#the desolation of her grief. the emptiness of it. the inability to mourn everything that has been taken from her. just hollow

[greatshell-rider]

my favorite parts of nona. under a read more cuz long and i do some yelling

[image id: Nona had never seen anyone so sad in her whole short life. It made her nearly afraid to die. “Nobody locks me up anywhere,” said Kiriona. /end id]

@ everyone calling gideon a bitch/jerk/”oh no she’s mean now”/”apparently reading her through her own/harrow’s eyes made her look better” YEAH NO SHIT SHE’S MEAN. EVERYTHING THAT IS HER SELF HAS BEEN STOLEN FROM HER. NOT EVEN HER BODY IS HER OWN. FUCK OFF LET HER BE ANGRY SHE HAS BEEN IN HELL FOR 3-4 MONTHS SHE DOESN’T EVEN KNOW HOW LONG. SHUT UP ! you bitches and your romanticzied mental illnesses don’t know what depression does to a bitch gAH

she is the saddest girl in the whole entire world let her have a MOMENT (while i writhe on the ground in throes of agony over my girl)

[image id: She reached out—she touched the side of the Prince’s face — they both recoiled. Kiriona Gaia recovered first. “You always said I’d come back in a box, Aiglamene,” she said lightly. “They killed you,” said Aiglamene. “Crime of opportunity,” said the corpse prince. And: “Don’t tell Crux — I absolutely, positively cannot give him the fucking satisfaction.” Aiglamene shoved her square in the chest, with the palm of one gloved hand; Kiriona tottered a little and wheezed, “Don’t — that’s where my heart used to be,” but the old soldier’s gaze had already fallen upon Nona. Nona cringed back in Pyrrha’s arms, because the expression was as bad as every single time Camilla had caught her putting a mouthful of chewed-up food in the potted plant or elsewhere. She could read this very old, very furious soldier like a book: the woman was angry, and blamed her. Kiriona Gaia could read her too, because she insinuated herself between them, and said coolly — “It’s not her, Captain — it’s only her body.” Over the Prince’s shoulder, Aiglamene looked at Nona, long and suspiciously, then she sighed, and wheeled around, and said: “Get inside. Now. Complete the gate,” she told a few of the other robed people. /end id]

THEY KILLED YOU. THAT’S WHERE MY HEART USED TO BE. (ianthe’s slap (a full lyctor’s slap) didn’t make gideon even flinch but aiglamene’s shove makes her wheeze) aiglamene knowing who to blame. her FURY. gideon putting her body between aiglamene and nona. THEY BOTH RECOILED (aiglamene from her cold corpse skin, gideon unable to bear her touch when she didn’t react even to nona kissing her)

[image id: ��But maybe we shouldn’t,” she said, holding the eyelids to that little slit — watching the onscreen scribbles flash urgently on the truck glass, watching the widening white crack, watching the river water pound itself back into the place where it wanted to be even if the River itself didn’t. “If we end here, it’ll be just like . . . a bad dream, won’t it? And maybe we’ll wake up somewhere else. I know we won’t,” she explained, “but we don’t have to know that . . . maybe if we all go, it’ll be quick.” Paul looked at her, with those dark grey-brown pupils widening, slightly. “Nona,” they said, “Noodle’s in the back.” The middle thoughts surged. The slit widened all the way. “Oh my God,” she said, in a panic. “I forgot about Noodle.” The windshield cracked all the way across the middle. Paul leant their full weight on the accelerator. Nona drove the truck home. /end id]

what you can’t do for your people, friends and family, you can do for your little beast. yeah muir gets it

[image id: “Camilla, we did it right, didn’t we?” Palamedes said, and now Nona knew he wasn’t speaking to anyone else in the universe. “We had something very nearly perfect . . . the perfect friendship, the perfect love. I cannot imagine reaching the end of this life and having any regrets, so long as I had been allowed to experience being your adept.” [/end id]

burst into fucking tears at this part so it’s a good thing none of my roommates were home lmao. THEY DID IT RIGHT. the sheer care and utter devotion. no regrets, as long as he got to be her adept. WEEPING

[dailyawakening]

oh please tell me your thoughts on loki! she's actually a rather interesting character and i dont think intsys could do her justice so i would love to hear your ideas!

this response is so late because A) I’ve been trying to figure out what to draw for it and B) I’ve been trying to figure out how to structure the monster novel that by necessity needs to be attached to anything relating to my Loki thoughts. 

