#(i.e. the worst people who have ever lived)

[nobodyisevrmissing]

Andrew Kane, "How To Be A Dog"

[raptorific]

IMPORTANT FACTS TO CONSIDER:

The Paddy's Pub crew has no lower limit to how morally depraved their actions can be, but they have a hard upper limit on their capabilities. There's nothing they won't do, but also many things they can't do. They are horrible, but they're also idiots whose plans always backfire on them, even if it leaves a trail of destruction in their wake.

The Wilkerson family has no upper limit to their capabilities, but hard red lines they're unwilling to cross morally. There's nothing they can't do, but there's a lot they won't do. They're fundamentally decent people, but their lives are a vortex of chaos and destruction because they're geniuses with no ability to tell the difference between good ideas and bad ideas, and Failure never stops their worst ideas from being executed perfectly.

Effectively, the difference between them is that if they were both trying to build a killer robot, the gang's robot would cause disaster for others because they did a bad job making it, and the family's robot would cause disaster for them because they did a good job making it

The Gang is working with functionally unlimited resources, but they have very little willpower and they are cowards

The Family is working with next to no resources, but are unable to let things go, ever, no matter how trivial, and are also chronically unable to anticipate consequences to their actions at all

IMPORTANT RULE:

If you think one side should be able to call on a supporting character, the other side must also get an equivalent supporting character, i.e. if The Gang gets Rickety Cricket or Artemis, then The Family gets Lois' Mother Ida or Francis' Wife Piama, etc

[ferida-kahlo]

♡ Hotline ♡

Mikey Berzatto x F!Reader

Summary: You and Mikey have been casually seeing each other for a few weeks. After a late night text from him, you make the drunken insomniac executive decision of calling him back. Naughtiness ensues.

Or: the one where you and Michael have phone sex.

Warnings: 18+, SMUT, M/F. Minors DNI // PWP, P!rn With Feelings. Phone sex, flirting, teasing, sexual innuendos, dirty talking, mentions of oral sex (m. receiving), masturbation (m. and f.), sexual fantasies, role-playing scenarios, librarian k!nk, mentions of rough sex. // Blink-and-you-miss-it angst, alcohol use, mentions of insomnia, anxiety and self esteem issues.

Word count: 3.8k

Read below the cut OR on AO3

Notes: Reader wears glasses in this - don't look at me like that, it's integral to the plot 🙄

For the history nerds, the quote at the beginning is from the book "Fire from Heaven" by Mary Renault, about the relationship between Alexander the Great and his friend and lover, Hephaestion.

Enjoy! As always, likes, comments and reblogs are very appreciated ♡

His feelings were confused; he wanted to grasp till Alexander's very bones were somehow engulfed within himself, but knew this to be wicked and mad; he would kill anyone who harmed a hair of his head…

… you yawned at the page you’d been reading (i.e., staring at without absorbing a single bit of information), before turning your head to the nightstand and seeing the clock mark 2:49 am.

“Good god”, you whispered, tiredly rubbing your face with one hand, while the other reached for the half-full glass of red wine keeping you company in your insomnia.

Technically, you knew drinking was the last thing you should be doing on a weeknight, when you were having a hard time falling asleep and were expected at work in the morning. But living alone was really not helping you behave like a responsible adult with bills to pay. So, you slowly sip your wine, read your book, and hope that eventually your brain will give up and allow you to pass out for at least a few hours.

Suddenly, your phone lights up with a text. Michael B., it says on the screen. A pang of excitement hits you, and you immediately scoff for reacting so earnestly to a text from a guy you’ve been with (not even biblically, just the daytime coffee dates that people with busy lives manage to pack into a crazy week) for a grand total of two times and less than two hours, overall. Not pathetic at all.

Still, you can’t help but reach for the phone.

Hey, I know it’s late and you probably won’t read this until morning, sorry. Wanna have dinner at that spot we talked about? I can pick you up at the office ;) – M.

You smile, and without really thinking, hit the call button.

He picks up quickly, an amused tone in his voice. “Well, I was not expecting that. What the hell are you still doing up, princess? No work tomorrow?”

You laugh. “God, I wish. I just can’t sleep. Haven’t had one of these nights in a while… my brain won’t shut up, even though I’m so tired I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck”.

“Ooof. That fucking sucks.”

“Yup.”

“Well, I’m glad to be your booty call in this desperate time.”

“Michael”, you laugh so hard you choke on some wine and must set the glass back on the table. “I really don’t think that’s what this is”.

“Oh, no?”, he feigns innocence.

“No…”, chuckling, you continue with the most sultry, mock-seductive voice you can muster “… a booty call is if I was like: Sooo, Mikey… are you, like, busy right now? Do you wanna… come over? I’m aaall alone…”.

You make sure to put particular emphasis on the word ‘come’ and Mike sounds like he is doubling over with laughter. “That was the worst proposition I have ever heard, no doubt”.

“Oh, yeah? Well, you’re officially off my booty call list. I don’t need this kind of negativity in my life.”

“Ah, shit… I fucked up now, didn’t I?”, you swear you can hear his grin from the other end of the line. And see the laugh lines that form on the corner of his eyes when he smiles genuinely, the rare but so cute nose crinkle that makes your belly flutter…

You would love to get a fucking grip, thank you very much, but the wine was making you incapable of keeping a level head in this flirtation.

“Well… all is not lost. Taking me out to dinner is a good start to redeem yourself. If your game is on point tomorrow, your booty call list status might be revised… in the not-so-far future”, you add, suggestively.

“Shit. Now the stakes are on. I gotta be on my best behavior tomorrow, then”.

“I don’t know about best behavior…”. You feel like slapping yourself for your lack of subtlety.

He chuckles. “So… you like them a little nasty, huh?”

You’re glad he can’t see you blush furiously. “Not like that… but I do like a man who isn’t afraid to… take what he wants. Respectfully, of course.”

“Of course… damn, girl. You’re getting me thinking about all sorts of things…”

“Well, you’re the one who started talking about booty calls. It’s technically your fault”.

“That’s fucking rich. I was being a gentleman, sent you a sweet text and all. Not a single sex reference!”, he says, proudly.

“Ok, that is true”, you concede, laughing softly. “Are you still at the restaurant?”

He sighs deeply. “Yeah… paperwork coming out of my eyeballs. I don’t even understand how the hell I organized this mess”. You hear rustling through the line, and imagine the mess of letters, invoices and bills that must be covering his office desk.

“That fucking sucks”.

“Word”. His chair squeaks loudly. “So… what are you wearing?”

You laugh. “You’re unbelievable”.

“What? I’m just trying to keep the conversation light, you know? Nobody wants to hear about my fuckin’ paperwork at 3 am”.

It was subtle, but you could sense something deeper in his words (sadness? self-deprecation?).

“I wouldn’t mind hearing about your ‘fuckin’ paperwork’ at any time of day, Michael”.

The line goes silent, and you fear you went too deep, too soon. Made this weird in record time, wow.

“I didn’t mean it like… I meant if you want to talk to me about your shitty day, you know, you can, but I don’t want you to be uncomf-”

“Hey, hey, it’s okay sweetheart. I get it… thank you for that”, he says, softly. “Maybe some other time. Right now, I honestly just wanna forget about this for a little while... I was really pumped when you called”.

“That’s okay. Really?” You smile, relieved.

“Yeah, really. So… wanna make a guy happy and tell him what you’re wearing?”

With a chuckle, you concede. “Well, nothing. I’m in bed and I sleep naked, so… yeah”.

There’s a heavy pause. “Holy shit. Are you for real?”

“Um, yeah?”

“Jesus, fuck… baby, you can’t say stuff like that and expect me to be normal about it”.

You grin, having just decided that, actually, you wanna play dirty.

“Who says I want you to be normal about it? Besides”, you throw back, suggestively, “I hardly think a woman can be held accountable for what she says after four glasses of wine on a Thursday night… naked and alone, in such a big bed…”

“Now, see, that was a much better pitch for a booty call than the first o-”

“I’m gonna hang up.”

“No, no, no, I’m sorry”, he laughs.

“You’re an asshole”. Even as you say it, you’re smiling.

“And you are a minx, lady. Gettin’ a guy all worked up…”

“Oh, my... I don’t know what you mean…”, you whisper into the comforter, now balled up in your fist over your mouth, as if to cover up your blushing cheeks from an invisible audience.

“Oh, I disagree… I think you know exactly what you’re doing”. There’s a note of sarcasm in his voice you find exhilarating. A sudden noise – like a chair squeaking loudly on a panel floor – can be heard from his end. Followed by… a metallic rattle, more subtle but still clear. A… belt unbuckling?

Wait. Is he…?

You grin, amused. “Mr. Berzatto… I’m hearing suspicious noises. What is going on over there?”

A deep grunt. “Nothin’ much, sweetheart. Just making myself comfortable, is all”.

“And how exactly are you doing that, mister?”

“You know… freeing the junk.”

Your eyebrows shoot up. “Well, that certainly helps set the mood”.

“Hm… baby, can I ask you for something? It’s totally fine if you don’t wanna do it… but I figure I might as well shoot my shot.”

You notice you are sitting up very still against the pillows in your bed, holding your breath in anticipation. “Sure… what is it?”

A heavy pause follows. Your heart feels like it’s about to beat itself out of your ribcage, your throat feels dry, and your tongue sits heavy and thick in your mouth, the taste of wine suddenly overpowering your senses. And you are so horny.

“Could you… send me a photo of you right now? Are you wearing those new glasses?”. He sounds… eager, almost nervous with the way he trips over the second question.

Oh. Something clicks for you, then. You smile. “So, you really liked the new glasses, huh?”

“Shit… c’mon, don’t bust my balls about it”, he says, with an embarrassed chuckle of admission.

“I’m not! It’s very flattering, actually”. You hope you conveyed how much you are not making fun of him. However, you hate misunderstandings, and to dispel any that might be going on here, you decide there is only one acceptable solution.

