#religious context

This is what Mina declares to Jonathan. This is also what 1 Samuel 18:1 (KJV) says about David and Jonathan.

The pale blue wall holds his attention at a sharp standpoint, the same smooth sight that’s been there since before he was born. The ceiling fan flickers, wavering shadows playing out a vision of his parents dancing and smearing azure paint across each other’s skin. Rolling brushes and Simon and Garfunkel and plastic on furniture, laughter ringing out. A time he doesn’t remember but aches for anyway. 

The pale blue wall holds his attention at a sharp standpoint, the same smooth sight that’s been there since before he was born. The ceiling fan flickers, wavering shadows playing out a vision of his parents dancing and smearing azure paint across each other’s skin. Rolling brushes and Simon and Garfunkel and plastic on furniture, laughter ringing out. A time he doesn’t remember but aches for anyway. 

Soccer trophies line the shelves next to school awards and a family photo. Him, Mother, Father, in their best clothing tastefully arranged on their stairs. They are all smiling, but before, what's unseeable, is that they were all arguing loud enough for the photographer to hear behind the closed door kitchen. If one squints, the premature gray hairs in Mother's hair, the hard lines of Father, and the tightness around Adam’s eyes becomes visible. Adam hates the picture.

The decorations have been standing, unchanging since forever. Besides the addition of his achievements, what Father says is the only thing worth showing off, it is a stranger’s room. Its inhabitant does not belong in it like it does not belong in the house.

He’s never considered changing it, but if he did, he'd make it less… blue. Father doesn’t like the idea. Father, I hate blue; Harhar, since when? ‘Sides, it’s a great color, an honorable color, a real man’s color. 

He’d choose purple, maybe. A dark purple. Royal or plum or hippo or —

The color of a fresh bruise. 

The darkening shade around Jackson’s eye after his fist landed in it, that smudgy sludge green, brackish mess, a bloom of violet crimson.

The sound had been sickening, a whistle of air and then skin against skin. Exhilarating adrenaline coursing through his arm as he pulled back and released before he even realized he lost control. The headspace of that awful rush of power that comes from having of a weaker thing at your mercy.

It was all kind of a blur. 

A slurred word, one too many jeered comments. A slam against the locker, hands curled into the school’s uniform collar, tight around the tie. One yank and he could’ve choked him. 

Close enough to hear his hitched breath, the soft flutter of his eyelashes. 

One hit, two hits, the spurt of vibrant blood from a crooked nose, a shouted curse, and frantic hands pulled him back. 

Only one voice registered in that panicked silence: Don’t — stop, Adam, stop. It’s not worth it, it’s not — 

More hands, more blood, more voices. White-hot anger. 

Then: Mr. Adam! Mr. Jackson! Both of you in my office. Now. Voice stern like his father. 

An acute walk of shame, every pair of eyes on him knowing what happened, waiting for the moment the hallways cleared so they could go back to spilling gossip. In the gray locker, a flicker of his reflection: narrowed, pinpoint eyes, dilated hazel to black, dark eyebrows drawn, mouth tight, a near-mirror image of Father on his worst days. All traces of Mother gone, only the cruelty of anger arranging an even crueler face.

In Jackson’s face, he saw intimate familiarity; bloody and bruised by the hands of a man too broken to love. 

When he got home, sullen silence from Mother emptying the car, reminiscent of the aftermath of stone-cold nights with too much wine and a heavy lifted arm, he didn’t dare let out a breath out of line.

Father had been rightfully pissed, but the straight of his back recalled something like pride. 

Adam spent years scouring over textbooks and bibles and handbooks, looking for a how-to on How To Be The Perfect Son, and the one time, the second time, the third time he gets into a fight, full pot of water filled with boiling rage spilling over and over and over, Father’s expression is the least concealed arrangement of pride he’s ever seen. 

Know what you did was no good, and there’re consequences to your damn actions —  spittle flying and bruises forming and bit-back groans — but if my son knows one thin’, it's howta swing one like a real man. 

I learned it from you, Dad.

The seed of rot has been planted, the roots have grown and knotted together in the dirt of his soul. Like the Apricot trees out on the lawn, blackening from the inside with a bitter swing to the ground and an unsalvageable likeness. A taste of him is already too much before he is spat out into the trash with the lid sealed shut.

