#and sorry for the disclaimer about religion but there is. so many level of weird fuckery going on with my convos with my mom

[icharchivist]

this is actually bewildering how despite how little my mom and i manage to talk or connect with one another, when our interests end up crossing it end up crossing in the most bonkers way possible.

anyway under cut mention of ob//ey me and huh. Discussion of religions that probably qualify as heresy and probably would upset very religious people. (??? i’m not really sure but just in case.) consider yourself warned i guess?

Anyway this post have another degree off hilarity if you follow me for long enough to know about my mom and similar situations before.

As i mentioned, don’t get along with her, bad emotional bagage yadayadayada, but she is the reason i ended up caring this much about history and how much we overread and discuss on some topics, especially those concerning the Bi//ble and stuff. (disclaimer: she’s je//wish, my father insisted on giving me a ca//tholic education, but my mom always insisted on some readings and stuff, and idk what i am nowadays but neither my mom and i are religious if it makes sense, but we did study the topic in depth.)

but i am a fiction person first, though when a fiction i like is based on some historical stuff i often end up digging there.

Which led to bonkers situation in the past where, say, when i was obsessed  over d//gm was the time my mom kept watching stuff about APOCRYPHS like YEAH SURE. Then dr//agon age, turNS OUT it was when my mom was watching documentaries about templars ALL THE TIME. THEN when i got obsessed with g//bf because of Percival, it was when my mom was OBSESSED about Arthurian documentaries and i would often walk in the living to hear her go through those. And, ofc, religionwise, the fact my mom has a fascination with the Sumerians and the Arcadians, and have been studying and watching about Canaan and its culture for years, which also coincide with the time period i was deep into w///mtsb. Canaan being the place most myth around Lucifer, or as he was called, Helel Ben Shahar, originated from Canaanite religions (esp Ugarit’s), and is also the place that saw the importance of Ba’al ie Beelzebub grow before the hebraic religion took hold of it. Basically the long story short is that a lot of the mythos found in the To//rah is inspired by the myths from those regions that were lost to the time and it’s often why the deity from those regions are now the names of popular demons.  (if you’re into g///bf : ofc Lucifer and Bubs should be a telling, Sahar is Lucio as you know, Canaan was the place Lucifer lived in.)

aND LET ME BE CLEAR this is COMPLETELY accidental, i never talk to her about stuff i like (she doesn’t listen anyway), and when she ends up discussing those with me i’m already in an hyperfixation that match accidentally. idk how we have THIS as a timing OUT OF ANYTHING ELSE.

This is like. My normal life okay. Anyway it’s actually not unusual for us to discuss Canaan’s mythos when we see each other, since well we both made researches about it, let’s go. “Canaan is actually the most common discussion topic i have with my mom that isn’t tainted by personal trauma” top ten bewildering sentence but that’s my life let’s go.

Another important piece of setting, we were eating at a restaurent (my country banned the possibility to go on restaurent without a proof you’re vaccinated so we were safe just so it’s clear)

So, we were at dinner discussing Canaan on my birthday LIKE ONE DOES, and look. I at least AM prepared for my mom to go on tangente about Beelzebub. While it came out of nowhere, i am not surprised my mom started to talk about the inspiration behind Satan in the middle of the dinner.

what i didn’t expect was her suddenly going “and of course here we have Asmodé. Do you know who Asmodé is?”

me, stupid: “this is awfully familiar why do i know who Asmodé is. Well if it’s linked to Canaan his name must have become one of a demon so i must know an Asmo---”

and suddenly i froze. and i started laughing. like a fucking moron.

Meanwhile my mom “well you know Asmodé actually was the king of said country who-”

“Who opposed King Solomon yeah? yeah. yeah i know.”

“Exactly, so you know who is Asmodé.”

and then i bursted into laughing and i had to explain to my mom about the fucking dating app. I had to explain it to my mom. 

“I didn’t recognize Asmodé right away because i’m used to his english name, Asmodeus. And yeah i know him he called me this morning on my fucking app to wish me a happy birthday.”

at least it made my mom laugh as well.

I mentioned to her who were the seven brothers and i love. That when i said “and ofc Belphegor and Beelzebub”

My mom still unaware: “ oh yeah!! the two who are based on Baal! Baal Phégor and Baal-Zebub who are based on the same divinity and why those two demons were associated with the cult of Baal.”

Me still holding a laughter “yeah they’re twins in game.”

My mom: “AS THEY SHOULD BE.”

My mom NEVER listens to me talk about the fiction i like unless it’s connected to something she likes like that (bc then it means she can go “since it’s like that in your fiction DO YOU KNOW ABOUT THIS-” and tangente back on the legends and stuff)

Anyway so the thing is that we went deeper into this conversation, as one does, so we talked in depth, as usual, about Satan, Beelzebub, Asmodeus, L I K E O N E D O ES. 

And halfway through the mean i suddenly realized that the people on the table next to us, who i noticed were speaking english to start with though they understood french just fine, had been looking at us awkwardly for a long time. The woman especially was looking at me very weirdly.

It took me a few minutes to realize that they probably overheard us talk about demons the entire time and that i totally mentioned to my mom “so i have this dating app where i can date Lucifer, Mammon, Leviathan, Satan, Asmodeus, Beelzebub and Belphegor”, a totally fucking normal conversation. That i don’t know if they understood everything we were saying bc we talk so fucking fast to start with, and also the fact i worry bc while it’s ofc you can run into religious french people, english speaking people tend to be more religious and in my experience? know much more demon names than the average french religious person. SO THIS WAS AWKARD.

SO. What the fuck do i even do with this. What the fuck do i even DO WITH ALL OF THIS.

And like i said i’m actually used about us talking about Canaan and i legit wouldn’t have connected the dots if she just talked about Beelzebub, i’m used to him, it’s Satan that destabilized me because my mom brought him up when we were talking about Seth, the Egyptian god (and the irony that Mankind is the “descendant of Seth” by the To//rah, and we were talking about how Seth (Egyptian) was associated to “Baal” and then my mom so proudly went “and then, because of that, Set, known also as Sutek => Satan” and i had to keep a sTRAIGHT FACE as if my first thought wasn’t “yes the guy i want to kiss all the time, continue.”) and then it’s  Asmodeus that made me lose my damn shit, and i’m also realizing the absolute irony that i was listening to the ob//ey me songs while coming to join my mom for dinner to start with. 

I was totally prepared about a conversation about Canaan, that’s my mom’s hyperfixation let’s say. I didn’t expect that it’d come with “sudden realization that just like those others times where our interests crossed, this is happening again over this dating app i play with”

I legit don’t know what to say more i’ve been laughing none stop since i came back home. My normal i guess.

[hotdemonsummer]

Obey Me! and Angelology and Demonology

 alternatively titled Lets Get Into Lucifer

This is yet another long, long post about the lore of Obey Me! from the perspective of historical and theological angelology, and demonology or the study of angels and demons respectively, because I think it’s neat. I also talk way too much. I’m scared to check the word count on this.

Disclaimer: I am not an expert on anything, and certainly not on religion. I just like comparative theology. Also, spoilers for lesson 43/44.

What is an angel? And what, in turn, is a demon? It depends on who you ask. All religions that have angels have a general consensus that they are spiritual beings, intermediaries of some kind of higher power. Demons, on the other hand, are much more vague beyond general malevolence toward humanity. Any connection between the two is entirely dependent on the culture and religion in question. Some have angels but not demons, and many have vice versa.

There’s generally four kinds of spirits that are considered demons:

Dead people with extremely bad vibes (think mogwai, yuurei, and other revenants)

Neutral-to-malevolent energy, physical form optional (think djinni or yokai)

Cult subjects (including foreign gods and ancestor worship)

Corrupted angels (either fallen or Nephilim)

The word demon comes from the Greek δαίμων, or daimon, but the concept of a demon is much older than the Greeks. The original daimon had none of the malevolent, evil associations that we now think of. Instead, daimon just described a kind of powerful spiritual entity (for example, δαίμων is the term Euripides uses for the new god Dionysus in The Bacchae). What we think of as demons now didn’t exist in Greek culture, and the negative associations came when the Tanakh was translated from Hebrew to Greek, but even then shedim aren’t identical to the contemporary depiction of demons that we see in Obey Me!, which, like everything else in Western society, came about through the domination of Christianity.

Shedim, the precursor to the Christian demon, was more or less a term for false gods, a title for the various Levantine pagan gods (see: origin of Beelzebub, Belphegor, and pretty much every demon that starts with Bel- or Bal-). 

Obey Me! pretty much canonizes Type 2 and Type 4 demons, with characters like Diavolo, Barbatos, and Satan as Type 2 and the other brothers as Type 4. Historically, Beelzebub and Belphegor are Type 3 (Beelzebub and Belphegor being Levantine gods), Mammon being Type 2 (a general personification of Wealth, although Milton did write him as a Type 4 in Paradise Lost) and Asmodeus being somewhere in between Type 2 and 3 (being heavily derived from a Zoroastrian daeva of wrath). Lucifer is, historically, the only consistently Type 4 demon.