As a disclaimer, all of this is entirely my own invention based on the original mythology and what we’ve seen of canon; I’m resigned to the fact that there’s no real chance any of this will become part of Heroes, but this is what makes me happy personally, so I’m going to stick to it as an AU if nothing else.  So with that out of the way: let’s talk about Loki. 

I decided that the easiest way to go through this would be in the major stages of Loki’s life, with each one showcasing a different appearance (Loki’s a shapeshifter, after all).  It’s not always easy to put myths in order, but I have a pretty strong personal plot thread that runs through Loki’s myths, so let’s start at the beginning: with Loki’s early experiences as one of the Aesir. 

Loki is not technically a god – not in the way that Odin and Thor are, at least.  Loki is a child of jotunn, and more than likely is a jotunn as well, rather than one of the Aesir, so under normal circumstances would not have counted among their number; however, Loki and Odin forged a blood pact and swore an oath to treat one another as brothers, and so Loki was adopted into the Aesir fold by bonds of kinship. 

Loki is not truly evil, and never has been.  Loki is a mischievous spirit, fiery and wild, fond of trickery and games, and those have a tendency to get out of hand sometimes, which leads to big problems.  But Loki’s word is also their bond, and when they swear an oath, they keep it.  The myth of Idunn shows this very clearly: when Loki is captured by a jotunn, they swear to give him whatever he asks, and he asks for the goddess Idunn, responsible for keeping the Aesir young and strong.  When Loki is released, they do exactly as they swore, and lure Idunn into the jotunn’s clutches; however, when the rest of the Aesir realize what’s happened, they force Loki to promise to get Idunn back, which Loki proceeds to do. 

This oath keeping is important.  It will come up again. 

Now, because of the bond they swore, Loki was often called on by Odin to perform various tasks, many of which sent them wandering across the various realms – of course, Loki also succumbed to wanderlust sometimes when left bored too long, and had been known to wander off.  On one of these wanderings for whatever purpose, Loki met the jotunn Angrboda and ended up having a rather extended affair with her – enough that three children came of it: the wolf Fenrir, the serpent Jormungandr, and a daughter named Hel who seemed neither living nor dead.  

Loki loved those children.  They didn’t care a whit that they were seemingly strange: those were Loki’s babies, and Loki doted on them endlessly.  Eventually, though, Odin had need of Loki again and summoned them…and rather than leave the babies behind, Loki decided to bring them back to Asgard.  Now, the Aesir were significantly less thrilled about these children than Loki, but when Loki asked the Aesir to look after them in their absence (calling on Odin’s pact when he falters), they relented, and Loki left the three children with the gods. 

For a while, things were fine.  Unfortunately, Fenrir and Jormungandr in particular grew at an alarming rate, and the Aesir came to fear what monsters they would eventually become – so rather than let them become destroyers wreaking havoc on Asgard, Odin chose instead to deal with them while Loki was absent on a mission: Fenrir was bound with the ribbon Gleipnir (only managed because Tyr, the Aesir he trusted most, agreed to place his hand in Fenrir’s mouth to prove it was no trick – and he lost that hand for his deception), Hel was exiled to the realm of the dishonored dead (those who died of sickness and famine rather than gloriously on the battlefield), and Jormungandr was thrown into the swirling chaos of the Tempest before Odin used his might to quell it. 

Loki was…less than pleased when they got back.  Vascillating wildly between rage and desolation, they took out their suffering through increasingly malicious pranks on the Aesir (the theft of Brisingamen and the shearing of Sif’s hair), which ultimately ended in Loki paying the heaviest price.  Eventually, grief took its toll, and Loki gave in to a listless depression; it was their inability to care at all that made them discount Svadilfari’s strength, and they came to pay for that, too – though the price came in the form of a new child, the eight-legged colt Sleipnir that Loki bore as a mare.  Unwilling to see another child suffer the same fate as the first three, Loki gave Sleipnir over to Odin in hopes that leaving him in service to the Aesir would protect him from harm…and, at least, Loki would still be able to see the child. 

