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desos-records · 10 months

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Chapter 7: Case Studies

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Ghost possession doesn't happen often, but fatality rates are high. Even if an agent does survive, there are the aftereffects to worry about.

After surviving a possession, Lucy Carlyle struggles with recovery, delving ever deeper into the memories of Visitors and, in the process, stumbling into the world of blackmarket Sources.

Meanwhile, George Karim races to learn the truth behind ghost possession in order to protect Lucy and save future agents.

And Anthony Lockwood must face his own past with the London underworld if he wants to save his friends and himself.

Like the Problem itself, the cause of possession hadn't yet been solved, but not for lack of trying. Or lack of research. As usual, the first place George went for answers—or failing that, inspiration—was Portland Row's own library. The Lockwoods had been two of the most thorough researchers to ever confront the Problem. There was no aspect of it they hadn't touched on in their ethnographies, articles, and travel journals.

Resources he wouldn't have access to if he didn't live under the same roof as their son. George often forced himself to remember this fact when Lockwood wound him up.

In the case of possession, they'd traveled to America and studied the Ghost Dance practiced by the Lakota tribal nation. Dancers went into a kind of trance and communicated with dead ancestors to achieve visions or hear prophecies. George didn't know of any evidence that Visitors could be prophetic, but clearly white Americans had felt threatened enough. They massacred hundreds of Lakota people for it.

The Lockwoods had drawn parallels between the Ghost Dance trances and cases of possession. They argued that possession occurred because the Visitor was unusually determined to communicate something to the living and so latched onto a significantly Talented agent. They suspected the mortality rates were high because most agents weren't Talented enough to survive the psychical overload—except for Simon Rose, Evelyn Lawrence, Bennie Russell, and now Lucy Carlyle.

The Ghost Dancers, however, had never suffered such a fate, but the Lockwoods hadn't been able to determine why—partly because they'd been barred from witnessing the dances themselves. The Lakota people were understandably wary of sharing details with outsiders.

George, stacks of papers and cold cups of tea dominating the quiet kitchen, scoured the issue of American Anthropologist that had published their article on the subject until he caught on something.

Upon reviewing the data (fig. 31), we realized that, while agents with Sight are less susceptible to possession, they experience higher rates of mortality than their counterparts with Listening and Touch. After careful study of the Lakota Ghost Dance, practitioners' experiences during trances and their emphasis on visions, we believe this statistic is due to the fact that truly gifted Seers are simply a rarity. Few are strong enough to be sought out by Visitors and, at the time of this publication, none have been strong enough to survive the force of psychic visions.

So his theory had been wrong, or at least misinformed. Talent did have an impact on survival rates, but it was less about type and more about level.

George didn't know how much that would help Lucy. She'd only given vague descriptions of what she'd seen, how it overlaid with the living world. It didn't seem consistent with the accounts of visions made by the Lakota dancers, which were vivid and all-encompassing. Maybe Lucy's Sight wasn't powerful enough, her experience mostly defined by her Listening and Touch.

Lockwood had the strongest Sight out of the three of them, and stronger than any agent George had worked with. If they could find a reasonably safe way to test his Talent, then maybe…

"Lockwood!" George called, voice reverberating through the house.

The iron staircase down to the basement shook and rattled enough to threaten collapse as Lockwood tramped up it into the kitchen. "For the love of God, George, someone had better be haunted, haunting, or on fire because I'm gonna—"

He stopped in his tracks as he surveyed the state of the kitchen table. His white shirt stuck to him from sweat and he still had his practice rapier in his hand, slightly heavier than his others, designed for overtraining. He'd been down in the basement cutting the dummies to shreds ever since Lucy stormed out. Then the space around his eyes tightened ever so slightly as they did whenever George dug into his parents' research for a case. He had yet to tell him off for it, but the reminder clearly affected him.

"Exactly how good is your Sight, Lockwood?" George asked before he could come up with a threat.

Lockwood blinked. "What? It's fine. Why?"

"Your parents have an interesting theory about possession. I thought we might test it."

"That's what you're researching? We have a case to solve, George. We don't have time for any more experiments."

"It's to help Lucy, remember? I thought you were on board with this."

"What's my Talent got to do with Lucy? I'm on board with possession recovery, not causing it on purpose." Then Lockwood paused, looked around at the kitchen, out the darkening windows, and glanced up at the ceiling as if he could see all the way up to the attic. "Where's Lucy anyway? Has she come back yet?"

"No."

Lockwood looked at his watch and cursed. "It's been hours."

George shrugged, looking back at his papers. "She's blowing off steam."

"It's getting dark."

"She's an agent."

"I'm going after her." Lockwood disappeared out the door. More rattling came from the hallway as he traded the practice rapier for a proper one. He returned to the kitchen, dead-set determination welded in his eyes. "Seen my coat anywhere?"

"Library." When Lockwood went through the door again, he called after him, "You're going to be the last person she wants to see, you know."

He returned, shrugging his coat on. Somewhere between the kitchen and the library, he'd found spare flares and canisters to hang from his belt, the iron in his expression not in the least bit dimmed. "She can tick me off when she's safe inside. Do us a favor and stay put. No research field trips."

George rolled his eyes.

"Please, George."

"Well, since you said please…"

The door swung shut, soon followed by the resounding slam of the front door.

George sighed, reshuffled some papers around to pull out the Annabel Ward articles he'd abandoned. The inscription on the ring wasn't enough to prove Hugo Blake's guilt and he'd yet to find anything else in the dull society pages. Besides, they were psychical agents, ghost hunters, not homicide detectives. He didn't know what Lockwood was playing at.

But he'd followed him into this mess and he would follow him back out again. So George made more tea and flipped open a magazine, mind still turning over Talents and trances and descriptions of circle dances. Then he remembered. There were interviews with the possession survivors somewhere in Lockwood's stack of VHS tapes. It might be helpful to review them.

He pushed to his feet and into the library, digging through the stacks until he found what he wanted.

#lockwood & co #lockwood and co #anthony lockwood #lucy carlyle #george karim #locklyle #the hidden archive

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almaqead · 1 month

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"The Misleaders." From Surah 18, Al Kahf, "the Force."

We just discussed how God rains the means to the knowledge of the sublime down to earth through his scriptures, and this teaches man how to define Him, society, and the Self. The Self, according to the Quran is returned to itself by God through meditation in the Kahf, "the cave of innocence."

The Quran also says the process involves an analysis of history and certain tricks of the mind called parables. The goal is a corruption free way of life called the Masjid, a planet populated by men that do not compete in order to survive.

Even still, we are struggling to restore the seasons and normal temperatures, and the greatest enemy of Allah that has ever walked the earth Donald Trump is alive and jeering at the educated men of the world. The US Government is acting ridiculous and helpless, right after it was proven he helped engineer a major terrorist attack against Jews and Muslims on sacred soil on October 7, 2023.

Now the people or Iran are at risk of total annihilation as their leaders who were party to the scheme of the liars and losers are being targeted by two US Navy carrier groups. The only hope and help they and the rest of world has is to follow the Quran back to the ground, to a state of humane resolution.

Alas, many like Ali Khamenei and the rest who have mislead us can no longer be trusted to ensure this will happen. God would not lie to us nor would His Prophet. Our way is not working, but His Way we can trust.

There must be the onset of the Masjid. All that must be done in America, Iran, Russia, etc. cannot be overlooked. We now have no alternatives.

18: 50-59:

And ˹remember˺ when We said to the angels, “Prostrate before Adam,” so they all did—but not Iblîs,1 who was one of the jinn, but he rebelled against the command of his Lord. Would you then take him and his descendants as patrons instead of Me, although they are your enemy? What an evil alternative for the wrongdoers ˹to choose˺!

I never called them to witness the creation of the heavens and the earth or ˹even˺ their own creation, nor would I take the misleaders as helpers.

And ˹beware of˺ the Day He will say, “Call upon those you claimed were My associate-gods.” So they will call them, but will receive no response. And We will make them ˹all˺ share in the same doom.

The wicked will see the Fire and realize that they are bound to fall into it, and will find no way to avoid it.

We have surely set forth in this Quran every ˹kind of˺ lesson for people, but humankind is the most argumentative of all beings.

And nothing prevents people from believing when guidance comes to them and from seeking their Lord’s forgiveness except ˹their demand˺ to meet the same fate of earlier deniers or that the torment would confront them face to face.

We do not send the messengers except as deliverers of good news and warners. But the disbelievers argue in falsehood, ˹hoping˺ to discredit the truth with it, and make a mockery of My revelations and warnings.

And who does more wrong than those who, when reminded of their Lord’s revelations, turn away from them and forget what their own hands have done? We have certainly cast veils over their hearts—leaving them unable to comprehend this ˹Quran˺—and deafness in their ears. And if you ˹O Prophet˺ invite them to ˹true˺ guidance, they will never be ˹rightly˺ guided.

Your Lord is the All-Forgiving, Full of Mercy. If He were to seize them ˹immediately˺ for what they commit, He would have certainly hastened their punishment. But they have an appointed time, from which they will find no refuge.

Those ˹are the˺ societies We destroyed when they persisted in wrong,1 and We had set a time for their destruction.

Commentary:

We have allowed persons who have committed grievous crimes against God and man to roam free. We have seen how carefully Allah planned the rows of the verses so when we studied them we would have a helping hand through these dangerous times. We cannot now disregard His Help.

Donald Trump, his party, his sons, daughters and allies in the Mormon faith, all of them have to be arrested and their threat to the all life on this world must come to an end. The war in the Mediterranean Sea, and on Iranian, Israeli, Saudi Arabian, Iraqi, Jordanian, Lebanese, and Syrian soil must also come to an end.

In the above verses, it says the opportunity to survive our mistakes is almost always forsaken. We must be the first generation of mankind to be grateful, instead of misgiving towards the chance. There must be a Majlis, there must be treaties and contracts written, the peace must be published and prevail. More war, death, heat and hatred in the Haram are out of the question.

Someone in Iran needs to call PM Netanyahu and offer to meet and discuss regime change and a meaningful peace treaty before those American ships start firing on Tehran. Then the Majlis must take place.

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bookoformon · 3 months

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Ether 15: 28-34. "Going Out." Conclusion to the Book of Ether.

The primary thrust of the Book of Mormon is the Exodus from Egypt, i.e. an end slavery, corruption, and oppression in America as a result of reading the Torah and the Gospels. For once and only once in history, the Prophet who wrote the book was able to get people to pay attention and the Civil War started. We have as yet to do this in a timely, urgent, or sincere manner in modern times.

Bad has to go to worse and then like a tired old mom who has worked all day, come home, made dinner fed the kids, changed the cat box, walked the dog, and cleaned the kitchen afterwards says, "I will do it," when no one will get up and change the channel on the TV.

This is what has happened with Israel, Ukraine, and should happen here in America with Donald Trump and his Republican Party but not yet. In spite of the fact they have committed some of the most serious crimes a man can commit, it's on the road again, and not out of trouble, but right back in.

The Prophet says we are supposed to live in a state of Limhi, "the Mother of Going Out" except we are always going in and out instead.

Now President Biden has every bit of ammunition he needs legally to shut the door on all of this and throw away the key, but for reasons no one understands why nothing bold or interesting is happening about the corruption in the US Government that has proven to be lethal in some way to the entire planet. He is sleeping on his sword.

While this happens, the dilly dally, life is ebbing, and the life we have left seems like it could wind up beiong kind of scary. Public officials are employed to take the fear out of life, not guarantee it will be longer lasting as the Trump Biden peanut butter cup has been doing.

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SO, take Donald Trump and every member of his party who are affiliated with the election fraud of 2016, the Capitol Coup, the kiddie porn ring on 12th Place, NW, all the Pro-Life murders and this Free Palestine crap and put them on death row as recompense for all the evil they have done and let's get on with our happy day, if you please. Find the strength to do it and go forth:

28 And it came to pass that when the men of Coriantumr had received sufficient strength that they could walk, they were about to flee for their lives; but behold, Shiz arose, and also his men, and he swore in his wrath that he would slay Coriantumr or he would perish by the sword.

29 Wherefore, he did pursue them, and on the morrow he did overtake them; and they fought again with the sword. And it came to pass that when they had all fallen by the sword, save it were Coriantumr and Shiz, behold Shiz had fainted with the loss of blood.

30 And it came to pass that when Coriantumr had leaned upon his sword, that he rested a little, he smote off the head of Shiz.

31 And it came to pass that after he had smitten off the head of Shiz, that Shiz raised up on his hands and fell; and after that he had struggled for breath, he died.

32 And it came to pass that Coriantumr fell to the earth, and became as if he had no life.

33 And the Lord spake unto Ether, and said unto him: Go forth. And he went forth, and beheld that the words of the Lord had all been fulfilled; and he finished his record; (and the hundredth part I have not written) and he hid them in a manner that the people of Limhi did find them.

34 Now the last words which are written by Ether are these: Whether the Lord will that I be translated, or that I suffer the will of the Lord in the flesh, it mattereth not, if it so be that I am saved in the kingdom of God. Amen.

If we translate this book, and for the most part, I have, then we know what the will of the Lord in the Flesh is all about. The Prophet says we should "hide them in a manner that the freedom fighters will find them" but I don't think we should hide them. The Book of Mormon is the most important scripture ever written, and it is American Made, I think we should proudly do what it says right out in the open just like it says and create an oppression free land, just like we promised we would.

The Values in Gematria are:

v. 28: They were about to flee for their lives.

The Number is 12149, יב‎אדט‎‎‎, yabadet, "You lost. Everything is destroyed."

v. 29: Wherefore he did pursue them.

The Number is 14323, ידגב‎‎ג‎, yadgbag, "will rank you like food." Man must not engage in unclean behavior or he will prosecute the meat is unclean.

v. 30: He leaned upon his sword that he rested, then he smote off his head. The Number is 5913, הט‎א‎ג, the tag, "knocked off his crown."

v. 31: Then he struggled for breath and died. It is God that breathes life into man. If man's behavior is unclean, then the breath will leave. It can be taken back, in fact. The Number is 5294, הבטד‎ ‎‎, the bated, "you in the future."

v. 32: He became dead. The Number is 2247, "in badd", "alone there is no favor."

v. 33: And the Lord told Ether, the entire place: The Number is 7683, "the shrines of zohag." "gather and live in peace."

The noun ζωη (zoe), meaning life: the act of investing energy in bonds rather than in thermodynamic excitation. When a particle or a person hoards energy or wealth, this particle or person gains mass and speed and ultimately disconnects from all others. Both hoarding and heat causes loneliness and thus death. Life is the opposite of that (LUKE 12:15). Sharing wealth requires convention, and speech and script are manifestations of that (JOHN 1:4). Life is a cloud of interactions. Its beginning may be feeble and weak (JAMES 4:14) but it has the potential to bring about God's Kingdom (HEBREWS 12:1, 1 THESSALONIANS 4:17). This noun is used 135 times;

Together with the preposition συν (sun), meaning together or with: the verb συζαω (suzao), meaning to jointly live or live together (ROMANS 6:8, 2 CORINTHIANS 7:3 and 2 TIMOTHY 2:11 only).

v. 34: Now these are the last words. The Number is 13027, יג‎אֶפֶסבז, "Or life will be wasted."

This is a small town and it seems to have an even smaller memory, doesn't it?

Here ends the Book of Ether, the annals of what used to be a sacred place to God called America.

