#like so many of the martyrs

[queenlucythevaliant]

Time to share another of my favorite Christian poems with you all. It’s a martyrdom poem by Varlam Shalamov, a victim of the Soviet gulags and also the writer of Kolyma Tales. A few favorite stanza are written out here; the entire poem is typed out below. It’s a little on the long end, but entirely worth it. 

“Avvakum in Pustozyorsk” by Varlam Shalamov

The walls of my church

  are the ribs of my heart;

it seems life and I

  are soon bound to part

 .

My cross now rises,

  traced with two fingers.

In Pustozyorsk it blazes;

  its blaze will linger.

 .

I’m glorified everywhere,

  vilified, branded;

I have already become

  the stuff of legend.  

 .

I was, people say,

  full of anger and spite;

I suffered, I died

  for the ancient rite.

 .

But this popular verdict

  is ugly nonsense;

I hear and reject

  the implied censure.

 .

The rite is nothing—

  neither wrong nor right;

a rite is a trifle

  in God’s sight.

 .

But they attacked our faith

  in the ways of the past,

in all we’d learned as children

  and taken to heart.

 .

In their holy garments,

  in their grand hats,

with a cold crucifix

  in their cold hands,

 .

in thrall to a terror

  clutching their souls,

they drag us to jails

  and herd us to scaffolds.

 .

We don’t mind about the doctrine

  books and their age;

we don’t debate virtues

  of fetters and chains.

 .

Our dispute is of freedom,

  and the right to breathe—

about the Lord’s will

  to bind as he please.

 .

The healers of souls

  chastised our bodies;

while they schemed and plotted,

  we ran to the forests.

 .

Despite their decrees,

   we hurled our words

out of the lion’s mouth

  and into the world.

 .

We called for just vengeance

  against their sins;

along with the Lord,

   we sang poems and hymns.

 .

The words of the Lord

  were claps of thunder.

The Church endures;

   it will never go under.

 .

And I, unyielding,

  reading the Psalter,

was brought to the gates

  of the Andronikov Monastery.

 .

I was young;

  I endured every pain:

hunger, beatings,

  interrogations.

 .

A winged angel

  shut the eyes of the guard,

brought me cabbage soup,

  and a hunk of bread.

 .

I crossed the threshold—

  and I walked free.

Embracing my Exile,

  I walked to the east.

 .

I held services

   by the Amur River,

where I barely survived

  the winds and blizzards.

 .

They branded my cheeks

  with brands of frost;

by a mountain stream

  they tore out my nostrils.

 .

But the path to the Lord

  goes from jail to jail;

the path to the Lord

  never changes.

 .

And all too few,

  since Jesus’s days,

have proved able to bear

  God’s all-seeing gaze.

 .

Nastasia, Nastasia,

  do not despair;

true joy often wears

  a garment of tears.

 .

Whatever temptations

  may beat in your heart,

whatever torments

  may rip you apart,

 .

walk on in peace,

  through a thousand troubles

and fear not the serpent

  that bites at your ankles—

 .

though not from Eden

  has this snake crawled;

it is an envoy of evil

  from Satan’s hand.

 .

Here, birdsong

  is unknown;

here one learns the patience

  and the wisdom of stone.

 .

I have seen no color

  except lingonberry

in fourteen years

  spent as a prisoner.

 .

But this is not madness,

  nor a waking nightmare;

it is my soul’s fortress,

  its will and freedom.

 .

And now they are leading me

  far away in fetters;

my yoke is easy

  and my burden grows lighter.

 .

My track is swept clean

  and dusted with silver;

I’m climbing to heaven

  on wings of fire.

 .

Through cold and hunger,

  through grief and fear

towards God, like a dove,

  I will rise from the pyre.

 .

O far-away Russia—

  I give you my vow

to return to the sky

  forgiving my foe.

 .

May I be reviled,

  and burned at the stake;

may my ashes be cast

  on the mountain wind.

 .

There is no fate sweeter,

  no better end,

than to knock, as ash,

  at the door of the human heart.

[jajatoc]

Use your head, artilleryman. This railroad is my bread and butter. My veins! Blowing things up... It doesn't matter. The inquisitor will come.

Day 4, Sabotage

(You'll be the first person they hang!)

[kingofanemptyworld]

hey you know what would be fun? a fic where the Royal Guard follows through with their plans to make Ichigo the new Soul King and Grimmjow promptly loses his shit because what the actual fuck Ichigo has already given these people literally everything, twice, and this is how they repay him? recruits Nel and Harribel and Urahara and Yoruichi (after Nel sits on him for a while because Jesus Christ Grimmjow you can’t storm Soul Society by yourself no matter how much you’ve powered up) and it’s the Ryoka Invasion all over again except with pissed off arrancar instead. I just think it would be neat

[edwinisms]

seriously wondering why WW1 was never brought up at all throughout the show in regards to edwin and the life he was living before hell. I mean fuck we get a WW1 ghost in the FIRST EPISODE but edwin doesn’t say a single thing about his familiarity with the soldier’s garments and circumstances. you’d think that would come in handy in some way, or at least be an interesting thing to reference to emphasize edwin’s age (for lack of a better word) considering this was all during the expository section of the first episode.