I don’t think I have to explain what a fallen angel is to any OM! fan. But I will. 

Let’s talk about these guys. We’re all familiar with Satan’s weird complex about Lucifer, and I’m sure we’re all equally familiar with how Satan and Lucifer are terms used interchangeably for whatever being is The Big Bad of Hell. However, they’re not synonymous.

Satan derives from the same Proto-Semitic root as shayatan, which... should be pretty obvious, but nonetheless has a pretty analogous role as a tempter of men in the Abrahamic religions. Beyond that “tempter of men” title, though, the actual details of what Satan is is incredibly varied, including whether or not “Satan” is a name or a title. In Christianity, the view of Satan as an extremely powerful and evil corrupter of man, wholly opposed to God, came around the Middle Ages, when witchcraft hysteria spread.

Lucifer, on the other hand, is simultaneously a figure originating in Christianity and much, much older than it. The term of course means “light-bringer”, and is heavily associated with the morning star, aka the planet Venus. To make a very long story short, many Mesopotamian, Levantine, and Mediterranean cultures saw the lowering of Venus toward the horizon at night and thought, “hey, thats a pretty neat image!” and created stories about heavenly beings falling toward the earth. Of course, they didn’t use the ‘term’ Lucifer, that’s Latin, and came from the Vulgate Bible.

The term Lucifer does not exclusively refer to The Evil Fallen Angel™ in Christian texts (some very sacred things like the Exsultet explicitly refer to Jesus as Lucifer), but it sure is the most popular interpretation. In works like Paradise Lost or the Divine Comedy, the general idea is that the angel Lucifer rebelled against God in some way and was cast out of Heaven, then becoming Satan, and thus the two are one and the same.

(inb4 some Quora-type chews me out for accuracy’s sake, the “lucifer” mentioned in Isaiah 14:12 refers not to any angel, but to a Babylonian king. The whole fallen angel thing, much like the beatitudes or Bethlehem or Christmas, is a fusion of pagan influences.)

In other words, Lucifer is always and has always been a fallen angel. Satan, on the other hand, doesn’t have those connections to angelhood, and the two figures have an undeniable connection despite their clear individual differences. Sound familiar?

The next question is then what kind of angel is Lucifer anyway? to which you might be thinking, wait, there are different kinds? Yes, holy shit, there are so many kinds of angels and very little consensus on what they are. In terms of Christian angelology (because again, Lucifer is a uniquely Christian/derivative Christian figure unless you exclude Leland’s Aradia which I don’t because lbr they were Italian anyways), most hierarchies are based on the work of this guy:

This man has the incredibly succinct name of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, and sometime in the 5th century he wrote a book called De Coelesti Hierarchia. It orders the *WTNV voice* hierarchy of angels into three levels called spheres, and each sphere has three sub-levels called choirs. Many, but not all, of the choirs are adopted from various Jewish angelic hierarchies. If you thought that it was just angels and then archangels were, like, the middle management version of angels then you are very wrong. I’m sorry that television lied.

You know who also lied? Tumblr dot com and any post that implies that the true form of angels is a big wheel with a bunch of eyes. That is, in fact, a descriptor for only one kind of angel: ophanim, or thrones. The depiction of angels runs the gamut from winged humanoids to multi-winged humanoids with multiple animal heads to burning snakes to vague heavenly mist.

Archangels and angels are the eighth and ninth lowest choirs of angels, respectively. Angels, or malakhim, are the default messengers of God and the choir from which guardian angels come from. Generally, if someone claims to have a message from God delivered to them, it will be an angel doing it. If it’s really important, it’ll be an archangel. Everyone else literally has more important things to do. No one’s getting visions from dominions.

Lucifer’s (the theological one) actual designation is kind of a mystery. Depending on the text, Lucifer has been described as a seraph (the highest), a cherub (the second highest), or an archangel (the eighth). According to Thomas Aquinas:

Lucifer, chief of the sinning angels, was probably the highest of all the angels. But there are some who think that Lucifer was highest only among the rebel angels.

Not very helpful, but hey. The question remains: what kind of angel is Lucifer, and this time I mean our Lucifer. 

We know that Michael, just like his namesake, is an archangel. We also know that (SPOILERS) Simeon, unlike his namesake, is an archangel as well (Simeon is a saint, not an angel.) Lucifer likely was at their level, if not higher.

However, Lucifer was also a six-winged angel, a depiction generally reserved for seraphim (and cherubim, but far less frequently).

Moreover, in terms of role, an angellic Lucifer fits well with that of the powers, the sixth choir. Powers are in charge of moving the heavenly bodies, and are depicted as powerful warriors dressed in beautiful armor. It's fitting for a being so closely tied to the morning star to be a power, after all.

So, with all that considered, what is Lucifer? 

Well, he’s a seraph (or saraph, technically). Why? Because Simeon is somehow a seraph and an archangel (I have already written too much to unpack that bullshit), and Mammon was a throne (remember those wheels with eyes?) and Beel was a cherub and therefore Lucifer had to be higher than both of them (interestingly big brother Mammon is in a lower choir than little brother Beel). This makes Michael kind of, well... weird, given the archangels’ low rank.

Some like to differentiate between archangel the eighth choir and Archangel, with a capital A, as a term for any high-ranking angel. While this is likely what Solmare is doing, I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that this has zero basis in any religious text whatsoever and is solely done for the convenience of not remembering anything besides angel and archangel. Which is like, fine, but I’m a pedantic jerk who I found claims to the contrary while researching and I felt the need to correct that.

Anyways, the more you know.

[9r7g5h]

Teach to Learn, Learn to Teach

Fandom: Fantasy High

Rating: T

Genre: General/Friendship

Summary: Ragh and Tracker both have a lot to learn from each other. 

Words: 3269

AN: So, the topic of Ragh taking a level in cleric and Tracker taking a level in barbarian came up on tumblr, and I was so intrigued I had to write something for these gaybies. It will probably be three parts, one focusing on Ragh, one on Tracker, and one about them going home, or something like that. Just enjoy chapter one. 

Disclaimer: I do not own Fantasy High.

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

They had both known, when Tracker first brought up her goal to Ragh, that it would be rough going. Fallinel wasn't the most welcoming of outsiders as it was, though at least High Elf decorum granted adventurers safe passage, so long as they weren't causing issues. But causing issues was the entire reason they were there, and Ragh's official adventurer certification he had received at graduation only did so much when he was helping Tracker constantly shoulder her way into temples of Galilea, trying to turn back the carefully placed lies the high priests had said to turn their goddess away from her wilder ways. 

The fact that she was actually making headway with the younger elves, the ones who saw how prim and proper their elders were and balked against that fate, only made things even worse for them. Add in the newly formed 'Pack of Galilea,' younger elves who not only wanted to worship the wild of the night but become wolves themselves, their leader constantly trying to convince Tracker to bite her so she could turn the rest of her pack and give more strength to the wild form of the goddess they loved, and, well. 

Honestly, they really should have expected something like this. Should have expected that the high priest would deem her a problem. Should have expected him to decide to end it. Should have expected him to know that only silver could hurt a werewolf, and armed the elf he had hired to do his will properly. 

Had they expected it, maybe she wouldn't be gasping in the back of their van, the silver poisoning from the arrow still stuck deep in her side seeping into her veins while Ragh tried to avoid the trees, putting distance between them and where they had been attacked. Had they expected it, maybe she would have cast Moon Haven earlier, ensuring their safety. Had they expected it, maybe they wouldn't have been goofing off, listening to music and chatting while their dinner cooked. 

Maybe, maybe, maybe she wouldn't be dying before she got to see Kristen again. 

"Ok, I think I lost them." 

She wasn't sure when Ragh finally pulled the van over, or how long it had been or how far they had gone, just that now he was besides her, talking. A knife in his hand, cutting through her second favorite shirt (damn them for that), pulling the cloth away from the wound. 

"Sorry sis, this is gonna hurt."

She barely felt him cut into her skin - the head hadn't gone all the way through, couldn't be broken off and the shaft pulled out, it had to be cut out and stitched up - but she did feel as he began to pull it out, the silver arrowhead brushing against the dying skin, making her howl in pain as everything within her wanted to flee. Flee the pain, the sheer burning agony of every single one of her cells dying, flee into the night and the moonlight until she could curl up somewhere that felt and smelt like home. 

But then it was gone. The silver was gone, she could think again, and though everything hurt, she could focus on Ragh's words. 

"Shit shit shit sorry sis, I had to get it out, shit. Fuck, god damn it, what was next? Think, Ragh, you know this." His voice fell to muttering for a bit as he pressed a cloth to the wound, looking through the medical kit. She wanted to say something, give him a hint or encouragement, but she was so tired. "Sterilize it, fuck, that's right! Where are you, you tiny little shit, you're hiding better then Riz to get out of PE... there you are!" He held up a small bottle triumphantly, used his teeth to undo the top, and splashed a generous portion directly into the wound. 