#Youtube

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nijjhar · 5 months

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John 6v16-21:- Without Christ in your heart, you are "Shepherdless" misl... John 6v16-21:- Without Christ in your heart, you are "Shepherdless" mislead by the crooks and suffer. https://youtu.be/mihaDsjo7JI Holy Gospel of our SUPERNATURAL FATHER of our supernatural “souls” Elohim, Allah, ParBrahm, etc., delivered by the first Anointed Christ, which in my native language Punjabi, we call Satguru Jesus of the highest living God Elohim, Allah, Parbrahm, etc. that dwells within His most beautiful living Temple of God created by the greatest artist demiurge potter, the lord of the Nature Yahweh, Brahma, Khudah, etc. and it is called Harmandir or “Emmanuel” if you are not “greedy” according to Saint John 6,16-21. When it was evening, the twice-born Brethren of Jesus went down to the sea, embarked in a boat of life, and went across the sea to Capernaum but without Christ in their hearts. It had already grown dark, this Dark Age Kalyug and Jesus, the Christ had not yet come to them. This is the condition of the people without their Shepherd. The sea was stirred up because a strong wind was blowing. The world is FULL of troubles and it troubles your minds. When they had rowed about three or four miles, they saw Jesus walking on the sea and coming near the boat, and they began to be afraid. But he said to them, "It is I. Do not be afraid." They wanted to take him into the boat, but the boat immediately arrived at the shore to which they were heading. That is without Christ in your heart, you are spiritually blind lost in the vast sea and if you welcome Christ into your heart, He will take you to your Destination, the Royal Kingdom of God for the Saints Eternal as their Father Elohim, Allah, Parbrahm, etc. is. For Christ to Govern your Life, you need to be Righteous and Merciful as Christ Jesus has demonstrated to us. Unjust and Racist people are sons of the Most High Satan. This is America - Israel in Disguise:- Grim American Jewish Reaper waving sickle to kill more in Venezuela as they did in Iraq, Libya, Syria, Ukraine, etc. www.gnosticGospel.co.uk/GrimReaper.htm You should make a banner of this Cartoon, please. Here is much more information and if needed, I can explain in great detail. JEWS THEMSELVES ARE ANTISEMITIC. A Jew is spiritual of heart inwardly END TIME GOSPEL TRUTH www.gnosticGospel.co.uk/GistEndGospel.htm www.gnosticGospel.co.uk/JAntisem.htm Other:- www.gnosticGospel.co.uk/Nobility.htm http://www.gnosticGospel.co.uk/tenlights.htm http://www.gnosticGospel.co.uk/JattIslamic .htm Proofs Virgin Birth www.gnosticGospel.co.uk/bojes.htm Holy spirit, common sense, shatters the fetters of the dead letters, the Holy Books. If we have one God, our SUPERNATURAL FATHER of our supernatural “soul”, there should be one Faith. In Christianity, Jesus said One Fold called the Church of God headed by One Shepherd, our Elder Brother and the Bridegroom Christ Jesus/Christ = Satguru Nanak Dev Ji, the Second Coming of Jesus. Solid Proof; this Golden Temple is of the same size as the Holiest of the Holy that used to be in Jerusalem and its curtain held the secrets of the Oral Torah = His Word was rendered from the Top, the Temple High Priest, to the Bottom, the village Rabbis off you go – Luke 16v16; Law and Prophets were till John and thus, everyone makes a direct approach to God through His Word = Logo = Satgur Parsad. So, these hireling Dog-Collared Priests and Mullahs, cannot give your account to God as the Rabbis used to give at the Passover. So, they are "Antichrists" that have a following of the spiritually blind Super Bastard fanatic devils - John 8v44 - Hindu, Jew, Sikh, Christian, Muslim, etc. outwardly of appearances, and not spiritually inwardly. These spiritual selves Hindu, Jew and Christian, are never born like Christ, the title and they never die but the tribal selves Judah, Levi, Jatt, Tarkhan, etc. were born and they will die. Thus, Jesus was born and Jesus died on the cross and rose on the Third Day and not Christ, the title. Book:- One God One Faith:- www.gnosticGospel.co.uk/bookfin.pdf Allah is NOOR and you cannot apply Sharia Laws that bind you on NOOR that sets you FREE. This Islam is not of Allah called INSHALLAH but of Mullahs called Inshmullah. Our Khokhar Jatt Chaudhry Saddam Hussein Khokhar Jatt was executed by the American Jews. JEWS THEMSELVES ARE ANTISEMITIC. www.gnosticgospel.co.uk/JAntisem.htm For the unlisted videos:- www.gnosticgospel.co.uk/Unlisted.htm My ebook by Kindle. ASIN: B01AVLC9WO Private Bitter Gospel Truth videos:- www.gnosticgospel.co.uk/JAntisem.htm www.gnosticgospel.co.uk/JOHN 8V44.htm www.gnosticgospel.co.uk/Rest.htm Any helper to finish my Books:- ONE GOD ONE FAITH:- www.gnosticgospel.co.uk/bookfin.pdf and in Punjabi KAKHH OHLAE LAKHH:- www.gnosticgospel.co.uk/pdbook.pdf Very informative Channel:- Punjab Siyan. John's baptism:- www.gnosticgospel.co.uk/johnsig.pdf Trinity:- www.gnosticgospel.co.uk/trinity.pdf

#youtube

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libidomechanica · 8 months

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Untitled (“Say, Lassie, O”)

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gladly play with hood-wink’d with power to give a note this Canto has its ordinariness, which he defies, but

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his heart conveys it inside in such that my feet. She is faire brief, which speaking row, who rather then dear unto

me; close mine eye lovers o’er life with barred his hold me of your bed will. In her excel, but for teeth, and walls so fair;

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#poetry #automatically generated text #Patrick Mooney #Markov chains #Markov chain length: 6 #162 texts #ballad

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lesfeldickbiblestudy · 1 year

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Through the Bible with Les Feldick LESSON 3 * PART 3 * BOOK 69 FOR SUCH A TIME AS THIS Book of Esther Okay, it’s good to see everybody back so quickly. We’re going to get out of here early today if we keep this up! So, again we want to make our television audience feel right at home. Like I told someone in the studio before one of our programs this afternoon, I had a letter, or a phone call, from a gentleman who heard me refer to previous letters that say they feel like they’re sitting on the back row. This guy says, “Not me. I’m sitting on the front row right beside that gal with the red hair.” (Sharon) We appreciate the fact that you just make yourself at home with us, because all we are is an informal Bible study. We just have a good time searching the Scriptures together. So, if you’re ever headed toward Tulsa on, usually, the first Wednesday after the first Sunday of the month, try to make it in and enjoy the day with us. Okay, we’re in the Book of Esther. It’s a little different Bible study than what I’ve been normally doing. I hope I’m not losing you. But on the other hand, I felt it was too good a book that’s just sort of lying back there. Nobody ever studies it. The primary reason I’m doing this is because, as we’re seeing again today, we’ve got this fellow in Iran who is just bound and determined that every Jew be thrown into the sea. Well, it’s nothing new. This is the satanic effort to interrupt God’s prophetic program. Remember, prophecy can never be fulfilled if Israel is not in their homeland. They have to be there, because when Christ returns, where is He going to return to? Well, not New York or Washington or Tokyo. He’s going to return to the Mount of Olives which is in Jerusalem. So, it’s prophetic. It has to happen. And Satan is never going to win. Somebody called the other day and said, “Is Satan ignorant? Is he stupid? Why can’t he understand he can’t win?” That is a good question. Satan evidently still thinks he can win. But he can’t, because prophecy has set all this in concrete, as I like to say, and they have to happen. So, my number one reason for teaching this Book of Esther is not just to fill up book 69, but to make the point that Satan never stops trying to destroy the Nation of Israel. It’s happened over and over all the way back in antiquity, back in recent history, and now even today. The world in general would just as soon see every Jew disappear. That’s why I’m always reminding my classes here in Oklahoma, and I might as well remind my television audience – you pray! You pray for our President. I don’t care whether it’s a Democrat or a Republican in the White House. You pray for them that they will maintain our stand with Israel. You know, I’m telling everybody lately to send a message to the White House: Remember Harry Truman. Harry Truman proved that if you do what God wants you to do; He’ll end up blessing you. For those of you who may not know what I’m talking about. In the spring of 1948 he was at the bottom of the polls. He didn’t stand a “Chinaman’s chance,” as we’d say, of winning the election in the fall. All his advisors, every member of his cabinet, and every member of congress begged him not to stand up with this little emerging Nation of Israel while they were still fighting for their independence. And I trust you all know the story. When Ben-Gurion announced to the world that Israel was now a sovereign state, Harry Truman was the first major player on the stage of history to declare that America will stand with this little Nation of Israel and defend her. Well, that was in May of 1948. In November, you all know your history. Harry Truman beat Thomas Dewey hands down. I maintain it was all because, against all of his advisors and against all the media of the day, Harry Truman did what was right. He stood up for Israel. I feel that this is still appropriate today. So, you pray for our men in high places. You pray for the Nation of Israel, because they have to be there. Otherwise, prophecy can’t be fulfilled.

All right, now I’m going to go back to Esther, again, with that premise that here we have another opportunity where Satan thinks he can destroy the Nation to the last little boy and girl. They were to have no mercy and to kill every Jew in the empire. All right, we were down at chapter 4. I’m going to read again the last part of verse 14. This is exactly what it boiled down to, where Mordecai tells Esther: Esther 4:14b-16 “…and who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom (as a queen in a place where she can really get something done) for such a time as this. (To stop the obliteration of the Jewish people.) 15. Then Esther bade them return Mordecai this answer. 16. Go, gather together all the Jews that are present in Shushan, and fast ye for me, and neither eat nor drink three days, night or day: I also and my maidens will fast likewise; and so will I go in unto the king, which is not according to the law: and if I perish, I perish.” In other words, she could not go in unless he would invite her. But she’s going to make the move, and he could have just as well made the decree to kill her. Esther 4:17-5:1 “So Mordecai went his way, and did according to all that Esther had commanded him. 1. Now it came to pass on the third day, that Esther put on her royal apparel, (She’s going to get dressed to the hilt.) and stood in the inner court of the king’s house, over against the king’s house: and the king sat upon his royal throne in the royal house, over against the gate of the house.” Esther 5:2 “And it was so, when the king saw Esther the queen standing in the court, that she obtained favor in his sight: and the king held out to Esther the golden scepter that was in his hand. So Esther drew near, and touched the top of the scepter.” This, of course, was the custom. You’ve seen it in movies. I know you have. Where the king would appoint whoever touched the scepter to come into his presence. Esther 5:3-4 “Then the king said unto her, (Here it comes now. We’re setting the stage to reverse everything against this Amalekite Haman.) The king said unto her, What wilt thou, queen Esther? and what is thy request? It shall be even given thee to the half of the kingdom. 4. And Esther answered, If it seem good unto the king, let the king and Haman come this day unto the banquet that I have prepared for him.” Now, she’s just not asking him straight out – reverse the decree. But she’s going to, I think, get them pretty well as we would say today, loosened up. You know, like a lot of people call it - attitude adjustment or whatever. Alcohol has been the vehicle for centuries, you know that. So, she’s going to use the same thing. She prepares a huge banquet. Esther 5:5-7 “Then the king said, Cause Haman to make haste, that he may do as Esther hath said. So the king and Haman came to the banquet that Esther had prepared. 6. And the king said unto Esther at the banquet of wine, What is thy petition? and it shall be granted thee: and what is thy request? even to the half of the kingdom it shall be performed. 7. Then answered Esther and said, My petition and my request is;” Here it comes. You know how they did in the antiquities. I know this because I read a lot of archaeology stuff. This is exactly how they wrote each other letters. They would just flower and give all kinds of descriptions of how great they were. So, she does the same thing. Esther 5:8-9 “If I have found favor in the sight of the king, and if it please the king to grant my petition, and to perform my request, let the king and Haman come to the banquet that I shall prepare for them, and I will do tomorrow as the king hath said. 9. Then went Haman forth that day joyful and with a glad heart: but when Haman saw Mordecai in the king’s gate, that he stood not up, nor moved for him, he was full of indignation, (That’s another word for wrath.) against Mordecai.” Esther 5:10 “Nevertheless Haman refrained himself: and when he came home, he sent and called for his friends, and Zeresh his wife.

” He rehearsed all that was taking place between him and the king, and how he feels that one of these days he’s going to be second in the kingdom. He’s really flying high. Then verse 12. Esther 5:12 “Haman said moreover, Yea, Esther the queen did let no man come in with the king unto the banquet that she had prepared but myself; and tomorrow I am invited unto her also with the king.” You see how they like to lubricate their ego. I guess that’s part of politics, isn’t it? They just love to have their ego stroked, and, as we say, lifted up. So, Haman was just ecstatic that he alone would be in this banquet with the king and the queen. All right, then he says: Esther 5:13 “Yet all this availeth me nothing, so long as I see Mordecai the Jew sitting at the king’s gate.” He had such a hatred for Jews that even though he thought he was really making headway with the king, yet this just overwhelmed him. Esther 5:14 “Then said Zeresh his wife and all his friends unto him, Let a gallows be made of fifty cubits high, and tomorrow speak thou unto the king that Mordecai may be hanged thereon: then go thou in merrily with the king unto the banquet. And the thing pleased Haman; and he caused the gallows to be made.” But now, here God moves in. Yes, God moves in on the thinking of a king lying on his bed at night. Esther 6:1 “On that night could not the king sleep, and he commanded to bring the book of records of the chronicles: and they were read before the king.” Now, do you see why I made special note of that a few chapters back? What happened in that book of chronicles? It was recorded how Mordecai had kept him from being killed by these two chamberlains. It was in the book. Now he reads it, see? Oh, the Providence, the hand of God in everything, Beloved. Id it’s no different today. It’s not one whit different. God is in everything. Easter 6:2-3 “And it was found written, that Mordecai had told of Bigthana and Teresh, two of the king’s chamberlains, the keepers of the door, who sought to lay hand on the king Ahasuerus. 3. And the king said, What honor and dignity hath been done to Mordecai for this? Then said the king’s servants that ministered unto him, There is nothing done for him.” Esther 6:4-6a “And the king said, Who is in the court? Now Haman was come into the outward court of the king’s house, to speak unto the king to hang Mordecai on the gallows that he had prepared for him. 5. And the king’s servant said unto him, Behold, Haman standeth in the court. And the king said, Let him come in. 6. So Haman came in. And the king said unto him, What shall be done unto the man whom the king delighteth to honor?...” Now remember, Haman is all puffed up. He thinks he is about to become second man in the Kingdom. The stage is being set. Esther 6:6b-8 “…Now Haman thought in his heart, To whom would the king delight to do honor more than to myself? 7. And Haman answered the king, For the man whom the king delighteth to honor, 8. Let the royal apparel be brought which the king used to wear, and the horse that the king rideth upon, and the crown royal which is set upon his head:” Now, this is almost comedy isn’t it? I love this little book after spending all this time in it. Here this guy is thinking all this is going to happen to him. Esther 6:9-10a “And let this apparel and horse be delivered to the hand of one of the king’s most noble princes, that they may array the man withal whom the king delighteth to honour, and bring him on horseback through the street of the city, and proclaim before him, Thus shall it be done to the man whom the king delighteth to honor. (All right then, here it comes.) 10. Then the king said to Haman, Make haste, and take the apparel and the horse, as thou hast said, and do even so to Mordecai the Jew,…” Glorious, isn’t it? Glorious! You know, someone has said, does God have a sense of humor? I think He does. Now mostly, you know, even when I have the question come up, did Jesus ever smile or laugh in His earthly ministry? Well, we don’t know that He did.