It’s too late for him; one bad tree and now the entire grove is poisoned, generations of peeling bark and falling , no matter how often they prayed for redemption. Someone should uproot these trees and destroy them; someone should plow over it until it is nothing but pure again. But it’s stood here far too long thriving in its own ugly and no one has the tools to do it. It will continue to fester, diseased and alive, spreading fruitlessly to whoever dares eat what their branches bear.

Adam’s sins are intrinsic; internal; melded into the metal of his bone and sparked by his father’s hands, crafted into the perfect weapon. 

The blue laughs at him, having known this for years.

In the corner, an oil spill seeps from the creases, running down his wall and swallowing him in a black hole of darkness. The devil lives in these walls and he is staining the foundations. 

Maybe the only way to get rid of it is by praying, to baptize it free of the ever-present evil, and emerge blissfully clean. Wash his hands, rinse the blood off his knuckles, scrub these walls, and find his own.

He presses his hands together in that familiar fold, fingers laced, closing his eyes softly. Grounding, grounding.

Dear God. 

Don’t let me be him, don’t let me be him, don’t let me be him —

[Talking about this Post]

Hello Anonie 🌺💜💕

YES! Anonie yes! Thank you for bringing this up because I have so many thoughts about this.

The Blackberry meaning fits Sebek so so well both positive and negative. The negative doesn't really need any explaining because literally all the pain, grief, remorse, and lowlines he is feeling can be explained by the events of Book 7.

BUT THE POSITIVE meaning has me overanalyzing.

God's Voice and Divine Love are jut so perfect for Sebek. Divine Love fits him well because he such a big worshipper for Malleus. He literally sees him like a god, as does many other students. But, Sebek is more vocal about it and his wishes. In book 7, Sebek even faulted, willing to give into the blot so Malleus could be happy. You can see how much he cares for him.

Then you have the meaning for God's Voice. We see how Sebek always likes to speak out about Malleus and speak on his behalf, sometimes getting rebuked.

But Sebek is also one of his guards so he can literally speak on behalf of Malleus if Malleus allows it. I feel as if Sebek's voice or UM will play a big role in book 7. Either, he will use it wake everyone up or his UM will have something to do with it. If not, I can see him play a role in book 8 since he's getting so close with MC right now.

Now, let's talk about the religious context. Some folklore, say that Christ's Crown of Thorns was made of Blackberry runners and that the color represents Christ's blood.

As Malleus is seen as a God to Sebek (or someone to greatly worship), that religious context of Crown of Thorns can be used here as well to show his loyalty. Malleus literally enveloped the island in thorns and then we have Sebek who was ready to fall into blot for Malleus. Blot which is a deep color. Blot which can kill. Blot which can basically be the same as Malleus' Blood (God).

As far as I know, the Crown of Thorns was put on Christ at his crucifixion (that's what google tells me at least). Which can be symbolized here as when Malleus Overblotted.

We see over and over again in this chapters so far, how loyal Sebek is to Malleus and his friends. These Blackberries fit him perfectly to show the inner nuances. I honestly can't wait to see how Sebek goes against Malleus, in order to save him. How he goes against his lord (his God).

Last song for today, but maybe it's one you haven't heard

Jonathan makes this more explicit when Mina is burned by the Host: "she sank on her knees on the floor in an agony of abasement. Pulling her beautiful hair over her face, as the leper of old his mantle, she wailed out:— "Unclean! Unclean!"

; you're sanctified, in my mind. i think if i took you off the pedestal i've placed you on, if i could see past your excuses and desperate pleas, i'd finally see what's right in front of me. my friends say there's something off about the whole situation, but what can i do when you're never wrong and are perfect in every feasible way.

; there's fallow in the fall and you caused it, but deep in my fragile bones, you feel like salvation. like if i cling to you as tight as judas clung to jesus, i can make the intangible tangible. if i can have your teeth scraping tongue, your molars, your irises, if i can breathe in your selfishly induced pain and relish in your compunctious cruelty, i can use your veins to paint myself in a softer light.

I..I'm a bard now, ...honestly sounds about right