Tracker thankfully passed out immediately, her thoughts a dozen swirls of pain and Galilea thanking her for her efforts and wanting nothing more then to just sleep. 

It was morning when she next woke up. Her tank top had been replaced with a sports jersey, her side covered with enough bandages that she was almost sure she now classified as a large creature instead of medium, and the smell of burning fish covered everything else. Her stomach growled, despite the acrid smoke, and that was enough to get her moving, sluggishly kicking open the door to see what kind of trouble Ragh was in now. 

He was, surprisingly, doing well for himself. He had built a decent fire pit, had managed to grab a dozen fish or so from a nearby river, and only two of them seemed to have caught fire. The others actually looked amazing, and before she could even think the actual thought, she had grabbed one, sinking her teeth into the flesh, ravenous. 

Ragh just chuckled. "Good morning to you too, sis. I'm so glad you're ok. I was worried I was going to have to call Kristen and give her bad news, and honestly, your girlfriend scares me."

She couldn't help but laugh through her mouthful of fish, forcing it down so she could respond in a timely manner. 

"Full honestly, and I'll kill you if you ever tell her? She scares me a little bit too. Love her, but she has some weird shit going on with the gods that's just on a whole nother level."

She had been sleeping for two days. Ragh had done the best he could, keeping her comfortable and hydrated, just glad he had remembered enough from his mandatory healing class to stabilize her. He didn't know enough to actually heal, he had spent too much of the class mooning over a cute cleric guy in the front row, but cutting out arrows used knives, so he remembered that at least. 

"I just always relied on having a cleric," he admitted with a shrug. "Never thought much more about it."

"You thought enough to save me," Tracker pointed out, resting her non-cash covered hand on his shoulder. "Thank you." 

It took another day for her spells to come back, her energy finally high enough after gorging on fish and the few rabbits Ragh caught to finally cast a healing hand on herself. Ragh watched with a new found fascination as she unwrapped the wound, showing his shoddy stitches to keep her held together, only for the silvery light to flow from her hand, popping out the stitches and leaving her with healed, slightly pink skin. 

"Sis, you gotta teach me how to do that."

A raised eyebrow, a glance over at him as he half reached out, as if he wanted to touch her newly healed wound to make sure it was truly one, a tilt of her head as she waited for him to continue. He didn't, instead his skin flushing a deeper green as he shuffled his feet. 

"You want to become a healer?"

Ragh just shrugged, rubbing at the back of his head. They both needed to get haircuts soon, Tracker noticed and mentally filed away, watching as he felt the longer hair tickling the back of his neck and tried to move it away. Her own shaved side was growing out as well, much to her annoyance, though she quickly shook her head, forcing away the random thoughts as she looked back at her friend. 

"I know I'm not that smart," Ragh muttered, giving a shrug as if his lower intelligence score wasn't that big of a deal to him, "but even doing my best, there wasn't much I could do to help after, you know." He waved towards her and the pile of bloody gauze next to her. "I've never had to take care of someone before, someone else always did that, but now it's just the two of us, sis. What if it's worse next time? I don't know about all this religion stuff, but I've thought about it a lot over the last few days, and while I'm still gonna be the tank, it might help if I can also help take care of us." 

She wasn't sure what he was expecting, but Tracker could tell he wasn't expecting her to lean over and pull him into a giant bear hug, only to pull back a few moments later and punch him in the arm. 

"Don't sell yourself so short, big guy," Tracker said sternly, waggling a finger at him. "You kept me alive, which is the best thing you could have done. As for the healing, well, do you have a god in mind?"

Ragh immediately perked up, a half grin as he began to think. It would be a process, they would both soon find out - when he had come up blank, she had immediately begun with the most obvious of the gods: Cassandra and Galilea. Going over the pros, the cons, how both goddesses would easily accept him, though Cassandra might be a bit happier about it then Galilea was. But, eventually, neither of them just felt right to him, which was the most important thing. 

And so began their side quest - finding Ragh a god. 

"What about Tempus, god of war," Tracker asked one evening, gutting fish by the fireside as Ragh attempted to mend a hole in his shirt. "A neutral god, popular with a lot of fighters." 

It took him a long moment to answer, the tip of his tongue poking out from between his lips as he tried to keep his stitches straight. Tying off the line, he gave a small shrug. 

"Nah. I'm not much of a war guy. I like bashing heads, not overthrowing other governments for whatever reason I come up with, yah know?" 

“What about Gruumsh,” Ayda asked a few days later, pulling out the many goods she had brought from Riz’s borrowed suitcase of holding. She didn’t come often - Tracker had made it clear that this was her mission, and while all of their friends were ready to come the moment she said she needed help, she wanted to do this on her own first, or at least try. But every few months Ayda would show up in their camp with care packages and letters (Gorgug had made them satellite phones, but not all of them had planatar fueled vans to keep them charged with, so those were for emergencies only) and a few creature comforts they missed from home, stay for a meal, and then take back whatever they wanted to send with her, letters and keepsakes of their own to their own loved ones. 

It was always wonderful, getting the stack of letters from Kristen and Jawbone and the others, and this time she brought advice as well. 

“He is already the god of the orcs, which you are at least half of. I would need some of your blood to analyze the exact genetic makeup, and while that is a topic of conversation we will have to revisit in the future, for now I do believe Gruumsh would welcome you into his army.” 

Ragh was already shaking his head before she even finished, his nose wrinkled in distaste. “Nah sis, Gruumsh isn’t my kind of guy.” 

For a moment Ayda just stood there, watching him, her head tilted to the side. But then her eyes glowed just a bit brighter, and a look of understanding appeared. “Of course. You are neutral good. He is chaotic evil. Your alignments wouldn’t be compatible. I apologize for not thinking of this beforehand.” 

Ragh waved her off, giving her a fanged smile. “No harm, no foul, sis. I just get tired of people always thinkin orcs are evil, you know? I’m not, my mom’s not, Gorgug’s for sure not. So I really don’t want to get mixed up with an evil god if I can avoid it.” 

Ayda gave a deep nod of understanding. “On my honor as a wizard, and as both the mother and the daughter of the same quite wonderful half-orc, I swear to you, Ragh Barkrock, I shall not make that mistake again. Would you like an orange?” 

Ragh happily took the fruit from her outstretched hand, and Ayda gave a small, happy trill before returning to her unpacking, crying a few tears when he handed her a slice. 

“What about Talos, our lord of the storms and tempest that ravage our forests almost as well as you ravaged me last night?” 

Tracker could barely hide her eye roll and fake gag as she paid for their rooms at the inn, Ragh’s lately hook up hanging off his arm and batting his big elf eyes at him. She had known this was going to happen, again, and had warned him, again, that he needed better tastes in hook ups, but Ragh seemed to had a soft spot for elven twinks, and always ended up bringing one back to the inn whenever they were lucky enough to stay in one. She was just glad that they had separate rooms this time, and hadn’t had to sleep as a wolf in the nearest bush. 

“I’m not really a ravishing kind of guy,” Ragh said, trying to free his arm from the elfs’ grasp. “Sure, it’s fun to do every once in a while, but I’m not sure if I’m ready to commit to a ravishing lifestyle yet. What’s that, Tracker? We need to go?” Ragh looked at her with such desperation that she couldn’t turn her back on him like she had last time. 

“Come on Ragh, I have important things to do for Galilea.” 

“You hear the boss, important god cleric wolf stuff to do. I’ll call you, bye!” Ragh almost ran out the door past her, leaving the poor elf boy pouting at the table, wondering what Ragh meant when he said ‘call.’ 

“You need to work on your taste in guys, my dude,” Tracker said with a shake of her head as she slid into the driver’s side, glancing over her shoulder at the half-orc hiding in the back seat. “At least stop choosing the clingy ones?”

“Please, just drive.” 

In the end, it was Ragh himself who found his god, as was strangely right. 

The small town they had stopped in was, by far, their favorite stop so far. Mostly high elves, sure, but high elves strangely welcoming, much more like Adaine then the others they had met so far. A few other species were there too, half elves, a few fairies, and even a couple of gnomes that had taken residence in a nearby cave, turning it into a mix of apartment complexes and work stations. It was the most welcoming town they had been in; it almost felt like home. 

And, centered in the middle of town, were their shrines. 

It was common for towns this small, Tracker had learned, to not have a temple dedicated to every single god worshiped in the area. While for some towns that meant only one temple, maybe two if there were multiple families with influence, other towns had too many to count, each family or inhabitant following their own deity. So, instead, they had a shrine building instead, each deity with their own table and candles and cushions in front of them so those who worshiped them could pray. 