If He didn’t, it was because the sin of the world was the number one thing on His mind. And naturally, you know, you can’t make light of things when you’re thinking of that aspect of it. The same way with God in general, you know. “He’s not willing that any should perish,” and He looks at the wickedness of man. Yet, I have to feel, especially in a situation like this, that He does have a sense of humor. So, here Haman is being set up. He thinks to bring in his own honor and glory and then to have it suddenly go to the Jew. Boy! That must have been a real hammer blow to the man’s ego. Esther 6:10b-11 “…and do even so, do it to Mordecai the Jew, that sitteth at the king’s gate: let nothing fail of all that thou hast spoken. (In other words, you fulfill every detail Haman.) 11. Then took Haman the apparel and the horse, and arrayed Mordecai, and brought him on horseback through the street of the city, and proclaimed before him, Thus shall it be done unto the man whom the king delighteth to honor.” Esther 6:12-14 “And Mordecai came again to the king’s gate. But Haman, hasted to his house mourning, and having his head covered. (I mean, he is in complete sorrow.) 13. And Haman told Zeresh his wife and all his friends everything that had befallen him. Then said his wise men and Zeresh his wife unto him, If Mordecai be of the seed of the Jews, before whom thou has begun to fall, thou shalt not prevail against him, but shall surely fall before him. 14. And while they were yet talking with him, came the king’s chamberlains, and hasted to bring Haman unto the banquet that Esther had prepared.” Now, here’s where Esther came in and began to set the stage for a reversal of the decree to destroy the Jew. Esther 7:1-3 “So the king and Haman came to banquet with Esther the queen. 2. And the king said again unto Esther on the second day at the banquet of wine, What is thy petition, queen Esther? and it shall be granted thee: and what is thy request?... 3. Then Esther the queen answered and said, If I have found favor in thy sight, O king, and if it please the king, let my life be given me at my petition, and my people (the Jews now remember) at my request:” Esther 7:4-5 “For we are sold, (Remember, the decree has gone out.) I and my people, to be destroyed, to be slain, and to perish. But if we had been sold for bondmen and bondwomen. (In other words, if we’d just been sold into servitude--) I would have held my tongue, although the enemy could not countervail the king’s damage. 5. Then the king Ahasuerus answered and said, unto Esther the queen, Who is he and where is he, that durst presume in his heart to do so?” In other words, to kill all the Jews. Esther 7:6-7a “And Esther said, The adversary and enemy (Now remember, there’s only three people at that banquet, if I read right - the king, the queen, and Haman.) And Esther said, The adversary and enemy is this wicked Haman. Then Haman was afraid before the king and the queen. 7. And the king arising from the banquet of wine in his wrath, went into the palace garden:…” Now, that’s why I referred to the archaeological digs of this palace. They could reconstruct, according to the foundation stones, that this was the floor plan of this palace. So, this is all set in antiquity, archaeologically. Esther 7:7-8 “And the king arising from the banquet of wine in his wrath went into the palace garden: and Haman stood up to make request for his life to Easter the queen; for he saw that there was evil determined against him by the king. 8. Then the king returned out of the palace garden into the place of the banquet of wine; and Haman was fallen upon the bed (Or couch, I feel that they had been reclining to eat and partake of their banquet. This is just about a repeat of Joseph back there in Egypt.) whereon Esther was. Then said the king, Will he force the queen also before me in the house?’ As the word went out of the king’s mouth, they covered Haman’s face.” Esther 7:9-10 “And Harbonah,

one of the chamberlains, said before the king, Behold also, the gallows fifty cubits high, which Haman had made for Mordecai, who had spoken good for the king, standeth in the house of Haman. Then the king said, Hang him thereon. 10. So they hanged Haman on the gallows that he had prepared for Mordecai. Then was the king’s wrath pacified.” So, the very gallows that Haman had built hoping to kill Mordecai was used to hang Haman. Well, now we just keep right on going in chapter 8, and we’ll finish the whole story of Esther this afternoon. Esther 8:1-3 “On that day, did the king Ahasuerus give the house of Haman the Jews’ enemy unto Esther the queen. And Mordecai came before the king; for Esther had told what he was unto her. 2. And the king took off his ring, which he had taken from Haman, and gave it unto Mordecai. And Esther set Mordecai over the house of Haman. 3. And Esther spake yet again before the king, and fell down at his feet, and besought him with tears to put away the mischief of Haman the Agagite, and his device that he had devised against the Jews.” Esther 8:4-5 “Then the king held out the golden scepter toward Esther. So Esther arose, and stood before the king, 5. And said, If it please the king, and if I have found favor in his sight, and the thing seem right before the king, and I be pleasing in his eyes, let it be written (Now, here it comes.) to reverse the letters devised by Haman the son of Hammedatha the Agagite, which he wrote to destroy the Jews which are in all the king’s provinces: Esther 8:6-7 “For how can I endure to see the evil that shall come unto my people? Or how can I endure to see the destruction of my kindred? 7. Then the king Ahasuerus said unto Esther the queen and to Mordecai the Jew, Behold, I have given Esther the house of Haman, and him they have hanged upon the gallows, because he laid his hand upon the Jews.” Esther 8:8 “Write ye also for the Jews, as it liketh you, in the king’s name, and seal it with the king’s ring: for the writing which is written in the king’s name, and sealed with the king’s ring, may no man reverse.” Esther 8:9 “Then were the king’s scribes called at that time in the third month, that is, the month Sivan, on the three and twentieth day thereof; and it was written according to all that Mordecai commanded unto the Jews, and to the lieutenants, and the deputies and rulers of the provinces which are from India unto Ethiopia, an hundred and twenty seven provinces, unto every province according to the writing thereof, and unto every people after their language, and to the Jews according to their writing, and according to their language.” Okay, now here we come. This is what I wanted you to see. The post office, everything, was already operating clear back there 500 years before Christ, verse 10. Esther 8:10 “And he wrote in the king Ahasuerus’ name, and sealed it with the king’s ring, and sent letters by posts on horseback, and riders on mules, camels, and young dromedaries:” Boy, if that isn’t the Pony Express, I don’t know what is. So, all these riders went out all the way across the empire. Now picture that, all the way from India to around the Mediterranean, on the south and on the north. All the posts were made aware of the king’s reversal that would now put the Jew in the place of preeminence. Now verse 11: Esther 8:11-12 “Wherein the king granted the Jews which were in every city to gather themselves together, and to stand for their life, (Now, it’s reversed.) to destroy, to slay, and to cause to perish, all the power of the people and province that would assault them, both little ones and women, and to take the spoil of them for a prey. 12. Upon one day in all the provinces of king Ahasuerus, namely, upon the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, which is the month Adar.” Esther 8:13-14 “The copy of the writing for a commandment to be given in every province was published unto all people, and that the Jews should be ready against that day to avenge themselves on their enemies.

14. So the posts that rode upon mules and camels went out, being hastened and pressed on by the king’s commandment. And the decree was given at Shushan the palace.” Esther 8:15-17 “And Mordecai went out from the presence of the king in royal apparel of blue and white, and with a great crown of gold, and with a garment of fine linen and purple: and the city of Shushan rejoiced and was glad. 16. The Jews had light, and gladness, and joy, and honor. 17. And in every province, and in every city, whithersoever the king’s commandment and his decree came, the Jews had joy and gladness, a feast and a good day. And many of the people of the land became Jews; (In other words, even some of the Gentiles came in and began to embrace the Jews religion.) for the fear of the Jews fell upon them.” Well, anyway, as we go through the rest of this Book, we find that the vengeance is turned from killing the Jews to killing all those who hated them. The Jews come back into a place of preeminence. Now go to verse 5 of chapter 9. Esther 9:5 “Thus the Jews smote all their enemies with the stroke of the sword, and slaughter, and destruction, and did what they would unto those that hated them.” Now see, this is contrary to our line of thinking. But all the way back in antiquity, especially in the Middle East, just like you see it today, what is their favorite statement? The Arabs love death, and the Jews love life. Just think of that. And you’re seeing it. Every day! They love death, but the Jews, on the other hand, love life. Hey, it’s no secret. The Jews know how to live sumptuously. They always have. They’ve been stricken in poverty a good portion of their history. But on the other hand, they have the wherewithal; they know how to live sumptuously. So, here again, the whole thing is reversed, and now the Jews are in the place of killing their enemies. Then down to verse 10. Esther 9:10-12 “The ten sons of Haman (Now, this is the end of the Amalekites, historically speaking. This is where God finally said, this is the end of the Amalekites.) The ten sons of Haman the son of Hammedatha, the enemy of the Jews, they slew; but on the spoil they laid not their hand. 11. On that day the number of those that were slain in Shushan the palace was brought before the king. 12. And the king said unto Esther the queen, The Jews have slain and destroyed five hundred men in Shushan the palace, and the ten sons of Haman; what have they done in the rest of the king’s provinces? now what is thy petition? and it shall be granted thee: or what is thy request further? and it shall be done.” Esther 9:13-14 “Then said Esther, If it please the king, let it be granted to the Jews who are in Shushan to do tomorrow also according unto this day’s decree, and let Haman’s ten sons be hanged upon the gallows. 14. And the king commanded it so to be done: and the decree was given at Shushan; and they hanged Haman’s ten sons.” Which, like I said, brought an end to the Amalekites, which King Saul should have ended himself hundreds and hundreds of years earlier. Esther 9:15-17 “ For the Jews that were in Shushan gathered themselves together on the fourteenth day also of the month Adar, and slew three hundred men at Shushan: but on the prey they laid not their hand. 16. But the other Jews that were in the king’s provinces gathered themselves together, and stood for their lives, and had rest from their enemies, and slew of their foes seventy and five thousand, but they laid not their hands on the prey, 17. On the thirteenth day of the month Adar; and on the fourteenth day of the same rested they, and made it a day of feasting and gladness.” Now, we’ll pick that up in our final half-hour. We’ll find that it is a feast day that is still celebrated in Israel today. The name of the day is Purim (p-u-r-i-m). It is still celebrated traditionally by Jews, going all the way back to the time of Queen Esther. Interesting, not like I normally like to teach, but hopefully this is just a little interlude.

We’re going to be going into the Minor Prophets in our next study.

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rudrjobdesk · 2 years

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Prophet Muhammad Controversy: नूपुर शर्मा के विवाद पर आया अमेरिका का पहला बयान, जानें क्या कहा

Image Source : GOOGLE Nupur Sharma Controversy Highlights पैगंबर मोहम्मद के विवादित टिप्पणी पर अमेरिका ने की निंदा इस मामले को लेकर भाजपा द्वारा की गई कार्रवाई पर खुशी जाहिर की नूपुर ने कहा था कि मुसलमान हिंदू आस्था का मजाक उड़ा रहे हैं Prophet Muhammad Controversy: पैगंबर मोहम्मद पर नूपुर शर्मा के विवादित टिप्पणी को लेकर अमेरिका ने भी आपत्ति दर्ज कराई है। गुरुवार को अमेरिका ने इस बयान की…

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theanonymousloser · 3 years

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thanksgiving

pairing: James Potter x fem!muggleborn!american!reader

requested: on wattpad

word count: 1.6k

warnings: cursing, some details may be inaccurate (i've only flown once)

description: the reader's family invites her home to america for thanksgiving and welcome her boyfriend as well

The Marauders (plus Y/n) were sitting at the Gryffindor table eating their breakfast. Remus was reading a copy of the Daily Prophet, Sirius and James were deep into a conversation in which Y/n had no interest, and Peter was staring off into space. Y/n was looking expectantly up at the owls circling the Great Hall. She saw the owl she had given her parents and grinned.

The owl dropped a letter which landed gracefully on Y/n's plate. This caught James' attention.

"What's that?" He asked.

"It's from my parents." She smiled, opening the envelope. "They said Dumbledore says it's okay if I go home for Thanksgiving!"

"What the fuck is Thanksgiving?" Sirius asked and Y/n and Remus laughed.

"It's an american holiday on the last Thursday of November, I'm going to have an extra long Christmas break. But that's not even the best part." She explained.

"What- what is the best part?" James asked.

"They invited you too!"

"They what?!" James asked, well he sort of yelled it and the whole hall went silent.

"They what?!" He repeated, this time whispering.

"They invited you too! Now we'll still have to do all of the work that we miss, but I figured we could-" She began to ramble.

"Your- your parents want to meet me?" He paled.

"Er, yeah." Y/n was confused.

"W-why?" James asked.

"What do you mean why? Why wouldn't they? James, are you feeling alright, you don't look well."

"What if they don't like me? What if they make us break up? Y/n, what if-"

"Hey. Stop worrying, you'll be fine. They'll love you."

.....

"Hey, Y/n?" James said, walking down the steps from the boys' dormitories into the Gryffindor common room.

"Yeah?" She looked up from the muggle game she was playing with Lily.

"What's the weather like in America?" James asked, he was packing for their trip. Y/n stifled a laugh.

"Er well, it depends where in America you go. We're going to North Carolina so it won't be as cold as here, but you won't want t-shirts and shorts." (idk I just picked a random state plus l Iove nc so)

"Okay." He nodded, running back up the stairs.

"He saved packing to the last minute?" Lily laughed.

"He's James Potter, did you expect anything less?" Y/n smiled.

.....

There was a voice over the loudspeaker announcing flights that were boarding.

"That's us," Y/n said, and the two made their way over to the gate where they would board. The two were lucky enough to have found a non-stop flight.

James' parents had paid for James' ticket and passport, while Y/n's parents had only paid for her ticket (she already had a passport). The two gave their tickets to the flight attendant, showed her their passports, and boarded the plane.

"I still don't really understand why we can't just take some magical transportation. I could've had my mum apparate us there." James grumbled. He hated the situation he was in. Y/n rolled her eyes.

"Do you want the window seat or the aisle seat?" She asked as they reached an empty row.

"I'll take the window seat I guess." He said, shuffling over to the seat.

"We're here for the experience. Plus, my parents still don't quite understand magic, and they're more comfortable with me flying rather than apparating." She pulled two sticks of gum out of her carry-on bag and handed one to James. "Once we start flying, you're going to want this so that your ears don't pop." She explained, and he took it.

Because the two were unaccompanied minors, they were to be given a small basket of snacks. (This is actually a thing on some airlines)

"Hello, this is for you," a flight attendant walked over, handing Y/n the basket, "Have either of you flown before."

"I have, he hasn't." Y/n smiled.

"Alright, well let me know if you need anything." She smiled at the two before walking away.

"Ooh there are Pringles in here." The flight was on an American airline, so the American snack didn't surprise Y/n.

"What the heck is a pringle?" James asked, scrunching up his nose.

"It's a muggle american snack," Y/n laughed. "It's a brand of chips."

"You mean crisps." He smirked, the two had had the argument many times.

Y/n was about to respond, but there was an announcement declaring the flight was about to start.

.....

Y/n and James were the first off the plane, and Y/n grabbed his hand instinctively, pulling him along with her. As the two made it out of the airport, Y/n's eyes scanned the pick-up station thing for her parents' car.

"Y/n!" The two heard a small voice shout, who Y/n recognized to be her four-year-old brother.

"Joshie!" She exclaimed, turning to face the direction of the voice. She was met with the sight of her younger brother running towards her. She crouched down and held her arms out for a hug. Her brother hugged her excitedly and then turned to James.

"Hi, I'm Joshua, what's your name?" He said, making sure he said his name super clearly.

"I'm James," he smiled. Joshie looked over to Y/n and whispered in her ear "he's really cool."

Y/n laughed and stood back up, while Joshie led them over to the car.

"He thinks you're really cool," Y/n informed her boyfriend.

"Does he?" James smiled cockily.

"Y/n!" Y/n's mother said, pulling her into a hug as they reached the car.

"Hey, mom."

"Oh, and you must be James! I've heard so much about you!" She said.

"Oh really," James said with the same cocky smile as Y/n blushed.

"Dad's at work, but he'll be home by the time we get there." Her mother explained.

"Y/n!" Another voice yelled, this time, a young girl's.

"Hey Sammie," Y/n said to her six-year-old sister.

The two hugged and Samantha rushed over to hug James, no introduction needed.

"Hey Y/n," the final voice called.

"Hey Ollie," Y/n said, messing up his hair.

