally pushing my sister to the edge. 

"DON'T YOU THINK THAT IT ENOUGH MISS GILBERT?" I shouted glaring at her. 

"What has Rebekah done to deserve this punishment? She has done nothing to you. I would understand if you found something to hurt me because lets face it. Like it or not I hurt you and your friends and when I look back now I'm not ashamed I actually enjoyed it so I have Niklaus to thank. All you have done is try and end my family, your attempts to break us and turn us against each other will seize to have an effect now I suggest you leave before I kill you myself." I threatened. 

I was no longer going to sit idly and watch as a human tries to dismember my family before it is reunited. "These mean nothing! They're just stupid drawings, done by stupid people who had no idea who my family was!" Rebekah shouted once more tears flowed down her face, she grabbed the photos from Elena's hands and ripped them up throwing them into the fireplace, all three of us stood there and watched them burn to ash. 

"Then why are you so upset?"

"Klaus killed your mother. He has a hold on you, on me, on everyone. He has for a thousand years. We have to make it stop!" The doppelganger continued and it was at that moment Rebekah snapped she rushed towards Elena and grabbed her by her throat pinning her to the wall, I could hear that her airways were restricted by her straining breath, moments later Rebekah calms down and lets Elena go she falls to her knees panting trying to catch her breath. 

"I suggest you leave Miss Gilbert." I said in a low tone. She does exactly that picking up her bearings and left the Salvatore House as quickly as she could. 

Once it was just us two Rebekah then just started to cry heavily she fell to the floor sobbing her heart out I sat down with her cradling my sister in attempts to comfort her.

Another day had passed and Rebekah had done a lot of thinking since then because she now knew the truth of what happened to her mother. But today was the day of Homecoming and I hoped that this school event would be enough to take her mind on wanting to murder her brother but that wasn't the case. 

Since that Mikael had returned to the land of the living I was a bit more tense then usual, memories of 1919 appeared in my subconscious, flashes of fire crying and screaming came before my eyes. 

The doppelganger, Salvatore brothers Rebekah and Mikael had all devised a plan to lure Niklaus back to Mystic Falls I had a gut feeling it wasn't going to work, I voiced my opinions to my father in law but was shot down immediately. So here I was sat on the sofa in the parlor with Mikael daggered on the floor while Stefan was on the phone talking to Nik. 

"I want to talk to Rebekah." I heard Nik say on the phone. Stefan hands the blonde Mikaelson the phone and she turns her back to us while she spoke. 

"Hello Nik." 

"Rebekah love, what's this I hear about Mikael's tragic run in with the dagger?" Nik replied. 

"It's true. He's finally out of our lives for good. I miss you. I'm miserable here." She says to him with a slight whine. 

"I'll be home soon."

"Good. I'll see you then, brother." Rebekah says and hangs up the phone and turns back to us. 

"This plan isn't going to work Bekah." I spat. 

"He bought it he's coming home Lizzie." She tells me I rolled my eyes at her and turned away. 

"Now- was that easy or what?" Damon announces looking smug with himself. 

"Lets just get this over with." Elena replies pulling the dagger from Mikael's chest. Everyone apart from me and Rebekah had left to do their own thing. I was still sat on the sofa in silence waiting for him to wake, while Rebekah was painting her toe nails. We then heard a gasp followed by a cough and Mikael sat up. 

"Finally, took you long enough." Rebekah said sarcastically. 

"Rebekah, Elizabeth." Mikael acknowledges looking at us both up and down. 

"Whatever fatherly rubbish you're thinking, save it. Nothing you say matters to me." Rebekah spat at him. 

"I see, where's my dagger" Mikael replies dryly.

"Elena has it." I tell him.

"So you can forget your plans to use it on me." Rebekah interrupts. 

"You were never what I was after." He says, I was unsure if this was just meant for his daughter or for me as well. 

"Nik was my family. If you were after him, you were after me." She cried out. 

"You chased us for years Mikael, we were never safe because you were always after us. And yet you still expect us to help you?" I question him. 

"He blinded you both, Rebekah he killed your mother!" Mikael responded. 

"I know what he did, and he'll pay for it with his life. But Nik was not born a killer, none of us were! You did this to us when you turned us into vampires! You destroyed our family. Not him." Rebekah shouted at her father once more and got up and left leaving me with Mikael. 

"Rebekah." He shouted after her. 

"It's probably for the best we leave her to cool down." I tell him. 

"You have every opportunity to leave and yet you do not why?" He asks me. 

"You intimidate me Mikael I won't lie there, but if it were my day to die I would rather it be by your hands then by Rebekah, I've come to learn how she is and know the times she wishes to be alone." I say with a chuckle. 

“He’s blinded you too, how many times has he taken Elijah from you?”

“Please don’t use Elijah to bring me to your side. Rebekah is the only reason I’m still even here. I think truly deep down none of your children could kill each other, I’m just here to support my family.”

"You may not be family by blood, but I can sense you have made an impact." Mikael replies. 

"Well you've certainly changed your tune from all those years ago." I tell him and get up from the sofa and leave to get some fresh air outside.

Me and Rebekah had started getting ready for homecoming, we were sat in Stefan's room while Bekah was doing her makeup and I had a curling wand to give her some perfect curls to go with her dress. 

"Are you sure I can't convince you to come?" She pleaded. 

"I'm going to have a quite night in Bek's, there happens to be a bottle of wine with my name on." I tell her with a smile. 

"It's your night anyway, go enjoy it." I say to her as I finished her hair and applied some hairspray to keep the curls in place. 

"Getting a head start huh?" Elena asks entering the room. 

"Embarrassing truth? This is my first high school dance." Rebekah admits to the doppelganger. 

I unplugged the curling wand and packed up the hairbrushes and hairspray and left for a moment to place them back into the room that I was currently staying in. I quickly headed downstairs into the kitchen to crack open that bottle of wine and poured some into a glass, placing the bottle into the fridge I went back to see how my sister looked but to my horror I saw Rebekah with a dagger in her back. 

"What have you done!" I shouted. 

"I couldn't leave anything to chance Lizzie, I'm so sorry." Elena starts to speak and then the all to familiar feeling of my neck being snapped happened once more and my body fell to the floor.

I woke up hours later, grabbing hold of my neck I saw Rebekah's phone flashing but no Rebekah. With one hand rubbing my sore neck I swiped through to listen to the voicemail left by her older brother.

"Rebekah, where are you? Pick up the phone, darling. Daddy is dead. It's time for a family reunion." 

Quickly scrolling through my sisters phone to find Nik's number I dialed it but it was engaged. I tried again and again to finally he answered. 

"Rebekah love took your time." 

"Wrong sister Nik we've got a problem." I reply. 

"Your not the only one meet me in the town square." He said with a huff and hung up. 

I stuffed the phone in my pocket and fled the house. Rushing over to the town as fast as I could I saw Nik lent against this large removal truck. 

"Is...Elijah?" I started. 

"He was love, but now thanks to Stefan Salvatore." Nik started to say to me and I barged past him to lift the door to show an empty truck, I gasped and covered my mouth with my hands. Tears flowed down my face but they were not tears of sadness more anger. 

"Where is he?" I shouted. 

"He was in here love I promise you, we will get him back." Nik says to me softly bringing me into a hug to soothe my cries. 

"Oh I know we will Nik." I said in a low voice sniffling. Nik had taken me back to the new Mikaelson home it was still being renovated hence why there were quite a few workers around the place. I sat on a sofa whilst Nik poured us both a drink. 

"So what happened? I understand Mikael is dead?" I ask. 

"Stefan is out for revenge and frankly I believe hes taken the wrong barging chip." Nik replies handing me my drink. 

"We're going to have to work together on this one love." He adds. 

Taking a sip of my drink. "I'm well aware Nik, I'll forgive you for what you had done but I'll never forget it. Besides I'm going to have to tap into that mind frame to make sure Stefan understands about returning our family." I tell him. 

"Now that is a spectacle I'm looking forward to see." He says with a chuckle. 

"I mean it Nik, Elijah has been daggered long enough. There was a reason that till death do us part was left out in our wedding vows. If Mr Salvatore wishes to try and act in this petty scheme to get back at you then he will seriously be overwhelmed when I join in on the fun. If I have to kill him I will and then you can chew on the remains." I say to him as I down the remains of my drink. 

"Back at with the dog jokes I see love, I've missed you sister." Nik replies with a grin. 

"Yes well you can be a complete arse Niklaus but I wouldn't have you any other way, now lets get our family back." I tell him with a smile and get up from my seat.

Me and Nik headed over to the Grill followed closely behind was one of Nik's new hybrids called Tony as we entered I was arm in arm with my brother we saw Damon and Elena by the dartboard. As we headed over my ears picked up the end of their conversation 

"Noted. See if I can make any improvements." Damon says to the doppelganger. 

They see us and look over. 

"Don't mind us." Nik says with a smirk. 

"Klaus, Lizzie." Elena says with shudder. 

"You've lost every right to call me that." I snap at her. 

"You gonna do this in the Grill? In front of everyone? It's a little beneath you, don't you think?" Damon says to Nik his voice filled with sarcasm. 

"I don't know what you are talking about. I just came down to my local pub to grab a drink with my lovely sister in law and my mate." Nik says with his continuous smirk. 

"Tony love get a round in will you." I say to him sweetly. 

With that the hybrid leaves and heads to the bar. "I'm surprised you stuck around town long enough for happy hour." Damon replies. 

"My sister seems to be missing. Need to sort that out first." Nik says. 

"Cute blonde bombshell, psycho. Shouldn't be too hard to find." Damon adds. 

"Then there's the case of my missing husband." I added flicking my hair over my shoulder. 

"Truth is I've grown to rather like your little town. Think I might fancy a home here. Oh I imagine you're wondering how does this is affect you. The answer is, not in the slightest. As long as I get what I want and everyone behaves themselves you can go on living your little lives however you choose. You have my word." Nik tells them. 

"What more could you possibly want?" Elena asks us. 

"Well funny you mention that Elena, perhaps the location of Stefan? I mean he does have something that belongs to us and we intend on getting them back." I say with sass. 

"Stefan skipped town the second he saved your ass." Damon says to Nik. 

"Well that is a shame." Nik replies. I noticed some darts were on a table I picked one up and threw it towards the dartboard with force it landed in the bulls-eye I flashed a smile at the elder Salvatore and Elena. 

"Damon what you seem to lack is the Stefan stole from Niklaus and myself, we simply want what is ours returned and no-one has to get hurt." I said sweetly. 

"That sounds like a Mikaelson and Stefan problem." Elena replied to me. Nik and myself take a step towards the doppelganger however Damon intervenes. 

"Well this is us broadening the scope, sweetheart." Nik says with a chuckle as he takes a step back. I on the other hand stayed still I glared at Damon. 