And it’s here that we reach the first turning point: realizing how unstable Loki had become owing to the loss of their children, Odin decided to take drastic action and try to ground them in the present – by arranging Loki’s marriage to Sigyn.  No one actually expected the marriage to be more than lip service, with the two leading separate lives within the same house; however, much to everyone’s surprise, Loki and Sigyn readily came to care for one another, and Loki finally began to heal from the loss of their children.  They still mourned, yes, and still worried for Sleipnir, but much of their playfulness returned as they found joy with their new wife.  Settling with Sigyn and becoming a more committed member of the Aesir led to the first major shift in Loki’s appearance, as well. 

Loki and Sigyn had a child together: a son named Narvi who they both loved dearly.  Having a child to raise once more helped to ground Loki still further, and they finally settled comfortably into their role and came to be almost friendly with several of the Aesir.  When Thor’s hammer was stolen, Loki helped him first to find it (by using Freya’s cloak of feathers to fly to the realm of the jotunn; he promised to return it and made good on his word) and then retrieve it, and even won a new ally into the fold with their antics.  Loki and Thor traveled together as allies for a spell, no less, and had a rather harrowing encounter with a jotunn skilled in illusion (during which Loki lost an eating contest with a wildfire and had an unwitting encounter with Jormungandr, something they mourned once the truth was revealed because they had no idea).  And beyond that, Loki even came to the aid of mankind alongside the other gods, helping to save a boy from being devoured by giants when even Odin and Thor could not. 

Sadly, this period of happiness was not meant to last.  In time, Odin’s second son Baldr began to have terrible nightmares about his own death; fearing deeply for her son’s life, his mother Frigg went to every plant, animal, and other object in the world and begged them to swear to do Baldr no harm, to which they all agreed. 

And this is where things get dicey: Odin, wise and well-traveled already, had knowledge of what would come to pass at Ragnarok and after – and because of that, he knew that Baldr would rise from Hel to claim the world after the rest of the gods and men had fallen, inheriting the new and beautiful world that rose from the fire and flood.  With Frigg’s frantic attempts to keep her son alive, that prophecy would be endangered.  Odin, of course, is known as a good and honorable god…but looking at the myths more closely, it sometimes seems that he’s only ‘good’ and ‘honorable’ because he has others do his dirty work (it was his order that had Loki lure Svadilfari from his work, thus cheating the builder of his prize, after all) or claims that he acts in everyone’s best interests (as he did when he bound or exiled Loki’s first children).  

So in order to preserve his son’s ability to inherit the world, Odin went to Loki and asked him to find a way to take Baldr’s life. 

Naturally, Loki balked at that.  But Odin cited their blood bond, and insisted that it was necessary.  In the end, Loki agreed – on the condition that his family be spared from whatever followed, for there could be no doubt that there would be a heavy price to pay for this.  Odin swore it, and Loki left, discovering that Frigg had failed to ask the mistletoe for its oath and using it to create an arrow; and while the other Aesir were having a grand time throwing things at Baldr and watching them bounce off him without doing a thing, Loki tricked Baldr’s twin brother Hodr into firing the arrow – which struck Baldr in the heart, killing him instantly. 

It took little enough time for the gods to realize that Loki was behind the crime, and they proceeded to shut him out of everything.  Wracked with guilt and emotionally unstable, Loki gradually neared a breaking point, which led to the roasting of the other gods at Aegir’s house (which Loki intruded upon by pointedly reminding Odin of the same blood oath he’d cited to make Loki agree to the plot).  Realizing that Loki posed a great danger should the truth come out, Odin took drastic action: when the other Aesir, incensed by Loki’s criticisms and sharp words, hunted them down to be punished for Baldr’s death, Odin turned his youngest son Vali into a wolf and had him attack Loki’s son Narvi, viciously murdering the boy; and to make matters worse, the Aesir then used Narvi’s entrails to bind Loki to a stone beneath the earth, transfiguring them into chains before affixing a snake above Loki’s head to drip poison onto them for eternity. 