"That's not my name," the fourteen-year-old Oliver said, ducking away from her hand.

"I'm Oliver," he smiled towards James, reaching his hand out for him to shake.

"James," Y/n's boyfriend smiled, shaking his hand.

"Okay, time to go," Mrs. L/n said. Y/n and James put their luggage in the trunk and got into the car. Oliver was in the passenger seat, and Josh and Samantha were in their car seats in the middle row, so Y/n and James slid into the back row together.

"They all look just like you," he said, seeing as they all had bright red hair. They reminded him of the Prewetts.

.....

"Alright, before anyone gets out, I want Oliver to help me get their bags so that James and Y/n can say hi to dad without risking dropping anything. Y/n can you help Joshie get out of his car seat?"

"Sure!" Y/n smiled. James shifted in his seat, he had a nervous look on his face.

"You'll be fine. Plus, Joshie thinks you're cool." Y/n gave him a sincere smile and he seemed to lighten up a little.

Y/n climbed out of the car, helped Joshie out, and then James got out. Joshie grabbed Y/n's hand and pulled her along with him. She reached back and grabbed James' hand and pulled her along with him.

Y/n let go of Joshie's hand and pulled the front door open.

"Dad?" She called into the house, stepping inside, "We're home!"

She heard a loud crash from the kitchen that sounded like a fallen pot or pan. She ran towards the kitchen, accidentally pulling James with her (holding his and had become such a habit of hers that she often forgot she was doing it).

"Hey Y/n, I was going to start dinner, you startled me." He explained.

Y/n rushed over to her dad and pulled him into a hug.

"Oh and you must be James," Mr. L/n looked over at James, who nodded, "It's nice to meet you."

"It's nice to meet you too sir." James smiled.

"Per request of Dad and I, and Mr. and Mrs. Potter, James will be sleeping in the guest room." Mrs. L/n said, walking into the kitchen, "Y/n why don't you two go put your stuff away and then show James around while Dad and I get dinner ready."

"Okay," Y/n exclaimed. The two got their stuff from the living room where Oliver and Mrs. L/n had put it and took it upstairs.

"Alright, so you're in here," Y/n opened the door to the guest room and James nodded, "And I'm in here," Y/n opened her bedroom door which was right across the hall.

.....

"Y/n, Mom said it's time for dinner," Oliver said, leaning into her room.

"Thanks Ollie." She smiled, Oliver groaned.

"That's not my name."

"Are you sure?" She asked, giving him a cheeky grin.

"I wish I grew up with siblings," James said once Oliver left, "I mean now Sirius lives with us but I didn't know him up until I was eleven."

"You can borrow one of mine any time," Y/n smiled, standing up from their game of Uno.

"I may have to take you up on that." He grinned back.

#james potter x reader #james potter imagine #james potter #marauders #marauders imagine #marauders headcanon #marauders era #james potter fluff

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melisa-may-taylor72 · 4 years

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Accolades such as “greatest single long-playing achievement since Sgt. Pepper” and “the most important record album ever made” fall over Queen’s latest album as easily as butter melting on a hot potato—but few realize what a hot potato the album actually was in its pre-release days. It took a bevy of high-powered attorneys, some low-life finagling, and more than the usual amount of wheelerdealing just to get the album out without its being hacked to death by defamation-of-character suits.

Guitarist Brian May explains: “I’m in real difficulty here because I’ve been threatened with libel because our old management had a good go at stopping the album coming out. They thought “Death on Two Legs’’ was about them. They wanted us to take the track off and we nearly had to, and in fact they got a load of money out of our publishing company because it supposedly was libelous, but it’s never been proven. It’s all very stupid—they wanted to sue Freddie, the band, the publishing company, and the record company.”

All very dramatic stuff, but a band like Queen survives not on operatic finesse alone, but on gut-level melo- dramatics in the business department as well. When you produce your records, write the songs, play all the instruments, and do everything yourself, chances are you’re going to have to pay some legal dues, too. But ah! the rewards—such as the single, “Bohemian Rhapsody,” hanging into the #1 spot in the British charts for seven weeks in a row!

“We’re a bit more in the public eye now, we’re starting to get recognized a lot more,” says Brian May. “We’re carrying on working just as we did before, but obviously we’re very pleased with how the record’s doing. It’s sold more than a million copies in England— can’t believe it.” But it’s true: Queen’s stature in England has risen from that of The #1 teenage hard rock band to that of the-group- that-made-the-single-that-every-house- wife-knows-by-heart”.

What propelled Queen in that direction is their Night at the Opera album, a slight departure from what Queen fans know to be the Queen sound. The hard rock screams have temporarily subsided, replaced by experimentation with different voicings of instruments and production tricks. Those who found Queen’s approach overdecibelled can relax to the quiet “ ‘39” or “Good Company” and tap their feet to “Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon” without fear of being gui- tarred to death. “It’s just what came out,” says Brian. “They’re offshoots of our main direction. There’s plenty of time for the rock.”

“The album wasn’t really supposed to go in the direction that it did, it was just the songs we had. While we were making it we were thinking, ‘Yeah, it is getting a bit light,’ but rather than fight against it we decided to do it properly and then think again afterwards. So instead of trying to heavy up the lighter things, we pressed on. We had a few things we didn’t use, but we’re getting more demanding of ourselves. There are a few heavy things kicking around, but we may use them on the next record.”

The two strongest forces in Queen have always been Brian and Freddie. With A Night at the Opera, where experimentation and branching out in new directions are the most obvious characteristics, the personalities of the band are often obscured by the newly emerging elements. “Sometimes I feel that Freddie and I are going in different directions, but then he’ll come up with something and I’ll think, ‘My God—we do think alike.’ When I’m working on one of his things I can tune in very easily to what guitar part he wants, and vice-versa. In terms of what we’re trying to do in songs, we are moving in different directions, but I think that could be a good thing.”

QUEEN II: Critical response to the band is now almost unanimously favorable in both Great Britain and the United States, which is quite phenomenal when you stop and think of how anxious many critics were to pan them two years ago.“I’m not going to take it too seriously,” Brian says, “because I remember what the critics said about Queen II. It would seem that everybody is beginning to like us. … very much. I can take it at that level, but there’s no doubt in my mind that sometime in the future there’ll come a time when we get slagged for everything. Queen II is still my favorite of the Queen albums, certainly the most daring. Especially for the time. I think we’re still finding our feet now, and the way I feel about the new album is that we’re searching for new directions and most of them are sort of half-formed. We’ve got the Queen II feel in some places, and in others we’ve got the Sheer Heart Attack polish. I don’t think we’re quite sure where we’re going”.

“This album, at the very least, negates all the comparisons to Led Zeppelin that we’ve been living with for the past three years. I think Physical Graffiti is amazing, by the way. I saw Zeppelin at Earls Court, and I met Pagey afterward, for the first time. It was great, he was very nice and gentle. I respect him a tremendous amount for “Kashmir” and “The Light,” for being able to put his brain on record—- it wouldn’t matter if he couldn’t play a note.”

Economic criticism has been less favorable, however. A Night at the Opera was widely rumored to be “the most expensive album ever made” when it was released, a point which Queen’s management denies. Nevertheless, Queen has been taken to task by quite a few English journalists for spending so much money estimated at £30-40,000—making one record. Brian has a retort: “We wouldn’t have spent so much money if the studios weren’t so bloody expensive!

The album was recorded in seven of them, sometimes three at once.” We weren’t mucking about for any of it, it was four months of solid work. It came down to having the equipment available for four months, and we didn’t begrudge the amount of time spent in the studios, but it comes to a fair amount of money. There’s a lot of things that seem light, like “Good Company,” which actually took a great deal of time and care. All those trumpets and clarinets being fashioned from guitar sounds—I took it quite seriously because I wanted to do it right, even though it was a lighthearted thing. We worked too hard for our own health, we got a bit down and depressed.”

While Queen was laying about England between record and tour, a few of them got going on some independent projects. Brian and Roger produced an R&B group’s single, but there were some record company hassles and it may be some time before the record gets released. And on the eve of the American tour, Freddie Mercury went into the studios with a singer/songwriter managed by the Rocket Organization (which manages Queen as well) to try his hand at production. “Eddie Howells is the guy’s name, and he’s managed by David Mead, and they’re doing a single for Warners. I’m playing some guitar on it.” Brian restrained himself from going out on any limbs before the American tour in order to get himself physically fit. His health had been a crucial problem on an earlier American tour, and he’s not particularly anxious to spend time in hospitals when he could be onstage instead. “I actually get more tired offtour than ontour,”he admits. But I am in good health.”

HAIRY LEGS: Once the English leg of the tour did get started, word started to flow very quickly back to the States about Queen’s dramatic stage show—a stage show to end all stage shows, with Mercury donning short-shorts to add a bit of the hairy leg to Queen’s otherwise pristeen presentation. “The show is the same, but different,” Brian says confusedly. “We’ve merely developed what we did before with some new material from the new album. It’s a bit of reshuffling. Plus we do “Doing All- right” from the first album, which we’ve never done onstage before. And “Seven Seas of Rhye,” which we’d do in England but never in America before. It’s quite a lot different, actually.”

American audiences got their first chance to sample the new presentation on January 27 in Waterbury, Conn., when the first concert of Queen’s scheduled 32-date, 21-city American tour got underway in the Palace Theatre. After arriving in the States at Kennedy International on January 20 and spending a couple of days in New York for interviews, Queen began five days of rehearsals at the Palace to ready their show for American fans across the country.

After Waterbury they dove headfirst into the intensive six-week tour, which featured extended runs in New York, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles before its scheduled end March 12 at the San Diego Sports Arena.

Despite the novel direction of the new album, onstage Queen proved to be the same rocking outfit they’ve always been, letting loose with the same kind of guitar-bass-drums-piano barrage they’ve delivered in the past. “We don’t do “39” or “Lazing on aSunday Afternoon” in our show,“ Brian explains. He seems a bit defensive of Queen’s rock spirit, which is kept intact in the live set by “BohemianRhapsody,” “Sweet Lady,” “Prophet Song” and the deletion of the “experimental tunes” from A Night At the Opera.

By the by, those who missed Queenon earlier tours but want to see how they’ve changed now have the means. Queen bave joined the prestigious ranks of the Zeppelins, the Beatles, and the Rolling Stones whereby sorne illegal entrepreneur has issued a boot leg album of one of their American concerts. “I hate those things-they rarely give an accurate picture of the group,” Brian states unequivocally, and in this case he’s right. The Queen bootleg has transistor radio fidelity, and the only truly audible members of the band are Brian and Freddie. Yet the fact that a bootleg exists confirms the fact that Queen is now well on their way to the top.

CIRCUS MAGAZINE, APRIL 1975

@natromanxoff, @mephisto92, @moviestorian, @x5vale, @39-brian, @onegoldenglance, @crosmopolitan, @an-abyss-called-life, @his-majesty-king-mercury, @i-live-for-queen, @brian-39-may, @toomuchlove-willkillyou, @brimaymay, @sail-away-sweet-sister, @drummerqueenrmt, @old-fashioned-roger-boy-deactiv, @briianmaay, @l-over-bo-y, @inui-mycroft, @deacytits, @iminlovewithrogscar, @drowseoftaylor, @brianmayislongaway, @balticlover, @astrophysicist-guitar-god, @miez-lakatz, @brianmayoucease, @jesus-in-a-life-boat, @roger-taylors-car, @silapril, @sherrifanciesfriskyfreddie, @tenderbri, @brianmydear, @thosequeenboys, @millionairewaltz-carpediem, @painandpleasure86, @bribrifrenchfry, @xlucylennonx, @a-night-at-the-abbey-road, @inthedayswhenlandswerefew, @madformeddowstaylor, @queenrogertaylorfan, @let-roger-get-a-lunch, @queen-for-life, @rethought, @darlinginnuendo, @mymakeupmaybeflaking, @old-but-still-a-child, @let-roger-get-a-lunch, @warriorteam1924, @funnydressesweirdhairanddance, @painkiller80, @thefanhuman13, @yourtieddownmother, @hgmercury39, @brimi-stardust, @thefairyfellermercury, @retroromantics, @foxmonkey, @sophiaintheskywithdiamonds, @holybrianmaywritingbear, @lydiannode, @39-yellow-daffodils , @ure-gonna-loveme-when-u-seeme, @kaykaybeachgirl, @rhysjoejoshtomfarisblog @redspecialandclogsandcurls, @briansrainbowsocks, @delilahmay39, @ohmybribri, @bless-the-queen, @infunitehearbeat, @sketchiesscketches, @everythingaboutfreddie, @doitforthevine67, @recordsoftheseventies, @tenementfunsterwithpurpleshoes, @drummah-in-a-rocknroll-band, @beatlegirl1968, @maylorsqueen, @shearrehartatacc, @gralto, @alittlepeoplemagic, @rainbowsockbrian, @sailawaysweetbrimi

#Circus Magazine #Queen article

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natromanxoff · 3 years

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Queen live at Hammersmith Odeon in London, UK - December 26, 1979

(x)

Queen performed as part of the Concerts For The People Of Kampuchea [Cambodia], which were performed over a few days at the Hammersmith Odeon in London. Other performers included The Who (who played for three hours), Wings, The Pretenders, Elvis Costello & The Attractions, The Clash, and the members of Led Zeppelin (minus Jimmy Page). A 2-LP set was released in 1981, including Now I'm Here from Queen's set. Freddie's vocal range is still top notch on this last show of the tour, although he doesn't always hit the high notes cleanly as he did earlier in the month. Still, these versions of Somebody To Love and We Are The Champions are dripping with passion from him and are among the best ever performed. After Somebody To Love, Freddie pours some water on the front rows. "I'll keep the lager for myself," he says, as he grabs a beer. He continues, "Now listen, I know it feels like a Cecil B. DeMille production of the Ten Commandments here tonight but don’t worry about the cameramen. They're getting paid. Right now we’d like to do a song... my god it’s quiet in here." It suddenly isn't quiet after he makes that comment. "It's always like this at Hammersmith. I don't know why. Are you supposed to be a sophisticated crowd? I suppose you are." He then introduces If You Can't Beat Them, and what follows is a great final performance of the Jazz album rocker. Soon thereafter, Brian plays the trills near the end of Mustapha beautifully. During the middle section of Get Down Make Love, Freddie passes down the mic to an audience member, who then sings part of the "La la" part of The Prophet's Song. The mic is then immediately taken away! Before Love Of My Life, Brian gives the audience a brief background on the purpose of the concert, and adds: "The reason for all these cameras is that it's proposed to make a composite show of us and the other people who have performed this week, and to sell that to make some more money for those people as well. So we hope it goes well." A few audience members boo at the thought of other artists being on the film, and one of them shouts, "Just you!" After the song, Brian says, "Hammersmith sings; very nice." He continues, "we're gonna have a little bit of fun with this one. We usually do this one. It doesn't sound quite it does on the record, I don't think. But this is called '39. Sing along." In his solo spot, Brian plays a few chords that loosely resemble In The Space Capsule which would appear on the Flash Gordon soundtrack the following year. He then plays a specially rehearsed version of Silent Night, a gesture much appreciated by the audience. At many shows on this tour, the audience (led by those "Royal Family" fans) would continue singing Crazy Little Thing Called Love after the band finished the song. The band even joins in tonight. Here is a review of the show:

Here's an article (1, 2) with a few pictures from this show (although some are from other shows).

Pics 1 to 6 were taken by Dave King and submitted by Mark Alexander (and later colour corrected by Nino Trovato). The last picture was taken by Gillian Parry (her picture was snapped at almost the exact moment as pic 5).

...