"Come on love lets forget about our drinks." Nik says to to break the silence as he gestures for me to follow him out of the Grill.

I ended up going back to the mansion with Nik and I poked around just to be nosy. "Never gathered you as a hoarder Nik" I tease as I was going through some boxes. 

"I don't hoard, I'm a collector love there's a difference." He replies with a laugh. 

"Could of fooled me brother, any way so plans on finding Stefan Salvatore?" I ask him tapping my lower lip with my forefinger. 

"Well I thought about going to speak with Damon see if he can shed any light on finding our coffins." He replies. 

"Coming love?" He asks offering a hand. 

"I'd be delighted" I reply with my signature smile.  

[ganymedesclock]

Honestly something I think is really interesting about the colony? I’ve called it a vampire story but it really is, down to a lot of the sort of classical hallmarks of the genre.

The Altean colony is set up to look like a beautiful, idyllic pastoral village surrounded by the forest. Everything’s nice there. There’s a local reclusive nobleman, rarely seen by the locals, who keeps to himself but he’s charming and everyone regards him well.

Now and then this noble takes people with him.

They aren’t seen again.

Because Lotor drains the life out of them behind closed doors.

Bandor returns to the colony, in the woods, at night. There’s that scene of Romelle hiding from Lotor- again, in the woods at night. This is one of the only nocturnal shots of the colony we see.

Once again, we have this vampire metaphor with the galra royal family, and it’s just a lot more literal than we’ve been led to believe before. Lotor’s not actively biting these people on the neck and drinking their blood, but, end result? Motives? Exactly the same. He has this population, and he’s feeding on them.

It even furthers what I’ve talked about before, that Lotor and Zarkon effectively represent very different conceptualizations of what a vampire is, with Lotor embodying the “modern” supernatural romance vampire, and Zarkon as the “classical” gothic horror vampire.

Zarkon’s consumption of people is glaringly obvious. His empire is festooned in people in rags, he has a huge cadre of functionally, other vampires. He hides nothing- will walk around with tubes of quintessence hanging out of his back while he’s recovering. Of course people die to feed him- because he’s a completely willing and knowing plague onto the universe. He’s better than them, he’s the immortal here.

He has zero guilt and zero shame. All mortals he contends with are his food, and from that he’ll occasionally promote them to “entertainment” or “assets”. At the end of the day, still livestock.

Lotor? Lotor feels guilty.

As soon as he realizes Romelle is in the room and processes what it means, he’s horrified. He flat-out says “I know what you must think of me” trying to negotiate with them and his counterpoint is basically just, that he genuinely wants to do good and that he meant what he said to Allura before.

And that’s frankly, vampire romance genre at its finest: the tragedy of the revelation that Lotor got this far by, in no uncertain terms, eating people (and over the course of his lifespan, that number’s added up to a pretty high total if we look at the number of names on the memorial and Romelle’s words) is in part framed in what it does for his love life. He and Allura love each other, but Lotor’s a vampire, he’s killed people just like Allura, and she can’t forgive him for that.

Which is totally understandable. But the heartbreak, the drama, the point of how Lotor’s terrified, outraged by the idea of, becoming like his unrepentantly parasitic father sets this up with very particular conventions.

Allura flat-out had herself a vampire romance. That’s what happened.

Now, I think the use of these conventions shed some interesting light on Lotor’s situation, and his likely motivations. Romelle says the decision to make the colony happened “generations ago” but she still describes it as very separate from the colony’s inception.

It’s very likely Lotor was getting his “food” somewhere else, and never originally conceptualized the colony as a source of energy.

But something happened. Those other sources ran dry. It’s likely Haggar, either directly or through Zarkon, pulled energy away from Lotor.

And Lotor knows the only way he’s ever going to fix the empire’s vampiric problem without going Van Helsing on himself and most of the galra, condemning the survivors- if there are any- to a vulnerable half-existence, is if he basically can get his hands on the quintessence field- the guilt-free, no-predation-necessary, infinite fountain of blood.

He needs energy to get there.

So his options are, die, become something he doesn’t want to, or compromise his morals in a really bad way and turn to the people who would patiently, obligingly follow him anywhere.

The vampire starves, and the neighbors start to look really, really tasty.

But Lotor’s still a moral person. He’s a good enough person to feel revolted and ashamed of what he’s doing. So he does something we never see Zarkon do- he buries it. Everything about it. And he’s horrified of people finding those skeletons. Again, seeing Romelle among his allies while they’re all accusative and doing the scifantasy equivalent of readying the stakes and garlic prompts undiluted terror from Lotor but his response is to try to appeal to Allura.

Again, bumping Lotor to “romance vampire” away from the gothic horror sensibilities of his father (even when the environment and setup of the colony evoke the latter)- he’s less focused on the peril this poses to him on being “outed” as a vampire and vastly more focused on Allura’s either rejection or forgiveness. When she rejects him, that sinks him, twice.

The first time, none of the weapons pointed at the paladins are what take Lotor down- it’s just Allura. Allura tosses Lotor, and Lotor stays down. He doesn’t wake up again except to face Haggar.

The second time, during the standoff, Lotor order the generals to hold their fire and repeatedly tries to appeal to them. It’s Allura’s word that makes or breaks that negotiation, and that’s not because Lotor’s a blameless sheep.

It furthers the dynamic we’ve seen before, that Lotor’s not emptily manipulating Allura, but that his feelings for her cause him to repeatedly make his vulnerability available to Allura. And in the conflict between them, we see this flexed in practice. Lotor’s put a huge amount of power in Allura’s hands, and when, feeling hurt and betrayed herself, she uses it to hurt him right back, that has a colossal destabilizing effect on basically everything Lotor’s standing on.

Lotor’s breakdown is instrumental to his losing the generals’ support, which, since this is Voltron, Hunk’s point about how it’s now four-on-one (and eventually five-on-one) is completely true.

Lotor’s literally a supernatural being- an immortal, a vampire- by the lore of the story. But Allura, not just through her own developing magic, but through her relationship with Lotor, is the one who holds the power here. Her approval or rejection makes or breaks him because he’s fascinated with her, he adores her.

It’s a complete fundamental deconstruction of the predatory way every other incarnation of Lotor went after Allura, where Allura had to, one way or another, fight to retain her autonomy in the presence of a pursuing monster. And again, this is kind of a vampire romance thing- as in, the power fantasy of a woman being able to tame a powerful and dangerous creature.

The colony and Allura’s completely understandable reaction to Lotor are functionally set-pieces in this vampire romance. It paints Lotor as a shade of gray. We’ve seen his values and we understand them. We see what he’s dealing with and we can sympathize. At the end of the day, though, he’s not a proper squeaky clean hero like Allura is.

Lotor felt backed into a corner and the only way out was to compromise his own morals and sate that bloodthirsty appetite. Other alternatives may have been open to him, but they would probably require trust, or otherwise abetting power- things that Lotor can’t believe in because from his perspective the only way things won’t hurt him is if he’s strong enough to hold their teeth away from his throat himself.

And he’s aware of it! Heck, if you look at the substance of his harsh words on Alfor, he’s actively self-conscious about it! We have to remember Lotor’s repeatedly expressed deep admiration for Alfor and that slips through even at his absolute worst- he’s eager to see if Sincline holds up against Alfor’s legacy, so even after he insists he’s better than Alfor he’s using Alfor’s handiwork as a metric.

So Lotor sneering about how if it had been up to Alfor and Alfor’s strategy, all of the Alteans would have died, it’s kind of his furious, hurt thesis that if it weren’t for him, the vampire, who’s yes taken the selfish option and bloodied his own hands, chosen his own preservation over staying true to his values, they wouldn’t have gotten here. 

And again, that frames it back to... there’s this fundamental difference where Zarkon makes cruel choices out of a lack of sympathy. Why should he care what anyone else feels, why should he care who has to suffer to fill his hunger? Zarkon effectively chose to be a vampire. He said “damn my friends, damn the universe, I’ll take my wife to the rift if it kills me” and we never really see Zarkon disappointed in the result.

Lotor didn’t choose. Lotor got handed this stick before he was born by Zarkon’s decisions and that’s the thematic motifs here- that Lotor got saddled against his will with this hunger, so his “fall” isn’t set to the same metrics Zarkon was. He doesn’t have a perfectly good opportunity to put the knife down and walk away and live out his natural mortal life because eating other people is unappealing to him.

Because of the world Zarkon’s created, because of what Zarkon did to him from the cradle, Lotor’s option is to compromise himself or compromise somebody else. And we’ve known from the start Lotor is a scared, vulnerable person. We know that push comes to shove, his own survival is a very powerful motivator because he feels like it’s constantly in peril.

But he made that choice. He made the decision to keep living, keep chasing his ambitions, knowing exactly at what kind of cost it would come, and this fuels a line of guilt that he doesn’t feel worthy of Allura- Allura, whose parents, who the world around her, provided what she needed even when she lost everything else. Allura, who hasn’t faced the prospect of starving or resorting to other people in order to survive. 

Remember how easily he gave up on Oriande because it rejected him once? Remember how he didn’t actually expect to get in there at all, and- according to what he tells Ezor and Zethrid, was sure that he’d need someone of Allura’s purity to get in there at all?

Believe me, I’m as upset by Lotor’s breakdown here as anybody else, but the colony is something that adds up perfectly with what we know of Lotor as a person, who he is, his relationship with Allura. This is drama you’d absolutely slide off the shelf in the supernatural teen romance section of the library- well, if you found a well-written teen romance.