“Give me a minute”, you tell him, determined. You don’t wait for an answer before you drop your phone and get to work.

Meanwhile, Mikey sits in his rusty office chair, in what he thinks must look like a very… undignified position. Cock out, right hand stroking it lazily, slumped back with his jeans barely down his ass, work shirt dirty and stinking of cooking oil, his entire body tense in a mix of anticipation and shame. A part of him can’t help but wonder if you are fucking with him: laughing from the other end of the line, leaving him hanging – literally and figuratively (he chuckles dejectedly at the realization that he still remembers something from high school Lit class). He guesses he would kinda deserve that. What type of freak asks for nudes after two… dates? Do those rapid-fire coffee-grabs even count? He is so shit at this. Anything more than a casual hook-up or a quickie behind a sleezy pub is rocket science for him. ‘Congrats, loser! You just fucked it, yet again’.

Then, his phone pings. 5 photos received.

In the first one, you are lying on your side, in bed, a dim warm light illuminating the scene. He can see the contours of your body clearly, despite being covered by a layer of nearly sheer white sheets. His gaze follows your exposed collarbone, to the silhouette of your breasts – he is sure you purposefully allowed a bit of side-boob to slip past the entrapment of sheets… just for him.

He swears he could stare at the shapes of your body all day and never get tired – or limp. His dick is throbbing painfully, now.

It does not get better when he sees the rest of the photos. Your face is visible, on those. The last two are his favorites. You are laying on your stomach, with the reading glasses on, as promised – except they sit lower on your nose than usual, so that your eyes peak out from over the top of the frames. Your hair is down, tousled and wild like it’s just gotten messed up. ‘Is this what she looks like after…’. You are holding a glass of wine to your mouth – lips plump and lightly tinged red – that detail drives him a little insane –, and in front of you lays a book, delicately held open with your other hand. And in the last photo, the sheets have slipped lower down your breasts, revealing a generous cleavage. You’re staring directly at the camera with an inquiring gaze, biting your lower lip. ‘Come get me’.

“… Mike? Are you still there?”

It’s been some time since you sent the photos (twenty seconds, which your anxiety tells you is actually half an hour), with no reaction from him. Your cheeks heat up, and you suddenly feel very silly and insecure. Are they even… good? What makes a good nude? Do these even qualify as nudes? You’re not showing anything super explicit… they’re suggestive, at best. Is he going to think you’re a prude? God, why is this so diff-

Mike clears his throat. “Yeah, I… fuck. Fuckin’ hell. Holy shit. Sweetheart… these are so hot. Jesus… thank you so much. You’re so fuckin’ gorgeous…”. The last part comes out as a whisper, like he’s starstruck.  

You didn’t know it was possible to get more flustered than you already were. “You’re welcome… I’m flattered I managed to make Michael Berzatto incoherent over some low-res thirst trap selfies.”

“Baby, these are genuinely the hottest pics I’ve ever seen. You look like a hot librarian or something”.

You laugh out loud, triumphantly. “Ah! I knew it!”

“What?”, he laughs along.

“Something you wanna share with the class, Mr. Berzatto?”.

“Fuck, don’t stop calling me that, sweetheart”, he says, sounding out of breath.

“Yeah?”, you whisper.

“Fuck, yeah. It’s just… I’ve got a thing for girls with a kinda nerdy, librarian type of vibe, you know? And when I saw you this last time, holding a book and wearing your reading glasses… I gotta admit, my mind went straight to the gutter.”

Interesting. “Really? What did you imagine then?”.

A pause. “I’m not sure you want to hear it… I don’t want you thinking I’m a pervert or something”.

You sigh. “Mikey, I just sent you near-naked photos of me. We’re having phone sex. We are two horny adults having fun. Besides…”, you switch your tone to what you hope comes across as faux innocence, “… I asked you about it. It is kinda my fault, right? I guess I was kind of… bad”.

“Oh, is that what’s happening?”. He chuckles, as if saying challenge accepted. “Alright, then. When I saw you like that for the first time, this image popped into my head, right? I mean, you looked like a really hot librarian. So, I started picturing you in that scenario, with big glasses and all – just like the photos you sent me… except you had your hair in a cute ponytail, and your lips were even redder with lipstick… and you were wearing fishnet stockings up to your thighs – fuck, you got such nice legs, baby –, and you had a pair of those… what are they called. Uh, kitten heels. Yeah. Fuck, your ass would look unbelievable like that. I mean, it is unbelievable, you know what I mean? When you show up at the restaurant wearing those cute little dresses and skirts, I feel my dick twitching in my pants… that’s how hot you are, baby… that’s how crazy you make me feel.”

His words were streaming out like an avalanche – a filthy stream-of-consciousness. Flash images of all the times you were together pop into your mind. He was always nice and polite to you, if cheeky – that was his personality, after all. You’d never felt disrespected or threatened around him. Maybe that’s why, now that you knew he had been actively thinking about you like this… you were very turned on.

“Too much, sweetheart? You wanna keep listening to this filth?”

“… yeah, Mikey. Keep going. What happened then?”

“Then, I took you to a hidden corner in the library, rucked up your pretty little skirt and ripped your real nice dress shirt open… you know, so I could suck on your tits while I fucked you hard against some shelves. Didn’t even need to rip your panties off, ‘cause you weren’t wearing any. Just lifted you up and slammed my cock right into your pussy… God, you were drippin’ wet for me, and you mewled so sweetly… loud, too. Had to shove my fingers into your pretty mouth to keep you quiet. That’s what I imagined, sweetheart. More or less.”

The crass and vivid way in which he described his fantasy made you speechless. It was exhilarating. Knowing that all those times he had talked to you with a straight face, he had been actively fantasizing about fucking you hard. His words.

“Jesus Christ, Mikey”, you breathe out. “That’s… I can’t believe we had entire conversations while you had a cheap porn flick playing in your head”, you laugh softly, unconvincingly.

He sighed deeply. “See, I knew this was a bad idea… honey, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make you feel like shit. I guess I’m just a fucking perv-”

“Babe…”, you interrupt him, gentle, but firm, “shut up, please. I’m messing with you. I told you, it’s very flattering that you’re attracted to me. In fact… it’s super hot. Knowing you were having all those dirty thoughts about me while still being a gentleman… is making me feel all kinds of things, right now.”

“Yeah? What kinds of things?”

“Good things, Mikey… I’m so wet right now”, you mewl, the need for release in your core overwhelming the embarrassment you would be feeling otherwise. Without thinking, you kick the sheets away from your body and cup one of your breasts, kneading it and flicking your nipple – a moan leaves your mouth in a desperate plea.

“Fuck”, he whispers, “you got wet over that filth? Jesus Christ, baby. I won the fuckin’ lottery”.

You are burning with desire, and you can feel your pussy throbbing when you finally give in, sliding one hand down and shoving two fingers inside with barely any resistance. “Mikey… I wanna come so bad. Can you talk me through it… please?”

“Fuck… yeah, sweetheart, anything you want”. He moans, then, and you don’t think you have ever been so turned on in your life. Mikey Berzatto, a horny, moaning mess, jerking off in his mess of an office at 3 am… because of you.

Chicago’s Helen of Troy. You chuckled softly at the thought and decided to up the ante. “Baby… do you know what I was thinking when you were telling that beautiful story just now?”

He laughs, voice recked. “What, baby?”

You pout, and add another finger in, increasing the pace of the thrusts. “I wish you had pictured kissing me real hard, while I unbuckled your belt… would you let me get down on my knees for you, baby? I really wanna have you in my mouth, Mikey, like, right now”. Your words come out broken, sentences all messed up – you sound pathetic, but you are so past caring.

“Shit-”, a gasp, followed by a deep breath and the noise of something hitting a surface really hard. “… holy shit. Baby, I imagined all that and a whole lot more – seriously, you have no idea. Hell, if the lady wants to suck my dick, who am I to deny her, uh? Fuck. Would you let me fuck your mouth, baby…?”

You moan loudly at that and realize you need both hands, putting the phone on speaker – fuck the neighbors – and bringing your other hand to your clit, rubbing lightly, but fast. You were so close. The thought of kneeling on the floor, clothes and hair all messed up from Mikey’s hands, lipstick smudged… looking up at him, and watching his composure unravel because of you…

“Hm… yeah, Mikey, I think I would… ‘cause you’re so nice to me… such a gentleman, even when you’re fucking me hard… would you ask me real nice, baby? Hold my face gently in your big hands, while you fuck it?”

“Fuck, baby… I would treat you so right, you deserve everything-”, he chokes up and, for a few moments, you hear a distant cacophony of noises, like he’s put the phone down. Then, he’s back. “Sorry, sweetheart, I need both hands now”, he chuckles.

You giggle, “Me too… you got me so hot I’m fucking myself on my fingers and rubbing my clit at the same time… and it’s still not enough. I need you…”

“Fuck, that’s so hot. You fuckin’ yourself because of me… I know it’s not enough, baby… you need my cock, don’t you?”

“Yes! Mikey… please…”, you howl, completely out of your mind.

“How do you want me to fuck you, baby? Hm? Want it nice and slow? Nah… I think you like it fast and rough, don’t you? Long as I keep kissing you real good, touchin’ you real gentle, all over your body… you’d let me do anything to you, wouldn’t you?”. How he manages to say such filthy things with so much honey dripping from every syllable, is beyond you.

“Yeah, fuck, baby… it doesn’t matter. I’m so wet already, you don’t need to do anything else, just hoist me up in your arms and pin me against the shelves… and shove it in me”.

You are still holding onto a shred of decency because you blush at your own crass admission – still, there is clearly not a whole lot left, as you start rubbing your clit and fucking yourself harder and faster. “I don’t want you to be gentle when you fuck me… I just need to feel your cock stretch me open… wanna feel the sting of it for days, be at work and not be able to focus because all I can think about is how you fucked me so good-”

At this point, you have no idea if he can understand anything you’re saying, because your words are intercut with moans and gasps and mewls and incoherent babble, as you’re about to reach your peak imagining Mikey’s on top of you, railing you into the bed.