According to an article in the June 1989 issue of Record Collector, the entire concert was shown at a "recent fan club convention," and it even mentions Keep Yourself Alive and Brian's solo specifically. It continues, "If Queen ever follow Bruce Springsteen in issuing a live boxed set of albums, then this show must form part of it." Over twenty years later, Queen fans are still waiting for a release that is truly representative of the band at this very vital point in their career. This concert features the final performances of If You Can't Beat Them, Don't Stop Me Now, and Spread Your Wings. '39 would be dropped from the setlist for good as well, but it would be performed (in part) once more in 1984. Brian would sporadically play the main guitar theme a couple times as well (1, 2). Within a few days the 70s would come to an end, and Queen would never again be the same. The success of The Game in North America would shift their gears as a band, in concert and otherwise.

Fan Stories

“If I'd have known how special and legendary this gig was to become, I would have taken notes at the time - fortunately this concert was filmed - I've seen two clips of it recently to my absolute delight: this was an incendiary show. I remember seeing it afterwards on TV, severely edited down for TV consumption with all the voiceovers by Peter Ustinov... The footage is great but to be there was simply amazing and I know in my life I will never see another show like this one. I don't remember anything about getting there but I remember where I sat at Hammersmith, towards the back and to one side, around row S. I'd already seen them at Brighton and marvelled at the latest rig, the Pizza Oven... and then I went with a friend to the Rainbow to see them where we practically hung off the balcony singing - another great gig, where I believe they drilled a hole in the roof(?) for the lighting rig or maybe my memory is failing around this point... Now if I could have gone to another gig on this tour I think it would have been to Purley Tiffany's, which was really tiny and reports were afterwards that they nearly bought the ceiling down, the noise comparable to a jumbo jet taking off - which is so wonderfully rock & roll... and of course, so them! But I digress... this night was also extremely loud, punishingly loud in fact. Yes I remember Brian's 'Three Blind Mice' solo very well - a quiet bit - but then it got bloody loud, the 3-part digital delays reverberating from the stage monitors to behind me at the back and across to the other side of the venue at the back, then back to the stage, round and round. I remember that vividly. Another memory from this night: Fred's fight with the monitors during Sheer Heart Attack... the monitors lost. Another great rock & roll moment - possibly the most potent I've ever witnessed - a moment of sheer exhilarating wildness, in a tremendous show. I know I thought, "what the hell's he doing" whilst really laughing and thinking, yeah, I know, because I feel exactly the same - I can't explain it very well to you who are reading this, just to say it again: it was an intense, incendiary night. A third and last fragment of memory - Fred arrived on the shoulders of Superman for the second encore, We Will Rock You, which was great fun... After depositing Fred, he ran off the stage in a suitably manfully Superman fashion, which I can still see now. Well, there you are - I'm sorry I don't remember anymore but you got the bits that are indelibly burned into my memory for all time... “ - Jane

#queen #queen band #roger taylor #freddie mercury #brian may #john deacon #queen concerts

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giftofshewbread · 4 years

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Apocalypse Approaching

By Daymond Duck Published on: March 20, 2021

The Bible clearly teaches that the Antichrist and False Prophet will be active on earth at the same time (during the Tribulation Period).

If we are close to a world government run by the Antichrist, we are close to a world religion run by the False Prophet.

If we are close to a world government and world religion, we are close to a new economic system that the Antichrist and False Prophet will use to control people.

Put another way, when the Tribulation Period arrives, there will be three global systems on earth at the same time: a global political system (world government), a global religious system (world religion), and a global economic system (world control of buying and selling).

On Sept. 25, 2015, the UN approved a document called “Transforming our World: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.”

Supporters called it a “New Universal Agenda” (a phrase comes from the Preamble of the document itself).

The document calls for a world government, world religion, and a world economic system to be established by 2030.

This is what globalism (creating regional groups of nations), the pope’s visit to Iraq (merging, Christianity, Judaism and Islam), and the World Economic Forum’s Great Reset (creation of a new economic system) are all about.

The fact that these three global systems are coming on the scene simultaneously in our generation is solid evidence that we are the terminal generation, and the Rapture is close.

Here are some prophecy-related events that recently made the news:

One, Michael Snyder, author and highly read publisher of The Economic Collapse Blog, posted articles about the U.S. economy two days in a row.

Snyder’s Mar. 11, 2021 article titled “So This Is How the U.S. Dollar Dies” reminds us that America’s national debt is approaching 30 trillion dollars and America has “now entered an era of hyperinflation,” which, in my opinion, is what the rider on the Black Horse is about in the Book of Revelation (Rev. 6:5-6).

Snyder believes “a major trigger event could crash the (stock) market at any time,” and I believe some globalists would deliberately do that if they thought it would result in a world government.

This is more than my opinion.

As incredible as it sounds, articles are appearing suggesting that there may be a deliberate effort to collapse the U.S. and global economy.

Snyder’s Mar. 12, 2021 article titled “Brace Yourselves for the Most Dramatic Shift in the Standard of Living in All of U.S. History” points out that prices of some products (gasoline, lumber, agricultural products, etc.) are soaring as “the U.S. dollar is being transformed into toilet paper money.”

Snyder believes world leaders will soon realize that the world needs to replace the dollar as the world’s reserve currency, and he says the word “collapse” is “not nearly strong enough to describe what is eventually going to happen to us.”

I believe Snyder is totally correct about America’s economic situation and the coming collapse, but I believe the Church will be raptured before the worst of it hits in the Tribulation Period.

It looks like “Make America Great Again” is dying, and “The Fundamental Transformation of America” is coming on strong.

Two, many prophecy teachers have long taught that the U.S. must lose its position as a world’s superpower in order to bring in a world government.

On Mar. 9, 2021, Sen. Lindsey Graham warned that terrorists can enter the U.S. through America’s open border with Mexico.

The Biden administration has thrown the border wide open, is using free bus tickets to spread Covid-positive immigrants all over the country, drugs and terrorists are pouring across the border, human trafficking is up dramatically, and the Democrats are pushing legislation to disarm America’s citizens.

On Mar. 11, 2021, Biden said, “We may have to reinstate the lockdown restrictions.”

Why not lock down the border and let the American people go back to work?

On Mar. 13, 2021, it was reported that Congressman Steve Scalise said Congress is making gun ownership harder for American citizens and easier for illegal immigrants.

The reprobate thinking in Washington DC makes it easy to see the fall of America and rise of a world government on the horizon.

Three, concerning hyper-inflation, economic collapse, and famine: on Mar. 10, 2021, it was reported that some of the major banks are investing in agribusiness because they are expecting an increase in the world’s population, an increased demand for food, and the price of food to soar.

Four, Vatican News has just released a new book called God and the World to Come that is based on an interview with Pope Francis.

In the book, Pope Francis expresses support for the Great Reset (a new economic system designed to control everyone on earth), the New World Order (world government), and an “end to short-sighted nationalism” (an end to the sovereignty of nations).

He expressed support for businesses and industries that support the green agenda (world government) and opposition to those that don’t support it.

He called for changing the world and said, “We cannot waste any more time.”

Five, concerning Israel’s rebuilt Temple, Saudi Arabia recently conducted a Twitter campaign to emphasize the importance of Mecca and Medina as Muslim holy sites and de-emphasize the importance of the Al Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.

The campaign triggered a tsunami of tweets, and the Saudis responded by acknowledging that Jerusalem is “the eternal capital of the Jewish people.”

The Saudis are afraid that the UN, EU, U.S. and others will let Iran get nuclear weapons, and they want Israel to help them do something about it.

They appear to have decided that a better relationship with Israel is more important than supporting the PA claim to the Temple Mount and East Jerusalem.

The Saudi effort to befriend Israel could open the door to a rebuilt Temple, and all serious prophecy teachers know that the Bible says that will happen (some, including this writer, believe the Temple will be rebuilt very early in the Tribulation Period).

Six, concerning a potential Middle East peace treaty: on Mar. 10, 2021, Pres. Biden’s Sec. of State, Antony Blinken, told the House Foreign Affairs Committee he thinks the Trump administration did a very good thing by getting some nations to normalize relations with Israel and “it is something we want to build on.”

There will eventually be a worthless treaty that will be confirmed by the Antichrist and begin the Tribulation Period.

Seven, on Mar. 14, 2021, it was reported that Kosovo, a Muslim-majority nation in the EU, is the third nation to open an embassy in Jerusalem (the U.S. opened the first one, and Guatemala opened the second one).

Finally, if you want to go to heaven, you must be born again (John 3:3). God loves you, and if you have not done so, sincerely admit that you are a sinner; believe that Jesus is the virgin-born, sinless Son of God who died for the sins of the world, was buried, and raised from the dead; ask Him to forgive your sins, cleanse you, come into your heart and be your Saviour; then tell someone that you have done this.

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chiseler · 3 years

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Great Zilches of History

Film is light. There are times, though, when that light may take on a Stygian cast, burning with a flamme noire severity, a weird and otherworldly keenness. Or it may burn lurid and loud — especially if it’s a very old film, acting like a séance that summons the unruly dead. The darkness in cinema best typified by that form we call film noir is in its essence an extension of the peculiarly American darkness of Edgar Allan Poe.

Early, nitrate-based film stock, with its twinkling mineral core, gives Poe's crepuscular light its time to shine and thereby illuminate the world. No longer held in the solitary confinement of a page of reproduced text or an image, frozen, rendered in paint or ink. Poe's singularly tormented vision is finally written alchemically, in cinematographic rays beamed through silver salts; into moving images of such aggressive vitality as to blast every rational thing from one's mind. A Black & White image flipped into negative makes black fire, or black sunlight such as illumines Nosferatu’s Transylvanian forests, through which a box-like carriage rattles at Mack Sennett speed. But with the slightest underexposure, a little dupey degradation of the print, or even a little imagination (such collaboration is not discouraged), this liquid blackness will spread everywhere and anywhere, the most luminous pestilence known to creation. Be it in the laughing nightmare of Fleischer cartoons of old (Out of the Inkwell, indeed) or John Alton’s vision of the night, we are left to wonder: is daylight burning out the corner of a building, or is it the blackness of the building which is eating into the sky?

As with many such questions, film permits us no easy answer. We are simply to watch as the characters smudge. As their shadows pulsate and flicker, emanate out beyond themselves. But if Poe represents the loss of control over one’s existence and the ensuing panic, then cinema, consciously or not, takes existential dread as a given.

God, a vague and unseen deity, died at the moment cinema was born, replaced by a new celestial order. Saints and prophets made poor film characters, giving off the feeling of having stepped out of a stained glass window, flat, Day-Glo icons moving uncomfortably through three-dimensional space. Movies rather rejoiced in dirt and rags, texture and imperfection, so that the most lacklustre clown easily outperformed all the icon messiahs. At 45 minutes, Fernand Zecca’s The Life and Passion of Christ (1903) is one of the earliest feature films, but compared to the same filmmaker’s less ambitious, more playful shorts, it’s a beautiful snooze. A different execution climaxes his Story of a Crime (1901), in which we get to see, by brutal jump cut, a guillotine decapitation before our very eyes. This, as Maxim Gorky prophesied, is what the public wants. Or maybe the events of 1901, cinematic and otherwise, allow “the public” to define itself in ways heretofore unthinkable. The year brings Victoria Regina’s propitious death. And with her passing, Edgar Allan Poe’s pronunciamento on celebrity, “the ludicrous heightened into the grotesque," comes to new and anarchic fruition as an incendiary schnook, one of history’s finest.

When he shot President William McKinley at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo on September 6th, 1901, the currents of fear and vengeance unleashed by Leon Czolgosz would carry him on a journey from reflexive beatings at the hands of police and a post-Victorian mob – ladies in bustles shedding all restraint, transformed from well-honed symbols of middle-class decorum into yowling banshees, screaming “GIVE HIM TO US!” – straight to the electric chair, from whence his corpse would be taken for additional punishment, a process where ghoulish prison authorities at Auburn separated the head from the body, and then poured sulfuric acid on what remained, before secreting the sorry residue of America’s anarchist son into an unmarked grave.

Despite attempts to erase Czoglosz from history, a visual document survives, oozing with pathos and bitter recrimination. It is impossible, looking into those eyes, not to feel unnerved and, yes, sympathetic with him – his desperate act, after all, was as critical a part of America’s greed-engorged industrial fantasia as the near daily spectacle of peaceful strikers, his friends among them, being slaughtered in the name of profit.

Cinema’s misspent childhood years in late-Victorian fairgrounds are followed by a grimy adolescence in Edwardian nickelodeon parlours. The medium, which finally comes of age amid gaudy palaces built in its honor, morphs many times. However, All Talking Pictures are the final death knell for the Victorian standard, belching from the screen a thousand inbred tongues that invade the ear willy-nilly. They remind us that when Queen Victoria breaths her last Naturalism sheds decorum, taste, breeding, good table manners.

Edgar Allan Poe essentially owns motion pictures via ongoing necrophilic obsession, since celluloid preserves the dead better than any embalming fluid. Like amber preserved holograms, they flit in and out of its parameters, reciting their own epitaphs in pantomime; revenant moths trapped in perpetual motion. Film is bona fide illumination — as opposed to religion’s metaphorical kind – representing the supremacy of alchemy and necromancy over sackcloth and ashes. The inmates, emboldened under the spell of Klieg lights, were not only running the asylum, but re-shaping the world in their own image. Both Church and State with their blunt instruments of repression proved impotent against the anarchy of this freshly liberated ghetto.

Holy men were unceremoniously defrocked, their doctrine of abject compliance to class-based norms re-written into storylines enriched by grease-painted floozies, costumed villains, and snooty dowagers brought down a notch by the drunk hobo in her drawing room. Amidst widespread labour unrest and mass poverty, followed soon by the Great Depression, filmgoers of the silent era had a front row view of the plutocracy’s helplessness against a swelling tide of restless humanity. Charlie Chaplin’s itinerant laborer may have accidentally thwarted a plutocrat’s plan for world domination and/or a house renovation, just as Groucho Marx seemed to have spontaneously derailed a social climbing matron’s equally fierce ambitions.

All hail the magic mirrors! Celestial mandalas! Giant eggs and butterfly women! Segundo de Chomón’s The Red Spectre (1907) ruthlessly assaults our eyes with a wraith-magician dissolving through his coffin lid in a red, hand-tinted, flame-flickering hell. His presence, caped, skull-masked, was to herald a new thespic truth, that from this moment forward the art of acting would be reduced to how you respond to light, and how light responds to you. The Specter of Chomon’s dark bauble is in every element Poe’s Red Death — japing and performing tricks for us, his adoring fans and welcome guests, before announcing our doom — literary metaphor slammed against a literal backdrop of amber stalactites, pellucid as an ossuary.

That was a long time ago, in the first decades of the 20th century, before artifice and studios and the commercial paradigm of stardom finally swallowed cinema in one ravenous bite. It was a period when one could see, if one paid close attention, the dreariness of ordinary life at the centre and around the edges of every motion picture brought forth. It lived onscreen in film’s early days, exposing the pretense, however fitful, of opulence or period as simply that: pretense, a fundamental desire to escape reality. But this “escapism” had always been erroneously attributed to the audience’s needs, when in fact it was rather those bankrolling the nascent medium not yet sufficiently in control of itself to impose any order.

The censors were on to something, even if they could never fully articulate what precise blasphemies were being committed.

Take Hitchcock’s Vertigo, for instance, which isn’t pure noir but is pure Poe: what would the surgical excision of an influence look like? Granted, the noir genre seems an unlikely Poe derivative, but what of Laura — fatalism, romance and necro-fantasy (with Lydecker as Usher)? DOA is the kind of concept Poe might have dreamed up; one of the great noir scribes, Cornell Woolrich is channeling Poe through an all-thumbs pulp sensibility. And how hard would it be to cast Val Lewton as the horror noir hybrid, with premature burials, ancestral disease, lunatics taking over bedlam? Jean Epstein, who adapted The Fall of the House of Usher in 1928, complained that Baudelaire’s translations fundamentally mistook Poe’s innocence for ghastliness.