(The fact that I ship Lotura when I don’t even like a lot of other vampire romance stories should probably tell you something about the writing and my esteem)

[nijjhar]

Luke 9v18-22:- As the Jewish people were "Saltless" compared with the fa... Luke 9v18-22:- As the Jewish people were "Saltless" compared with the faithful Samaritans, Jesus discouraged them not to tell others about Him https://youtu.be/6ytkstB6FXs Holy Gospel of our Supernatural Father Elohim, Allah, Parbrahm, etc., delivered by the First Anointed Christ, which in Punjabi we call Satguru Jesus of the highest living God Elohim that dwells in His Most Beautiful Temple of God, our physical body created not by the human hands but by the demiurge Potter, the Lord of the Nature Yahweh, Brahma, Khudah, etc. represented by Angel Prophet Elijah (My god is Yahweh) and it is called Harmandir or “Emmanuel” according to Saint Luke 9,18-22. Once when Jesus was meditating and not praying as God lives in His Temple called Emmanuel in solitude, and His Talmidim, seeker of His Word = Oral Torah and not the once-born students of the dead letters as you have in the Universities and Colleges today – Matt 12v43-45 called the disciples, were with him, he asked them, "Who do the crowds say that I am?" Here Jesus want us to know how much spiritual knowledge the students of the Rabbis had as compared with the Gentile and the Samaritan Rabbis reflected in the Samaritan Woman who vetted Jesus in the holy spirit, which is “common sense”. They said in reply, "John the Baptist; others, Elijah; still others, 'One of the ancient prophets has arisen but none of them recognised Him as the Samaritan Woman at well did by proclaiming that you are a Prophet but when Christ comes, He will tell us everything from the very basic roots as I tell you that the Jesus’ Hebrew name Yahshua is made up of Yah = Yahweh, the creator of Nature that you see or called “Potter” and Shua = Shiva = the Primordial Adam, the Second Adam. His Word satisfies your heart and brings in extreme Gospel Happiness. Still, it is not appreciated by all but by those who are pre-destined.'" Then he said to them, "But who do you say that I am?" Even the once-born Peter said in reply, "The Messiah of God as the once-born righteous to the Law Nicodemus also knew." He rebuked them because there are no customers faithful to Abraham and Yahweh there but among the Gentile and the Samaritans were and they appreciated His Message and so, directed them not to tell this to anyone otherwise they were throwing Pearls before swine who can turn around and harm them – Paul and Silas on proclaiming the Gospel Truth, they were badly beaten and ended up in jail. He said, "The Son of Man must suffer from the hands of the unfaithful to Yahweh and Abraham Saltless people, Jews outwardly, greatly and be rejected by the elders spiritually blind in ego, the chief priests, and the scribes dead in letters as these University Professors are today, and be killed and on the third day be raised." Saint Thomas went to the South India where people were of Salt faithful to their tribal fathers and they appreciated the Gospel Truth. Over there St. Thomas was known as Christ and so were His Workers, Talmidim, the Christs and not the Christians of the forbidden Jewish Leaven the Bible. But the local Brahmins told St. Thomas that you are confusing our people as to what applies to flesh, the moral natural laws of tit-for-tat just the opposite to the spirit. Holy spirit, common sense, shatters the fetters of the dead letters, the Holy Books. If we have One God, our Supernatural Father of our souls, then there should be one Faith. In Christianity, Jesus said One Fold called Church of God headed by One Shepherd, our Bridegroom Christ Jesus/Christ = Satguru Nanak Dev Ji, the Second coming of Jesus. Thus, Jesus was born and Jesus died on the Cross and rose on the Third Day and NOT CHRIST, THE TITLE. Greatest Blasphemers and Killers Blair and Bush being considered by Anti-Christ Bishops for Nobel Peace Prize. Nobel Peace Prize should rather go to Assange and the Iraqi Journalist who threw both his shoes at the hypocrite Bush in Iraq. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qHdTpTXHvE&list=PL0C8AFaJhsWz7HtQEhV91eAKugUw73PW1 Christ Jesus was killed by the Temple High Priest Hypocrite/Blasphemer against the Holy Spirit and so are these Bush and Blair who at the backing of Jewish people in the USA destroyed one country after the other starting with the cradle of Humanity Iraq, the Land of the forefather of the Chosen People who are no more faithful to Abraham but has become sons of the Highest Satan Al-Djmar Al-Aksa. Blair and Bush blasphemies against Holy Spirit are bearing Fruit in economic chaos created by Virus https://youtu.be/0WBYOmpDuCs American Jews are today – http://www.gnosticgospel.co.uk/GrimReaper.htm destroying one country after the other, in order that the scripture might be fulfilled. My ebook has been published by Kindle. ASIN: B01AVLC9WO For a full description, please visit my website:- www.gnosticgospel.co.uk/Rest.htm ONE GOD ONE FAITH:- www.gnosticgospel.co.uk/bookfin.pdf John's baptism:- www.gnosticgospel.co.uk/johnsig.pdf Trinity:- www.gnosticgospel.co.uk/trinity.pdf

[delwray-blog]

THE “POWERS OF DARKNESS”

“Christianity today is Anti-Christianity to that which existed in the 1st Century”

Scream as loud as you please but you’re going to read the truth in this document – Read and instant fear should enrage you!

THE “POWERS OF DARKNESS”

“For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” Eph. 6:12.

Just who are these “Powers of Darkness”?

Just who are these leaders of darkness? Jesus called them, “MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH” Rev. 17:5; “…The Synagogue of Satan” Rev. 2:9, Rev. 3:9; “The Powers of Darkness” Eph. 6:12; and the “Mystery of Iniquity” 2 Thess. 2:7.

This treaty is penned to show who these are: the “rulers of the darkness of this world”,” the spiritual wickedness in high places”. It is my purpose to make known that the Pharisees of yesterday are the Leaders of Jewry today!

Hitler and the Nazi’s may have murdered 6,000,000 Jews in 1945, while in 1917 during the Bolshevik Revolution the Jews in Red Russia slaughtered more than 20,000,000 Christians, promising to do the same here in America. Under Stalin, married to a Jewish and his gulags, Lenin, Trotsky and Engels, all Jews, murdered more than 100,000,000, “million” I say, of their own people. Khruschev came over here and said, “They, the Communist Jews were going to bury America”.

Hillary Clinton who just ran on the Democratic ticket for President comes from a long line of Jewish ancestors and promised if elected she would do away with Christianity in America. Her husband Bill Clinton during his presidency his entire cabinet was all Jews. The Jews are running this country and our current President Donald Trump is under attack from the news media owned by the Jews.

I am NOT an Anti-Semitic I am an Anti-PHARISEE and an Anti-Talmudic Jew Christ hater. You can scream as loud as you please but you’re going to read the truth here.

The Conspiracy that turned Russia into the World Center of Atheism and is doing the same in America!

The Jewish Hatred for Christ and Christianity:

"And when it was day, certain of the Jews banded together, and bound themselves under a curse, saying that they would neither eat nor drink till they had killed Paul. And they were more than forty which had made this conspiracy." Acts 23:12-13. The same forces which crucified Jesus Christ two-thousand years ago are today out to destroy Christianity in America and kill every single Christian living here. They’re out to crucify His body, the Church. Many Christian leaders have not yet realized it, but Christianity is in the grip of a life and death struggle at the present time. International Jewish Communism, which has already undermined all nations, firmly expects to exterminate all Christians. What the Cause of Christ has endured in Russia the past many years surpasses its suffering at the hands of bloody Nero. This exposition is to show that the present-day Jewish Pharisees are the greatest enemy facing the United States today.

The Jewish Assault on Christianity Christianity is passing through a crisis the like of which it has never faced before. Whether or not it possesses sufficient moral and spiritual resistance to survive remains to be seen. Paul said the Christian's instruments of battle were not physical: "For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds." The same thought is emphasized in the supernaturally inspired words to Zerubbabel: "Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord of hosts." The strength of the Church is in its ability to influence the hearts and lives of men by the demonstration and proclamation of divine truth. Questions like the following constantly haunt this writer: "Will the Church be able to demonstrate sufficient power to triumph over its foes in the present crisis? Or has it become so weakened by apostasy and pernicious teachings that it will have to be drenched in its own blood before it can be brought to its senses?" Persecution has always had a purifying effect upon the Church. Like the individual saints of which it is composed, its "strength is made perfect in weakness." Unless the Christian forces of the western nations come under a new baptism of old-time spiritual power, the Church will go down and Soviet Atheism will come up. The Russian Empire was destroyed by the Red hordes, many years ago, because it did not possess sufficient spiritual vitality to resist the onslaught.

The Greek Orthodox Church, which governed the religious life and thought of Russia, was a cold, dead, pagan institution. It lacked life, emotion, and creative energy. Consequently, it yielded to the first attack of organized Atheism. It’s gorgeous temples have been turned into museums, brothels, and centers of entertainment and vice. Its wealth has been confiscated. Its priests and other leaders have been put to death. Its members have been slaughtered by the millions. Church life is a memory of the past. Now let us turn our attention toward Germany. Next, to the British, the German people are the most religious people in Europe. Protestantism was cradled there. Out of a sixty-seven million population, sixty million Germans are today identified with some kind of a Christian Church. For several years, the Moscow conspirators focused their attacks upon Germany. It looked for a time as if the Country was doomed. But by degrees, the Church began to assert its moral and spiritual strength. Finally, the deep, underlying principles of Christian truth manifested on the surface with the result, that by a single stroke, Communism was destroyed. Vibrant soul-sustaining evangelism is the only dependable antidote for Soviet Atheism. The same underground organization which produced the French Revolution is responsible for the present wave of international Communism. The latter part of the eighteenth century witnessed the destruction of France and brought about the “Great Ejection”. The same sinister agencies were at work across the English Channel in Great Britain. It is a matter of historical record, admitted by the best historians, that the revival of John Wesley saved England from the fate of France. If the Church of America continues to lose its spiritual moorings, it requires no prophet to determine what the future will bring forth. An old philosopher once said, to know a thing well one must understand its first cause. It is unpleasant to realize that a certain element of apostate Jewry is behind the turmoil of this dark hour and the present Soviet persecution through which the Church of Jesus Christ is passing.

The Jews and the Church In the dialect of the street, the Jew is sometimes called a "Christ hater." The spirit of Judaism is one of direct antagonism to the principles of Christianity. It is not difficult to understand why an apostate people, who have rejected their Messiah, should continue in spiritual darkness and despise everything that bears His name. No sooner had the tomb of Christ been sealed than the tormenters set out to destroy His followers. This assault has continued straight through the centuries until now it has come into fruition in the form of international Jewish Communism. In the first twelve chapters of the book of Acts, five specific persecutions, sponsored by Jews against the infant Christian Church, are recorded. Failing to blot the new religious conception from the face of the earth by putting its Leader to death, they invented every conceivable scheme for torturing and murdering those who pledged allegiance to His plan for redeeming the world from the curse of sin. The Jews regarded Christianity as being an illegitimate child of Judaism. Therefore, in their hatred, they believed it to be their solemn duty to stamp it out. After the divine visitation at Pentecost, so many thousands of Jews were converted that the leaders became alarmed. One thing stood in their way, the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Had His body remained in the tomb, they would have found it easy to combat the new Faith which had suddenly sprung into existence. But with the resurrection being discussed on every side, they found themselves confronted with an insurmountable difficulty. When first faced with the fact of the empty tomb they did not hesitate to resort to deliberate falsehoods.