It was there, after he had gone missing for hours on end, that Tracker finally found him. He was just sitting there on one of the cushions, staring at the flickering candle, eyes both vacant and seemingly touched with a new found peace. He didn’t even notice when she sat down next to him, only starting out of whatever trance he seemed to be in when Tracker put her hand on his shoulder, gently shaking him. 

“This is him,” Ragh immediately said, his face lit up with almost the same happy glow as whenever he reminded people he was gay and was met with acceptance instead of the hatred he thought he would find. “I was curious what was in here, so I walked in and thought it was some kind of weird like, massage parlor, but I found my guy, and this dude totally rocks, Tracker!  Hoot growl, up high!” 

Tracker immediately gave him his high five, giddy with excitement for her friend. And taking a look at the shrine they sat before, she couldn’t help but agree that it fit. Torm, god of courage and self-sacrifice, a provider of protection. Symbolized by a white gauntlet raised against a coming sword. For her bodyguard and best friend, yeah, it felt right. 

Of course, finding the god was only the first step in becoming a cleric. Then there was the training. 

Not all clerics were as blessed as she and Kristen were (though, of course, no one was as blessed as Saint Kristen Applebees, chosen and denier of Helios, creator of the planatar YES!/?, healer of the Goddex Cassandra). Some clerics had to work to gain their deity’s blessing, to prove that they were good enough vessels of the gods’ holy power. Some were just pains in the asses to get a hold of. 

Luckily, Torm seemed to approve of Ragh. 

It took a while, a few days after they left the town, Ragh standing between her and a weird lizard creature neither of them could remember the name of, for Torm to finally respond to the prayers Tracker had been teaching him. An almost imperceptible white light seemed to surround Ragh's hand as it came down against the lizards' jaw, just bright enough that Tracker's wolf enhanced eyes caught it as she bit deep into the creatures' tail. And each time he fulfilled his role of protector, showed courage as he walked by her side into the temples of Galilea, took up his weapon to protect her against whatever else Fallinel had to throw at them, it grew a little bit brighter. 

Until one day, without even thinking about it, he cast a Sacred Flame at an enemy on the other side of their camp site, the burning bright light zapping into the creatures' side, sending it scampering back into the wilds of the untamed woods in the far reaches of the country. Together they quickly finished off their enemies, Rahg wielding his weapon and a new found spells with an enjoyable ease, taking joy in the blessing of his god. 

She remembered that feeling, the power and joy from being blessed by one of the gods, the sudden innate knowledge of exactly what to do to make everything perfect and wonderful and right. 

The fight eventually ended, Ragh having taken the brunt of the damage, though one of them did get a slice at her flank. Before she could shift back and heal it herself, Ragh had reached out and touched her shoulder. Another burst of brilliant white light, something she would have to teach him to control later, raced through her veins and across her skin, invigorating her and closing most of the wound, leaving a scratch where before there had been a gash. All while Ragh stared in awe, eyes and smile wide, though clearly he was exhausted from the small use of magic. 

Another moment and she was back in her human form, healing him herself as he sat back, staring at his hands as his wounds closed around him. 

"Tracker..."

She raised her head from examining her work, making sure there wasn't something she had missed. 

"This fucking rules." 

An easy smile shared between them, Tracker knowing exactly what he meant. 

"Yeah it does."

[cat-brodsky]

The Secret History: Abridged (part 1)

Fair use disclaimer: The following text is intended as a parody and literary commentary of the published book “The Secret History” by Donna Tartt. Some direct quotations from the book, constituting a very low percentage of the original, have been integrated in the parodic text where appropriate. The author of this text neither profits nor intends to profit from it.

Dramatis personae

Richard Papen, the narrator, a perpetually starry-eyed youth with all the agency of the proverbial sexy lamp

Julian Morrow (played by King Julian of Madagaskar), a Greek professor who doesn’t actually teach

         The Toffs, as viewed through Richard’s rose-tinted glasses:

Henry Winter, a young genius, deeply devoted to Julian

Bunny Corcoran, an uncouth older student with a heart of gold deep inside

Francis Abernathy, a refined yet sensitive youth

Charles Macaulay, a young man who sometimes has a bit too much to drink

Camilla Macaulay, an exquisite beauty, the only girl in the clique

Judy Poovey, the only character in the book with both brains and heart

Georges “I told you so” Laforgue

the greek chorus (played by a person in a floral bedsheet toga with two sockpuppets)

The Fans, seated in the front row of the audience

The farmer, brutally murdered by four rich kids on a drug trip

     Chapter 1, in which Richard joins a cult (and the greek chorus monologues)

Richard: My name is Richard Pipen and I like pretty things. Maybe that’s cause my childhood was real poor and real awful.

Richard: I even picked Hampden College cause it looked pretty in the recruitment brochure. I have no friends, I failed pre-med, and the only thing I’m okay at is Greek language. …Guess I’ll take Greek.

Georges (the French teacher): Monsieur, I’m afraid zat will be a problem. You see, ze Greek teacher is incredibly… selective about his students. And by selective, I mean on a personal level.

Richard: oh, so he’s gay.

Georges: Non! He isolates his students, he grooms them to have ze same views as himself, and ze only reason ze school puts up with him is because he refuses his salary!

Richard: I dunno, my dad beat me before and after dinner, so this sounds perfectly healthy to me. Guess I’ll go knock on his door.

    Richard: knocks on Julian’s door …Please let me study Greek.

Julian: Why, that’s rather quaint of you, young man, but I’m afraid my class is filled to the brim. Only got space for five people, you see. Very rigorous, that. Anyway, excuse me, I have a princess to tutor. Istrami royalty, though I don’t assume you would know. pauper

Richard: But-

door slam

    Henry and the Four Toffs: stroll the campus, looking pretty

Richard: drools

But I watched them with interest whenever I happened to see them: Francis, stooping to talk to a cat on a doorstep; Henry dashing past at the wheel of a little white car, with Julian in the passenger’s seat; Bunny leaning out of an upstairs window to yell something at the twins on the lawn below. Slowly, more information came my way. Francis Abernathy was from Boston and, from most accounts, quite wealthy. Henry, too, was said to be wealthy; what’s more, he was a linguistic genius. He spoke a number of languages, ancient and modern, and had published a translation of Anacreon, with commentary, when he was only eighteen. The twins had an apartment off campus, and were from somewhere down south. And Bunny Corcoran had a habit of playing John Philip Sousa march tunes in his room, at full volume, late at night.

Not to imply that I was overly preoccupied with any of this.

the greek chorus: yeah riiight

Richard: totally not eavesdropping on The Four Toffs studying Greek

Bunny: Ablative!

Charles: That’s Latin, you dumb-

Richard: Excuse me? I’m sorry, but would the locative case do?

Bunny: Thanks, man, you helped a lot. Wish you were in our class.

awkward silence

Henry, appearing out of nowhere: Ah, yes, the archaic locative. Are you a Homeric scholar?

Richard: …I like Homer.

Henry: Oh, you “like” Homer? Name all the 1,186 ships in the Catalogue.

Henry: fake fans smh

    Richard: All my life, I’ve dealt with poor jerks, so dealing with rich jerks sounded way more appealing. I figured I’d do what worked with my old man - lie my ass off. Excuse me, Dr. Roland, I need uh two hundred dollars from my financial aid? It’s for my uh car, it’s the uh transmission.

the greek chorus: that’s 548 dollars in 2020 money. also, is everyone in this book named after a historical figure?

Richard: knocks on Julian’s door again, having bought one hundred [274] dollars’ worth of expensive clothes

Julian: Oh my, and to think I mistook you for a peasant the first time. Come in, young man - any relation to French kings? Are you from California? What do you do in California?

Richard: Oh, you know… money, orange groves, money, ennui and more money - wow, he’s actually buying it.

Julian: Even Plato knew that class and conditioning and so forth have an inalterable effect on the individual. cough that’s why I only tutor rich and classy students. cough I’m afraid my students are never very interesting to me because I always know exactly what they’re going to do.

the greek chorus: fly, you fool

Richard: listens with stars in his eyes

Julian: Young man, I will take you on as a student, but you must take me on as your academic counselor, drop all your classes and pick up the ones I tell you to. Most of them are going to be with me - you know, a great diversity of teachers is harmful for the young mind.

Richard: Oh wow, that sounds elite and exclusive and totally not like a weird cult.

    Georges “The Voice of Reason” Laforgue: Mon Dieu, are you serious? Do you understand how isolated you’ll be from ze rest of ze college? What if you have a disagreement? What if he is unfair to you? And this man is so elitist - why, that’s ze first time he’s accepted a student on financial aid! …Does he know you’re on financial aid?

Richard: I’m not gonna tell him.

the greek chorus: annnd he switches majors

    Francis: Cubitum eamus?

Richard: what? who?

the greek chorus: did he just say “Wanna fu-”

The Fans: oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooohh!

Bunny: Get a load of this guy. Henry actually bought himself a Montblanc pen just cause Julian loves them. And he used to say they were ugly. What was it, three hundred [822] bucks?