Only one stayed beside Loki through this: their wife Sigyn, who remained by Loki’s side catching the poison in a bowl (though she had to leave to empty it on occasion, and when she did the searing poison made Loki writhe violently enough to cause earthquakes).  And it is because of Sigyn that Loki remained passive for so long: her presence kept Loki calm, kept their thirst for revenge from overwhelming them, for she reasoned that if they did slip those bonds and set Ragnarok in motion, then Loki and all of their children all would die, just as Narvi had.  At least now the children had life and could have pleasant dreams – and at least now, Loki had Sigyn. 

But at some point in the very recent past, something happened: Sigyn vanished.  Loki had slept, and when they woke to the searing pain of the snake’s venom, they found that their wife was nowhere to be seen, and no amount of calling and pleading made her reappear.  That, truly, was the last straw for Loki: all their grief and despair turned to fury and hate in that instant, and the fireball they became incinerated both their chains and the snake that had so long tormented them.  In the aftermath, only one link of the chains remained intact, and Loki kept it close, fashioning it into the buckle of the belt they wear.  And without Sigyn by their side, Loki allowed that desire for vengeance to burn through them, which has led to where things stand today. 

The shape Loki now assumes is strategic as much as comfortable, meant to distract enemies and give her more openings in combat. Everything she does is self-serving, up to and including her alliance with Surtr – hence her betrayal when he ceased to be useful.  What she seeks: her children.  Calling on Veronica to secure Naglfar and raise the Tempest, she sought Jormungandr (and still seeks him, as each foray into the Tempest has left her empty-handed); and now that Surtr’s power has been added to Hel’s army, giving her the ability to break the barrier Askr put in place, Loki seeks her lost daughter.  And in the end, she intends to make the treacherous Aesir suffer for the pain and misery they caused her and her family for so long. 

[jyungar]

Prisoner Without Bars

LIKE A PRISONER WITHOUT BARS I stand fixed in my cell, They tell me there is a way out An exit strategy, If only, I would recover, Keep this Halacha or that Learn this Masechta or that Have more faith, Those old familiar voices (the kitik inside my head)

Here in the Holy City, It is quiet. The street observes the Sabbath too you know! The calm and sensory relief from the noise of bustling traffic Envelopes her stoned houses and communal buildings. This of course, only exacerbates my guilt! This brick of basic observance… the Shabbat! As a human construction, The brilliant mind of ancient prophets and scribes Foreseeing the need for this sacred day Brought to fruition, Today! Acts as a further indictment of my doubting faith.

I could just walk away Go other places Blunt this feeling Understand the social trajectory of human creative thought Realize the common historical cross-cultural patterns of religion and myth As I have done, But why does it still hold me then? Why do I love the silent streets? Knowing the system that produced this, needs People who believe Who practice Obsessively Who will throw stones if it is violated, A medieval trade.

In jail, Those I learn with I cannot talk to, Those I pray with I cannot learn with, And the others do not even understand the problem! Like the couple last night who are Baalei Teshuva from WACO Texas (!) Their certainty was stifling, Their belief, professed of course, in public without shame, was insufferable, And their deafness to my subtle view of the divine was frustrating.

I am a prisoner Of my own making A community of one The bars remain in my illusion Holding me in Restraining me from further growth Knowing there is an outside Yet mistrusting what they are selling Afraid of losing my partner in the process And those whose naive approval I still need.

How painful the double life is As if The Rabbi does not know As if He does not get “complaints”

But more painful is my mediocrity Not to have carved out a system of thought Knowing full well how I mistrust such systems Of having nothing but grief to offer…

Of my inability to get past the fact of God’s inaction In the face of a million and a half babies who went up in smoke filled crematoria, the stench of THAT does not escape me for a moment And infects every thought of a benevolent deity.

The Shul as a jail Where the other prisoners shockle with wide brimmed black hats Tallis over their heads Tsitzis dangling out and longer than the black jackets Like a white stream of faith pouring from their certainty. Proudly demonstrating their commitment to Halachic minutiae. Shouting the credo aloud! “lesakein olam bemalchut shaddai” (as if God is hard of hearing) or… “yehei shmei rabba” fulfilling the rabbinic dictum, that he who screams this, will be rewarded… All this profession of outer faith All this God talk.. All this inner emptiness.. Now nauseates me. I feel literally claustrophobic And must run away But my shthender protests! How can you leave me! What will people think? You know your wife will ask Morty where you are! And there will be consequences!