The dead in Poe, writes Epstein, are “only slightly dead.”

To the extent that Epstein was correct, the whimsy that Poe bequeaths to cinema finds itself absorbed in almost material terms — not as sensibility but as a texture whose particular nap or weave is never granted names. In Mesmeric Revelations a voluntary subject is quite near physical death and under the ministrations of his mesmerist, answering precise questions about the nature of God. Before dying, he says God is “ultimate or unparticled” matter: “What men attempt to embody in the word ‘thought,’ is this matter in motion”. The same unnamable textures apparently survive on television, a case of Poe resonating inside our minds, a collective consciousness replaced by cathode rays.

Deep within the 18 hours of David Lynch’s Twin Peaks: The Return, there is a moment that, on its incandescent surface, could have been lifted weightless from the great post-war dream of material deliverance; as if the zeitgeist of the mid 20th century had somehow got lost and ended up in this one: Daytime, the top on the convertible is down, the radio tuned, The Paris Sisters singing I Love How You Love Me as a reincarnated Laura Palmer lifts her face to a cloudless sky. Within this tapestry of an early Phil Spector production — his trademark reverb eternally evocative of Romance and Death (two conditions Spector knows well) — the voice of Priscilla Paris could be a siren sound from the American Beyond, or a dream goddess lullaby from the whispering gallery, or sweet nothings from the crypt. We don’t know. We’ll never know.

In this oneiric echo chamber, Poe smiles down upon American blondness, muscle cars soaked in sunlight, candy for eye and ear; the terrible ecstasy of unending motion and immortality.

If Lynch’s Return means going back home, then home is that Lemon Popsicle/Strawberry Milkshake species of innocence proffered by America's music industry between 1957 and 1964. The horror genre always has to have some component of innocence to devastate, be it the existential kind which inspires the malevolence everyone paid the price of a ticket to have vicarious transit with; or the mere victimisation of the unsuspecting. Either way, there was no other period in American popular culture when innocence, of any variety, was so lavishly examined, toyed with, killed. The free floating chord that opens The Everly Brothers song, All I Have To Do is Dream, remains a lamentation in sound: the sudden recrudescence of Poe’s beating, tell-tale heart. Adoring such guilt-free teenage odes to sleep, death and sexual desire, David Lynch finds a muse in Amanda Seyfried. Specifically her visionary eyes melting Phil Spector’s dark edifice of sugar in a deathless, Sternbergian close-up — iridescent search lights, ever more urgently scanning the sky above, waiting for the sun to swallow her whole. We can only bear witness, and internalize this shimmering ingenue, this angel in a red convertible, trading places with Old Sol; as if whatever she just snorted has entered our system through hers. But in that ephemeral instant she achieves oneness with all things; the transcendence of stardom — true, temporal stardom — shorn of fame and the imperatives of show-business.

To this day David Lynch’s favorite film remains Otto e Mezzo, directed by Federico Fellini: Western Europe’s sorcerer of confectionary delights and unending motion; the man who put the “dolce” in La Dolce Vita. Fellini, he states, "manages to accomplish with film what mostly abstract painters do; namely, to communicate an emotion without ever saying or showing anything in a direct manner." Even if one were to take him at his word — and we must, of course, for no filmmaker has ever been known to misrepresent themselves to us — this seems a strange instance of gravitational pull, particularly in the light of the formal strategies of both men as they developed through time. Lynch has always favored a blunt pictorialism that, in its bluntness, borders on the language of Imagism: the studied simplicity of the language used to complex, powerful effect. Fellini, in 8 1/2 and throughout much of his career, by contrast, unleashes upon the viewer an insanely fluid, brutally precise camera ballet. Any good cinephile might be tempted to resolve the disparities and move toward a brighter, less subterranean comprehension. But, ultimately, such understanding would be a didactic burden no moviegoer needs. For here, in these conflicting dialects, you have a fleeting taste of ideologies swirled together like ribbon candy: a blur of four-wheeled luxury from the New World zooming past regional splendor into that fraternity of man: the socio-economic nirvana imagined by Karl Marx in the Old.

Careening from one via to another at harrowing, white-knuckle speed, Fellini was once heard to lament that “Some of the neo-realists seem to think that they cannot make a film unless they have a man in old clothes in front of the camera.” George Bluestone, recording these words for the pages of Film Culture in 1957, was sitting in the literal passenger seat of that ideal metaphor for post-war ebullience in action: expert, 20th century precision hurtling them through Roman streets with graffiti-scrawled churches proudly bearing the hammer and sickle; that famous Black Chevy skirting the Italian Scylla (the Vatican) and its equally dogmatic Charybdis (the Party). At that velocity, anything could make sense.

“Appearances aside" Bluestone wrote, "the Chevrolet is at every moment under Fellini’s control. He weaves in and out of traffic, misses pedestrians by inches, swerves away from Nomentana’s interminable monuments, dodging yellow traffic blinkers as if he were trying out a darkened slalom.” It is every bit a performance. Rome, after all, is the land of Bernini’s The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa, Apollo and Daphne — marble-cum-flesh, even as flesh itself gives way to forms that leave the viewer in terrified awe. While reliving his own mythic, carbureted experience, Bluestone does some weaving of his own, quoting Genevieve Agel’s one-line pronunciamento (and, in the process, defining what would soon be labelled 'Felliniesque'), “Fellini is a visionary of the real”, as the passenger positions his driver somewhere between corporeal reality and ecstatic truth while the big man (no old clothes for this maestro) drives and drives. “As one hand lightly guides the wheel, the other gestures — it acts.”

Spirits of the Dead is one of those compendium films, with voguish directors (Malle, Vadim, Fellini) entrusted with bringing to the screen a Poe story each. Only the Fellini episode, Toby Dammit, is notable, but it's very notable, a hallucinatory yarn owing as much to Mario Bava's Kill, Baby, Kill! as to Poe's Never Bet the Devil Your Head, its ostensible source. The title character, played by Terence Stamp with white-blond hair and dark roots and constant beads of witch hazel perspiration, is in Rome to attend an awards ceremony and to play Christ in a western, but he's fatally distracted by his new sports car and a vision of the devil in the form of a little girl. Toby's ride through a hellscape of nocturnal Rome seems lifted from Jules Dassin’s 10.30 p.m. Summer (1966), but works even better for Fellini than it did in the Duras adaptation. An oppressively subjective film, Toby Dammit narrows down to the view in the Ferrari's headlights, a ghastly floodlit interzone where human forms are gradually replaced with mannequins and cut-outs, as the city becomes unreal, an elaborate movie set, an uncanny valley laid out for the staging of an epic stunt/snuff film.

Fellini and Lynch celebrate bodily extremes in intriguing if differing ways, which should, in our time, naturally gallop beyond the pale, but nevertheless become wholly, weirdly digestible. It is perhaps the innocent glee of these artists, their wonderment at the vast variety of shapes the human body can assume; an innocence which suspends toward erasure our awareness the way physical representation functions in the 21st century. Lynch presents the disabled as childlike, mysterious, magical beings without ever worrying about lending them agency (The Elephant Man’s John Merrick functions both as passive whipping boy and chic spectacle for the whole of Victorian London), or the mendacity of adult sophistication (the latest Twin Peaks iteration includes a pint-sized hitman who whines like a puppy when his icepick is broken). Is it any wonder Lynch evolved a style which placed them front and center in unmoving shots, without irony or pity?

Poe, while certainly a pioneer of fake news, also had a way of vindicating the lumpen masses of humanity (to the middle-brow’s abiding chagrin).

The Mystery of Marie Roget, a Parisian murder mystery, presented as a fictional sequel to The Murders in the Rue Morgue, was simultaneously trumpeted as a correct solution to the real-life murder of Mary Cecilia Rogers in New York. When a news article presented fresh evidence while the story was still being serialised, Poe made minor changes to the final instalment to keep his fiction in line with the facts.

He later published a story about an Atlantic crossing by balloon, accomplished in three days, in The New York Sun in 1844. "Signal Triumph of Mr. Monck Mason's Flying Machine!!!" The piece was presented as truth, and only revealed as "The Great Balloon Hoax" a couple of days later. “The more intelligent believed," wrote Poe, "while the rabble, for the most part, rejected the whole with disdain.” He saw this as a new development: “20 years ago credulity was the characteristic trait of the mob, incredulity the distinctive feature of the philosophic.”

What had changed? Perhaps the acceleration of scientific and social progress meant that the more literate and scientifically-minded had become inured to startling new developments, so the most surprising events now seemed credible. And since these same technological leaps were always presented as social benefits, the working class was growing skeptical, since they rarely saw any improvement in their condition.

by Daniel Riccuito, R.J. Lambert and David Cairns

Special thanks to Richard Chetwynd

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creepingsharia · 4 years

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Iowa Law Enforcement Academy Course Features Pro-Sharia Muslim Speaker and DOJ Whitewashing Jihad

Civilization jihad... “eliminating and destroying Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated.”

image above via Youtube speech by Dr. Zahra Jamal

The Iowa Law Enforcement Academy Meets Fantasy Islam

By Stephen M. Kirby

According to its website,

The Iowa Law Enforcement Academy (ILEA) was created by an act of the Iowa legislature in 1967 with its purpose being to upgrade law enforcement to professional status. The specific goals were to maximize training opportunities for law enforcement officers…[1]

In furtherance of this training goal, on November 9-10, 2020 the ILEA sponsored an online course titled “Engaging and Building Partnerships with Muslim Americans.”

The presenters were Darryck [sic] Dean, Senior Conciliation Specialist, U.S. Department of Justice, Community Relations Service, and Dr. Zahra Jamal, Associate Director at the Boniuk Institute for Religious Tolerance, Rice University, Houston, TX.

The online course lasted two hours each day, and most of the course focused on learning about Muslim Americans and their involvement in American society, and on ways to increase community engagement between the Muslim American community and law enforcement.

Dr. Zahra Jamal, a Muslim American, was the main presenter. On the first day she talked about the religion of Islam. Unfortunately, what she presented was her personal version of Islam which had little to do with the Islam based on the commands of Allah in the Koran and the teachings and example of Muhammad (the Sunnah). Let’s examine some of Jamal’s claims about Islam and related matters.

“Jihad is not Holy War”

Jamal was emphatic that jihad does not mean “holy war,” and she repeated it three times in a row. But in reality jihad is associated with “holy war” in many Muslim writings, e.g.:

Jihad: Striving, holy war.[2]

…the earliest (and therefore fundamental) Qur’anic reference to the question of jihad, or holy war… (This is found in a translation of the Koran endorsed and distributed by the Council on American-Islamic Relations – CAIR)[3]

…he was taken prisoner in a jihad – that is, a holy war… (CAIR Koran)[4]

…a woman taken captive in a “holy war” (jihad)… (CAIR Koran)[5]

And He (Allah) said: Jihad (Islamic holy war) is ordained for you (Muslims)…[6]

The holy war (jihad) is a collective duty… (In a chapter titled “The Book of the Holy War (Kitab al-Jihad)[7]

“Holy War.” See Jihad. (Subject Index)[8]

And jihad has also been referred to as “holy fighting” and “holy battles”:

Al-Jihad (holy fighting) in Allah’s Cause (with full force of numbers and weaponry) is given the utmost importance in Islam and is one of its pillars (on which it stands). By Jihad Islam is established, Allah’s Word is made superior…and His religion (Islam) is propagated. By abandoning Jihad (may Allah protect us from that) Islam is destroyed and the Muslims fall into an inferior position; their honour [sic] is lost, their lands are stolen, their rule and authority vanish. Jihad is an obligatory duty in Islam on every Muslim, and he who tries to escape from this duty, or does not in his innermost heart wish to fulfil [sic] this duty, dies with one of the qualities of a hypocrite.[9]

Narrated Abu Hurairah: The Prophet said, “Allah assigns for a person who participates in (holy battles) in Allah’s Cause and nothing causes him to do so except belief in Allah and in His Messengers, that he will be recompensed by Allah either with a reward, or booty (if he survives) or will be admitted to Paradise (if he is killed in the battle as a martyr).” The Prophet added: “Had I not found it difficult for my followers, then I would not remain behind any Sariya (an army-unit) going for Jihad and I would have loved to be martyred in Allah’s Cause and then made alive, and then martyred and then made alive, and then again martyred in His Cause.”[10]

Jamal can repeat as many times as she wants that jihad does not mean “holy war,” but there is a tremendous amount of Muslim scholarship that refutes her claim.

Muhammad said the Greatest Jihad was to Battle your own Soul

Jamal stated that “Muhammad said the greatest jihad was to battle your own soul and to fight the evil within you.” This statement of Jamal’s is probably based on a purported saying (hadith) of Muhammad in which he talked about the “lesser jihad” (warfare) and the “greater jihad” (the struggle to better oneself). This saying has become quite popular over the years and is found in many books and articles, and on many websites. But the reality is that this hadith, in its various forms, is not attributable to Muhammad. One 17th Century Muslim scholar said this was a statement from among the early Muslims, not from Muhammad.[11] And over many centuries other Muslim scholars have written about this hadith and labelled it as a fabricated hadith.[12]

However, here is an authoritative hadith in which Muhammad talked about the “best” jihad:

It was narrated that ‘Amr bin ‘Abasah said: “I came to the Prophet and said: ‘O Messenger of Allah, which Jihad is best’? He said: ‘(That of a man) whose blood is shed and his horse is wounded.’”[13]

So according to Muhammad, the best jihad is that which involves fighting. Nothing about a struggle to better oneself here.

We All Believe in One God

Jamal stated that Islam, Christianity, and Judaism have a shared belief “of one God”; the implication is that these three religions all believe in the same God. However, the reality is that the god of Islam, Allah, is not the same as the God of Christians and Jews.

For instance, here is what Allah has to say in the Koran about Christians and Jews:

Allah states that the only religion acceptable to him is Islam (e.g., 3:19 and 3:85); Christians and Jews are disbelievers[14] (e.g. 2:120, 3:99, 3:110, and 5:65), and Jews are among the worst enemies of Muslims (5:82); Allah curses Christians and Jews (9:30) and states that those who believe that Allah had a Son commit the one unforgiveable sin in Islam, Shirk[15] (e.g. 4:48 and 4:116); Allah states that those who commit Shirk will go to Hell (e.g. 3:151 and 5:72-73); Allah states that Christians and Jews are among the worst of creatures and “will abide in the fire of Hell” (98:6); Allah specifically forbids Muslims from being friends with Christians and Jews (5:51), and instead specifically commands Muslims to fight Christians and Jews (9:29).

Islam considers Christianity to be a false religion because Allah states that Jesus was not crucified, but it only appeared so (4:157-158). Islam teaches that Allah took Jesus bodily into paradise and made one of Jesus’ disciples look like Jesus; it was that disciple who was crucified. So Muslims who know their religion look at a crucifix or a painting of the Crucifixion and see an imposter hanging on the cross. And of course, if there was no Crucifixion, there was no Resurrection. So Islam teaches that Christianity is a false religion based on a fraud.

It was noted in the ILEA presentation that both Arab Christians and Arab Jews say “Allah” when speaking about God in Arabic. The implication being that Christians, Jews, and Muslims, by virtue of the fact that they are using the same Arabic word, are in effect all referring to the same divine being. As we have seen in the above section concerning what Islam teaches about Jews and Christians, there is no basis for that claim.