"And when they were assembled with the elders and had taken counsel, they gave large money unto the soldiers, saying say His disciples came by night and stole him away while we slept. And if this comes to the governor's ears, we will persuade him, and secure you. So they took the money, and did as they were taught: and this saying is commonly reported among the Jews until this day." The first few months of the Church's history witnessed five distinct persecutions. What the Cause of Christ has endured at the hands of Jews, through the centuries, far surpasses anything the Jewish people have suffered from Christians. The attitude of the Jews toward the early Church reminds us that there would be no Christianity in the world today had Paul and others not taken the Gospel message to the Gentiles. First persecution: Acts 4:1-22. A pitiful beggar, a man born a cripple, was placed near the gates of the Jerusalem temple every day to beg for alms. On a certain occasion, as Peter and John were about to enter, the poor, helpless creature stretched forth a dirty, bony arm and pleaded for a coin. "Silver and gold have I none," said Peter, "but such as I have give I thee: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk." Instantly the resurrection life of Christ smote the recipient of divine mercy and he jumped to his feet "walking, and leaping, and praising God." The man was more than forty years of age and had therefore been a familiar object on the streets of Jerusalem for years. This miracle caused a great stir throughout the city. Large crowds of curious people gathered around the apostles and the healed beggar. Peter was quick to take advantage of the opportunity and turned the occasion into a sermon. "Why marvel ye at this?" he asked, and then explained that a far more wonderful miracle had occurred a short time before in Jerusalem, namely the resurrection of Christ from the grave. When the report of this healing reached the treacherous Jews, their minds got busier than ever. They began devising new plans for putting an end to everything that was being done in the name of Christ. Their first thought was to deny that the miracle had been performed. Then they realized that this was useless because the man was so well known. At that moment he was rejoicing, praising God, testifying to his deliverance and telling everybody what had happened. "And we cannot deny it," mourned the Jews who would have lied to discredit the story if it would have advanced their selfish purposes. The members of the Sanhedrin came together and the little band of Christians was forced to appear before them. A torrent of abuse was turned loose upon the trembling group until finally Peter, "filled with the Holy Ghost," became bold. As spokesman for the group, he made it clear that the Christians proposed to obey God rather than man. Had it not been that the mobs were at that time favorable toward the apostles because of the miracle which had been performed, the Jewish leaders would have no doubt put the entire body of believers to death. Second persecution: Acts 5:17-42. "Many signs and wonders" were wrought among the people by the apostles. All manner of diseases were healed. But the Jews could see no good in any of this relief of human suffering because it did not come through the narrow, selfish channels of their bigoted nationalism. The leaders agreed to the use of physical weapons in their attempt to destroy spiritual power, the same as Communists are doing today in trying to exterminate Christianity by killing Christians. Repeated acts of supernatural intervention preserved the early Church. Without divine assistance, it would have perished. These early miracles confirmed the words of the Founder that the gates of hell would not be able to prevail against the Church.

The Jews "laid hands on the apostles and put them in the common prison. But the angel of the Lord by night opened the prison doors, and brought them forth." Next morning when the Jewish senate convened and messengers were sent to bring the apostles for trial, it was discovered that unknown to the jailors, they had escaped and were at that very hour preaching in the area of the temple. Jerusalem was in turmoil by this time. Had the officials dared, they would have killed the Christians without a legal trial. When the saints appeared before the tribunal they were told that they had been previously warned not to teach in the name of Jesus. "Ye have filled Jerusalem with your doctrine, and intend to bring this man's blood upon us," said the high priest. From this, it is evident that the apostles had been denouncing the Jews and charging them with the responsibility for Christ's death. Here we find the leaders complaining about His blood being upon them, forgetting apparently their previous utterance: "His blood be on us, and on our children." It is to the credit of our spiritual ancestors that they were able to fill a whole city with the doctrines of Christianity in the face of such defiant opposition. Peter finally dared to shout: "The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew and hanged on a tree." Next, he called upon his persecutors to repent of their sins. We read that this "cut them to the heart." Who was this upstart that he should have the audacity to rebuke them! When they were almost ready to demand the lives of the apostles, Gamaliel, a tolerant member of the Sanhedrin, lifted a warning voice. If the new cult was not of God, he declared that it would come to naught and fall by its own weight. "But if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it; lest haply ye be found even to fight against God." At length, this line of common sense reasoning prevailed, and the passions of the leaders cooled a bit. The result was, instead of killing the apostles they were given another warning and a severe flogging. This form of punishment was cruel, brutal, cowardly and unjust. But even though bitter and painful to the flesh, it caused rejoicing to the spirits of the faithful few. As the wounds healed they "rejoiced that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for His name." The only way the Jews had of striking at the Christ Whom they hated was to injure His followers; they availed themselves of this opportunity. Boldly and properly disregarding their illegal judges, the Christians kept on preaching Christ and reminding the Jews of their crimes against the government of God. Third persecution: Acts 7:54-60. The blood of martyrs began flowing in the same year that the Lord ascended into heaven. The Jews' first victim after Christ was a man named Stephen, whose primary crime was a belief in the deity of the Son of God. This was regarded as blasphemy. The story of the murder of Stephen is one of the saddest in all the history of the Church. It is significant that a Hellenist, rather than an apostle, should have become the first Christian martyr. Stephen was accused of three things: blaspheming God, setting aside the Old Testament, and belittling the Temple. Each of these charges was untrue. Even while lying witnesses were being introduced against him, the members of the Jewish council saw his countenance light up with a spiritual glow like "the face of an angel." After listening to the charges, the priests asked their helpless victim: "Are these things so?" But instead of devoting himself to an answer of questions which everyone knew to be based upon falsehoods, Stephen entered into a discussion of Israelites’ history and closed by rebuking his judges for their hypocrisy. He declared that their devotion to God, the Law, and the Temple, was hypocritical. Here are his words: "Ye stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye. Which of the prophets have not your father’s persecuted? And they have slain them which showed before of the coming of the Just One; of whom ye have been now the betrayers and murderers." Thus Stephen laid bare the full measure of their guilt. The blood of the Son of God was upon their heads; they had ignored the miracles which testified of His deity; they had rejected the Pentecostal program of the new Church; they had also spurned the wooing of the Holy Spirit. Before God, they stood condemned, and judgment was sure to overtake them! Taking no thought of his own safety, Stephen shot his words of truth, like barbed arrows, into the hard hearts of his merciless tormentors. As he spoke, the Jewish leaders yelled and screamed to drown his words. They stopped their ears with their fingers to avoid hearing the truth about themselves. Like serpents, they hissed their poison at the courageous Christian. They rushed upon him with one accord. In their madness they dragged him outside the city, removing their outer garments as they ran. With stones, they pelted the body of the first Christian martyr until his life ebbed away. This execution was illegal because the matter was not submitted to the Roman Governor. Emulating the blessed Saviour, Stephen cried with a loud voice: "Lord lay not this sin at their charge." "And when he had said this, he fell asleep." Fourth persecution: Acts 8:1-3. The first three persecutions were spontaneous and did not result from deliberate planning. There had been no coordination of effort. Events had transpired so rapidly that there had been no time to sit down and quietly work out a concerted plan of attack. But the spilling of Stephen's blood seemed to whet the Jewish appetite for more Christian suffering. From that hour, nothing but a terrible pogrom could possibly satisfy them. The sight of blood, the appearance of the first deadly wound in the flesh of a believer, seemed to stir all their criminal instincts. They came to the conclusion that an organized effort was imperative if the new Faith was to be put down. Up until that time, their attempts to suppress the truth had proved ineffective. In searching for a persecutor who would be both cunning and brutal they selected a brilliant young rabbi by the name of Saul from the city of Tarsus. It will be recalled that this was the young man who had guarded the coats of those who stoned Stephen. Saul stood grinning at the contortions of the martyr squirming and writhing in death agonies, under the barrage of rocks which were heaped upon him. Jesus told his followers to go everywhere proclaiming the glad tidings. This was done following the Pentecostal harvest feast which brought Jews to Jerusalem from all parts of the civilized world. Those who accepted the Gospel message, on that great occasion, returned to their various communities to kindle spiritual fires. Unwittingly, in the fourth persecution, the Jews contributed to the success of this very plan of evangelizing because when Saul began scattering believers, driving them from their homes, forcing them into exile, "persecuting them from city to city," every such Christian became an evangelist. Until this time, the activities of the Christians had been confined for the most part, to the city of Jerusalem and its immediate environs, although a skeleton of Church organization was set up reaching into other areas, resulting from the embers which blew in all directions after the experience Pentecost. "As for Saul, he made havoc of the church, entering into every house, and haling men and women, committed them to prison. Therefore they that were scattered abroad went everywhere preaching the word." The very name Saul became a terror to the early Christians because of the heartless methods which he used. He and his helpers were happiest when they could rush into a house and catch a little group of believers in the act of worshipping, they would kill and wound some, banish others, and torture still others in ways too numerous and terrible for words. The irony of this organized attempt on the part of the Jews to blot the cause of Christ out of existence was the fact that their own ringleader got gloriously converted on the road to Damascus and became the greatest missionary and evangelist the world has ever known. But, in later years, Paul never forgave himself, nor was he ever able to erase the memories of his early attacks upon the little Church, which he came to love so dearly and for which he finally sacrificed his life. Fifth persecution: Acts 12:1-19. The next spasm of Jewish terror, mentioned in the early part of the book of Acts, was directed against Peter. This persecution is of particular importance because it introduces a new element in the Jewish plan of destroying Christianity. It reveals the scheme, which was continued for hundreds of years, influencing Gentile rulers to do their dirty work for them. During the first few centuries of Church history, when the pagans slaughtered Christians by the tens of thousands, a careful study will show that time and again the pogroms were precipitated by powerful Jews who were able to maneuver things from behind the scenes. They simply used pagans to carry out their crimes against Christians in the same manner that the player moves chessmen on the board. St. Justin said in the middle of the second century: "The Jews were behind all the persecutions of the Christians. They wandered through the country, everywhere hating and undermining the Christian faith." Tertullian said about the same time: "The Jews formed the breeding ground of all anti-Christian action." A plain example of Jews causing unbelieving Gentiles to destroy Christians is to be seen in this, the fifth persecution. We read that Herod the king has James put to death by the sword because of Jewish influences being brought to bear upon his throne. This ruler was the grandson of Herod the Great who murdered the babes of Bethlehem after the birth of Christ. James was one of the three, with Peter and John, who enjoyed the sweetest possible fellowship with the Lord. No details are given in the Scriptures about the killing of James. And yet underneath the simple statement, deep anguish and sympathy may be felt. Then the next verse shows that the wicked king had planned to make away with Peter in the same way. "And because he saw it pleased the Jews, he proceeded further to take Peter also. And when he apprehended him, he put him in prison ... Peter, therefore, was kept in prison: but prayer was made without ceasing of the church unto God for him." The Jews desired a public execution of Peter. They wanted his death to be viewed by all because he was one of the principal leaders of the despised Christians. This would give them a chance to gloat over their ability to wrap Gentile monarchs around their fingers. It was quite an achievement, in their estimation, to get a Roman king such as Herod, to do their bidding. But a strange thing happened during the night proceeding the day when Peter was to be put to death. Another miracle occurred. Although execution awaited him, the faithful apostle who spent the night chained between two soldiers, slept as sound as a babe. Suddenly a shaft of light shot into the darkened cell like a bolt of lightning and an angel smote Peter on the side. He dressed quickly and followed the heavenly visitor to the outer court, through the gate, and down the street. Not until then did he realize that his deliverance was real and not merely a dream. Making his way to the home of Mary, the mother of John Mark, Peter found that an all-night prayer meeting was being held in his behalf. He came into the presence of the saints rejoicing "that the Lord hath sent his angel, and hath delivered me out of the hand of Herod, and from all the expectation of the Jews." The angel smote Peter and the result was life and liberty. A short time later the same angel smote Herod and the result was disease, death, and worms devouring his flesh. And this king was not the last to be cursed for allowing himself to come under the domination of Jews. So Herod having consented to an ignominious death for Peter, himself suffered one much more ignominious. Judgment! It is not a safe thing for non-Christians to persecute Christ's saints. God will not permanently excuse or condone such crimes. History is replete with judgments being visited fast and furiously upon individuals and nations who have made this mistake. Torturing Christians is a dangerous pastime. "Whoso diggeth a pit shall fall therein: and he that rolleth a stone, it will return upon him." "Whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap" "And shall not God avenge his own elect, which cry day and night unto him, though He bears long with them? I tell you that he will avenge them speedily." "Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord." The Jewish Bolshevik’s who are today digging a pit for Christianity in Russia are creating a future hell of judgment for themselves, exactly like the Jews of the first century sealed their destruction by torturing the saints at the dawn of this age. The same Romans, whom the vicious, designing and tricky Jews used as tools to destroy the Christian Church, later turned against them and added sorrow upon sorrow until the nation was at last drenched in its own blood.