Henry: You “studied” Greek? Recite every single Greek poem.

Henry: fake fans smh. Now I’ll speak Latin and flex on you some more.

Bunny: Don’t be a prick, Henry.

Julian, coming in fashionably late:

He was a marvelous talker, a magical talker, and I wish I were able to give a better idea what he said, but it is impossible for a mediocre intellect to render the speech of a superior one – especially after so many years – without losing a good deal in the translation.

the greek chorus: do you know what it means when someone talks big and beautiful and yet you can’t remember the talking points? means they’re talking nonsense

Julian: Though after all your Xenophon and Thucydides I dare say there are not many young people better versed in military tactics. Because, as you know, ancient Greek battle tactics are still valid in our modern age! Do you feel sufficiently special and superior, my lab m- lovely students?

Henry: The six of us could conquer Hampden town!

the greek chorus: this is new england, you’d get shot like deer

Richard, stars in his eyes: Awwwww he said six of us!

Camilla: recites from Aganemnnon

How quiet he sinks now - his soul starts from his mouth:

with one jerked gulp he brings up his own blood,

spatters me dark with the scarlet dew in his breath.

And that dew falls on me as the gods’ spring rains

fall and bless harvest back to the long-parched earth.

Julian: Now, why is this so beautiful?

the greek chorus: cause there’s no mention of the dying king voiding his bowels

Francis: It’s the meter - iambic pentameter.

The Greek Chorus: In a way, the discussion that follows is some pretty hefty foreshadowing. The subject is horrible - a dying man gurgling, choking on blood, spits it out all over his killer - but the way it’s described is poetic and makes the reader enamored with the act of murder.

This is exactly what Tartt does later on.

Five rich, entitled young people have a drug-fueled orgy, trespass, and beat an innocent farmer to death. But call an orgy a bacchanal, and it’s suddenly classy and beautiful.

Henry: Death is the mother of beauty.

The Fans: oooooooooooohhh!

Julian: And what is beauty?

Henry: Terror.

The Fans: OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHH!

the greek chorus: this toxic belief is so not gonna backfire

“Are we, in this room, really very different from the Greeks or the Romans? Obsessed with duty, piety, loyalty, sacrifice? All those things which are to modern tastes so chilling?”

I looked around the table at the six faces. To modern tastes they were somewhat chilling. I imagine any other teacher would’ve been on the phone to Psychological Counseling in about five minutes had he heard what Henry said about arming the Greek class and marching into Hampden town.

the greek chorus: richard, you idiot sandwich

Julian: The Romans’ genius and fatal flaw was their obsession with order! The Greeks knew not to deny the irrational! This is why Romans, usually so tolerant of foreign religions, persecuted the Christians mercilessly – how absurd to think a common criminal had risen from the dead, how appalling that his followers celebrated him by drinking his blood. The illogic of it frightened them-

The Greek Chorus: The Romans valued loyalty to the state, which meant practicing the state religion. Local beliefs were okay as long as they didn’t contradict that.

Christians placed their god, monotheistic God, above the emperor. The First Commandment forbids the worship of other gods, and this includes refusing to take part in feasts, to offer incense to the emperor - this was disloyalty to the Empire. Judaism, it seems, got a pass on the same because of the ancient origin of the religion.

Furthermore, the persecution of Christianity was sporadic until Decius’ decree mandating participation in public sacrifices, and even then this edict was not universally obeyed - the Empire was far too large and too diverse. Not to mention, a lot of the accounts of persecution and martyrdom were invented by Christian historians.

Julian is full of it, and a five minute Google search can tell you as much.

Richard: wow, #deep

Julian: …And that’s why Bacchanals are good fun for the whole family!

    Chapter 2, in which Bunny invites Richard to dinner (and then nothing happens)

Judy: So you’re hanging out with those posh guys now?

Richard: What if I am

Judy: I don’t know, they’re bad news. Like, I was at a party, everyone was slam dancing, and this girl was walking across the dance floor for some reason and got mad when I slammed into her. And like I threw a beer at her, it was that kind of night, and this Henry guy and her brother Charles came to yell at me? And my friend Spike saw that and came to defend me, and then Henry and Charles beat Spike to a pulp. Those people are crazy.

Richard, stars in his eyes: Gee whiz, Henry is badass.

Judy: Aren’t you hot in this tweed jacket? Like, here, you can have another one for free if you like it.

    Bunny: Nice jacket, dude

Richard: Thanks, it’s a family relic

Bunny: Anyway, why are there so many [slur omitted] working in restaurants? Oh man, I remember when we pulled a dine and dash here, all in good fun, and then Dad took us here for drinks and it’s a good thing he was so soused he didn’t notice the waiter putting it all on his bill.

the greek chorus: boy, it sure is a good thing the cops don’t get called on rich people

Bunny: And Henry’s so damn smart, you know? He was in a bad car accident, had to stay in bed reading all those old books, and now he’s really into it and he speaks seven to eight languages, even reads them hieroglyphics.

Richard: well, Bunny’s kind of an ass but he’s not an ass to me, sounds good

Bunny: Whoops, forgot my wallet.

Richard: …never mind

the greek chorus: the bill is, quote, two hundred and eighty-seven dollars and fifty-nine cents [786 dollars]. without the tip. twenty percent more is about tree fiddy [950 dollars]

Bunny: …I’ll call Henry. He’ll be chuffed to bail us out.

Henry: is not chuffed Bunny freeloads off people all the time.

Richard: wow that’s… imagine doing that haha

    Richard: totally not eavesdropping again

Henry: Should I do what is necessary?

Julian: You should only, ever, do what is necessary.

the greek chorus: this will definitely not be taken at face value

    if richard had a tweeter

“Reading The Great Gatsby. #relatable #billionaire-life”

“Attended a party, mingled with the hoi polloi. Plebs. How I long to be elsewhere.”

    Camilla: Come to the country house with us

Richard: totally not freeloading

    if the secret history was a movie

Happy times montage. Classical music plays over the country house; it is revealed that Charles, quite drunk but still composed, is playing the piano. Henry and Camilla are in a rowboat together, with Henry monologuing, unheard to the viewers, as she listens with rapt wonder. Bunny is pouring champaigne from a teapot. Occasional moments of foreshadowing in between the happy times - a pot of laurel leaves boiling on the stove, Richard wandering the house in the middle of the night and finding that everyone is gone - and back to happy times, playing cricket, fancy dinners with Julian. Everything looks pretty, classy, and expensive.

    Chapter 3, in which Richard is more an idiot than usual

The Five Toffs: leave for the winter holidays

Richard: I need a place to stay. Henry’s place is empty, I could ask my other friends to sublet to me, or split the bills with somebody… Nah, there’s this hippie who lets you live for free in his warehouse. I’m in.

The warehouse: literally has a hole in the roof

The Hippie: It’s all a metaphor, man. The situation is obviously dysfunctional, but Richie boy just assumes that it’s normal and he’s gonna be fine. Deep, man.

Richard: I’m sure I’ll be fine. gets pneumonia

Henry: Good thing I came back early, or you’d be dead.

Richard: Y-you saved my life, man. …Can you please bring me a mag to read?

Henry: …You must be raving. Here, I brought you a Pharmacology Update from the lounge.

    Bunny: comes back

Henry: is avoiding him

the greek chorus: that’s all, really

    Chapter 4, in which something finally happens

Bunny: Richard, man, Henry is not who he pretends to be. Be careful.

Richard: You mean, he’s gay? That can’t be right. My gaydar says it’s Francis; Henry’s straight. And I’m not gay, but if I was, Bunny wouldn’t be attractive. I mean, he’s handsome, but he’s rough trade, you know what I mean. Not my type.

    Richard: Oh no, I left my book in Henry’s apartment. I’ll have to find it there. …Weird, why does he have a flight to Argentina reserved? And why were the four of them, minus Bunny, absent from classes?

cheesecake in the fridge: please don’t steal me, I’m on financial aid

Bunny: Mm, too lemony but tastes better flavored with tears.

Richard: Haha, screw the poor

Bunny: Man, Henry’s a bit of a Jew. I like him tho.

    Bunny: keeps making weird crime-and-punishment jokes before class

Richard: Good old Bunny, such a jester.

The Toffs: tell a weirdly rehearsed story about their absence

Julian: notices absolutely nothing

    Henry: Don’t you want to know about our trip to Argentina? By which I mean, I know you snooped.

Richard: Man, why the secrecy? It’s not like you murdered someone.

Henry: Yeah, about that...

flashback time

Henry: The four of us must flee to Argentina. But there’s no way I can get my hands on more than thirty thousand [80,418 dollars]. Francis, you have a trust, right?

Francis: Yeah, I can withdraw one hundred and fifty thousand [402,090] a year. ...Bad news, my mum cleared it out.

The Toffs, in unison: What? Do you mean we’d have to live like the poor? Or worse, resort to menial labor? That is inconceivable.

the greek chorus: and they didn’t go to argentina.