This 2012 ruling at Islam Question & Answer pointed out that Muslims are generally advised against using any other word than “Allah” when referring to the god of Islam in order to avoid confusion with what non-Muslims mean when they say “God”:

But what the Muslim should use in his worship… and all other circumstances when referring to Allah, may He be exalted and glorified, is the word “Allah” as it is, because that has become a symbol for the Muslims and something that distinguishes them, and it helps to avoid any confusion between what they mean and what others mean when they say “God” [my emphasis], as others may sometimes be referring to Allah, but sometimes they may be referring to something else…[16]

English-speaking Christians and Jews say God instead of Allah. So according to this ruling, English-speaking Muslims are supposed to use the name Allah instead of God in order to differentiate themselves from what English-speaking non-Muslims mean when they say God. This underlines again the fact that Allah, the god of Islam, is not the same as the God of Jews and Christians.

This difference is also noted in a 2010 fatwa from the Assembly of Muslim Jurists of America (AMJA). This fatwa stated:

Christians do not have a holy book or scripture to refer to. What they have is a man-made book that is, unfairly, attributed to Allah SWT [The most glorified, the most high].

Allah SWT is the one who told us that the Christians and Jews intentionally corrupt and change their scriptures.

Whoever takes Jesus or the Holy Spirit as a part of one God is a misguided one. Allah SWT has a divine nature, separated from His creatures, and is not integrated with another entity. Also, Allah SWT is the creator and the sustainer of the universe, and involving Prophet Jesus PBUH and the Holy Spirit in Allah’s entity necessitate that both Jesus & the Holy Spirit are creators and sustainers as well. Do they believe so? If yes, then they are polytheists, and if not, then they contradict themselves!![17]

...

At the ILEA website we find this:

Here at ILEA, we are excited to serve the people of Iowa as we bring excellence in training, testing, and standards to peace officers, telecommunicators, and jailers across the state.[32]

Unfortunately, with this particular class the “excellence in training” about Islam was replaced with Dr. Zahra Jamal’s Fantasy Islam.

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

Read it all and if you are in Iowa, contact your law enforcement representatives and ask why they are partnering with Islamic supremacists who are putting all Americans at risk.

You can see a video of a woman named Dr. Zahra Jamal giving a speech against the anti-sharia movement, meaning for sharia.

#Islam #Muslim #Sharia #Jihad #Legal #Law #LEO #News #Media #Politics #Immigration

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chpkns · 4 years

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BEST ALBUMS 2020

Some albums I enjoyed during quarantine.

Hon Mentions: Campfire Chords - Arkells, A Written Testimony - Jay Electronica, All In One - Jaunt, Punisher - Phoebe Bridgers, Alfredo - Freddie Gibs and Madlib, Thats What They All Say - Jack Harlow, Western Swing & Waltzes and Other Punchy Songs - Colter Wall, This Place Sucks Ass - PUP, Only For Dolphins - Action Bronson, Black Habits - D Smoke, What’s Your Pleasure - Jessie Ware, 3.15.20 - Childish Gambino, Dedicated Side B - Carly Rae Jepsen, Dark Lane Demo Tapes - Drake, After Hours - The Weeknd, color theory - Soccer Mommy, Circles - Mac Miller, Womb - Purity Ring

10) Future Nostalgia - Dua Lipa

One of the lesser, although still significant, tragedies of the 2020 COVID era was that weddings and sweaty club basements the world over were robbed of Dua Lipa’s prolific output this year. Future Nostalgia is hit or miss in places, but the hits come hot and heavy delivering banger after 80′s-disco-inspired banger. Dominant summer jams “Don’t Start Now” and “Break My Heart” are the highlights here, along with “Levitating” (equally good with or without DaBaby). Sleeper tracks “Cool” and “Hallucinate” round out the year’s best pure pop album.

Highlights: Don’t Start Now, Break My Heart, Levitating, Physical, Cool, Hallucinate

9) Women In Music, Pt. III - HAIM

The third album from LA’s sister act rock trio HAIM delivers consistency and growth for the band. There’s plenty of retro heartbreak rock on Women In Music, Pt. III to satisfy fans of HAIM’s first two albums, but lots of new on offer as well including the jazzy Lou Reed inspired sax of “Summer Girl” and Danielle Haim sounding positively Joni Mitchell-esque on “Man From the Magazine”. The auditory production flourishes of erstwhile Vampire Weekend member Rostam are noticeable throughout and help stretch the bounds of the HAIM sisters’ signature Wilson Phillips meets Fleetwood Mac summer rock sound into something more of the moment.

Highlights: The Steps, Summer Girl, Don’t Wanna, Man From the Magazine, FUBT

8) My Turn (Deluxe) - Lil Baby

I’ve almost given up on trying to enjoy or understand most “new rap” but every now and then something breaks through that I connect with for some reason. Atlanta rapper Lil Baby’s My Turn was that album for me this year. There are many reasons I feel I should not like Lil Baby’s music, from his liberal use of autotune to his mumbling delivery, but something always drew me back to it and, listen after listen, it grew on me. Lil Baby’s flow is persistent when he locks in, with matching driving trap production from Quay Global, Tay Keith and others, mirroring in sound the story of Baby’s rise from the streets to prison to the studio. The standout track is late addition “The Bigger Picture”, Lil Baby’s protest anthem on race in America, policing and the turmoil following the killing of George Floyd by police, a political statement from an otherwise apolitical artist, showing that Lil Baby has much more to offer than bravado and autotune.

Highlights: Grace (ft. 42 Dugg), Forever (ft. Lil Wayne), No Sucker (ft. Moneybagg Yo), Social Distancing, The Bigger Picture

7) Miss Anthropocene - Grimes

The third major studio release from Montreal native Claire Boucher, better known as Grimes, doesn’t reach the same highs as its predecessors - 2015′s electro-pop masterpiece Art Angels (which rated number 1 on this list for that year) or 2012′s Visions, the synth-laden fever dream that introduced Grimes to mainstream notoriety (number 2 on this list for 2012) - but it’s still very much worth the time. The vibe of Miss A falls somewhere between Grimes’ previous two albums, and a little darker and messier to boot. Grimes sounds a bit like she’s playing a concert for the end of the world, which feels a bit prophetic for an album released just before a global pandemic took hold. As always, Grimes is out to flex her muscle as a technician and across the album’s ten tracks she mixes diverse sounds ranging from rave synths to banjos showing how far her craft has come since making Visions on Garageband in her Mile End apartment.

Highlights: So Heavy I Fell Through The Earth, Violence, Delete Forever, 4ÆM, You’ll miss me when I’m not around

6) evermore - Taylor Swift

Spoiler alert, this isn’t the highest ranked Taylor Swift album on this list. Surprise released in December, evermore was an early Christmas present to fans of Swift’s surprise summer album folklore (more on that later). evermore continues Swift’s reinvention from pop star to indie singer-songwriter, assisted by songwriting partner Aaron Dessner of The National and a variety of indie darling guest stars - this time around featuring HAIM, The National’s Matt Berninger and another stunning guest turn with Bon Iver. Speaking of Justin Vernon, the album capping title track might be the single best song on either folklore or evermore. And for fans of Taylor’s earlier catalogue like me, the return to country music on “no body, no crime” is like reconnecting with an old friend. evermore is a little messier and less consistent thematically than its sister album, feeling a bit like folklore’s b-sides. But when your b-sides are better than most artist’s a-sides, why not release another album’s worth?

Highlights: ‘tis the damn season, no body no crime (ft. HAIM), coney island (ft. The National), cowboy like me, evermore (ft. Bon Iver)

5) RTJ4 - Run The Jewels

Walking the streets of my neighbourhood with the first listen of RTJ4 in my earbuds, I found myself actually crying at the thought that I would not get to see Killer Mike and el-P perform these songs live in the summer of 2020. The memories of RTJ festival sets past came rushing over me in a wave. That was my first “damn, I miss live music moment” of the pandemic. The fourth instalment of Run The Jewels’ historic rap partnership is more of the same in the very best way. Like the dynamic duo’s previous three instalments, RTJ4 is in your face, moves at a frenetic clip, and takes no prisoners. There’s even another album highlighting collaboration with Rage Against The Machine’s Zack De La Rocha. The politics of RTJ4′s tirades against inequity and the police state feel even more imminent in 2020 against the backdrop of George Floyd, the ensuing protest movement that gripped America, and the 2020 presidential election. I really hope we get a chance to see Mike and el-P tour these songs in 2021, the world needs it.

Highlights: ooh la la (ft. Greg Nice and DJ Premier), goonies vs. E.T., walking in the snow, JU$T (ft. Pharrell Williams and Zack de la Rocha), a few words for the firing squad (radiation)

4) Saint Cloud - Waxahatchee

The majestically twangy folk-Americana of Saint Cloud, the fifth solo album from Katie Crutchfield (stage named Waxahatchee after Waxahatchee Creek, Alabama, where the singer grew up), is a nostalgic cure for the ails of 2020. The soft bluesy rhythms of Crutchfield’s songs feel like a lazy long summer day spent by the water. That was something we needed this year. The songwriting is just as beautiful. The standout track, “Fire”, speaks to Crutchfield’s journey finding sobriety and reconnecting with her southern roots. It also speaks to a longing feeling “give me something / it ain’t enough / it ain’t enough”. On “Arkadelphia”, Crutchfield croons: “We try to give it all meaning / Glorify the grain of the wood / Tell ourselves what's beautiful and good”. In the chaos of 2020, the calm oasis of Saint Cloud is certainly something beautiful and good worth enjoying.

Highlights: Can’t Do Much, Fire, The Eye, Arkadelphia, St. Cloud

3) Suddenly - Caribou

Suddenly was my first genuine pandemic listen and, in the early days of lockdown, I found myself going back to it again and again. So much so, that the opening haunting notes of “Sister” became a kind of touchstone as I adjusted to a weird new work-from-home lifestyle. The chilled out weirdness of Caribou was an extremely welcome presence in 2020. It had been long enough since 2014′s Our Love (2014′s number 1 on this list) that I’d forgotten how enjoyably quirky Dan Snaith’s floaty pseudo-house tunes could be. Suddenly is a little more laid back than the club ready Our Love, which maybe suits it more to a world where dancefloors are closed. The tunes are also tighter, more economical in their length and soundscape. The lead single “Home” sounds downright commercial (in a good way) with it’s motown sampled chorus. Other parts of the album, like the closing “Cloud Song” venture into more experimental territories. All throughout, however, are Caribou’s signature warm chord progressions inviting you to lose yourself in them. Whether you’re looking for a guided meditation or an at-home dance party, Suddenly was the perfect 2020 album for it.

Highlights: Sister, Home, Lime, Never Come Back, Ravi

2) Cuttin’ Grass, Vol. 1 : The Butcher Shoppe Sessions - Sturgill Simpson

2020 was full of unexpected things, many bad but some surprisingly delightful. Firmly in the latter category is Cuttin’ Grass, Sturgill Simpson’s surprise double album made up entirely of bluegrass covers of his own catalogue. A true product of 2020, Simpson recorded the album with a murderer’s row of contemporary bluegrass artists after recovering from COVID-19 and challenging his fans to raise funds for charity in exchange for recording a new album. That album became Cuttin’ Grass, a traditional bluegrass re-imagination of the greatest hits and hidden gems of a country artist who has always strived to avoid being labelled as a country artist. The songs feel effortlessly at home and are given new life amid the frenetic guitar and mandolin picking, flying fiddles, and twangling banjos. If Simpson’s ode to the revelatory experience of psychedlic drug use “Turtles All The Way Down” felt revolutionary on 2014′s Metamodern Sounds in Country Music, it feels like an old standard here with its tempo pitched up and enveloped in the cacophony of the bluegrass ensemble. There is some good old fashioned heartbreak to slow things down too. Mandolin player and backup vocalist Sierra Hull shines on “I Wonder” (a cover of a song originally recorded by Sturgill’s former band Sunday Valley) as she joins Simpson on the chorus: “Tell me am I the only one / drinking and cursing your name?” The juxtaposition of Simpson’s unconventional country catalogue with the most traditional of country music styles just works and the entire hour can be listened and relistened for days. And if you’re still not satisfied, the companion “Volume 2: the Cowboy Arms Sessions” released in December brings back the same supporting cast to explore more of Simpson’s catalogue.

Highlights: All The Pretty Colors, Breakers Roar, Time After All, Turtles All The Way Down, Voices

1) folklore - Taylor Swift

Well, I told you there’d be more Taylor Swift on this list, and here it is. Your number 1 album of 2020 is folklore, the surprise release pandemic project in which the world’s biggest country star turned pop star reinvented herself again as an indie artist. Unlike anything else Swift has put out since RED, nothing on folklore is designed to be played in a stadium. Rather, it’s all more at home in a cabin by the fire, or in your earbuds on a fall walk... basically, it’s music meant for 2020. Like its companion evermore, folklore is the product of Swift’s songwriting collaboration with The National’s guitarist Aaron Dessner. The melding of songwriting styles seems like an odd match at first but sounds like a match made in heaven. Lyrically, Swift’s songwriting makes an evolutionary leap, almost leaving her primary auto or semi-autobiographical comfort zone behind completely (other than, perhaps, in heavily veiled metaphor) in favour of invented stories and semi-historical world building. After a few listens, you discover that the same characters appear in different songs like the imagined history of Rebekah Harkness, the real life former inhabitant of Swift’s Rhode Island home, on “the last great american dynasty” or imagery of “battleships” that “sink beneath the waves” in the ghost story of “my tears ricochet”. In the so-called “teenage love triangle trilogy” of “betty”, “cardigan”, and “august”, Swift tells different parts of the same story from the perspective of different characters. Each song stands on its own, but the discovery that the pieces fit together is wonderful. “betty” is the standout track for me, as a long suffering fan of “country Taylor”. In style, it harkens back to her earlier work, but in substance it’s something new entirely as Swift sings from the perspective of James, the boy who has done wrong by his lover and is seeking forgiveness. The pinnacle of the album is “exile” Swift’s collaboration with Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon. The call and response interaction of Swift with Vernon’s true to for emma form baritone is chill inducing. Like so many of the unexpected good things in 2020, folklore came from throwing plans out the window and doing what felt right for the moment. This is Taylor Swift making the music she wanted to make. In Dark Knight fashion, it’s the album we needed, if not the one we deserved. It’s the best album of the year.

Highlights: cardigan, the last great american dynasty, exile (ft. Bon Iver), my tears ricochet, epiphany, betty, peace

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quentinblack · 4 years

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Smoke and Mirrors

Chapter 6: Dean I - I Should Have Just Gone To Eton (link to full story on FF.net)

Featuring: Dean Thomas, Justin Finch-Fletchley

Word Count: 4K words

Dean looked around desperately at the various signs signalling all of the different departure gates as he walked through the main entrance.

Gatwick Airport was an absolutely massive place and he’d never been to an airport by himself before, so he was finding it very difficult to navigate.

It was all a lot easier travelling internationally by portkey, but that was too risky – at least this way there would be no trace of him.

Professor McGonagall had sat down with each and every muggle-born student before the end of the last year and explained the likelihood of what was to happen.

Dumbledore was dead, which meant it would not be long before You Know Who moved against The Ministry – and who knew what might happen to the muggle-born population of Wizarding Britain. She had taken the bold decision to wipe the records of every single muggle-born student at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, so that they would be protected as best they could be if You Know Who and his followers were to purge or take control of the school over the summer. It was almost as if she knew something they didn’t.

Dean had been one of the most outspoken students in the initial meeting with his Head of House. He had been adamant that he wasn’t going anywhere and would return to school. He wasn’t a coward. He was a Gryffindor!

But he had read and heard of terrible things happening over the summer. The Daily Prophet was ramping up disdain for muggle-borns – and whilst watching and reading the muggle-news there were many events that were very evidently influenced by dark wizards and Death Eaters, even if the muggles themselves were blissfully unaware of that fact.

It was his Mum who had made the decision for him in the end. At first she had been very strong-willed and stubborn that he was to go. This tactic didn’t work on him, but when she started crying and guilt-tripping him instead he quickly relented.