Jesus said to the Jews: "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not! Behold, your house is left unto you desolate." This pathetic prophecy was literally fulfilled in the middle of the first century when Titus, the Roman Emperor, brought his iron legions against the city of Jerusalem for one of the most terrible slaughters the world has ever known. Famine, disease, pestilence, and starvation on the inside of the city walls, and the Romans pushing fiercely against them from the outside brought upon the Jews such a wave of judgment and suffering as the human race has never before or since witnessed. A few pertinent snatches from the history of the Jews, written by Josephus, will be sufficient to illustrate this fact: "But the famine was too hard for all other passions, and it is destructive to nothing so much as to modesty; for what was otherwise worthy of reverence was in this case despised; insomuch that children pulled the very morsels that their fathers were eating out of their very mouths, and what was still more to be pitied, so did the mothers do as to their infants; and when those that were most dear were perishing under their hands, they were not ashamed to take from them the very last drops that might preserve their lives: and while they are after this manner, yet were they not concealed in so doing; but the seditious everywhere came upon them immediately, and snatched away from them what they had gotten from others; for when they saw any house shut up, this was to them a signal that the people within had gotten some food; whereupon they broke open the doors, and ran in, and took pieces of what they were eating almost up out of their throats, and this by force: the old men, who held their food fast, were beaten; and if the women hid what they had within their hands, their hair was torn for so doing; nor was there any commiseration shown either to the aged or to the infants, but they lifted up children from the ground as they hung upon the morsels they had gotten, and shook them down upon the floor. "This miserable procedure made Titus greatly to pity them, while they caught every day five hundred Jews; nay, some days they caught more: yet it did not appear to be safe for him to let those that were taken by force go their way, and to set a guard over so many he saw would be to make such as guarded them useless to him. The main reason why he did not forbid that cruelty was this that he hoped the Jews might perhaps yield at that sight, out of fear lest they might themselves afterward be liable to the same cruel treatment. So the soldiers, out of the wrath and hatred they bore the Jews, nailed those they caught, one after one way, and another after another, to the crosses, by way of jest, when their multitude was so great, that room was wanting for the crosses, and crosses wanting for the bodies. "Titus then went round about the enemy with some chosen troops, and fell upon their flanks himself; so the Jews, who had been before assaulted in their faces, wheeled about to Titus, and continued the fight. The armies also were now mixed one among another, and the dust that was raised so far hindered them from seeing one another, and the noise that was made so far hindered them from hearing one another, that neither side could discern an enemy from a friend. However, the Jews did not flinch, though not so much from their real strength, as from their despair of deliverance. The Romans also would not yield, by reason of the regard they had to glory, and to their reputation in war, and because Caesar himself went into the danger before them; insomuch that I cannot but think the Romans would in the seclusion have now taken even the whole multitude of the Jews, so very angry were they at them, had these not prevented the upshot of the battle and retired into the city. "Then did the famine widen its progress, and devoured the people by whole houses and families; the upper rooms were full of women and children that were dying by famine, and the houses of the city were full of the dead bodies of the aged; the children also and the young men wandered about the market-places like shadows, all swelled with the famine, and fell down dead, wheresoever’s their misery seized them. As for burying them, those that were sick themselves were not able to do it; and those that were hearty and well were deterred from doing it by the great multitude of those dead bodies, and by the uncertainty there was how soon they should die themselves; for many died as they were burying others, and many went to their coffins before that fatal hour was come. Nor was there any lamentations made under these calamities, nor were heard any mournful complaints, but the famine confounded all natural passions; for those who were just going to die looked upon those that were gone to rest before them with dry eyes and open mouths. A deep silence also, and a kind of deadly night, had seized upon the city; while yet the robbers were still more terrible than these miseries were themselves; for they break open those houses which were no other than graves of dead bodies, and plundered them of what they had; and carrying off the coverings of their bodies, went out laughing, and tried the points of their swords in their dead bodies; and, in order to prove what metal they were made of, they thrust some of those through that still lay alive upon the ground; but for those that entreated them to lend them their right hand and their sword to dispatch them, they were too proud to grant their requests, and left them to be consumed by the famine. "There was a certain woman that dwelt beyond Jordan, her name was Mary. She was eminent for her family and her wealth, and had fled away to Jerusalem with the rest of the multitude, and was with them besieged therein at this time. It now became impossible for her anyway to find any more food, while the famine pierced through her very bowels and marrow. She then attempted a most unnatural thing; and snatching up her son, who was a child sucking at her breast, she said, 'O thou miserable infant! For whom shall I preserve thee in this war, this famine, and this sedition? As to the war with the Romans, if they preserve our lives, we must be slaves. This famine also will destroy us, even before that slavery comes upon us. Yet are these Jewish rogues more terrible than both the other. Come on; be thou my food, and be thou a fury to these seditious varlets, and a byword to the world, which is all that is now wanting to complete the calamities of us Jews.' As soon as she had said this, she slew her son, and then roasted him, and ate the one half of him, and kept the other half by her concealed. Upon this the Jewish soldiers came in presently and smelling the horrid scent of this food, they threatened her that they would cut her throat immediately if she did not show them what food she had gotten ready. She replied that she had saved a very fine portion of it for them, and withal uncovered what was left of her son. Hereupon they were seized with a horror and amazement of mind, and stood astonished at the sight when she said to them, 'this is mine own son, and what hath been done was mine own doing! Come eat of this food; for I have eaten of it myself! Do not you pretend to be either more tender than a woman, or more compassionate than a mother; but if you be so scrupulous, and do abominate this my sacrifice, as I have eaten the one half, let the rest be reserved for me also'? After which those men went out trembling, being never so much affrighted at anything as they were at this, and with some difficulty, they left the rest of that meat to the mother. "This sad instance was quickly told to the Romans, some of whom could not believe it, and others pitied the distress which the Jews were under; but there were many of them who were thereby induced to a more bitter hatred than ordinary against our nation. But for Caesar, he excused himself before God as to this matter, and said that he had proposed peace and liberty to the Jews, as well as an oblivion of all their former insolent practices; but that they, instead of Concord, had chosen sedition; instead of peace, war; and before satiety and abundance, a famine." Josephus tells how this state of affairs continued for months until finally the Roman soldiers set fire to the gates and literally burned their way into the city. The siege of Titus continued until the sacred Temple was burned and razed to the ground. He continues: "While the holy house was on fire, everything was plundered that came to hand, and ten thousand of those that were caught were slain; nor was there a commiseration of any age or any reverence of gravity, but children, and old men, and profane persons, and priests were all slain in the same manner; so that this war went round all sorts of men and brought them to destruction, and as well those that made supplication for their lives, as those that defended themselves by fighting. The flame was also carried a long way, and made an echo, together with the groans of those that were slain; and because this hill was high, and the works at the temple were very great, one would have thought the whole city had been on fire." Again we are reminded of the Lord's reference to this terrible judgment which was predicted to come upon the Jews, "Your house is left unto you desolate." The Jews and the Prophets.