“Baby, I’m gonna come… fuckin’ Christ”.

“Mikey- fuck!”.

Your body shakes and your eyes roll back from the strength of your orgasm. Distantly, your brain registers a broken string of moans and curses from the other end of the line.

A few seconds pass, and you feel yourself coming back down to Earth. You lazily stretch out on the bed, completely relaxed and fucked out. “That’s so cute… we came at the same time, babe”, you happily whisper, a ditsy smile on your face.

He huffs, amused “Yeah… what can I say? I’m a romantic at heart”.

You laugh sincerely. “This was… so good, actually. I’m glad I gave into my instinct and called you”.

“Well, I’m even more sticky now”. You both laugh at that. “But I’m also glad you called… like, really glad. Uh, can I ask you something?”

You notice a shift in his voice.

“Yeah… what is it?”

“I don’t want things to get weird between us after this… Like, I don’t want you to feel like you need to do all these things to get me off. You know what I mean? It’s just a fantasy… I’ll have you in any way you want me. Okay?”

You feel a tightness in your chest, and you wish, not for the first time tonight, you had him right in front of you so you could kiss him all over and hug him.

“Mikey… I genuinely liked tonight. And the more we talk, the more I like you. You’re not the only one who feels like you won the lottery…”.

“Baby… you’re too sweet. Don’t you think you already got me blushing enough for one night?”

“That’s fucking rich. I must’ve gone through all shades of red tonight, because of your filthy mouth”.

“Please. You loved it”, he chuckles.

“Yeah, I guess I did”, you concede, with a smile.

After saying goodbye – and confirming that yes, you would very much like for him to pick you up and take you to dinner later – you fall asleep fast, your mind finally catching up to the pleasant tiredness in your body, a soft smile on your lips.

[very-normal-abt-this]

I forgive you = I don't forgive myself.

 Here is a little psychological analysis of the worst sentence ever uttered in the history of everything. I've decided that Aziraphale is utilizing a subconscious psychological defense strategy called "projection" (I'm a professional psychologist, so I can use the lingo :P)

We all use this at certain times in our lives. What happens is, when we feel that our behaviors, feelings, or thoughts are unacceptable; When they go against some of our values and create an internal value conflict - we feel shame, anger, fear, confusion. Feeling this way about ourselves is extremely uncomfortable, so sometimes, instead of acknowledging those feelings ("Wow I am feeling really angry at myself right now"), people will *Project* those feelings onto the person who is involved in the situation that is causing us to feel that value conflict. And, we are more likely to use this defense strategy when our emotional resources have been depleted. When we don't have the emotional energy to recognize and cope with painful feelings that we are feeling. Sometimes its just easier to be angry at someone else, instead of being angry at ourselves, you know?

Now, lets look at how this concept applies to Aziraphale's reaction to *The Kiss.* We know that his emotional resources have certainly been depleted by all of the emotional events that just occurred in the span of a day: planning and executing the ball, building up the courage to ask Crowley to dance, actually dancing with Crowley in front of everyone, realizing that he put his guests in serious danger when demons show up, fighting for his life, seeing Jimbriel and Beelz get their happy ending and realizing that it is possible,  seeing Metatron come down from Heaven, and finally being offered an insane opportunity for himself and for Crowley. Wow, that is.... A LOT, don't you agree?  So, by the time Aziraphale is having the "final 15" conversation with Crowley - he can no longer effectively process unexpected and complex thoughts and emotions.

Uuuuunfortunately, that is exactly what he gets during the conversation with Crowley. First, Crowley has an unexpected and complex reaction to the offer of being together as angels (unexpected to emotionally unhinged Aziraphale, not to us of course). Then, Crowley proceeds to drops an emotional bombshell by doing something that has never been done before - openly discussing the nature of their relationship and his feeling about Aziraphale. After that, Aziraphale himself chooses to show the most vulnerability and honesty about his feelings that he has ever shown (i.e. "I need you!"). And what is the final cherry on top of this "emotional tsunami" pie? The straw that completely breaks the camel's back? (aka temporarily breaks his friggin mind) ***THE KISS.***

As an aside, I am not AT ALL saying that Crowley was wrong for anything that he did or said in the final 15. I believe he was right to say and do all of it. I am simply breaking down the factors that were present in the context of that conversation. And one of the factors is -- the timing of it all was just horrendous. It was horrendous, because both of them had very depleted emotional resources at that moment in time. Aziraphale was basically primed to become completely overwhelmed and confused by all the new and complicated emotions/ideas that he was required to process. On top of it, he was required to process them in a very short amount of time, with damn Dickatron putting pressure on him to make a decision ASAP.

Okay, so what do humans do when we are completely overwhelmed by thoughts and emotions? Sometimes what happens is - we REVERT to the familiar. We REGRESS to things that are the most automatic and easiest to understand. We revert to thoughts and behaviors that have been the most practice, even if they are not effective and not relevant to the situation at hand (which we don't recognize until later, when we are out of that "fight of flight" state). 

Back to Aziraphale. He is experiencing an insane amount of emotions during and after the kiss. He is trying to process his emotions and the implications of the kiss; and he is also trying to make a super hard decision, all at the same time. What he should have done is say to Crowley - "wow this is a lot for me to process right now and I'm completely overwhelmed. Can I please have 15 minutes to myself so I can re regulate my nervous system, and then we will keep talking?"

Unfortunately, when we're overwhelmed by emotions - its really hard to see the different options available to us. We go into a sort of "tunnel vision" and revert to our internalized and automatic beliefs and behaviors. For Aziraphale, that means - regressing to the old beliefs that Heaven has programmed into him. Maybe beliefs like: acting on carnal desires is wrong (look at what happened to adam and eve); good angels don't engage in physical intimacy and they certainly don't crave it or enjoy it; it's selfish to consider choosing your personal happiness and your personal desires over an opportunity to help others/help the world.   If those are some of his old values - Aziraphale has just acted against all of them!

When we act against our old values (even when we know that those values are no longer working for us, and we are actively working on changing them) - we still feel ashamed, guilty, and angry at ourselves. This is especially likely to happen in times of great stress and emotional overwhelm. So, now we get to the equation from the top. Aziraphale is feeling ashamed of himself, angry at himself, and guilty for his thoughts and feelings (i.e. for liking/wanting the kiss, for loving Crowley, for wanting to be with Crowley more than he wants to "help the world").

He is feeling that he needs to be forgiven for the way he feels, and for the way he is. However, due to his temporarily deficient emotional resources  -  Aziraphale is not able to accurately attribute the feelings he is experiencing (anger, shame, guilt, desire for forgiveness) to the correct source. He mistakenly decides that he must be feeling those feelings towards Crowley (not toward himself), and he must be feeling them because of what Crowley did (Kiss him), not because of what Aziraphale did (enjoy and reciprocate the kiss). And Viola, the process of Projection is now complete.

He says: "I forgive you" to Crowley, but Aziraphale is the one who wants his own forgiveness. Which, unfortunately, he does not get. At least not yet. (Yay for religious trauma).

In conclusion, the sad thing about bad timing and projection is: now Crowley is worried that Aziraphale sees him as sinful and unacceptable, as someone who needs forgiveness. But the truth is, Aziraphale is the one who still struggles with seeing himself as sinful and unacceptable, and as someone who needs forgiveness for his urges, desires, and feelings.

But, the good news is - Aziraphale does not always see himself in that way. We know that he has been putting a lot of work into breaking away from heaven's toxic values, and into developing his own values (e.g. "our side"). Like I said above, old habits die hard, they are more likely to surface during times of stress, and all that is a normal part of the process of psychological change.

I am very confident that once Aziraphale has a hot minute to himself, once he has time to calmly process everything that's happened - he will see some things differently. And he will eventually be doing the Apology Dance for "using projection as a deadly weapon. " :)

[eretzyisrael]

Israel’s Enemies Tell Five Big Lies

Following the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, antisemites mount a series of vicious attacks, threats and malicious lies against Jews and Israel

With no shame or sign of humanity, the enemies of Israel have doubled down on their insistence that Israel is an illegitimate state that must be destroyed and that the savage slaughter of 1,200 innocent Jews was justified—all based on five “Big Lies” about the Jewish state.

What are the facts?

The world for Jews and Israel will never be the same. Wellesley College students receive official messages saying Zionists (i.e. most Jewish students) are not welcome in the school’s dorms. Hamas official Ghazi Hamad in a TV rant swears Hamas will repeat October 7 over and over until Israel is annihilated. West Bank Palestinian activist Ahed Tamimi says “What Hitler did to you was a joke—we will drink your blood and eat your skull.”

While Hamas’s October 7 atrocity shattered the hope of many Palestinian supporters, causing them to rethink their positions, the event only ignited an explosion of hate from other of Israel’s enemies. Tens of thousands of demonstrators made clear they no longer support two states living side by side in peace. Rather they demand “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free . . . by any means necessary”—meaning, clearly, slaughter of civilians.

Power of Big Lies: Though Israel was the victim of a mass murder of innocent Jews, its enemies blame the Jewish state—not only for the Hamas massacre, but also for responding in defense. The reasons many blame Israel for the atrocity are based on five Big Lies. Big Lies were used by Nazi leader Goebbels, who noted that if he told an outrageous lie often enough, people would begin to believe it. Alternatively, if you use truth as a basis for your judgments, you may these facts useful:

Lie #1: Israel is a colonial state that stole Palestinian land. A colonizer is a foreign nation that conquers and exploits another nation. First, the Palestinians have never controlled any land in Palestine: They were also never a nation. Nothing was stolen. Second, Jews are the indigenous people of the land of Israel. They have lived there continuously for 3,000 years and had two commonwealths for over 1,000 years: They are not foreigners. No colonial state.