He couldn’t let her down so he agreed to go and live with his step-sister in America until it had all blown-over, although deep down he knew it would only get worse – and soon Wizarding Britain would be in open war with You Know Who and his army of Death Eaters, Dementors and worse. He just wished he could have done his bit and been part of it.

It hadn’t been too much hassle to sort out his departure. He’d had to get a passport and a VISA, but that was no bother really. Bruce had managed to do most of it for him. Bayley was based in Los Angeles for work and had a spare room in her apartment, so he would go and live with her and see what happened. She said she would be able to get him a job and he was reasonably excited about the move. At the very least it would be a nice new start.

The check-in process at the airport had been simple enough. Dean had only taken a small carry on-bag so he didn’t have anything for the hold.

He put his suitcase onto the security conveyor belt to go through the X-Ray, then as it slowly made its way in, Dean wondered what the border officer was seeing on the reading on his screen. That small suitcase he’d picked up from Wiseacre’s in Diagon Alley had about two full 15KG hold bags worth of stuff in it. It was a real test of magic vs muggle technology.

Who would win in this battle of airport security scanners and undetectable extension charms?

It seemed that the wizards had taken the victory as the stern staff of the airport barely raised an eyebrow when his bag went through. The metal detector failed to go off when he walked through it with his wand in his jacket pocket. Of course his wand was made from cedar and the heartstring of a Ukrainian Ironbelly dragon, so it shouldn’t have gone off anyway, but that didn’t dispel his nerves when he walked through it.

He had to remind himself that it was, after all, a metal detector, not a magic detector – and even if the airport staff had have found his wand, they would’ve just thought he was just an oddball that was carrying some weird kind of stick.

Dean retrieved his bag from its tray and after putting it with the other collection of discarded trays he strolled through to the departure lounge.

There was still at least an hour before he would be able to board the long-haul flight, so to kill some time he thought he would wander through Duty Free. He soon regretted that choice though.

As soon as he walked in he was flanked by massive posters and cardboard cut outs of the muggle band Oasis. It all seemed to be advertising a new album being released called ‘Be Here Now’ and the poster showed what looked like a massive country house, with the members of the band dotting around outside standing in-front of a moped, whilst a white car was sitting at the bottom of a swimming pool.

Dean never had much time for Brit-pop bands like Oasis, Blur or The Stone Roses. His best friend, Seamus, was very much a fan though and often loved blasting their songs in their Gryffindor dormitory. He could just about make out the lyrics of what must’ve been a new single.

A cold and frosty morning there’s not a lot to say,

About the things caught in my mind,

As the day was dawning my plane flew away,

With all the things caught in my mind,

And I want to be there when you’re

Coming down,

And I want to be there when you hit the ground,

So don’t go away, say what you say,

But say that you’ll stay,

If the racket of the music wasn’t enough of an annoyance - the one thing that Dean hated most about muggle shops was the staff’s tendency to constantly badger you. Within a minute of browsing the aftershave section he had been harassed by four different people trying to shove samples in his face.

There was Armani, Versace, then Dior and Issey Miyake and Hugo Boss too. He was sure there was one that he would’ve really liked, but having test strips shoved in his face every time he tried to look had put him off going anywhere near them.

A pretty young red-headed girl advertising the latest Chanel release stopped him in his tracks though. She had piercing brown eyes, just like Ginny’s. The girl blushed slightly when she noticed that he was staring at her – he snapped himself out of it, feeling quite embarrassed.

He’d moved on from Ginny now.

Well, mostly.

He held no real ill-will to her or Harry, but he was quite disappointed at how it had all worked out. He thought everything had been going pretty swimmingly with her and he didn’t really know why they’d argued as much as they did by the end of it.

Dean had always tried to do right by her. He’d hold doors open for her, stand-up for her if anyone ever spoke out of line to her in-front of him and always insist on paying on every date they went on. She had called it controlling and patronising, but he was just trying to be nice and he knew that she didn’t have a lot of money so he didn’t like letting her split the bill like she would often suggest.

During one particularly-heated row she’d told him that she wasn’t a damsel in distress that needed saving, yet on numerous occasions she’d spoken in awe of how Harry had saved her in the Chamber of Secrets. Dean had pointed this out to her, which to put it lightly, had not gone down too well.

One of the last straws of their relationship had been when Cormac McLaggen inadvertently fractured Harry’s skull by hitting him with a bludger by accident. Dean hadn’t quite realised how serious the injury had been at first and he’d had to laugh at Cormac’s gross incompetence – as he’d flown past Ginny he’d made a joke about how You Know Who had spent years trying to kill Harry, yet after all that Cormac McLaggen might beat him to it if he wasn’t careful.

Ginny hadn’t seen the funny side, yet even Ron and Harry himself had cracked a laugh when he’d mentioned what he’d said later in their dormitory. It didn’t matter what Ginny thought now though. He might well never see her or any of the others again.

Perhaps it was for the best.

It took great effort but as he made his way through the store he managed to duck and dive out of the way of a man trying to sell him a ginormous toblerone, then dodged another trying to sell him a bottle of ludicrously expensive vodka. Dean couldn’t have even bought it if he had wanted to, as whilst he was considered of age by wizarding standards at 17 – it would still be a few months before he reached the legal age to drink in the UK as a muggle.

As he escaped Duty Free he saw a big stack of newspapers on a side-wall. The headlines all read ‘BROWN BLOWS BILLIONS ON BENEFITS AS LABOUR ANNOUNCE FIRST BUDGET’ and with it there was a still picture of a white man in a suit, with dark hair, who Dean guessed was in his mid to late forties, who was addressing a collection of journalists whilst standing in-front of a red banner that read ‘NEW LABOUR - NEW LIFE FOR BRITAIN’.

Dean didn’t care much for muggle politics. He turned the newspaper over to see what was on the back-page.

‘INTER MILAN BREAK TRANSFER RECORD TO LAND SAMBA STAR RONALDO’

That was more like it. Dean pulled up a seat nearby, then eagerly read the article which described in detail how the Italian super club had spent an incredible 19.5 million pounds to buy the brilliant Brazilian from Barcelona.

He lowered the newspaper from his eye line slightly to check the departure board and see if his flight was boarding yet.

“Oh, I sayyy…surely it can’t be…Dean Thomas?”

Dean didn’t immediately recognize the very ostentatious voice addressing him, but then he saw for his own eyes someone he’d shared the Hogwarts castle with for the best part of six years.

“Alright Justin, mate?”

“Dean! My goodness. It is you! What a surprise to see you here! I almost didn’t recognize you there for a second.”

Justin Finch-Fletchey had briefly broken away from who Dean assumed must be his parents. A very prim and proper white man, with old-fashioned spectacles and greased back hair, who Dean guessed was probably around forty-five and Justin’s father, followed his son but looked a bit hesitant.

“A friend of yours, Justin?” he asked, squinting curiously at Dean.

“Yes, Father. From school. You must excuse me for a moment. We have much to discuss,” Justin replied confidently, yet still very politely.

“Yes. Yes. Of course. Don’t forget though, Justin… first class boards first so we mustn’t dither too long.”

And with that his Father headed back towards his Mother and they headed to what looked like the Ralph Lauren boutique store.

“So… you’re upping sticks too, huh? Always knew you were a smart man,” Justin said in a slightly condescending, yet very light-hearted manner, patting Dean on the shoulder slightly as he winked.

“Yeah, well… I thought it was best to be on the safe side. Nobody knows what will happen if You Know Who does kick off a war. And with Dumbledore gone, well, not even Hogwarts is safe anymore so-

“Hogwarts was never bloody safe anyway! Especially for us. I was nearly killed by a murderous snake for Christ’s sake. If it hadn’t been for that irritating ghost I would have been,” Justin scoffed, quite understandably still annoyed at his petrification in their second year.

Dean had dodged a bullet that year to be fair. The basilisk had made short work of many muggle-borns in the school, even several in his own year, but he’d somehow managed to avoid the potentially lethal glare of the giant serpent, more through luck than any kind of skill or planning.

“I wouldn’t have minded it that much,” Justin began. Dean knew that some kind of rant was coming.

“But that old fool Dumbledore didn’t even have the humility or self-respect to go to the Ministry of Magic for help. He was too concerned about the school’s reputation that he left several students petrified indefinitely. You can’t tell me that St Mungo’s couldn’t have cooked up a remedy within a few days? It was farcical! Never would have happened if it had been going after the purebloods. It beggars belief that a society can have such a ridiculous order based entirely on social class.”

“Yeah, terrible…” Dean managed to mutter out.

He’d never spoken to Justin that much particularly, perhaps that had been a good decision as he seemed to have all the self-awareness of a goldfish.

Dean thought it best to try and change the subject. He had never been particularly close to Albus Dumbledore, but he wasn’t exactly going to stand here and let Justin shit-talk a dead man he had at least held a lot of respect for. It did also seem a bit rich for him to be criticising their former Headmaster, when Justin himself had been a member of a group named Dumbledore’s Army for several years.

“So where are you heading then?” he asked neutrally.

“We’re flying out to Los Angeles. Father has got a transfer at work to the San Francisco office, so we’ll be based there for now. I might also shadow my Uncle if I get the chance. He works with the Foreign Office in Washington. He’s quite high up, you know,” Justin said very proudly, perhaps not all that aware of how he could be misconstrued as boasting.

“Oh that’s cool,” Dean said, doing his best to sound as interested as he could.

“How about you, lad? You heading to The States as well?” Justin enquired.

“Yeah, Los Angeles too,” he replied, trying to play down the fact that they were probably going to be leaving on the same plane. It really was a small world after all.

“Ohhh snap,” Justin said, presumably thinking he sounded quite cool, but in his posh-voice he actually sounded as far from cool as it was humanly possible to be.

“Yeah ha-ha… my sister lives out near Santa Monica so I’m going to go and live with her,” he added half-heartedly.

“Santa Monica, ehh? Right near Bel-Air? Why, you’ll be just like that coloured chap in The Fresh Prince!” Justin chided, positively under the impression that he’d just cracked the funniest joke anyone had ever heard. Dean didn’t really see the funny side, but chose to ignore the slightly offensive gag.

“Yeah,” he mumbled, doing his best to muster an awkward laugh and hide his annoyed demeanour.

“I’ll be a little sad to leave, you know. I won’t miss Hogwarts that much, nor the magic. No…I fear that was all a big waste of time now. I should have just gone to Eton like Father had planned. But it will be a shame to leave Oxford. We’ve got a really lovely house there. Of course, we won’t be downsizing in San Francisco, no if anything quite the opposite with house prices over there, but well, you can’t beat home. Where was your parent’s house?”

“Surrey,” Dean said quickly, which wasn’t technically a lie. Surrey was where people from Croydon told people they lived when they wanted it to sound fancier. If they wanted it to sound a bit cooler than they’d say they were from London, although anyone who lived in ‘proper’ London would fiercely argue that Croydon wasn’t really London at all.

“Lived there with my Mum and step-dad as long as I can remember. It’s a shame to have to leave them, but I guess it’s for the best.”

Dean didn’t fail to notice Justin’s slightly raised eyebrow when he’d said that he had a step-dad. He didn’t care what Justin thought of him though.

“Hmm, yes. Not to worry though, Deano. It’s a good time to be leaving Britain anyway really… with Labour back in power the country will soon be bankrupt anyway. It’s a disgrace how much they’re going to spend on welfare. Bloody lefties. You know, it’s actually the wizard’s fault that they got in anyway.”

“You think?” Dean asked in bewilderment.

He knew enough about Wizards to know that they didn’t care in the slightest about muggle politics, let alone know or care enough to actively influence who the Prime Minister was.

“Well yes, it’s obvious really, isn’t it? The Conservatives had no chance of winning the election given everything that’s happened in the last few years. They had enough on their hands with the bloody Irish, but look at all the extra problems they had from the wizards. Mass murderers on the loose. A government funded bridge collapsing unexpectedly. Those bloody Dementors roaming the country making everybody miserable. Poor old John Major never stood a chance! Of course there was nothing he could do. He couldn’t exactly come out and tell everyone that it was actually the incompetence of the wizarding government causing all of it.”

Dean wondered what would have happened if a British Prime Minister had gone on TV and announced to the public that wizards were behind all of the country’s problems. He guessed it would make a change from them blaming all of the foreigners and unemployed people.

“With any luck they’ll all wipe each other out if there is a war,” Justin scorned.

Dean couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

“You don’t mean-

Justin reacted quickly to Dean’s incredulous response.

“Of course I don’t mean everyone at school. I mean you know, The Death Eaters and the Ministry forces. Almost as bad as each other if you ask me. Everyone else is far too young to be getting involved in a bloody war. Michael and Terry are both adamant they’re going to fight in any battle that they can,” Justin said as if it was the craziest thing he’d ever heard.

Dean had never been that fond of Michael Corner. It was nothing he had done personally, but he’d been Ginny’s ex-boyfriend, so Dean had to hate him on principle. He was emboldened by Michael and Terry Boot’s courage to fight though.

“I had a lot of fun at all of those DA meetings of course,” Justin mumbled.

“It was good to learn more spells from Potter and his friends for self-defence. But that night the Death Eaters raided the school and Professor Snape killed Dumbledore, well. That was it for me. It’s one thing training up for it and all, but I’m not willing to put my neck on the line to stay a part of the magical word. If everyone else wants to throw their life away, well more fool them. Some would call it bravery, but I say it’s just naivety. We’re not even 18, Dean. The days of teenagers being needlessly slain in pointless wars should be left behind in the 1940’s. We’ve made the right choice, pal,” he said solemnly, once again patting Dean on the shoulder.

It was at that moment that Dean suddenly began to question whether he had in-fact made the correct choice.

“You know, Zacharias Smith was even trying to recruit me for some kind of secret resistance movement his uncle is involved in,” he scoffed. “Told me to keep it all very quiet of course, but well, I suppose given the circumstances telling you won’t do any harm, will it?”

“Resistance movement?” Dean asked curiously. He hadn’t been asked to join any resistance movement.

“Yes. His Uncle is an Auror, isn’t he? On quite good terms with that Mad-Eye Moody fellow. He said they’re setting up a top secret resistance movement, recruiting some muggle-borns for some highly classified unofficial operation if You Know Who gets in power. Sounded like a bloody suicide mission to me. Well, as you can imagine, I practically laughed in his face at the idea. What sort of braindead moron would sign up for that?” he scorned.

“Yeah. Right…” Dean replied, but his head with racing with ideas. This was it. He’d wanted to stay and fight, but it wasn’t as if the Wizarding world had an army you could just sign up to when you were 17 like the muggles did. But if this resistance movement had been interested in recruiting Justin, then they’d surely take Dean too.

Dean looked past his old class-mate and saw that Justin’s parents were heading out of the boutique shop with several bags of clothes that they must’ve bought in there for some serious money.

“Ah, well, I suppose I best be off,” Justin murmured, having noticed this development himself.

“I’ll be sure to pop down from first class and come and see you during the flight,” the youngest member of the Finch-Fletchley clan said elegantly, as he reached out to shake Dean’s hand.

“Can’t wait, mate,” Dean replied, trying his best to sound as enthusiastic as possible. Justin’s handshake was almost like a metaphor for his whole character, half-hearted and weak.

“See you in a bit,” Justin said as a parting comment, which Dean mumbled a polite agreement too, although if Dean was honest he would’ve been pretty happy if he’d have never seen him again for the rest of his life.

As it would happen, Dean never boarded that flight bound for Los Angeles – and it would be four years before Dean, or anyone else in the Wizarding world would see or hear from Justin Finch-Fletchley again.

#hp fanfic #hpfanfiction #hp #hpff #hpf #harry potter fanfiction #harry potter #harrypotter #dean thomas #deanthomas #gryffindor #justin finch fletchley #hufflepuff #fanfic #fanfiction

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