Even a casual reading of the Old and New Testaments will show that the Jews are a disobedient and rebellious people. Nowhere in Scripture are Christians required to excuse and condone their evil deeds simply because of their nationality. Jesus knew better than anyone else the unspeakable crimes of which these people are capable. It was to them that He addressed the following powerful polemic: "Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! And say, if we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets. Wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves, that ye are the children of them which killed the prophets. Fill up then the measure of your fathers. Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?" In this indictment, Jesus lays the charge of persecuting the prophets at the door of the Jewish people. It is by far the most severe, denunciatory and withering blast of language which fell from His lips during the entire thirty-three years that He was in the flesh. The Jesus of this, the twenty-third chapter of Matthew, is not the quiet, reticent Jesus of modern literature and the fashionable pulpit. The Jesus, whose righteous indignation is here asserted, is a man of words and action, a man in the act of pronouncing eight woes upon the Jewish leaders and finally condemning them to the damnation of hell. In the next breath, Jesus affirms His Godhead and says that He will soon send other messengers of God to them. He then predicts that they will treat His coming servants exactly like their fathers treated the prophets. "Behold I send (or 'I am about to send') unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: and some of them ye shall kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city; That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias, son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar." True to the Lord's promise, after His departure He sent the first group of messengers forth on the day of Pentecost. Others followed later. The book of Acts records the persecutions and deaths they suffered at the hands of the very Jews who declared they would not have been guilty of the similar conduct of their fathers. It is particularly significant to notice that Jesus blamed the Jews for the murder of Abel. But how could this have been in view of the fact Abel was a son of Adam and Eve, whereas the Jews date their origin from Abraham about nineteen hundred years before the birth of Christ? By way of parenthesis, it should be remarked that the name Jew did not originate until a few hundred years after Abraham. It was first used in the book of second Kings as a reference to the patriarch Judah in distinction from the other ten tribes of Israel. Later the term became the appellation of the whole nation. When Jesus accused them of killing Abel, He was seeing beyond their particular nationality. He was seeing beyond the garb of flesh which they were wearing. He was looking deep into their souls. He was seeing the demonic poison which was stored up in their lifestream. He knew that the same satanic hatred for the program of God which took the life of Abel was to reach its climax in the murder of the Messiah and His apostles. Hence the judgment which He pronounced upon them: "How can ye escape the damnation of hell?" To grasp the full meaning of the above reference to Abel, one needs to understand that from Eden to Bethlehem's manger there runs a perfect avenue of divine heredity. This path of the ages, carved straight through the human family, may be likened to the Gulf Stream which plows its way across the ocean. The conflict of the centuries is the fact that Satan tried repeatedly to break the royal line so the Redeemer of the world could not be born. Early in Genesis, after the fall of man, it was announced that the "seed of the woman" would bruise the serpent's head. This is the first reference in Scripture to the virgin birth of Christ. Eve was given to understand that a male child, a descendant of hers, would break Satan's power in the world. When Cain, the first child was born, it is evident that Eve thought he was the one who would destroy the serpent, then and there, because she said: "I have gotten a man from the Lord." This was a mistake for the reason that a study of Cain's life shows him to have been full of hereditary poison. He was guilty of six specific sins: he worshiped in self-will, was angry with God, refused to bring a sin-offering, lied to God, would not repent, and murdered his brother. Abel, the second son, was in the blood-line between Eden and the manger. It was for this reason that Satan inspired the killing of Abel so the line would be broken. Seth was born later to repair the damage. After that, the two lines ran in parallel until the deluge, the Sethites, and the Canaanites. Noah, Shem, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David, and many others, were in the royal line from which the promised Redeemer was finally born. Now, in the twenty-third chapter of Matthew, we find Christ charging the Jews with the same sin which was laid against Cain, namely, that they had become the instruments of Satan for the destruction of the plan of human redemption. The poison of the serpent had been handed down until that hour; it was flowing in their veins; the blood of the righteous Abel was upon them; they were cooperating with Satan; they had permitted themselves to become a party to the same crime of which Cain was guilty; they were trying to destroy the Saviour of the world even as Cain tried to destroy the line from which the Redeemer was to be born. When these facts are understood, this chapter becomes truly pathetic. There Jesus stands in the temple dedicated to the worship of the true God. He is confronted by a crowd of blind and impure hypocrites. Sinless anger burns on His face as His eyes melt into anguish and misery. From the hill on which the temple is situated, he looks down upon the city spread before and beneath Him. He cries out: "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killed the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!" Then once more addressing the Jews, He cried: "Behold your house is left unto you desolate." As Jesus walked down the steps that day, the people only saw a simple man leaving the temple, but the angels saw the God of Heaven forsaking it. As an example of how the Jews treated the prophets, Jesus cited the circumstance of Zacharias being slain between the temple and the altar. This takes us back to the twenty-fourth chapter of second Chronicles. Baal worship had invaded Israel. Athaliah, the daughter of Jezebel, exalted herself to the throne of David. She caused all the male members of the royal family to be put to death except Joash, the six-year-old son of King Asaziah, who was hidden away secretly by the good priest Johoiada. In this revolution which overtook his nation, Johoiada showed great tact and ability. He waited until public sentiment became ripe for a change, then on a certain day when a large crowd was assembled in the temple court he displayed the child and drove Athaliah from the throne. Soldiers had been previously concealed in the temple and were armed with weapons. At the proper moment, Johoiada released his private army from hiding and stationed warriors at the various places of entrance so no one could leave or enter the court. The power of idol worship was thus broken, with a single stroke, in Israel. Athaliah with Mattan, her chief prophet of Baal, were put to death. Johoiada died at the age of one hundred and thirty. As a signal honor, he was buried "in the city of David among the kings." Zechariah was the son of Johoiada and succeeded his father as the leading priest of Israel.

Because Zechariah dared to rebuke the Jewish leaders for their apostasy, King Joash had him put to death. "And the spirit of God came upon Zechariah the son of Jehoiada the priest, which stood above the people, and said unto them, “Thus saith God, Why transgress ye the commandments of the Lord that ye cannot prosper? Because ye have forsaken the Lord, he hath also forsaken you.” And they conspired against him and stoned him with stones at the commandment of the king in the court of the house of the Lord. Thus Joash the king remembered not the kindness which Jehoiada, his father, had done to him, but slew his son. And when he died, he said, The Lord look upon it, and require it." In less than a year from the time that Zachariah was killed, the Syrian armies overran Jerusalem and massacred the people. Joash was later put to death. On the eventful day, when Jesus stood before the Jews who thirsted for His blood, He reviewed this bit of Israelites’ history by reminding them of their crimes against the prophets of old. The Jews and the Christ Speaking to the sect known as the Pharisees, Jesus said: "Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh his own: for he is a liar and the father of it." The Pharisees wielded a satanic influence over their nation. They represented a system of occultism mingled with Jewish doctrines and beliefs. They poured a constant stream of poison into the thinking of Jewry which twisted and perverted the minds of the rank and file of people. Although the Sadducean high priests were the head of the Sanhedrin, the decisive influence upon public affairs was in the hands of the Pharisees. The People's Bible Encyclopedia says: "They had the greatest influence upon the congregations, so that all acts of public worship, prayers, and sacrifices were performed according to their injunctions. Their sway over the masses was so absolute that they could obtain a hearing even when they said anything against the king or the high priest. Hence the Sadducees, in their official acts, adhered to the demands of the Pharisees, because otherwise, the multitude would not have tolerated them." As a Jew avoided as far as possible all contact with a Gentile, lest he should thereby be defiled, so did the Pharisee avoid, as far as possible, contact with the non-Pharisee, because the latter was to him unclean even though a Jew. The egotism of the sect is at once evident. There is no way of calculating the demoralizing influence that this group of men had upon the people who looked to them for leadership. In tracing the origin of this organization we find that it began back in the occult demonism of the Chaldean soothsayers. General A. Netchvolodow says: "The Chaldean science acquired by many of the Jewish priests, during the captivity of Babylon, gave birth to the sect of the Pharisees whose name only appears in the Holy Scriptures and in the writings of the Jewish historians after the captivity (606 B.C.). The works of the celebrated scientist Monk leave no doubt on the point that the sect appeared during the period of the captivity.

"From then dates the Cabala or Tradition of the Pharisees: For a long time their precepts were only transmitted orally but later they formed the Talmud and received their final form in the book called the Sepher ha Zohar." When the leaders of Israel contacted the occultism of the Chaldeans they brought a satanic element into Jewry which was in a great measure responsible for all of the subsequent crimes of the nation. The Pharisees carried on constant subversive activities against the Gentile peoples around them. They were, in a sense, the Communists of their day. To them, a Gentile was no better than a dog. Josephus, the great Jewish historian, explains: "For there was a certain sect of men that were Jews, who valued themselves highly upon the exact skill they had in the law of their fathers and made men believe they were highly favored by God. These are those that are called the sect of the Pharisees, who were in a capacity of greatly opposing kings. A cunning sect they were, and soon elevated to a pitch of open fighting and doing mischief. Accordingly, when all the people of the Jews gave assurance of their good-will to Caesar, and to the king's government, these very men did not swear, being above six thousand; and when the king imposed a fine upon them, Pheroras's wife paid their fine for them. In order to requite this kindness of hers, since they were believed to have the foreknowledge of things to come by Divine inspiration, they foretold how God had decreed that Herod's government should cease, and his posterity should be deprived of it; but that the kingdom should come to her and Pheroras, and to their children. These predictions were not concealed from Salome, but were told the king; as also how they had perverted some persons about the palace itself; so the king slew such of the Pharisees as were principally accused, and Bagoas the eunuch, and one Carus, who exceeded all men of that time in comeliness, and one that was his catamite." Josephus also tells how the Pharisees were able to crowd their way into the lives of Gentile rulers to the point of gaining control of whole nations exactly as Jewish financiers and political leaders are doing today. The following historical statement by Josephus, describing ancient Alexander, at the time when Alexandra was ruling, sounds like it might have been written about some modern country:

"These are a certain sect of the Jews that appear more religious than others and seem to interpret the laws more accurately. Now Alexandra hearkened to them to an extraordinary degree, as being herself a woman of great piety towards God. But these Pharisees artfully insinuated themselves into her favor by little and little, and became themselves the real administrators of the public affairs: they banished and reduced whom they pleased; they bound and loosed (men) at their pleasure: and, to say all at once, they had the enjoyment of the royal authority, whilst the expenses and the difficulties of it belonged to Alexandra. She was a sagacious woman in the management of great affairs, and intent always upon gathering soldiers together; so that she increased the army the one half, and procured a great body of foreign troops, till her own nation became not only very powerful at home, but terrible also to foreign potentates, while she governed other people, and the Pharisees governed her." Thus we see how, back there, powerful Jews were able to rule from behind the scenes, pull wires and produce Gentile strife the same as they are doing today through their "Gentile fronts" among the various nations. We must always remember that it is natural for the Jewish people to have only contempt for Gentiles. They are possessed of a natural aversion for Christianity. When they gain control of a country, as in Russia at the present time, they never fail to vent their ill-will upon Christians. From the foregoing, we now understand that the Pharisees represented the secret, sinister organization which existed for the purpose of opposing God and overthrowing all law and order. Out of their evil, occult program, there eventually came two documents known as the Kabbalah and the Talmud. The Kabbalah governs the spiritual life of the Jews, while the Talmud regulates things material. Concerning the writings of the rabbis which were added to the Old Testament Scriptures by these leaders, Josephus says: "What I would now explain is this, that the Pharisees have delivered to the people a great many observances by succession from their fathers, which are not written in the laws of Moses; and for that reason it is that the Sadducees reject them, and say that we are to esteem those observances to be obligatory which are in the written word, but are not to observe what are derived from the tradition of our forefathers." It is believed by many that the Talmud and other writings of the Jewish leaders were directly responsible for the rejection of Christ. These "traditions" blinded the eyes of the people to a true understanding of the prophecies which related to the coming of the Messiah. They produced the hatred which finally resulted in the assassination of the Son of God. Hence the words of our Lord: "Why do ye also transgress the commandment of God by your tradition?" And again: "Thus have ye made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition."