Lie #2: Israel commits genocide. Genocide is the intent to destroy a national, ethnic, racial or religious group by killing its members. Israel does not, nor has ever, targeted innocent Palestinian civilians for killing—no mass murders, no pogroms. All Palestinian civilian deaths have occurred as collateral damage while fighting terrorists who hide in residential or other public areas. Tellingly, the population in in and around Israel has mushroomed since Israel’s founding in 1948—from about 700,000 to seven million today: Zero genocide.

Lie #3: Israel practices apartheid. Apartheid is a system of legalized racial segregation in which one racial group is deprived of political and civil rights. Israel has no laws or policies separating or limiting the rights of any of its citizens—including two million Arab-Israeli citizens—nor any Palestinians outside Israel. Political and civil rights of all Palestinians outside Israel are controlled by their respective dictatorships, who allow virtually no freedoms, such as speech or the vote. No apartheid.

Lie #4: Israel is committing war crimes. War crimes include torture, hostage taking, acts of terrorism, rape and intentional targeting of civilians. While Hamas committed all these acts on October 7, Israel commits none. Though some media bristle at what they consider excessive civilian deaths during Israeli military efforts, in fact, Israel attacks only military structures and personnel—never civilian-only targets. Unfortunately, Hamas places its fighters in dense residential areas or in tunnels beneath them, endangering civilians. No Israeli war crimes.

Lie #5: Israel brutally oppresses the Palestinians daily. Oppression is the malicious exercise of power to discriminate against some groups. Because Israel completely exited Gaza in 2005, it has no power over of the daily lives of Gazans. However, because of Hamas’s continuous terror, especially efforts to kill Jews and destroy the Jewish state, Israel and Egypt have placed Gaza under a strict blockade to prevent terror attacks. Likewise, because of the Oslo Accords, Israel and the Palestinian Authority share governance of Judea and Samaria (the West Bank). Thus, Israel plays virtually no role governing Palestinians daily lives and only enters Palestinian-controlled areas when terrorists flee to and hide in them. No oppression.

Above all, Israel and the U.N. have made numerous offers of land for an independent Palestinian state. Unfortunately, the Palestinians have turned down five offers of land for peace since 1948, three of them over the last 23 years. Apparently, their dream of conquering Israel “from the land to the sea” is more important.

The bestiality of the October 7 massacre shocked us—beheadings, incineration, rape, torture, heartless executions, brutal kidnappings. Even worse, the gates have opened to unlimited Jew hatred on American streets and campuses—to condoning savagery with the excuse of Palestinian liberation . . . based on utter lies about the Jewish state. But Hamas and the haters should know that “Never Again,” means fighting and defeating evil forever.

[nightside-of-siberia]

Headcanons: Ragatha

they're incredibly toxic;

they met just after Agatha accidentally killed her coven;

co-dependent to a fault;

have makeup sex as often as they have non-makeup sex;

Rio is the reason for Agatha's deep-seated survivalist streak;

their default sex mode is rough and kinky, with a side of BDSM;

Rio is typically a top, but bottoms for Agatha;

they enable the worst of each other's vices - i.e., Agatha's alcoholism, Rio's slightly unhinged behaviour;

they're very territorial/possessive of each other;

they'd been drifting apart even before Nicholas' birth, but any remaining emotion they'd had for each other had all but fizzled out upon his death;

Agatha's conflicted about her feelings for Rio: she still loves her, but she also hates her for taking Nicholas away from her;

Rio is much less conflicted about the whole thing: she loves Agatha, and doesn't get why Agatha's so mad at her - it wasn't personal, and the fact that Agatha got any time with the kid at all was a gift;

Agatha doesn't see the whole, 'time with Nicholas' thing as a gift - as far as she's concerned, that's the life that she (they) should've been living, and the fact that Rio was - in her eyes - so insistent upon taking that away from her (them) is like a knife to the heart;

Rio struggles with the break-up a lot more than Agatha does - Agatha'd already been growing a bit bored of the relationship and the humdrum mundanity of it, whereas that's kinda exactly what Rio wants (especially after a hard day at work where she has to watch people struggle with death of everyone from a parent to a child to a sibling to someone they thought they'd never have to live without)?!;

Rio also struggles to let go of the fact that Agatha had all but promised (to love and be with) her forever and for always, so the fact that that could just . . . not be a thing anymore?! she doesn't understand;

the little flower Rio'd been carrying throughout the show? it's the exact same flower that they'd picked out to be their flower, back when things had been simpler and Agatha's been little more than a teen who still thought that that was the cutest, most special thing that a couple could do, ever.

[saintsenara]

Potions Master Edition: Slughorn/Snape. Was prodigiously talented Severus a Slug Club favourite, rewriting the textbook in the corner of their get-togethers? Or not, due to him being poorly connected, poorly socialised and well, poor? If not, there’s some delicious resentment baked in there. But Sluggy manages to get Sev to willingly attend a Christmas party! Add a splash of Lily to the cauldron for some extra toxicity.

thank you very much for the ask, anon!

i don't ever imagine that snape was in the slug club. and partially this is for exactly the reasons you describe - slughorn obviously likes those with pretty faces and pretty manners, which snape doesn't have - but it's also because the teenage snape has no interest whatsoever in playing the game when it comes to how class functions in the wizarding world.

slughorn is evidently keen on taking on passion projects from among the group of hogwarts students who are at a disadvantage in a society which assigns such weight to name and lineage - especially if they're male, since it appears both that the trend in the wizarding world is generally for married women not to work and that it is more acceptable for a man to marry a non-pureblood woman and pass down his name than it is for a woman to marry a non-pureblood man. as we know from half-blood prince, he delights in finding little protegés he can use his connections to set up in ministry internships and then manipulate for the rest of their lives on the basis of their dependence on his patronage.

[i.e. dirk cresswell, muggleborn head of the goblin liaison office.]

we see this at play in canon in slughorn's treatment of tom riddle. but, while the teenage voldemort rejects the jobs slughorn tries to arrange for him, he does play the game while at school, simpering politely through slug club meetings and sending slughorn box after box of [presumably stolen] pineapple.

the teen snape has no such interest in doing this. while the teenage riddle we meet in chamber of secrets and half-blood prince has sanded off many of his rougher edges [the eleven-year-old riddle, for example, is written in a way which suggests he has an accent and uses words and expressions which would be understood as working class; the sixteen-year-old version does not], the snape we meet in snape's worst memory is still visibly working-class in his speech and mannerisms, and i can easily imagine this being a source of pride for him [a sort of "fuck these posh cunts who think they're better than me" vibe] while at school, especially in the way it would impact his relationship with james and sirius.

[and also the way that it would impact his relationship with lily, who does play the game. i think you can do something really interesting with snape thinking that going to the slug club, losing her accent, taking james' pureblood name etc. is her "selling out" - never realising that lily both may want to do these things, but also has to, since they're the only way she's going to survive as a muggleborn in the wizarding world.]

slughorn's going to view him as a lost cause.

but could the adult snape and the adult slughorn get together? maybe.

as you say, snape's going to harbour a huge amount of resentment against slughorn, not only for ignoring his genius when he was at school but also for doing literally nothing to prevent his radicalisation. it is impossible to imagine that people like lucius malfoy, rodolphus and rabastan lestrange, barty crouch jr., evan rosier etc. weren't slughorn's favourites - and, of course, we know regulus black was - and slughorn must have had a very good idea why they were taking an interest in someone like snape, he was just too afraid of voldemort [and of admitting to dumbledore that he'd told voldemort about horcruxes] to do anything about it.

but it's also the case that snape must be aware that slughorn has been brought back to hogwarts during half-blood prince so that he too can be a pawn in dumbledore's schemes. i think you could do something deliciously toxic with snape finding himself drawn to slughorn because of a shared sense that they're both being fucked over by dumbledore - and i think this could lead into some excellent hurt/comfort during the year in which snape's headmaster when slughorn, who must remember snape's affection for lily, begins to suspect that all is not what it seems...

but there's another potential snape/slughorn dynamic i think it's worth discussing, which comes with a trigger warning for the topic of the sexual abuse of a student by a teacher and which is under the cut.

in the films, slughorn is played as avuncular and broadly sexless - with the result that his wheeling and dealing comes across as grasping and a bit pitiable, but generally harmless.

the slughorn of the books, in contrast, is straightforwardly creepy.

he is involved in his students' private lives to an extent we see from no other teacher [his interest in harry's relationship with ginny, for example]. he socialises with students in private in ways which are abnormal within the hogwarts context - it's clearly acceptable for students to be alone in teachers' private offices for detention, but much less so for them to be called in for a glass of wine or to offer their teachers presents... he is happy to let his favourites bend the rules, but also to let them know he's doing so [lestrange and avery have clearly been allowed to be quite late with their essays - and to attend a slug club party while they're still outstanding - before slughorn finally puts his foot down]. the way his habit of "collecting" students - and the life-long influence he then goes on to assert over them - is described makes it sound exceptionally sinister, particularly since the text emphasises that many of his favourite students are also very good-looking. and he is famously willing to receive gifts in exchange for... favours.

and it is very striking that slughorn's two favourite pupils - voldemort and lily - have relationships with slughorn which differ in terms of their power dynamics than, for example, slughorn's relationship with someone like harry.

with harry - as, we can assume, with the children of rich, socially prominent, and politically influential families - slughorn is looking to bask in their reflected glow, and receive social cachet for being connected to them ["i can introduce you to harry potter", "well, of course, i know damocles belby terribly well", and so on].

with pupils who lack this social prominence, he is seeking to mould them into creatures who will do his bidding and rely on him for support [voldemort will be minister for magic in a decade "if you keep sending me pineapple"]. these pupils are made dependent on slughorn for their post-hogwarts position in the wizarding world, they are clearly expected to be grateful to him, and they are clearly expected to do things to butter him up which their posher peers are not.

they also lack the social power to risk rejecting him - i think it's very striking in half-blood prince that harry, ron, and ginny find the idea of hermione trapped in slug club meetings funny, without considering that, as a muggleborn woman, hermione needs the connections someone like slughorn can provide her even if she doesn't enjoy what she has to go through in order to make them. the same would be true for lily - at least until she married - and it would be doubly true for voldemort, who is not only presumed to be muggleborn by most people he encounters, but who lacks any sort of family support in the muggle world too.

