“There Is Somebody Out There For You. Somebody Who Will Get Your Soul And Tend To Your Heart Like A

How To Draw A Horse - a comic by Emma Hunsinger

“You were unsure which pain is worse - the shock of what happened or the ache for what never will.”

— Simon Van Booy, Everything Beautiful Began After

I convinced my mom to watch Warrior Nun and she was telling my dad about it and I promise you this is a real conversation they had:

Dad: How do they get rid of the demons tho?

Mom: Lesbianism.

Dad:

Me:

Mom:

Dad: I mean if it works, why not?

the turning gyre. the whirling log. the cross, standing, inverted, sideways. all spinning, until they're not. every six hours a pulse. the alignment of frequencies like dialing in to a specific station. like a train station, or an airport terminal with its constant incoming and outgoing arrivals and departures. a continuous pathway, always in motion. a revolving door

"no spinning? (ava spins in place and laughs)"

the arq is a threshold to other dimensions. sometimes it is active and sometimes its not. it takes much preparation for adriel to attune it to reya's realm, to her narthex, the chamber and throughway that connects the thresholds between worlds and allows communion between those who enter from the outside. like a funnel it tapers to a door of an inner realm like the tapering of a black slab. parishes have them

adriel used his machine to open the way to reya's realm and force her into this one. he did this without the power of the halo, but would still require it to complete his plan. it's one thing to usher beasts into an open trap. it's quite another to have the ability to close the trap behind them. this is why he needed the power of the halo in addition to everything else. he had his transmuter and amplifiers to send out energy waves to track reya's location like underwater sonar in deep water, or echolocation in the dark. it required picking up her frequency, and using the arq to search for a ping in the interdimensional whirlpool

just as an object in motion stays in motion, the motion on the other side of the arc never stops turning. the gyre is the revolving door that leads to other dimensions. the cross is the compass that tells us which door leads where when the gyre is stopped, frozen in time. and the halo, connected to all things and a map of the cosmos, is one means to switch the railways to redirect your journey and select your stop. it's a dial of the universe, to choose what frequency you use to travel to the other side

with enough energy, the right combination of transmuter and amplifiers, and the halo acting as a valve to close the door off, the arq can also be used to halt travel between realms. to turn one realm into a trap, the only open entrance from the revolving door, and no exit back out. newton, too, was an alchemist. friction is what the frozen cross represents in adriel's plan. he tried halting the turning gyre and creating a dam, forcing earth to be where the tide flows to, where it would wash the world away in chaos from a daintily contained divine war. but such a broad operation requires the energy to power the transmuter and amplify the signal to locate gods, to summon and bait them as well. this is why adriel required "prayers" and why the arq in the depths of his cathedral took the form of the "squared circle," a legendary coveted transmutation apparatus of the alchemists

speaking of amplified frequencies and the halted motion of the whirlpool, have you ever seen what happens when you skip a rock on water? the echoes it creates as it goes. have you ever heard the sound of a rock skipped on ice? it sounds like a cacophony of otherworldly birds chirping. it sounds like the pulse of the halo

just as adriel pulled reya into this realm, he planned to pull other impossibly powerful figures in as well. all "gods" enter, no "god" leaves. turning our world into an arena of the gods. it's worth noting that "sand" and "arena" share the same symbol in alchemy. strange at first, until you realize that pulling a warring god from a whirlpool and trapping them there means beaching them on land. ava would love that pun if she knew. in adriel's plan, our world would serve as a beach to stage the destruction that constitutes war and its weapons, like what happens to countless places that the powerful and sadistic colonize and use for their own means. to those from the other side, the earth is an outpost for interdimensional travelers who see it as a "plaything." but as any good general knows, outposts make for tactical far-off points to stage battle in order to protect the main stronghold. adriel wanted to turn earth into a roach motel for the great devourer and all other comers so that they could arrive, destroy everything and remain trapped here forever

what it all means now on the other side for the valve, the map, the world soul, the halo, and for ava who still bears it, could be anything. maybe reya decides that it's safer for the linchpin of a cosmic trap for the gods to remain in a small outpost, some primitive dimension where no one will look or care to utilize it. but the other side of the coin (and there's always another side in warrior nun), is that those other powerful beings know exactly where earth is thanks to adriel's failed plan. tarasques and wraiths seeking the halo are one thing. but even our isolated world has imagined enough horror (and been home to those very horror imaginers who would inflict it on others) to know to be wary of some creatures who can be awoken by loud noises and come slouching onto the beach sand from deep, unknowable waters

"you see, ava, if i am to become god, i first must imprison god"

Your 100 days of fanfic is v v cute!!! Any interest in something kidfic-related for Supercorp? Like Lena and Kara hearing their baby's first words perhaps? Thanks!

She doesn’t really consider herself much of a mother. After all, the maternal figures she had to look up to growing up were few and far between. (A nanny there, a teacher here…so it goes.) And yet, her daughter’s curious blue eyes stir something deep inside of her, and it sort of feels like she’s been doing this her whole life, even if chopping up fruit was never something she imagined for herself.

“I swear I heard her say Mom,” Kara says, breaking Lena out of her thoughts. She smiles, because Kara swears up and down every week that their daughter has spoken her first word, and hasn’t been right yet.

“Are you sure it just wasn’t her normal noises when she likes whatever she’s eating?”

“Like yum? No. It was mom. Moooommm.” Kara crosses her arms over her chest, looking at Lena a little petulantly. “I want her first word to be Mom.”

“I mean, I don’t know what else it would be. She has two moms.”

“Mommy. But I’m mommy. And I want you to be Mom.”

Lena laughs, turning her head to watch their daughter play with some colorful toys Kara had snuck in last week, even after Lena had said no more toys. “Any particular reason why?”

“No, none,” Kara answers with faux innocence. “Just that if she recognizes you as mom first, maybe you’ll stop thinking this is all a dream.”

It’s said jokingly, but there’s more than a little truth to the statement, and not for the first time Lena wonders how Kara got to know her so well. “It’s a mighty good dream though.”

Kara smirks and lets the topic drop. “Maybe we should revisit that one dream you had, remember, I think it involved me and a shower—”

Lena’s face burns bright, the knife slips, and she feels a sting on her finger where fruit juices begin to seep into her freshly sliced flesh. “Oh shit,” she mumbles, grabbing a towel and wrapping it around her bloody finger.

Then, from across the room, what Kara has been hoping for finally happens: “Oh shit, Mom.”

They pause, then Kara turns to Lena with a huge grin. “Do you see that? She’s a prodigy!”

reading a textbook for class and i’m going insane. why is this just poetry. what. this is a STEM class what’s going on.

― Jamie Anderson

Susan Sontag, from “Reborn: Journals and Notebooks, 1947-1963″

We love you Kevin