1916 is directly in the middle of the Great War, and depending on how long edwin had been 16 by the time he died, he would’ve been somewhere between 1-2 years off from being conscripted and sent off to the trenches– ie; really not far, so it inevitably would be a huge weight on his mind at the time. since it was the middle of the war, he would’ve known decently well the horrors being faced out there– the mustard gas, the widespread illness, the shellshock– from newspapers and such, and I have to think that he’d feel like there was a clock ticking, counting down the days until he’d be sent to his inevitable death (considering he’s not the most athletic and physically resilient boy to say the least). and if he was exempted from conscription? it could very well be for “mental illness” and/or “moral indecency” if he didn’t hide his “effeminate” behavior well enough. all-around, it’d have to be an incredibly stressful time period for more reasons than just being bullied, alienated, and repressed at school– and yet we never hear about the elephant in the room. will they do something with it later? will it play into his family background in some way? for gods sake I need to KNOW

[funkily]

i think traffic scott has crazy issues with his sense of self . i cant defend this at the moment but i feel it in my heart and also depending on how u look at his character i think there is canon backing

[wyrmsgatebait]

You know how things can go so terribly south if you totally ignore a companion's questline...well I've been thinking about how none of the companions ask Tav about their own problems. I'm just thinking about what it might be like to reach the end of the adventure-everyone's questlines tied up in neat bows, the Absolute thwarted, city saved. Everyone's patting themselves on the backs and talking about settling down now that things are finally peaceful, all the while Tav is just standing there shattered. They let so many leads go. People they loved had died while they were tending to their party's problems. They helped others get well-deserved vengeance but no one has even asked why they need to leave camp to be alone each night. Tav just thought if they gave it their all to aiding others and kept patient then someone would offer a hand to them.

[firelise]

[frittercrittern]

I am feeling entirely normal and nothing is going on at ALL in my brain about this triangle and his horrible awful dimension he is from

[danandfuckingjonlmao]

dan and phil are like jesus in that they’re dramatic ass fruity men in their 30s always going like “i am making this SACRIFICE for THE PEOPLE” and everyone is like “no one asked you to do this in fact we’d all rather you just did not do this” and they’re like “IT IS TOO LATE NOW YOU HAVE TO LIVE WITH THE CONSEQUENCES THIS IS WHAT YOU WANTED” and we’re like “no no we didn’t want this actually and you made this decision with your whole ass adult brain you truly could have just not done this and we’d all be better off for it but now we all have to suffer because YOU refuse to say no to shit” and i think that’s ridiculous stupid annoying awful beautiful

[pm-00]

Roier is so "Don't go where I can't follow" coded. That's why Roier is going to be mad at Cellbit, not because he stayed; he will understand why, after all he had a son too and he is Richas' dad too. What is going to make him mad is that Cellbit gave him no choice or head ups; only a goodbye. Roier would have jumped out the boat in a heartbeat and looked for him, ran like the fucking wind through the little time and distance left, but of course Cellbit wanted him to be saved, free of purgatory. But in the end, Roier had to (once again) see the people he loves die while he survives, when what he really wants is to be with them.

[kismetconstellations]

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in my heart) x.

[ratatatastic]

sasha charades continue!! but first a little mix up on productions part of who has the "sasha celly" prompt which is lundy so luosty has to sit down again for lundy whos going 2nd

me! me me me me!! i have the prompt!! its me!! (during their stage intros at the beginning the mc slipped them a piece of paper with a prompt on it)

boys very excited to see how lundy will piss off sasha this time; on the menu? imitating how sasha barely cellies

a wrist shot and an arm up in barely kept enthusiasm as he glides to the bench in solemenity as a sasha goal and celly

and on the accuracy scale?

well the tapes surely speak for themselves here...

it seems sasha has a better connection with lundy (or maybe its really obvious and lundy has teased him exactly like this before XD; no fucking doubt about it that he has) because he basically gets it in an instant (unsurprising considering when they played a newly weds-esque game they ended up tying 8 a piece which is honestly really impressive considering how much luosty floundered with mikksy)

feat. the nosy finnish peanut gallery eagerly awaiting sashas response. SHIT STIRRERS. THE LOT OF YOU.

sasha who seems to take lundys teasing a lot better than mikksys can giggle about this one without too much trouble also because hes guessed it right for once he must feel relieved lmaooo

Sasha Cup Party | 7.31.24 (x)

[mamawasatesttube]

going to bed but thinking about kon and his suicidality as selflessness and how heroism and self-destruction share quite the overlap and how saving the world with his death was heroic but also the culmination of a pattern of passive suicidality he displayed since practically his first day alive. what does it mean when you're so eager and willing to help at any cost to yourself that you assume you will not see yourself grow up? "i don't care what happens to me" is a scary place to be, but "i don't care what happens to me, so long as i can save everyone" is noble and brave, right? so when does heroism become an act of self-destruction? when you truly believe in helping others, but you also think you'll die doing it one day and that isn't enough to stop you... where's the line?

[decayofcorpses]

Lucie and Anna’s relationship in Martyrs is so hoffstrahm coded

[coughloop]

.

[magpigment]

spoilers for episode 19 of jrwi riptide

i love how, while talking to the empress, gillion is constantly making sure to be in front of jay and chip in order to protect them, and chip is doing the same but subtly because he doesn’t want to tip gill off that he’s going to also try to sacrifice himself if it comes down to it to protect gill and jay because he knows gillion wouldn’t let him and i’m just

bro why are they like this 😭