[and voldemort refusing slughorn's job offers in his seventh year absolutely tanks their relationship - in a way which the horcrux conversation, which takes place when voldemort's in sixth year, does not. i think this is really worth thinking about both when unravelling why slughorn never becomes a death eater and when thinking about why voldemort is at borgin and burkes for a decade and has no political success until he has divorced himself from his old name and old appearance...]

snape - poor, saddled with his muggle father's name, friendless, under the radar of the rest of his teachers [james and sirius evidently get away with bullying him without any really onerous punishment], uncouth, desperate to be recognised for his talents, and so on - is an ominously plausible target to be groomed and abused by a teacher such as slughorn, who could act with impunity [relatively] safe in the knowledge that their social positions [even before we get into the power dynamic inherent between a student and a teacher] mean that snape would never be able to articulate what was happening to him and be believed...

and i talk a lot about how - when we think about how snape was radicalised into becoming a death eater - we need to recognise that voldemort appears to be the first person he ever encounters who offers him a chance at power and status which transcends the limitations of his class background. this dynamic could be made all the more potent if we imagine that voldemort is also the first person to believe him when he talks about being slughorn's victim...

and to promise him that he will offer him a chance for revenge.

[pawberri]

I have one teeny tiny question pertinent to your post about psychosis screening: what if I already know I'm psychotic but I like not knowing what the inside of grippy sock jail is like?

Forced institutionalization is a real risk for psychotic people, but is more likely if you have negative interactions with police or people like ER nurses and/or admit to being so suicidal that you are a risk to yourself (you shouldn't be automatically institutionalize you for saying you're suicidal) or so violent that you're a risk to others (you shouldn't be automatically institutionalize you for any violent thoughts.) Your admissions to a psychiatrist, psych evaluation psychologist, or therapist about psychosis should not risk institutionalization. Having a psychotic disorder diagnosis won't result in institutionalization. The info also isn't publicly available to anyone, and only government orgs like the DMV can really get access to your diagnostic info AFAIK.

But if you're concerned

1. Be careful of how you respond to "do you want to harm yourself or others" questions. (i.e I used to say "I have thoughts but don't want to act on them") Most therapists know that they have a legal duty to report certain things, but good ones will try to avoid doing so unless it's very extreme.

2. Don't talk to the cops, and be careful how you act around non-mental health medical professionals (like if you're in the ER for a mental health emergency)

3. Getting into therapy and psychiatry will help you avoid forced institutionalization by cops by helping you have control of yourself and not risk public breakdowns that could be punished by the cops by 50150ing

4. If you are 50150ed, they can only keep you for two to four days against your will before having to go through the court to keep you there. Usually you'll have the option to become a voluntary patient after (aka gain the ability to leave.) Court ordered institutionalization is meant to be the "last resort" and hard to do, but there are cases where psychotic people are not given a fair shake in these court hearings. Having a psychiatrist, therapist, and support system will help you in this scenario, though. It will also help to avoid ever being subjected to the court system to begin with.

6. Make sure your therapist is a leftist or someone who believes that the mentally ill deserve human rights and not to be institutionalized. There are websites like inclusivetherapist where therapists are clear on their politics. Be careful with what info you give to your psychiatrist.

None of it guarantees safety, and we live in an unjust world, so there's always risk, but getting help is worth some amount of risk. This gets worse with racism and other intersectionalities. You should also research the law in your country and state. The worst outcome is not guaranteed

[horizon-verizon]

Isn't it "funny" how Rhaena (the BB, Dreamfyre's first rider)'s connections to both her daughter and mother have so many shapes of the need for freedom metaphoircally represented through flight? Rhaena at one point promises to give Aerea access to a trove of eggs to pick from, when at KL, even though she was the center of most attentions she was not assured the same for whatever eggs the Keep may have had nor did Jaehaerys ever encourage (purposefully) her like Rhaena.

Alyssa may not have been a Targaryen, but the way she "allows" (it was an arranged marriage even if a happy one; another important bit is the cultivtion after the wedding) her future children the highest possible places in society by essentually sacrificining her body in the institution of marriage. Only for them all to be put in the worst kinds of dnager because of their proximity to that power, it's so dizzying and suffocating, and she has to continue to sacrifice her body and mind towards all her kids--or those she had at hand--lives or public faces....only for Jaehaerys to essentially domestically betray her by leaving her to marry and live with a man who publicly humiliated her and tried to usurp him! For her to die of childbirth, for a child--no hate to Jocelyn, ever--she nor Rogar didn't even "need" as an heir or a spare! A woman who's played the game and was shunted off for the better of it in the end.

Rhaena also sacrifices her own autonomy & safety for her children (Maegor, BB, Tyanna), was willing to risk losing the throne for her brother-husband Aegon and herself before that. While she expresses her resentments in--to some people--a too disfavorable way--really, what it isa is that people are so uncomfortable seeing a woman not emotionally and behviorally comply so obviously and "carelessly"--she acknowledges Aerea's distress...only it's too late bc she had fallen into a dreary miasma of trauma that also didn't allow heer to say goodbye to her mother for the last time.

Do you see?! It's all so written so well, the cycle of not abuse per se, but overdependent resentful expression for women/girls of different places of entrapment, like different stages of womanhood but never in a static stereotypical way:

never having known what is is like to "fly" (have the sort of access to both a political tool of one's own value as well as an "escape" in a nondemanding creature, i.e., a dragon), the matron who's "rewards" turned to ash, the post-storm -- Alyssa

having lived a privileged life and that mode of power in society /self-assurance outside of it, you're still caught up and damaged by the machinations of those still having that much power over you, the storm -- Rhaena

having had little real knowledge of the going on before and around you that shapes your life and why you spent so much time in your morst fomative years away from your mother and like her, also not knowing the depth of your own future entrapments in marriage and being another "threat" to a male relative's own power, the child/pre-storm -- Aerea

I'm not making much sense, but it's slowly percolating....

[qqueenofhades]

Extremely stupid and contradictory question that I still want an answer to, but what is it that makes people want a dictatorship with progressive values?

For that matter, why is it that nearly all dictatorships are so fundamentally built on conservative/authoritarian ideals and values?

Why doesn't genuinely good values ever end up being the core value that gets enforced with ruthless brutality instead of people twisting themselves into knots to justify always sinking to the worst possible impulses built on hatred?

Is decency just fundamentally anathema to it?

This is one of those questions where you're actually asking several different things at once, and it will take a lot of work for me to explain and contextualize everything that you're looking for. However, I do think this is important to understand, so I'll give it a shot.

First, if I may point out, you've answered a bit of your own question when you ask "why don't genuinely good values ever end up being enforced with ruthless brutality?" I think it's fair to say that if your values were actually good or something that would broadly benefit the lives of most people, they would not need to be enforced with ruthless brutality. This is the case regardless of which ideology your totalitarian dictatorship is built on; i.e. conservative Christian fascism or left-wing old-school communism/People's Republics. Because a dictatorship, no matter which values it claims to use to justify itself, never exists to benefit people. A dictatorship exists to vest supreme power in one person or system and totally disenfranchise everyone else, and it is not, regardless of what some people on the internet in 2023 seem to think, a tool of social justice. Marginalized groups who have a hard time in a traditionally white/culturally Christian Western democracy will nonetheless have an orders of magnitude worse time under a dictatorship, as will everyone else. It is not something you should wish for under any circumstances, and also represents a naïve Western privilege where, having grown up with the unpleasant consequences of late-stage capitalism, people go for the fallacy that old-school communism must be better! Except it isn't, and when you totally blow over and ignore the objections of people who actually grew up under those regimes and warn you that they're not so great, you're just straight-up projecting and wishful thinking. It has nothing to do with reality or history or what anyone should aspire to.

The idea has existed in human society for thousands of years that if you can just get a "benevolent dictator" or "merciful autocrat," who can be trusted to rule with supreme power, do what's right for everyone, and get rid of the messy and flawed process of representative democracy that never seems to quite fix society's biggest problems. However: this doesn't work, it has never worked, there have been countless wars fought over this question, and it would certainly never, ever work in a setting as complex as the globalized twenty-first century. The Online Leftists who want Bernie Sanders, an old white man, to be their all-powerful dictator -- that is, uh, not the Social Justice Flex (tm) you think it is. And as noted, a dictator of any stripe is fundamentally anathema to actual progressivism or social justice, and anyone who loudly wants one (or thinks that the American president should act like one) is exposing both their profoundly immature understanding of the situation and a worrisome thirst for tyrannical despotism as long as it has "the right ideas." This has, again, caused countless wars and numberless deaths, because "the right ideas" will never be universal, universally agreed upon, or anything else, and if they're enforced with violence, you have -- again -- a dictatorship! It's not great!

In chaotic and uncertain times, people tend to want a "strong leader" who they can trust to just fix all their problems and relieve them from the burden of governance or worrying how things are going to work out. This was first articulated in modern Western political philosophy by Thomas Hobbes, who wrote his Leviathan in the mid-17th century during the English Civil War. Basically, his idea was that the people should democratically elect an absolute monarch/leader, who would then rule with an iron fist and retain supreme power, because they couldn't be trusted to govern themselves. (Hobbes is also where we get the pessimistic description of life being "nasty, brutish, and short.") Because things are bad right now, people likewise tend to want an absolute monarch of either right or left political persuasion, but these are both very bad options and should be equally resisted.