Henry: We had but a meager five thousand [13,403 dollars] between us. Anyway, why did you cover up for us?

Richard:

Henry: So yeah we decided to take drugs, party, and fornicate, like everybody else in this college does. Except we’re rich and smart and we’re calling it a bacchanal, because it’s classier that way.

Henry: Julian knew and approved, by the way, but you’re not gonna learn this until chapter five.

Henry: And Bunny just wasn’t taking our posh rave seriously. I caught him eating when he was supposed to be fasting. Barbarian.

Henry: Anyway, when we all came down from our trip, we were drenched in blood and there was a corpse of a middle-aged middle-class man with his neck broken and his brains splattered and a huge gash in his stomach. And worse, he was wearing an ugly plaid shirt.

Henry: I haven’t been so upset since I hit a deer with my car. Oh, hi, Francis.

    Chapter 5, in which we forget about the farmer

Francis: oh no did you just tell him

Henry: Oh yes I did.

Richard, still starry-eyed: Why didn’t you call the police?

Henry: Yeah, right. We’re too rich to be judged by poor people.

Francis: It was just an accident, a little harmless fun.

Henry: Imagine being tried for my life by a Vermont circuit-court judge and a jury box full of telephone operators.

Francis: They’d just say that we are a bunch of rich entitled kids who got high and trespassed on private land and tore an innocent man to pieces.

the greek chorus: THAT’S EXACTLY WHAT YOU DID

Henry: If Bunny snitches, we’re dragging him in too. He has no alibi. Can’t prove he wasn’t with us. He saw us dressed in bedsheets and covered in gore and got upset for no reason at all. Dropped a pint of ice-cream on my antique rug. Honestly, that was the last straw.

Henry: I paid for our trip together in Italy to shut him up, but then he found my diary - in which I happened to write a poem about our Bacchanal in iambic pentameter. I didn’t think the rube could even read. I slapped him rather hard, and he took offense to that. And now we have no choice but keep letting him mooch off us!

Francis: It's a terrible thing, what we did. I mean, this man was not Voltaire we killed. But still. It's a shame. I feel bad about it.

Henry: But not bad enough to want to go to jail for it.

Francis: snorts No, not that bad.

Henry: So... wanna play cards?

    the greek chorus: here comes a turning point in the story. will richard do the moral thing, will he turn his friends in?

the greek chorus: yeah, right

    The Toffs: Time for a road trip!

Richard: It’s odd how little power the dead farmer exercised over an imagination as morbid and hysterical as my own. Oh well, nobody cares about poor people.

Julian: In America, the rich man tries to pretend that the poor man is his equal in every respect but money, which is simply not true. A poor man who wishes to rise above his station is only making himself needlessly miserable. And the wise poor have always known this, the same as do the wise rich.

Bunny: You don't care about a goddamn thing, do you? Not a thing but your own self, you and all the rest of them!

the greek chorus: edmund corcoran, the bigot, the idiot of the group - the only one who cares about the murder

  Richard: And now Bunny’s acting like a huge ass to me and to my friends. Gee, that’s no fun at all.

Richard: He’s nagging Charles about him being a drunk, Francis about him being gay, and me about being poor! And Camilla about being a girl, but women are inherently inferior in Greek language, nothing personal. And he’s implying the twins sleep together!

the greek chorus: all of these are true

    Henry: I know! I shall poison my traitorous friend with death cap mushrooms mixed in with fun trip mushrooms. The ancient Arabic treatises on poisons must still be relevant.

the greek chorus: textbook high Intelligence low Wisdom

Henry: Richard, my friend, weren’t you in pre-med?

Richard: Uhh I guess, let me just... add the number of mushrooms, carry the one - jeez, that’s some advanced calculus...You know, the concentrations in chemistry are measured in moles, so we have catch a mole first...

Henry: I tested it on two dogs. Sadly, one lived.

Richard: Oh, Henry, you’re such a rascal. First a farmer, now a dog? Anyway,   those mushrooms are just too funny-shaped. It’s just too hard.

Henry: Why don’t you weigh - you know what, nevermind, I can see I’m dealing with a genius.

    Julian: I’m so concerned for young Edmund! He’s such a lovely and smart boy...

Richard: yeah, right - I mean, bright. Very bright.

Julian: I fear he may be about to convert to Christianity! Not even Catholicism, but something plebian. He keeps asking me about sin and forgiveness - how very... not Greek of him.

    Bunny, piss drunk in the middle of the night: Richard, man, I can’t take it, I just have to confess - they killed a man! Tore him to pieces!

Richard: Guys, this is bad, Bunny just told me.

Henry: Welp, got no choice but to kill him. He’s acting so irrational.

Richard: Yeah, and he’s been real racist and bigoted lately -

Charles: I know, right? Why can’t he be more like us and hate on poor, classless people instead?

Henry: re-rolls wisdom We’ll push him into the ravine in the forest he conveniently loves hiking in. Piece of cake.

     Judy: Rich, there’s gonna be a big party, come have fun!

Henry: Who’d have known there would be a party? Aside from, I mean, everyone who doesn’t live in their own Greek bubble. Oh well, guess I’ll dig for ferns instead.

Bunny: Hey, guys, whatcha doing?

Henry: Oh, you know... killing time. Now, who wants to see a flying rabbit?

[wellhellotragic]

Devil’s in the Details 1/?

Summary: It’s a well known fact that angels and demons exist. No one is saying that they don’t. Hell, you’ve all met your guardian angels before. But some of the facts, well you humans seem to be a little murky on those. Take Emma for example. Blonde, witty, beautiful. She must be an angel right? Wrong. She’s as wicked as they come. And she’s about to have the time of her life tormenting a certain English bloke

A comedy of errors....

A/N: Okay, lemme start this off with a huge disclaimer. This fic is nothing like anything I’ve ever written before. It is offensive. Sooooo offensive and I know it. There are three lines near the end that I actually cringed at when I wrote them, and I strongly considered changing them but I couldn’t do it, because the story needed it. The thing is, this story is pretty much told from the perspective of a demon, so some of the religious facts are going to be a little off. Just think about how different the Wolf’s side of the story was from the 3 Little Pig’s recounting. So, with that said, know that I have the utmost respect for all religions, cultures, and beliefs, and this fic has nothing to do with my own view points. It’s just silly and weird and highly sarcastic. I hope you’re all willing to give it a shot and stick with me. If you can’t make fun of yourself, who can you?

AO3 Link

A Prologue:

Heaven and Hell. God’s words falling on deaf ears. The angels had revolted and when God found out, he cast them aside into the mouth of hell.  Demons and possessions and all that jazz. Blah. Blah. Blah.The rumors had been circulating for eons. The Hinduists, the Buddhists, the Jews, all wrong. Hell (pun intended of course) even the Greeks had it all mucked up, but at least they were cool about it. Here, take this goat. Oh, not enough, well have my virgin daughter instead. Man she missed those days.

The Catholic church certainly hadn’t done their kind any favors either. Her first exorcism had been something else. It’s not like she had taken over the guy’s body. That would have been ridiculous. Seriously, if she was going to inhabit the soul of a human, she would have picked someone with bigger balls. And preferably without the syphilis. She did have standards after all.

No, she hadn’t taken the man over. She’d just whispered sweet nothings into his ear until he’d gone a little mad. All in a day’s work for a demon. The twitching, well that was just the guy being super dramatic. But the priest hadn’t known any better, taught from a young age that holy water was a cure all. Ya, because God has nothing better to do than listen to an old guy in a cloak talk about how he needs his water blessed. Sorry father, but he’s a little busy today. Maybe he can see you next week?

The whole thing had been a mess. He’d thrown water in the guys face and some of it went in his eyes. They turned bright red, in turn freaking out the priest more until he was pushing a cross to the guys forehead and chanting, “the power of Christ compels you!”

Oh honey, no.

The poor guy died of a heart attack and the priest felt that it had been a job well done. Sure, he’d lost part of his flock, but that was the price of expelling a demon from the mortal world. His words, not Emma’s.

And don’t even get us started on the Christians.

But in retrospect, that’s what made humans so much fun. They weren’t that bright. Don’t get me wrong, they were capable, but also arrogant and gullible. Prime for the picking. Okay, so ya, the dinosaurs had been a hit with angels and demons alike too. They were basically huge puppy dogs who liked to fight a lot. And historians can say what they will, but it was a well known fact that brontosauruses liked chasing trees and stegosaurus loved having their bellies scratched. Of course, God hadn’t been such a fan of the way demons played with the dinosaurs though, so he took them away from them like a toddler getting placed in time out. His favorite toy left on a shelf too high to reach. Truth be told, she’d always felt that meteor had been a bit vindictive for a guy claiming to be so damn benevolent.