A few quotations from the Talmud will give an insight into the mental processes of the rabbis of all ages and will show why these inhuman writings were objectionable to Jesus. Gentiles, realizing the sinister contents of these documents have sought at different times to destroy them. All copies were ordered burned by Philip IV, the Fair, King of France, in 1306, but the book survived the flames. The Jewish conception of God was that of a tyrant whose wrath had to be constantly appeased by the most rigid observances. He was confined, they believed, to the four walls of their own bigoted nationalism. Their contempt for other peoples is shown by quotations from the Talmud: "You (the Jews) are human beings, but the nations of the world are not human beings but beasts." "On the house of the Goy (non-Jew), one looks as on the fold of cattle." The following prayer from the Talmud is quoted to the present day: "We beg Thee, O Lord, indict Thy wrath on the nations not believing in Thee, and not calling on Thy name. Let down Thy wrath on them and inflict them with Thy wrath. Drive them away in Thy wrath and crush them to pieces. Take away, O Lord, all bone from them. In a moment indict all disbelievers. Destroy in a moment all foes of Thy nation. Draw out with the root, disperse and ruin unworthy nations. Destroy them! Destroy them immediately, at this very moment!" "It is wicked to protest the words of the rabbis than of Torah (Law of Moses)." "The decisions of the Talmud are words of the living God. Jehovah himself asks the opinion of earthly rabbis when there are difficult affairs in heaven." "Jehovah himself in heaven studies the Talmud, standing: he has such respect for that book." The Talmud teaches that the Jewish nation is the only nation selected by God, while all the remaining ones are contemptible and hateful. That all property of other nations belongs to the Jewish nation, which consequently is entitled to seize upon it without scruples. That an orthodox Jew is not bound to observe principles of morality towards people of other nations, and on the contrary, he even ought to act against morality, if it is profitable for himself or for the interest of Jews in general. Continuing quotations from the Talmud: "A Jew may rob a Goy, he may cheat him over a bill, which should not be perceived by him, otherwise the name of God would become dishonored." "It is permitted to kill a Jewish denunciator everywhere ... it is permitted to kill him before he has denounced ... though it is necessary to warn him and say, 'Do not denounce.' But should he say, 'I will denounce,' he must be killed, and he who accomplishes it first will have the greater merit." "How to interpret the word 'robbery'. A Goy is forbidden to steal, rob, or take women slaves, etc., from a Goy or from a Jew, but he (a Jew) is not forbidden to do all this to a Goy." It would be a mistake to pass lightly over the satanic influence which the Chaldean priests wielded upon the Jewish leaders while they were in Babylon. This association of Jews with pagan magicians perverted the teaching of the Old Testament into murky materialism and brought the people under the despotism of demonism. In Scripture, the Chaldeans are classed with the magicians, astrologers, soothsayers, and sorcerers. Therefore, the inner circle of Jewish leaders in the days of Christ was nothing short of black magicians. Is it reasonable to suppose that this hereditary poison which was handed down in the life-stream of Jewry, from the time of the Old Testament prophets, has ceased to exist? The common-sense answer is No. We have with us today the same kind of human "vipers" that Christ had to contend with nineteen hundred years ago. They constituted the scheming, tricky group which stirred up the mobs that screeched for the destruction of the Son of God. They uttered the most vicious cry that ever fell from human lips: "Crucify him! Crucify him!" "Then Pilate said unto them. Why, what evil hath he done? And they cried out the more exceedingly, crucify him." Had Christ shown hatred toward the Gentiles, started a revolution, organized an army, marched on Rome and promised to give the Jews earthly power, they would have accepted Him as their Messiah and King. But they rejected Him because He said: "My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then My servants would fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews." It was a tragic night when our Lord went into the garden of Gethsemane for His final season of prayer before facing Calvary. Three times He prayed: "O my Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt." Prior to this time, certain Jewish leaders had approached one of the disciples with a financial offer if he would only lead the mob to the place where the Saviour had secluded Himself for the evening. The Jews possess the rare ability for stirring up strife among the Gentiles. They know exactly how to create confusion and unrest. They are experts in arousing human passions by producing mob psychology. They are able to stampede crowds into croaking special phrases like frogs. We see this today in the streets of the large cities of the world where throngs of unemployed men congregate, carrying banners, and repeating slogans. Little do these mobs know that behind their misery there are usually Jewish Capitalists who have deliberately planned the abnormal economic conditions which produced their suffering. Little do these mobs know that at the top of their Communist organizations there are powerful, but diseased, Jewish minds. Judas told the conspirators that the One Whom he should kiss would be Jesus. So, the deceiver drew near, sneaking like a serpent through the undergrowth and shrubbery of the garden. Reaching the Master, he greeted Him with a familiar oriental salutation consisting of a gentle embrace and a kiss on the cheek. In a few minutes, the Lord was entirely at the mercy of the savage pack of Jewish wolves. They were determined to do away with Him. This was the world's blackest night. First, the innocent Victim was taken to the home of Caiaphas, the high priest, then to the Sanhedrin. And finally to Pilate's Court. All three of these trials were illegal. Both Jewish and Roman laws were broken. Meanwhile, Judas had collected the thirty pieces of silver due him for his part in the crime. He hurried quickly away from the mob, into the semi-darkness, down the path, and vanished from sight. At first, he was inclined to congratulate himself on having made some easy money. This was before his conscience began lashing him. Is it too much to suppose that Judas soon discovered that he had blood on his lips? Yes, his mouth was moist. He found his lips were bloody. Only a few minutes ago, he had kissed the cheek of the Son of God. And the sweat which bathed the Lord's face had been great drops of blood. It was true that blood was oozing through the pores of the Lord's body at the time of the fatal kiss. Medical science declares that only one thing can produce a bloody sweat, namely, a broken heart. In the sad hour of the garden prayers, Jesus loved the world so much, so deeply, that the physical organ in His breast could not stand the strain; it actually collapsed. His heart could not stand the outburst of emotion. It was literally, physically ruptured. And this sad experience fulfilled Psalms 69:20: "Reproach hath broken my heart." When the heart collapsed from the deep emotional impact, blood naturally dripped through the pores of His flesh.

Let sinners remember that this was the way Jesus Christ loved them just before He went to Calvary to suffer for the sins of the world. Try to imagine the feelings of Judas when he discovered the blood of the Master on his lips, poor conscience-stricken creature! Back to the Jewish leaders, he ran. "I have sinned", he cried "in that I have betrayed innocent blood." "What is that to us?" The Jews replied scornfully. "See thou to that." Then the cringing betrayer literally threw the thirty pieces of silver on the floor of the temple and fled from the presence of the vicious priests. "I have betrayed innocent blood," he sobbed. Judas was found dead a few hours later, having committed suicide. Special notice should be taken of the word "innocent". The last thing the betrayer did before he died, was to declare that Jesus Christ was guilty of no wrong, that He had committed no sin, that He was living a clean, pure, innocent, sinless life. Had Jesus been guilty of one sin, Judas would have known about it and would have used it to justify his heinous crime in that tragic hour. The perfect life that the Master lived while in the flesh is an unanswerable argument for His perfect commencement and His Godhead. Yes, this innocent, sinless God-Man from heaven was subjected by Jews, to every conceivable indignity, and because of their demands was finally put to a horrible death on a disgraceful cross like a common criminal. The Jews and the Church (Continued) The destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in A.D. 70 was a direct fulfillment of the prophecy made by Jesus in Matthew 24:2, "See ye not all these things? Verily I say unto you, there shall not be left here one stone upon another that shall not be thrown down." Naturally, when Titus plowed down this gorgeous structure, Christians hailed the event as a confirmation of the Lord's ability to read the future. This aroused ever-increasing interest in prophetic subjects among the believers. The destruction of the Temple and the siege at Jerusalem resulted in the dispersion of the Jews. And wherever they went, they carried burning hatred in their hearts for the saints because they were constantly reminded that Christ had predicted their downfall. Now, coming to the middle of the fourth century we find another example of Jewish influence over Gentile rulers, which is equally as remarkable as their control of King Herod.

For three hundred years, powerful Jews dispersed to all parts of the Roman Empire, kindled ill-will against the Christians. Then came Emperor Constantine who reversed everything and made Christianity the official state religion of the nation. This was a rebuff to both the Jews and pagans who had used every conceivable scheme to destroy the Faith. After the departure of Constantine from this life, his three sons ruled the Empire. Meanwhile, the Jews bided their time, waiting for the right opportunity to place a Gentile in power that they could control. Their chance came, following the death of Constantine's last son, when Julian ascended to the throne. Contempt for Christianity filtered through Julian's mind and he resolved, as soon as an occasion might arise, to deal it a final, crushing blow. He swore that when the time was ripe he would throw off the religious cloak of Constantine. It remained for the Jews to produce a situation in which they could assist Julian in venting his spleen against the believers who were then growing strong both in numbers and spiritual strength, due to more than a half-century of religious freedom. Happily, for the Church, this Emperor reigned only two years, but those two years embodied a period of unspeakable agony. Julian gave the Christians the name "Galileans" which, in his day, was a word that carried a slur with it. As if actuated by the spirit of anti-Christ he adopted the curious means of attempting to nullify the Bible prophecies. His contact with the Jews was no doubt responsible for this novel idea. Early training had taught him how to gain favor with Jewish leaders by insulting and tormenting the followers of Christ. Neither, Jews or Christians had forgotten that the destruction of the Temple was a fulfillment of predictions made by the Lord. It was therefore decided that, as a slap at the Christians, Julian should rebuild the edifice in Jerusalem and turn it over to the Jews. From all quarters of the Empire, Jews came to assist in erecting the building and to offer their wealth. Julian personally made the preliminary arrangements and sent one of his chief officers to superintend the work. The Jews who were directing affairs from within the shadows, shaping the official policies of the Empire, saw in this a deadly rebuff which promised to ultimately threaten the very existence of the Christian religion in the world. Stirring scenes were enacted. Women brought their ornaments and jewels by the cartloads. So much precious metal was received that tools were even cast and forged of it. It looked to Jews and pagans as if the prophecies of the Bible relating to Palestine were going to be set aside. But God intervened at the last minute and when the Temple was partway built a violent earthquake and severe electrical storm took place which demolished the whole undertaking. Fear came upon the Jews and the workers so that all activities were suspended. Not only Christian writers but pagans as well, record this strange happening. Julian was mortally wounded on the field of battle with the Persians a few months later. He became known in history as "the Apostate." It has been related that just prior to his death, he cried: "Thou hast conquered, after all, O Galilean." Church leaders, through the age, have been alert to Satan's use of the Jewish people in thwarting the program of Christ in the world. Some Christians have been more outspoken than others, on the subject, but every generation has produced its watchmen who have known the truth and have dared to proclaim it. Among the more bold spokesmen on this question was Martin Luther who prepared a treatise entitled, The Jews and Their Lies. In it we read the following statements which are characteristic of the entire discussion: "How the Jews love the Book of Esther, which is so suitable to their bloodthirsty, revengeful, murderous appetite and hopes! The sun has never shone on such a bloodthirsty and revengeful people, who fancy themselves to be the chosen people so that they can murder and strangle the heathen. "No folk under the sun is greedier than they are than they have been and always will be, as one can see from their accursed usury. They console themselves that when their Messiah comes, he will collect all the gold and silver in the world and divide it amongst them. "The Princes and authorities sit and snore with open mouths and let the Jews take, steal and rob what they want out of their open purses and chests; they let themselves and their subjects be skinned and sucked dry by the Jews' usury, and make themselves, with their own money, beggars in their own State. The Jews have got our money and property, and are therefore our masters in our own land. "It all agrees with the judgment of Christ that they are poisonous, bitter, vindictive, and malicious serpents, assassins, and children of the devils who kill and inflict injuries by stealth because they cannot do so openly. "But if we fear that they may do us harm in body, wife, child, servant, beast, etc., etc. let us reckon up with them what they have taken from us by usury, and so share it amicably, but drive them forever into the fields. "Anyone might think I am saying too much. I am not saying too much, but rather far too little. If we do not want to partake in the Jews' blasphemies we must be separated and they must be driven out of the land. That is the best advice that secures both sides in such a case." The Jews and Communism.