Democracy is flawed, imperfect, slow, cumbersome, and contradictory. It can be badly hijacked and corrupted (as we've seen in the last few years) by money, misinformation, bad-faith actors, and more. It is also still always, 100%, all-of-the-time preferable to a dictatorship. People still fall for the idea that having an absolute monarch who just "makes things happen" right away without the cumbersome apparatus of congresses or senates or supreme courts of judges would be "better," and totally ignore the massive and systemic disenfranchisement it would impose on everyone else. Especially in our current misogynist white-supremacist homophobic etc. system; the dictator WOULD be a rich white dude and let's not even pretend otherwise. Even if he made a play at being "progressive," it would not be true and it would not last. Absolute power corrupts absolutely, etc. etc. I do not want a dictatorship. I do not want to live in a dictatorship. I don't care what Good Intentions (tm) anyone has, because I think that anyone who wants to be a dictator or to live under a dictatorship has a very different idea of Good Intentions than I, or indeed most sane people, do. The end.

Yes, America is a deeply flawed country. Yes, it is built on systemic and ongoing racial and cultural white-settler-colonial genocide. However, where modern leftists struggle the most is the idea that two things can be true, because they're so deeply sunk into black-and-white, zero-sum thinking where if one thing is true, it rejects all the others. If we have a flawed democracy, the solution is to fix that democracy, not to just throw it out the window and cavil for an absolute monarch. You can be fiercely critical of America's imperialist actions, unnecessary wars, racist violence, and everything else while also realizing that if the first and oldest presidential democratic republic in existence was dismantled or turned into a fascist autocracy, it would be absolutely terrible for many, many countries around the world, and humankind in general. You do not have to subscribe to the nonsensical, navel-gazing tankie "logic" that America is the only country with (evil) agency ever, and everyone else in the world is just its helpless pawns. You do not have to subscribe to the idea that any work within the system, or accepting basic political realities, makes you a "bootlicking neoliberal shill" or whatever they're using to insult anyone who doesn't just live in their distorted bubble of self-righteous ignorance. You don't!

As I always say, the only people who really want a dictatorship are those who know that their ideas aren't popular enough to win a free and fair election, but think they "deserve" to be in power anyway, because etc. etc. My Ideas Are Better! (Spoiler alert: they are not.) This is the same whether it's the Republicans trying to outlaw elections or the Online Leftists who sanctimoniously refuse to engage with the civic process because it's "contaminating" for their Pure Ideas to make any compromise with reality. And yet those so-called progressives are utterly dependent on us Normie Liberals who actually vote against the rabid fascists, and are (just barely) holding the line. Because yes, in a liberal democracy, they do have the right to be sanctimonious, useless, toxic, holier-than-thou ideologues who sit on their asses and contribute nothing to the actual dirty process of change. But if the Normie Liberals haughtily refused to vote in the same way the Online Leftists do, the fascists WOULD be in complete control by now, and trust me, it would be grim.

To be frank, I think most, if not all, of what calls itself "Western leftism" has categorically and completely failed as a moral, political, or practical opposing force to right-wing fascism. Much of it is dependent on savagely backbiting even those people who already agree with you, refusing to take basic steps to enact change even incrementally (i.e. voting), and attacking the establishment liberal party, i.e. the Democrats in America, while vocally supporting foreign dictatorships as long as they're "anti-American" or ancestrally "socialist." We've seen the utter failure of Western leftists at developing a moral stance on Ukraine, a consistent opposition to Trump, or pretty much anything else that requires them to come down from their high horses and accept a more complex reality than their abstract purity tests or outright nonsensical clichés. And when you're attacking the Democrats nonstop and backing foreign dictatorships, that is, uh, pretty much the exact same thing that the fascist Republicans are doing. Which means both of these groups are profoundly and dangerously anti-democratic, anti-liberal, anti-intellectual, and anti-humanity. There's no way around it.

In short, so-called "progressives" want a dictatorship because they too have given up on democracy, don't believe that people at large are as "smart" as they are, and don't want actual praxis or the effort of making change within a flawed democracy. They subscribe instead to the magical thinking that an absolute monarch will instantly and benevolently fix everything, which has -- as noted -- been violently disproved over and over in human history, and they think that "leftism" consists of having the most "pure" views. They do not care about or actively deplore any idea of making compromises to put them into practice, they gain moral superiority by excluding more and more people to make a smaller and smaller in-group, they refuse to accept any information, history, or factual evidence that contradicts their beliefs, and they're just as angrily anti-intellectual as the worst Christian-fascist-nutjob-right-winger, because reality has a bad habit of being complicated and not fitting into neat boxes. And if you think, as I do, that it would be a very, very bad idea to trust these mean, vindictive, constantly-want-to-punish-everyone-who-is-not-exactly-like-them people with absolute power, then you'll have to move to the idea of accepting that for all its flaws, democracy is still the best and most just system we have yet invented for governing ourselves, and the idea is to fix ours, not get rid of it entirely. So yeah.

[billyjoecobra]

JOSEPH JOESTAR CHARACTER ANALYSIS (1)

I never see anyone talk or analyze Joseph very often in the fandom, which is tragic because i believe he's very complex!! So here's some thoughts to chew on, rattle around in your head a bit. It's all under the cut, and it is LONG AS HELL because i have a LOT to say on him!!! Warning though, it's not super properly punctuated as these are discord rambles of mine, but -- enjoy nonetheless!!

i think it's super interesting to note how every time someone puts joseph down, or does something shitty to him, he just doesn't care. not a single bit. he even says it's fine, maybe even deserved sometimes. he assumes people always thinks the worst of him, and yet doesn't really care aside from the one time he dressed in drag and got insulted about it. even then he was just kind of, "man. i looked hot though.." however every time someone even remotely upsets his friends or hurts those who don't deserve it or his family he goes. ABSOLUTELY APESHIT. he will get SO fighty.

he will immediately throw hands and hurt you physically without thinking about it he likes to put assholes in their place sometimes (i.e. the taxi driver, the nazis who insulted him. and any nazi really ) but that is different than really caring about what they say to him. i think he has a very strong moral code, though people tend to see him as quite dubious because of his loud and obnoxious behavior every consequence to his actions, he only worries what others close to him will think and he can easily be driven to a blind rage revenge if you dare to hurt his family in any way. because you DONT fuck with his family. family is the no. 1 thing he cares about

beating up racist cops? he only feels bad because he doesn't want to stress out erina with the thought of bailing him out. told speedwagon is dead? he's upset, but he keeps his cool and throws a punch at the guy for upsetting erina, and worries more about her comfort than his own. guys hijacking a plane and holding him hostage? he couldnt care less if he was the hostage, he only cared enough to stop it because it might risk getting speedwagon hurt. and it goes on

and for the sake of his family he keeps purposefully trying to risk himself to death repeatedly. when fighting kars lets not forget when he shot kars into space and his thoughts were about how he was ok with dying if it meant his family was safe i think . and i said this before this is just me getting my thoughts out way more eloquently with points i've already touched on before. but.

in a non emo way, it's really hit me how he isn't like. beat up about it. about assuming ppl always think the worst of him. he cares way more about others than himself type of guy thats like similar to "they're friendly but after awhile of their support and talking to them you realize to your horror you dont actually know anything about them at all" other than he's like. bold and brash and likes to start fights sometimes oh and lest we forget he also tends to take the death of loved ones so hard to the point that no matter the circumstances true causes he always blames himself.

he always blames himself and gets a bit. ummmmm i wouldn't say suicidal but like way too risky with his life and stops really caring if he'll die. he's just so used to nobody ever understanding him and his "off kilter" tbh neurodivergent way of thinking and living that he. like. he doesn't exactly have great self image beyond thinking he has sexy lips which sounds so silly but it's true and again it's not something he dwells on it's just kind of, A Fact to him. and this isn't even touching on the slew of issues i'm sure speedwagon's constant comparing of him to his dead grandfather must have caused.

It's very evident to me that he has ALWAYS felt like a burden to some degree i think. even when erina and speed havent really treated him as such. This is why I think his dynamic with speedwagon would be pretty strained / already seems as such -- bc. As I said before, he's ALWAYS comparing him to jonathan, even when he was just a kid.

NOW BY ALL MEANS!! I DO NOT THINK speedwagon means any ill will. it's just something that he just keeps.. doing because. well he respected jonathan so much, and it kind of clouds how he sees joseph because -- well, joseph is the SPITTING IMAGE of him. But not intending harm does not mean he hasn't caused any by doing that -- comparison can WRECK you pretty bad. joseph has made it clear that he knows he's nothing like jonathan in any regards except looks and i think it kind of contributes to his overall. tanked self image. and also the fact that he's a reminder of the tragedy of losing his parents ( or so they thought for a while. yk )

he deeply cares for him still, this much is true. he always will. but, it doesn't negate the serious comparison issue, constantly being told "WOW you have an attitude not at ALL like your grandpa, he would have never done x!! how do you look like him while being such an angry kid!!"

..... said without real malice or really bad intention, more out of exasperation. but. those kinds of things stick with kids. yknow? Joseph's always bottled up his emotions and tried to be on his best behavior for erina's sake. hes always a little more open with speedwagon. but .............. BWGHGURUGURGGH!!!!!!! i could go on for hours about it ok. but i shall move on to my next point now.

what sucks about it though is that the fandom tends to gloss over these bit of characterization at every turn. there is a lot of sadness and concerning things surrounding joseph that he just simply SHRUGS OFF about that it's kinda concerning! not that he'd ever really see a problem with it.

the fact that he was prepared to die / did the bet if only to distract them long enough to let caesar and speedwagon get away... you COULD maybe read it as a little bit of self preservation but given how he handles literally all other instances of him possibly dying., and the circumstances of him leading whammuu away being to SAVE those two. I think it yet again falls in line with "who gaf if i die i care if THEY die". then he gets stressed about the time he has left. which i imagine would stress ANYONE honestly. but . part of me thinks that it's also because this means that he has a short time to make sure he can be strong enough to protect everyone he loves and cares for..

that isn't ALL there is, of course. but i feel like with his behavior that is probably a big reason of it. You can summarize it all with one sentence; essentially,

joseph isn't afraid of death, nor dying himself; he's afraid of his loved ones dying.