But dinosaurs couldn’t talk back the way humans did. They didn’t have that higher level of thinking that made them so irresistibly fun to mess with. Take Adam and Eve for example. This woman, made from the rib of her lover (how is that even a thing people believe) listens to a serpent and eats an apple. Simple enough right? Except that’s so far from what really happened. Okay, so maybe she hadn’t been there personally, but she had the real story on good authority. For starters, the was never an apple. Ya, for all of you arguing it’s called an Adam’s apple for a reason, well you can just go to hell. The truth was, it wasn’t even a tree. The forbidden fruit, well it came from a vine in the form of a grape. Or a bunch of grapes if you want to get technical. But that’s not really the point now, is it? So, there were these grapes, and God was like, don’t eat these or you’ll die. Poetry, right? Anyway, Adam and Eve were actually really good about not eating the grapes, despite the fact that they were completely blind and didn’t actually know what a grape was.

Take note! This is actually a pretty important part of the story.

The two of them spend their day’s frolicking around in the garden of Eden, dancing and eating tomatoes or something. The guy who told Emma the story wasn’t really all that into details. So for the sake of assumption, and to keep this story moving along, they ate tomatoes and kiwis, and whatever else God had randomly decided weren’t off limits. But here’s the deal. Grapes, they don’t stay on the vine forever. Sometimes they fall off and roll away, and turn into something better. With a little help of course, which is were the serpent comes in. Remember Emma’s friend?

It didn’t take much really. A few grapes rolled in the right place so that Adam and Eve stepped on them while dancing. A small glass for the serpent to collect the juices in. A quick sliver into a nearby lake. Come on people. You know how many grapes it would have taken to fill up an entire glass? Even in the modern era wine makers like to water that shit down for profit.

Oh, maybe that’s where the human’s came up with water into wine?

What was that? Oh, ya. The story!

So the serpent, now having a full glass of wine returned to Adam and Eve, making sure to place the glass of wine near a glass of water Eve had placed out already. When she drank, it was from the juices of the forbidden fruit, and then, well you know. Everything went batshit crazy.

Now I know what you’re thinking. This is Adam and Eve. There were no glasses. Seriously, people. This isn’t the part where you should start questioning things. God mad men and butterflies, coffee beans, yet you draw the line and highly crafted glassware in an non industrial age?

Fine then. Don’t believe the story. It’s not like the bug guy upstairs would ever lie. Nope. Never.

But it’s the truth, at least as Gabriel told it. Gabe had been her mentor way back when she was still shiny and new. Most people believe that demons are all fallen angels, but that’s just laziness on the part of human storytelling. The actually history of hell was a bit more complicated. Yes, the Devil and God used to be tight. And yes there was an uprising, but God never sent the Devil away. He left on his own. Something along the lines of peace out, I don’t need this stress. And, yes, a few angels followed him, but most of them were created with the snap of a finger. You see, lurking around the eternal fiery pits of hell with six of your brothers can get a little monotonous.

It’s not like it was hard. He’d watched God do it before. He had powers given unto him by a supreme being. Admittedly, his first tries hadn’t been his best work, but no one gets it right one the first try now do they? Why do you think God flooded the earth? Sometimes you just need a redo. The devil kept them around of course, but all they were really good for anymore was dressing up as cherubs and shooting married people with their love arrows. Ah, the birth of adultery. Take that Cupid.

Eventually the Devil got better though. His creations resembled that of men with physical bodies when needed. Emma had been a crowning achievement. A blonde vixen with doe eyes and and a killer smile. But it had been her hunger for chaos that really had the other demons take notice. Gabe took her under his wing early on, as I said before.

He taught her how to seduce men, to make them gloat, how to send them into a fit of rage. Your garden variety of cardinal sins of course. And for a few thousand years, that’s exactly what she did.

Hey, Adolf, I think you missed some over there.

Oh Jack, have you met my friend Marilyn?

Ted. Look at this one. She’s beautiful!

Awful. Horrible. Unforgivable. I know. I don’t need you to tell me. The thing you have to remember about Emma is that she was trained for this. She was created for this. It’s in her blood. She’s never known love or compassion. But this is what you need to understand going forward, because everything is about to change.

[ionecoffman]

The Meat Cleanse

“I know how ridiculous it sounds,” Mikhaila Peterson told me recently by phone, after a whirlwind of attention gathered around the 26-year-old, who is now offering dietary advice to people suffering with conditions like hers. Or not so much dietary advice as guiding people in eating only beef.

At first glance, Peterson, who is based in Toronto, could seem to be one of the many emerging semi-celebrities with a miraculous story of self-healing—who show off postpartum weight loss in bikini Instagrams and sell one thing or another, a supplement or tonic or book or compression garment. (Not incidentally, she is the daughter of the famous and controversial pop psychologist Jordan Peterson. More on that later.) But Peterson is taking the trend in extra-professional health advice to an extreme conclusion: She is not doing sponsored posts for health products, but actively selling one-on-one counseling ($75 for a half hour) for people who want to stop eating almost everything.

Peterson seems to be reaching suffering people despite a lack of training or credentials in nutrition or medicine, and perhaps because of that distinction. Her Instagram bio: “For info on treating weight loss, depression, and autoimmune disorders with diet, check out my blog or fb page!” The blog says at the top that “many (if not most) health problems are treatable with diet alone.” This is true, if at odds with the disclaimer at the bottom of the page that her words are “not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.”

I told her I’m surprised people need further counseling, in that an all-beef diet is very straightforward.

“They mostly want to see that I’m not dead,” she said. “What I basically do is say, hey, look at all the things that happened to me and brought me to where I am now. Isn’t it weird? And then let people draw their own conclusions.”

Peterson described an adolescence that involved multiple debilitating medical diagnoses, beginning with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis. Some unknown process had triggered her body’s immune system to attack her joints. “I was unable to hold a pencil, could barely walk, and was in constant pain,” she writes on her blog, which is called “Don’t Eat That.” The joint problems culminated in hip and ankle replacements in her teens, coupled with “extreme fatigue, depression and anxiety, brain fog, and sleep problems.” In fifth grade she was diagnosed with depression, and then later something called idiopathic hypersomnia (which translates to English as “sleeping too much, of unclear cause”—which translates further to sorry we really don’t know what’s going on).

Everything the doctors tried failed, and she did everything they told her, she recounted to me. She fully bought into the system, taking large doses of strong immune-suppressing drugs like methotrexate, prednisone, leflunomide, and humira. “Despite being on multiple heavy-hitting meds, I was still struggling with basic day-to-day tasks,” she writes on her blog.

Her story takes a dramatic turn in 2015, when the underdog protagonist, nearly at the end of her rope, figured out the truth for herself. It was all about food.

Peterson adopted a common approach to dieting: elimination. She started cutting out foods from her diet, and feeling better each time. She began with gluten, and she kept going, casting out more and more—not just gluten or dairy or soy or lectins or artificial sweeteners or non-artificial sweeteners, but everything. Until, by December 2017, all that was left was “beef and salt and water,” and, she told me, “all my symptoms went into remission.”

“And you quit taking all your medications?”

“Everything.”

There is so much evidence—abundant, copious evidence acquired over decades of work from scientists around the world—that most people benefit from eating fruits, vegetables, nuts, beans, and seeds. This appears to be largely because fiber in plants is important to the flourishing of the gut microbiome. I ran this by some experts, just to make sure I wasn’t missing anything that might suggest a beef-salt diet is potentially something other than a bad idea. I learned that it was worse than I thought.

“Physiologically, it would just be an immensely bad idea,” Jack Gilbert, the faculty director at the University of Chicago’s Microbiome Center and a professor of surgery, told me during a recent visit to his lab. “A terribly, terribly bad idea.”

Gilbert has done extensive research on how the trillions of microbes in our guts digest food, and the look on his face when I told him about the all-beef diet was unamused. He began rattling off the expected ramifications: “Your body would start to have severe dysregulation, within six months, of the majority of the processes that deal with metabolism; you would have no short-chain fatty acids in your cells; most of the byproducts of gastrointestinal polysaccharide fermentation would shut down, so you wouldn’t be able to regulate your hormone levels; you’d enter into cardiac issues due to alterations in cell receptors; your microbiota would just be devastated.”  

While much of the internet has been following this story in a somewhat snide way, Gilbert appeared genuinely concerned and saddened: “If she does not die of colon cancer or some other severe cardiometabolic disease, the life—I can’t imagine.”

There are few accounts of people having tried all-beef diets, though all-meat—known as carnivory—is slightly more common. Earlier this month, inspired by the media conversation about the Peterson approach, Alan Levinovitz, the author of The Gluten Lie, tried carnivory, eating only meat for two weeks. He did lose seven pounds, which he attributes to eating fewer calories overall, because he eventually got tired of eating only meat. He missed snacking at coffee shops and browsing the local farmer’s market and trying out new restaurants around town, cooking with his family, and just generally enjoying food.

“I was psychologically exhausted,” Levinovitz told me. When he returned to omnivory, and he regained the lost weight in four days.