No informed person who is truthful denies the Jewish character of Communism! The writer recently published in one of his magazines, the names and nationalities of every leader in the Moscow dictatorship as it was set up years ago. It was discovered that out of the 545 members of the bureaucracy, 454 were Jews and there were only 23 Russians in the group. In other words, the Russian people are governed by a gang of anti-Christian foreigners, many of whom are said to be unable to speak the language of the people they govern. Some of the principal officials of the Red government are reported to have come from the East Side of New York. It has been said on the floor of the United States Congress, and the charge has not been denied, that a certain Jewish banking concern in Wall Street sponsored Trotsky's mass meetings of rebellion in New York some years ago, sent him across the ocean secretly, and deposited millions of dollars in a Swedish bank to the credit of the destroyers, with which the Russian revolution was financed. In her remarkable book Waters Flowing Eastward, Mrs. L. Fry states that back in 1893 a Jewish secret order here in America appointed Jacob Schiff, a Wall Street Jew, chairman of its committee on Russian revolutionary activities. If this is true, it simply means that Mr. Schiff sat at his desk in New York and directed the destruction of the Czar's government thousands of miles away. It is impossible to separate Jewish Communism from Jewish Capitalism. Laboring men who think they can free themselves from the Money Power by embracing Communism are being betrayed by soap-box oratory. The Moscow leaders are the world's wealthiest Capitalists. They own one-sixth of the earth's surface. They control one hundred and sixty million Gentile slaves. The Russian people are not allowed to vote, own property, exercise free speech, enjoy the freedom of the press, or worship God. The masses are kept in their weakened, helpless condition by the most powerful system of secret police ever invented in the history of the world. The attitude of Communism toward Christianity was explained by Lunatcharski, one of the leading Jewish members of the Moscow dictatorship: "Why should we believe in God? We hate Christianity and Christians. Even the best of them must be regarded as our worst enemies. They preach love of one's neighbor, and pity, which is contrary to our principles. Christian love is a hindrance to the revolution. Down with love of one's neighbor; what we want is hatred. We must know how to hate, for only at this price can we conquer the universe. We have done with the kings of the earth; let us now deal with the kings of the skies. The anti-religious campaign must not be restricted to Soviet Russia: it should be carried on throughout the entire world. The fight should also be developed in the Moslem and Catholic countries, with the same ends in view and by the same means." There is no way of knowing how many millions of Russian Christians have been slain during the last 100 years because of their faith in Jesus Christ. A magazine recently carried an article entitled, "Men of Russia." It was the author's purpose to make a critical examination of the ringleaders of international Communism. He says: "Some of the businessmen are Russians, but most of them are of other blood, and practically all of them have prison records. In considering the men of Russia, it should be remembered that it isn't often that ex-prisoners get a crack at the society which punished them, but they did in Russia." The writer in the article then proceeds to discuss some of Moscow's principal Jewish fiends: "Joseph Stalin is a minor official of the Soviet Government. He is but one of the three hundred or so members of the Central Executive Committee, and yet, nevertheless, he is the first man of Russia. Although serving as secretary of the All-Russian Communist Party, Stalin is not a Russian. His every feature is commensurate with 'Stalin', the Russian word for steel." Parenthetically it should be remarked that Stalin is merely the customary "Gentile Front" for the Moscow Jewish leaders. His Gentile wife died a "mysterious" death recently and he immediately married a Jewess. The article continues: "Lazarus M. Kaganovitch is a member of the Politbureau or arbitrary 'Brain Trust', and chief organizer of the Second Five Year Plan. This Polish Jew is Stalin's Number One Boy, and his logical successor as a dictator. "Maxim Maximovich Litvinov is Commissar of Foreign Affairs. He is the super-traveling salesman of Bolshevism. This shrewd Polish Jew has fought diplomatic battles in every political arena where the gate receipts warranted his appearance. He returns from these victories from time to time to his spacious Moscow office to check up one more Red diplomatic triumph by sticking a new red glass tack in the huge map which covers the wall behind his desk. "Klementy Voroshilov (another Jew) is Commissar of War and Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy. He is the dashing yet modest cavalry officer who is charged with preparing the Russian forces for an anticipated war. "Mikhail Kalinin, (an Armenian Jew) is President of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Like all big leaders, he served his term in prison, taking an important part in the revolution of 1905 as a member of the Council of Workers' Deputies. "Karl Radek, (another Jew) is Contributing Editor of Izvestia, official government newspaper. Radek has frequently been suppressed by radical organizations for being too radical. "Michael Borodin, Editor of the English-language Moscow Daily News. This Czechoslovakian Jew was educated at Valparaiso University in Indiana; and spent many years agitating for the International Communist Party, in Spain, in Mexico, in America, the British Isles, and China. “Just' Podolsky, master of the Foreign Office Press-Censorship Bureau He may have a first name, but it is doubtful that anyone in Russia, including his wife, knows it. He is a soft-spoken Jew in eight languages, not counting American slang, of which he has a thorough knowledge. Padolsky is a hundred percent Communist. "Jerry Lifschitz, Ex-Vice-Yankee Consul, ex-Second-in-Command of Moscow Amtorg. This Polish Jew had an American jail and prison record for I.W.W. activities; and an added palm for being twice tarred and feathered by irate Midwest American farmers. "Comrade Smirdovitch, (another Jew) is the 'Red Pope'. Smirdovitch, an atheist, is the official restrainer and regulator of religion in the U.S.S.R. He is a member of the important Central Executive Committee. As the official Anti-Christ of the Soviet Republics, he decides how far remaining priests of the church may go toward preaching the Word of God. Kindly, cultured, educated, tolerant in manner, Smirdovitch says religion will die out when divorced from superstitious ritual, pomp, and fear. His job is to help kill it." Toward the close of the article, this writer in the magazine says: "But the men who control Russia are not Russians. Members of the Jewish race from all over the world predominate. Every member of the foreign office press censor bureau is a Jew. Little men of Russia who help in responsible positions, heads of offices, trusts, are mostly Jews." Let Christians remember that the international Jewish Communists and Capitalists expect to eventually destroy all Gentile governments, rule the world, and establish throughout the earth the kind of conditions they have introduced in Soviet Russia. They expect to murder all Christian believers and blot Christianity out of existence. The struggle is between the philosophy of the Jew Karl Marx and the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. The manner in which the Moscow Jews have proceeded with their program of destruction is recorded in a quotation taken from the London Times dated November 14, 1919. The quotation is a letter written by a British army officer, who was stationed at the time in southern Russia, to his wife in England. It reads: "The Bolshevists are devils. I hope to send you copies of 64 official photos taken by British officers at Odessa when the town was taken by the Bolshevists.

I suggest you make them widely known. Their horror may make people realize. The victim gets crucified with nails through his elbows. The hands are treated with a solution which shrivels the skin. The skin is cut out with a razor, round the wrist, and peeled off, till it hangs by the fingernails. a human glove. The victim gets terrified and insane. Other photos are of women. Women with their breasts cut off to the bone. Passes issued to Bolshevists by commissaries authorize holders to arrest any girl they fancy for use of the soldiery. Sixty-two girls of all classes were arrested like this and thrown to the Bolshevist troops. Those who struggled were killed. The rest when used were mutilated and thrown dead or dying into the river. Slaughter-houses were choked with corpses. Hundreds of suspects, men, women, and children, were herded in these, doors and windows manned and the struggling mass fired into until most of them were dead or dying. The doors were then locked and they were left with veritable plague spots causing widespread epidemics. The Bible, to them, is a 'counter-revolutionary' book to be stamped out. Churches are used for anything from movie shows to 'slaughterhouses.'" Let no Christian be duped into believing that we are supposed to sit supinely by and permit the Reds to create a reign of terror in America simply because this menace happens to be a "Jewocracy." True, there is a stratum of Jewry that is indeed "Chosen" and has been a blessing to humanity through the centuries, but there is another stratum that is a "curse in all places" as Jeremiah said they would be. Speaking through the lips of the prophet in Ezekiel 38:3, God said: "I am against thee, O Gog" and this is a clear reference to Communism with its seat of government in "Meshech" (Moscow). It is possible that this invisible empire has existed as a self-propagating body ever since the Jewish leaders contacted the Chaldeans while in Babylonia. Persons holding to this view agree that the organization has almost completed its course, that the time for the consummation of the plot is near at hand, that the last great attack is now being launched for the purpose of setting up an international system of Jewish government. The existence of this secret sinister organization in New Testament times is implied in 1 John 4:3, "And this is that spirit of anti-Christ whereof ye have heard that it should come, and even now already is it in the world." The entire cabal (plot) is so large and far-reaching, its motives so hellish, its plan of attack so contrary to Christian thinking, that it simply staggers the mind when it is first exposed to view. But the results of its devastating influence may be seen both in history and among the nations today. It breathes the spirit of the last great Beast-Emperor described in the thirteenth chapter of Revelation. It discloses the perverted Messianic theories of an apostate people. This anti-Christ force has apparently manifested itself from its underground sources in different ways at different periods of history, but never with the boldness and permanency that it has since it came to the surface about one-hundred years ago.

There have always been two kinds of Jews. One racial division represents all that is highest and best in Jewry and regards the Jews primarily as being a system of religion. The other has little inclination toward religion but regards Jewry as a political State, the purpose of which is to conduct world conquest until the nations are brought under one head with themselves in control and all the Gentiles changed into serfs. When the Romans turned against the designing and wicked political leaders of Israel, the Pharisees and Sadducees were driven undercover. With the dispersion that followed, their taint was taken to the ends of the earth and has grown up in every nation. No doubt Jesus had this in mind when he warned to: "Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees." In all parts of the world, it appears that this poison "leaven" is "leavening" the whole lump of the nations. What used to be the Russian Empire is now completely "leavened." These are the subversive forces that have moved through the centuries, changing their form from time to time as governments have been made to heave, totter, cave in, and fall, but always with the same object in view, a final culmination when all nations will be leveled and a super-Jewish State set up, presided over by one man, their apostate Messiah. This is the genius behind Socialism and Communism.

The Church in America suffers from blindness, delusions have overwhelmed the Christian mind as has been in every age in every generation when men forsake the God of the Bible and the sin-cursed heart depraved as it is has caused vast numbers of Christians to swallowed the devil’s lie that the Jews are harmless when it is the Jew that leads the assault on Christianity. In the last analysis, there are only two remedies for Jewish Communism: The Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and full stomachs. The Red Menace thrives only where there is spiritual apathy and physical hunger.