This fact is extremely present in everything he does and says, but especially so when Caesar's death hits. THAT, however, i will make it's own post on. I have a lot to say on that and how it fucked him up for life. For now, though, I will move on and touch on another topic.

for all the loud opinions joseph seems to also speak none of it is ever really looked into much deeper as anything more than " he's just being joseph again" and he never really elaborates on it either, hence why a lot of people don't know much about him. While he is schrodinger's himbo -- too stupid to be smart, too smart to be stupid -- it's clearly all an act to get people to lower their expectations of him. He doesn't like being taken as a joke though. that he is a hater of for sure so. Joseph hides his true self behind a mask of idiocy and lackadaisical attitude to the point where it's blended into his actual truest self and he can hardly tell what's real and what's the mask. But at the same time, Joseph gets very angry when nobody takes him seriously because of his facade and trying to make everyone lower their expectations of him so he can pull the rug out from under them.

He's so mad when people don't take him serious but then continues to act pretty unserious and it's like. Well if you want them to take you more seriously bro you should stop doing that. Stop lowering others expectations so you can kick their asses or have a general upper hand just in case ( but he won't 💖)

he is a bit of a polarizing character but i hate when fandom reduces him to just "funny goofster" or ""cheater"", or writes him off as annoying with no depth to him. To judge Joseph through a lense of solely good or solely bad is a terrible idea; that man is gray moraled as HELL, he has a strong sense of self justice while also being incredibly underhanded and sneaky. If you dislike him, that's fine -- but don't discount his complexity just cause of that!!! He's not puddle deep, there's a lot of facets to how truly fucked up he is.

yeah. he is goofy, and he's a cheater at many things. but there's a lot to him. HE'S COMPLEX!!!!

[1001aus]

@wearerandomlyyours IceMav time travel au has lived in my mind for a while now. Also I have Chronic Worldbuilding Syndrome and started having thoughts about Ice and Mav telling the brass that they met at Top Gun leading to the eventual creation of the program and policies put into place that will ensure it's the same as they described (i.e. teaching positions reserved for trophy winners, being located at Miramar).

Anyway.

I Wrote A Thing.

(Disclaimer: as this au does not belong to me, I make no promises that this will be compliant with anything that may get written by randomlyyours (that is their name on ao3. go check them out) in the future. I cannot promise that this is an au they are working on at all.)

---------‐

Mike has a suspicion about Duke's kid before he ever earns his callsign.

It starts as a funny thought: wouldn't it be a laugh if Duke was named after his own son. Duke being named after his son's cover identity which was probably named after him—Mike doesn't have the clearance to know more than what he needs to so he can identify Blizzard and Wild Thing when they come to Top Gun, not even what year to expect them although he's sure it's in the files somewhere—the exact order of events makes for a chicken-or-the-egg question for when he has nothing better to do than navel gazing.

Then he hears that Pete Mitchell is rejected from the academy because of who his father was. That burns him as much for the possibility he hadn't realized he felt so strongly about as much as it does because he knows the things people say about his wingman are lies.

For a while he assumes he was wrong; that's the end of it and doesn't think about that stray idea again.

Their first class roster for the class of '86 seems to confirm that. Mike wouldn't be cleared to know about Blizzard and Wild Thing if someone high up didn't expect him to be teaching them and Iceman looks like a perfect candidate. Blizzard and Wild Thing meet for the first time at Top Gun, that's why he's read in. Hell, it's why the program exists in the first place.

None of the other pilots have callsigns that line up, but it could be Cougar if he squints. Then Cougar turns in his wings less than a week before they start and Stinger sends the only other pilot on the Enterprise worth sending.

Pete Mitchell. Maverick.

That funny thought is worth something after all.

"Well, I'll be damned."

"Mike?"

He pulls the files out of the stack and offers them to Rick. It doesn't take more than a minute for Rick to understand what he's looking at.

"So it's finally happening, huh? They look just like the pictures."

"Explains why Wild Thing flew like he had a chip on his shoulder."

"That it does." Rick snorts out a laugh. "Either the pair of them will be our best students or our worst."

Yeah, Mike's already dreading that. He still isn't sure if he should tell the kid Duke flew on his wing or if that would just make more problems. Gonna have to play that one by ear.

Mitchell's got a chip on his shoulder the size of Texas and Kazansky's shooting for stars. They're the only real competition the two of them have got in this class and they're sharp enough to know it. There isn't much information available on Blizzard and Wild Thing before their grand entrance to the war, but Mike's willing to bet the first impressions don't go smoothly.

"The worst. Ten bucks says."

"Pretty confident there. Sure, I'll take that bet."

(Rick gives him his winnings at the end of the first day.)

[praxcrown5]

I was taking geology classes last year so ummm what's the natural disaster that you dread the most?

And also do you ever think about the insane amounts of erosion required to make the cliffs in Cars look like actual cars?

So, before I started teaching geology, I was afraid of volcanoes and tornadoes. Now that I know more about both, neither really terrify. I have seen volcanic eruptions first hand, clambered around on fresh pyroclastic flows, looked down into smoking craters, hugged giant blocks of obsidian...and while the power that they possess is mind-boggling...they can only hurt you if you live near one (which I don't). When doing field work, I was well aware of the dangers of working on an active volcano...and if something would have happened beyond my control, I'd have died...probably well before I was even aware of anything. But that was a calculated risk. I put myself in harms way to collect data that could be used to save lives...which is a lot different than having one's house rocked by an eruption. This does happen, but again, mostly to people living in the shadow of these mountains...and even then, if an eruption does occur, usually there is enough warning to at least get the heck out of dodge. Climate altering eruptions (i.e. Yellowstone) are so rare that you have a better chance of winning the lottery AND getting struck by lighting in the same instant than ever having to live through one. So...yeah, not too concerned. As for tornadoes, I currently live by the Great Lakes. My house has a much higher likelihood of being buried by lake-effect snow than blown down by a tornado. And even when I lived in Texas, right in the heart of Tornado Alley, it was still more likely for a tornado to miss your house than plow into it.

Right now, the only natural disasters I fear are those not covered by my homeowners insurance: Floods and ground movement. I live on a small escarpment, and there has never been a flood big enough to reach my house as far back as records go. So, not an issue. Earthquakes can happen here...but they tend to be small. Ground subsidence is more likely, but since ours is an older house, most of the subsidence that comes with new development has already happened. Climate change, on the other hand, is a very real thing that has been changing weather patterns. Two years ago, I survived the worst blizzard I've ever seen, one that dumped nearly eight feet of snow on my house in three days...then it all melted within a week accompanied by rain. Who knows what the future holds, or whether the house will hold up to the challenges. We'll have to wait and see...

I am still in AWE of the first cars movie and how much research they did to make Ornament Valley look as good as they did. You need only look up Monument Valley, AZ or Bryce Canyon or Arches National Park or The Grand Canyon to see real examples of how weathering and erosion can do amazing things with solid rock...given enough time. One of the little details that I like is that they also have correct geology too. Like, if you look at Willie's Butte, you can see that there is a caprock of resistant rock and that the layers beneath are thinner and look like they're made of shale or claystone, both of which weather faster than rocks like sandstone or limestone. Even the Cadillac Range behind Radiator Springs looks a LOT like the Minarets, a series of jagged peaks in the Sierra Nevada. And the lighting! Don't even get me started on that. It's perfect. When I watch the movie, I feel like I'm there. It's very, very impressive.

Sorry if this response is long-winded... :D I could talk for hours about the geology of the Cars movies...

[sanest-bsd-delegate]

Hello!! I hope your having a good day/night but I was wondering if you could write dazai and sigma and other characters of your choice or not with a reader who has social anxiety disorder who gets chest pains and nausea from it thank you :D

Comfort Crowd

Headcanon: Even with anxiety, they help you find a comfort crowd Ft Sigma, Dazai

A/N: Gonna finish my old req first cause they deserve justice

ARMED DETECTIVE AGENCY

PORT MAFIA

MASTERLIST

HEADCANONS

Sigma:

Normally it was no joke when he first got to know you have social anxiety disorder.

he made sure you never were around people who you didn't knew, and made you stay away from large crowd knowing your condition (Let's be honest, he is scared himself that he might worsen the situation if he tried to help you with your anxiety)

I mean you live in a casino for god sake.

Sadly there are times when your presence is needed among the fellow Casino staff and members considering you were the cofounder of the casino itself, but worst of all you have to address all. (Let us assume, perry has three firetrucks-)

the constant fear of judgement would cloud up your mind. "Sigma what if they judge me?" "Calm down, it's alright love, breath in and out"

10/10 he holds hand whenever you are in public i.e outside your room, at gatherings, ANYWHERE.

Compliments you everytime he sees you, “you look good y/n”

Aww, he even tries to boost your self confidence with that!

It takes time for you to blend and adjust with some people, and he respects that. He wouldn't try to make you befriend people.

DOA makes you feel alive. Least Sigma does.

Sigma is caring enough and exactly knows how to calm you down.

Chest pains? He will run leaving everything and hug you tight, rub your back and make sure you drink water. I mean, even if you try to hid it he will know, He will just know.

Dazai:

Honestly, I think even with his supreme personality, he might as well as panic if he sees his loved one/s have any problem, especially an attack.

I would say, he rushes just like sigma, leaving everything behind and rubs your back, make you drink water and holds you tights while whispering, "Y/N just breath okay? Am here for you"

He is clueless about it.

It started with you both hanging out, and suddenly Dazai asked you a simple favour to pay the bill while he finishes eating, and oh boy you were sweating a lot.

"Y/N, Are you okay?"

Aww he is a late boomer, but he eventually figured it out.

He wouldn't avoid you from crowds, nor will advice you to stay where you are, but I think indirectly he will be helping you to cope up with it.