Peterson told me it took several weeks for her to get used to the beef-only approach, and that the relief of her medical symptoms overpowers any sense of missing food. If even a tiny amount of anything else finds its way into her mouth, she will be ill, she says. This happened when she tried to eat an organic olive, and again recently when she was at a restaurant that put pepper on her steak.

“I was like, whatever, it’s just pepper,” she told me. Then she had a reaction that lasted three weeks and included joint pain, acne, and anxiety.

Apart from having to exist in a world where the possibility of pepper exposure looms, the only other social downside she notices is that she hates asking people to accommodate her diet. So she will usually eat before she goes to a dinner party, she told me, “but then I’ll go drink and enjoy the party.”

“Drink, as in, water?”

“I can also, strangely enough, tolerate vodka and bourbon.”

The idea that alcohol, one of the most well-documented toxic substances, is among the few things that Peterson’s body will tolerate may be illuminating. It implies that when it comes to dieting, the inherent properties of the substances ingested can be less important than the eater’s conceptualizations of them—as either tolerable or intolerable, good or bad. What’s actually therapeutic may be the act of elimination itself.

For centuries, ascetics have found enlightenment through acts of deprivation. As Levinovitz, who is an associate professor of religion at James Madison University, explained to me, the Daoist text the Zhuangzi describes “a spirit man” who lives in the mountains and rides dragons and subsists only on air and dew. “There’s an anti-authoritarian bent to pop-culture wisdom, and a part of that is dealing with food taboos, which are handed down by authorities,” Levinovitz said. “Those are government now, instead of religious. And because they are wrong so often—or, at least, apparently wrong—that’s a good place to go when carving out your own area of authority. If you just eat the ‘wrong’ foods and don’t die, that’s a ritual way to prove that you go against conventional wisdom.”

Peterson’s narrative fits a classic archetype of an outsider who beat the game and healed thyself despite the odds and against the recommendations of the establishment. Her story is her truth, and it can’t be explained; you have to believe. And unlike the many studies that have been done to understand the diets of the longest-lived, healthiest people in history, or the randomized trials that are used to determine which health interventions are safe and effective for whom, her story is clear and dramatic. It’s right there in her photos; it has a face and a name to prove that no odds are too long for one determined person to overcome.

The beneficial effects of a compelling personal narrative that helps explain and give order to the world can be absolutely physiologically real. It is well documented that the immune system (and, so, autoimmune diseases) are modulated by our lifestyles—from how much we sleep and move to how well we eat and how much we drink. Most importantly, the immune system is also modulated by stress, which tends to be a byproduct of a perceived lack of control or order.

If strict dietary rules provide a sense of control and order, then Peterson’s approach is emblematic of the trend in elimination dieting taken to an extreme: Avoid basically everything. This verges into the realm of an eating disorder. The National Eating Disorder Association lists among common symptoms “refusal to eat certain foods, progressing to restrictions against whole categories of food.” In the early phases of disordered eating, as with bipolar disorder or alcoholism, a person may look and feel great. They may thrive for months or even years. But this fades. What’s more, the temporary relief from anxiety may mean that the source of the anxiety goes unsought and unaddressed.

I asked Peterson about the possibility that she may be enabling people with eating disorders. She said she would draw a line if a client were underweight or inducing vomiting. Otherwise, “it’s extremely disrespectful to people with health issues caused by food to be lumped into the same category as people with eating disorders. More of the same ‘blame the patient’ stuff that doctors and health professionals already do.”  

The popularity of Peterson’s narrative is explained by more than its timeless tropes; it has also been amplified by the fact that her father has occasionally cast his spotlight onto her story. Jordan Peterson’s recent book, Twelve Rules for Life, includes the story of his daughter’s health trials. The elder Peterson, a psychologist at the University of Toronto, could at first seem an unlikely face for acceptance of personal, subjective truth, as he regularly professes the importance of acting as purely as possible according to rigorous analysis of data. He argued in a recent video that American universities are the home to “ideologues who claim that all truth is subjective, that all sex differences are socially constructed, and that Western imperialism is the sole source of all Third World problems.” In his book, he writes that academic institutions are teaching children to be “brainwashed victims,” and that “the rigorous critical theoretician is morally obligated to set them straight.”

It is on grounds of his interpretation of income data, for example, that he has spoken out against the idea of a wage gap between men and women being unfair, as it can be explained away by biological factors associated with certain personality traits that are more valuable in the capitalist marketplace. From arguments from social-science evidence, he has expressed uncertainty that lesbian couples can raise children without a male father figure. And it is academic evidence that leads him to write in his book that “the so-called patriarchy” is “an arbitrary cultural artifact.”

Yet in a July appearance on the comedian Joe Rogan’s podcast, Jordan Peterson explained how Mikhaila’s experience had convinced him to eliminate everything but meat and leafy greens from his diet, and that in the last two months he had gone full meat and eliminated vegetables. Since he changed his diet, his laundry list of maladies has disappeared, he told Rogan. His lifelong depression, anxiety, gastric reflux (and associated snoring), inability to wake up in the mornings, psoriasis, gingivitis, floaters in his right eye, numbness on the sides of his legs, problems with mood regulation—all of it is gone, and he attributes it to the diet.

“I’m certainly intellectually at my best,” he said. “I’m stronger, I can swim better, and my gum disease is gone. It’s like, what the hell?”

“Do you take any vitamins?” asked Rogan

“No. No, I eat beef and salt and water. That’s it. And I never cheat. Ever. Not even a little bit.”

“No soda, no wine?”

“I drink club soda.”

“Well, that’s still water.”

“Well, when you’re down to that level, no, it’s not, Joe. There’s club soda, which is really bubbly. There’s Perrier, which is sort of bubbly. There’s flat water, and there’s hot water. Those distinctions start to become important.”

Peterson reiterated several times that he is not giving dietary advice, but said that many attendees of his recent speaking tour have come up to him and said the diet is working for them. The takeaway for listeners is that it worked for Peterson, and so it may work for them. Rogan also clarified that though he is also not an expert, he is fascinated by the fact that he hasn’t heard any negative stories about people who have started the all-meat diet.

“Well, I have a negative story,” said Peterson. “Both Mikhaila and I noticed that when we restricted our diet and then ate something we weren’t supposed to, the reaction was absolutely catastrophic.” He gives the example of having had some apple cider and subsequently being incapacitated for a month by what he believes was an inflammatory response.

“You were done for a month?”

“Oh yeah, it took me out for a month. It was awful ...”

“Apple cider? What was it doing to you?”

“It produced an overwhelming sense of impending doom. I seriously mean overwhelming. There’s no way I could’ve lived like that. But see, Michaela knew by then that it would probably only last a month.”

“A month? From fucking cider?”

“I didn’t sleep that month or 25 days. I didn’t sleep at all for 25 days.”

“What? How is that possible?”

“I’ll tell you how it’s possible, you lay in bed frozen in something approximating terror for eight hours. And then you get up.”

The longest recorded stretch of sleeplessness in a human is 11 days, witnessed by a Stanford research team.

While there is debate in the scientific community over just how much meat belongs in a human diet, it is impossible for all or even most humans to eat primarily meat. Beef production at the scale required to feed billions of humans even at current levels of consumption is environmentally unsustainable. It is not even healthy from a theoretical evolutionary viewpoint, the microbiome expert Gilbert explained to me. Carnivores need to eat meat or else they die; humans do not. “The carnivore gastrointestinal tract is completely different from the human gastrointestinal tract, which is made up of a system designed to consume large quantities of complex fibers.”

What the Petersons are selling is rather a sense of order and control. Science is about questions, and self-help is about answers. A recurring idea in Jordan Peterson’s book is that humans need rules—the subtitle of is “an antidote to chaos”—even if only for the sake of rules. Peterson discovered this through his own suffering, as when he was searching the world for the best surgeon to give his young daughter a new hip. In explaining how he dealt with Mikhaila’s illness, he writes that “existence and limitation are inextricably linked.” He quotes Laozi:

It is not the clay the potter throws,

Which gives the pot its usefulness,

But the space within the shape,

From which the pot is made

Dietary rules offer limits, good or bad, that help people define the self. This is an attractive prospect, and anyone willing to decree such rules—dietary or otherwise—is bound to attract attention. Fox News recently declared Peterson “the Left’s public enemy number one” in a segment where he discussed with Tucker Carlson “why the Left wants to silence conservative thought.” Though to have lived through the last year is to have lived in a world where Peterson and his ideas have enjoyed near-constant amplification.

The allure of a strict code for eating—a way to divide the world into good foods and bad foods, angels and demons—may be especially strong at a time when order feels in short supply. Indeed there is at least some benefit to be had from any and all dietary advice, or rules for life, so long as a person believes in them, and so long as they provide a code that allows a person to feel good for having stuck with it and a cohort of like-minded adherents. The challenge is to find a code that accords as best possible with scientific evidence about what is good and bad, and with what is best for the world.

Article source here:The Atlantic