Even worse the jail of the past! I am forced to drive my mother in law and wife to listen to Tova Lichtenstein last week, along with 200 adoring women. Her erudition and delivery is flawless Her derision of Hassidim fervent, Her love of learning as the Rav’s daughter, expected Her devotion to her husband’s use of secular poetry, refreshing, But her defense of him, curious, as she carved out his truth: Between the Haredi world of scholarship and her put down of pop culture “He only meant hi-brow… Nothing after the 17th century interested him” As if this gave him some kind of hechsher validation.

The next day I am feeling nostalgia for those years spent in Boston with the Rav, I owe him so much, what a transference! What an authority figure for me! As he validated the schizofrumkeit of Torah and Madaa Of secular knowledge alongside Torah Of the divided soul of Adam Of the Lonely Man of Faith. How many years I was spellbound until I realized the untenable Quicksand this really was, for my soul.

Hassidut was my therapy.. It spoke to the soul not the mind And was a real barrier to the Brahman Boston intellectual elite. It also provided an real intellectual path even though it professed the mystical.

The nostalgia quickly turned to guilt, and a sense of betrayal For after all, This Sunday evening room filled with sane, normal people in Skokie Was such a light relief to the black Rogers Park Haredi orthodoxy!

Yet even here I was a prisoner of the post… Postmodern and Post rational, post centrist orthodoxy Post all these doctrinal differences. The sense of middle ground as she admitted and well-articulated, The path of her father and husband was the “Brisker”, proudly announced,

Yet she failed to acknowledge the rejection of the real Brisker dynasty, The other side of the family who had expelled them of course, For their straying from the extreme Brisker path and their approaches to secular learning, and their avowed Zionism.

This centrism could not hold even in Artscroll/Lakewood America, And so, the elegiac tone was not merely for her mourning the recent loss of her husband, it also encompassed her father’s legacy.

In this deep frame of depression I faced the week But the universe was kind! There was a key to the door of the jail the next morning in an E mail.

Brill writes:

The students and colleagues of Rav Shagar each developed different aspects of his thought. Rav Yair Dreyful, his co-founder of Yeshivat Siach Yitzhak emphasizes the emotive and personal existential value of Torah and mizvot. Some of his students, emphasize the need to re-integrate mysticism and meditation, of Rebbe Nachman, Chabad, Zohar, Rav Zadok, and Rebbe  Kalonymus Kalman Shapira. Others prefer intellectual discussions of post-modernity, language games, paradox, and Israeli society. Some of his students learned from him a need to be open and found paths in psychotherapy, poetry writing, film-making, and scholarship. Yishai Mevorach, one of the editors of the Rav Shagar’s writings, looked where he was pointing and went forward into the chaos.

The universe is kind!

As if I was being given a message Despite your jail! There are no bars! This trajectory of yours is shared with others, Who struggle with the same writers and Rebbes, Who see chaos and a post-Holocaust nightmarish world without God Yet do not wish to give up on our tradition! But remain in the space between tradition and modernity.

Soloveitchik and Lichtenstein lived in a pre-postmodern era Where history meant fact And philosophy meant certainty Where science meant optimism in the future of mankind, But now?

After Auschwitz After all went up in flames. Including certainty and faith. How could you continue as if It had never happened?

In this new Jail, I now reside The bars may not be there But emotionally I feel them Constraining my flight from this overwhelming task Not to leave this world without making sense of the desolation. I run from it every day I fill the day with everything BUT this duty. Except for moments like these In the Holy City Which beckons even me To respond With a new hallucination.

Here there is clarity. Our task? To see the vertical only in the horizontal We can no longer afford the luxuries of religious fervor Our hands upward in prayer to the Silent One above

No We need a moratorium on the god word A cessation of hyper religious expression in public As long as those horrors out there, The genocide and mass murder, The child slavery and global exploitation of the poor continues, The collusion of global corporations with international banks and politicians in an unholy alliance that make the rich even richer, And of course, the destruction of climate and mother earth,

Stop all the piety! Stop the self-indulgence The feel-good sanctity The frumkeit Please!

Because in fact we are all in this jail without bars, together.