If you have pills, he makes sure you don't overdose. (Despite the fact he is ahem ahem)

He makes sure to carry those picture cards in his coat pocket, because somewhat he feels like if you ever feel dizzy and out of focus, the least he can do is get help from the cards.

I mean he is trying right?

I feel like he is to much emotional because after a time he is showing his true affections to someone other then his late friend Oda, and pretty much seeing them having attacks while he just stands there and panic, do nothing makes him feel downer then usual.

"Y/N am sorry, I couldn't help you better"

But we love his efforts.

btw, the cards helped him save his life he tries to waste, the bullet couldnt move pass the thicc cards.

[a-d-nox]

web of wyrd: the bottom-most number, your primary karmic lesson and the root chakra

the number we are focusing on today is based on the SUM OF YOUR PUBLIC ENERGY NUMBER, HIGHEST SELF NUMBER, AND YOUR DESTINY NUMBER - ex: as you see above, my number is 21 (9 + 10 + 2 -> 21). recall that numbers must be summed a second time if they total 23 (i.e. 2 + 3 -> 5) and above.

but what does this number mean?

this number represents our root chakra as well as our main karmic lesson. the root chakra is the first chakra we must unblock in order to work on the next chakra(s). when the root chakra is blocked people experience fear, anxiety, uncertainty, difficulty sleeping, constipation, fluctuations in weight, weakened immune system, fatigue, feeling unsafe in your environment, negativity, and/or doubt in your existence on earth. these are the first tasks you must face to move forward in this lifetime, thus they tend to be karmic issues leftover from past lives.

so let's talk about some examples:

8 - strength

rider-waite's strength card depicts a woman in white adorn in a flower belt and crown. she stares down at the noble lion while closing it's hungry mouth. the woman and her lion can be paralleled to the mythical characters persephone and cerberus. the card alludes to a perviously discussed card with flowers and an infinity symbol overhead - the magician. the two's reappearance illustrates worldly (the flowers) and spiritual (the infinite symbol over her head) abundance. she appreciates this abundance presently, as she does not face any given side of the card but rather faces the lion and corrects its gluttonous mouth. the lion appears ever happy to obey her maternal touch as it appears as docile as a domesticated animal - almost dog like. she models for the viewer that internal peace and self-confidence has the power to promote external peace in the world presently around her.

blocked 8s often have a lack of self confidence and may experience social anxiety. they may not trust themselves or their own body. oftentimes these people experience a moment in time where their body does not do what they wish it would. this can be something heredity, like a gene mutation that causes blood clotting or something along the lines of lupus - the point is that they tend to not trust their own bodies. they are thus less likely to trust themselves around others - fearing they might look weak and incapable. they often shut themselves in, embrace the feelings of being weak, and feel uncomfortable with being vulnerable around others.

enlightened 8s believe that they can be better and that they can overcome anything that keeps them down. they trust that they can handle anything that the world throws at them. they believe they can overcome any internal or external issues that arise - they face their fears without hiding from the speculation of others. they continue to proceed through each of life's various levels no matter how hard they may become. they aren't afraid to be vulnerable and seek help when needed.

the karmic lesson of 8s tends to originate in a lifetime in which they were overly prideful of their life. they may have been reckless and thought themselves invulnerable to the world around them. and more importantly, they could have thought they were invulnerable to the people around them - they could have been a cold individual who didn't mind hurting those who trusted them entirely and now they are set in this lifetime to be the person who must be vulnerable with others.

17 - the star

click here for the card description of the star found in a prior wyrd web post.

blocked 17s feel disconnected from the divine and often lack faith in the world around them. they suffer from a lack of hope which often causes them weakened immune systems or other health (mental or physical) issues. their mindset tends to control their life for the worst. they often don't trust others enough to be in their personal, intimate environment. they feel uncertain when creating because their inspiration tends to waver. it is their pessimism towards the world around them that keeps them down.

enlightened 17s, though they may feel like they do not belong, do have hope that they will find their people and they will persevere. they raise the spirits of those around them and inspire them with their confidence. they let creativity overtake them whenever it arises, not letting slumps bog them down or discourage them. they are often dealt a poor hand when it comes to health, but they don't let that stop them from believing they will get better

17s karmic lesson often comes from being someone in a pastlife who believed in nothing and trusted no one. they may have harmed others or discouraged them from believing in change and thus are "meant" to feel the pain they dealt others in this lifetime. they could have also (or alternatively) have been someone who was overly boastful about their talents and gifts and thus are meant to experience frequent blocks in this lifetime.

21 - the world

the depiction of the world, in rider-waite smith's deck, depicts a nude woman floating in the heavens surrounded by a laurel wreath - a greek symbol of victory. many cards are alluded to in this single one. her legs are in the akimbo position of the hanged man - showing that at the end of a journey we are, yet again, found at a crossroads as to what comes next. in the corners are the icons of the fixed signs of astrology that can be found in the wheel of fortune card. and the double-ended candles of the magician - showing the gained spiritual wisdom she has accrued. she glances over her shoulder showing her acknowledgement of this pervious journey but her hips angle her body to carry her forward to the future.

blocked 21s fear the ending of things and the future - they often have control issues. they aren't often willing to accept that the ending has come and gone. they experience a great deal of negativity when they lack-closure in a situation or have delayed gratification. they are prone to slipping into depressive states as they are the least willing to let go of how things once were.

enlightened 21s affirm themselves and provide themselves with their own closure without fear of what could be or could have been. they are ready for adventure and eager to seek it out. they humbly accept the reward(s) their pervious experiences provided them with. they celebrate their own wins - validating their own experiences and existence without needing to receive such from others.

the karmic lesson of 21s tends to be from a pastlife in which they were miserly and got in their own way. they were obsessed with keeping what they had and being celebrated/praised by others. they are now forced in this lifetime to often succeed in one facet of life and get pushed into the next phase without assurance from the world around them. they have to award themselves. they have to justify what they are doing and provide closure solely to themselves without external validation from others.

that's all for today. the next number we will be looking at is number in the center of the matrix.

like what you read? leave a tip and state what post it is for! please use my "suggest a post topic." button if you want to see a specific pac/pile next! if you'd like my input on how i read a specific card or what i like to ask my deck, feel free to use the ask button for that as well.

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© a-d-nox 2023 all rights reserved

[bestworstcase]

I think it'll be interesting when RWBYJ tells everyone about the ever after, specifically Oscar/Ozpin. I think that'll be a hell of a slap in the face to those two. Imo it's pretty clear that Oz doesn't like the Brothers (his lie for his curse literally puts them in the WORST light to anyone who hears it), but isn't exactly open about it nor does he think on it much. But hearing that the 'gods' are essentially just people who got kicked out of their home would make him. Well I hesitate to say that he'd flip the fuck out, but I definitely think he wouldn't be happy at ALL. I'm sure he'd be furious while simultaneously having an existential crisis.

Frankly, Oz is just. An interesting character when it comes to his thoughts on the Brothers. He went from more or less listening to Light without question (but immediately started questioning when Salem talked to him- "Unsure of where his loyalties still lay-" he trusts Salems words but is confused about his stance on Light, perhaps afraid of questioning him), to putting them in a bad light repeatedly and more or less giving up on his task (there's far far easier ways to unite the world i.e. war- why would he deliberately make it hard on himself? He's far from stupid. He still foes his best to foster peace because why wouldn't he?). And, now, he's actively fighting his curse, and is doing so the second he got an ounce of hope.

I think why he hasn't really thought of fighting the Gods is bc a) he's still scared of them (and it makes sense, I'd be scared too) and b) he never knew that they, well, were just people. I think he'd need some convincing, but I really think he'd be happy to try his hand at giving Light a piece of his mind lol. Something tells me Oz has millennia of bottled up anger- something will eventually be the straw that broke the camels back, as even the most resilient of people can break.

Though I think the biggest issue would be the idea of teaming up with Salem. He's bitter and terrified of her, and although we don't know exactly what's happened between them since their first fight (beyond Oz spending several lives as an alcoholic, then wandering Remnant being reminded of Salem (not necessarily bc he thought every Grimm attack was her, Grimm just remind him of her)), it's entirely possible Salem has also done... something to hurt him. No one's that bitter or terrified of someone for absolutely no reason, but whatever the reason is, that'll definitely be an obstacle between him being allied with her against the Gods. Plus she also, yknow, tortured him and allowed Hazel to torture him (which Oscar took most of it, but they're in the same body).

I think that interaction would be... interesting. Especially since I really don't think Oz even is 'Ozma' anymore. Ozma is the foundations yes, but the merge changes you fundamentally. He has changed his name every lifetime (if Oz doesn't accidentally answer to the name Oscar I'll eat my left shoe), but how much of him really is Ozma anymore? Ship of theseus and all that. If he, by all accounts, isn't 'Ozma' anymore and Salem isn't aware of this, I think it'd be an interesting revelation for her. There's similarities between Oz and how he used to be, but I feel like 'Ozma' is functionally a deadname for him (Oz trans/DID allegory? /j). Especially since I think Ozma is just- not who he is anymore. He's tried living up to the name, but he can't and he knows it (the words his illusion in v9 says speaks a lot to his mental state and his opinion of himself).

God speaking of his illusion on v9, I think it's incredibly clear that what each illusion says pertains to that character in some way. And it says so so much about Ozpin and how he sees himself. It's ironic how the God of Light, associated with creation, made him, yet he thinks that all he does is destroy. He's scarily good at splitting people apart just accidentally (i.e. v6, Summer basically throwing him under the bus thus STRQ broke apart and blamed him, etc) too. Yet Salem, immortal via Lights curse, made herself through Grimm and is very good at rallying people. Dunno, fun thought there (it's why swap aus are so damn tasty with these two).

Sorry for the long ask, I just wanted to ramble in your inbox for a bit. I have many thoughts about Oz.

not. to be snarky but

To live free or die, it’s all the same The enemy was right, there’s no reclaiming In waves of shame We’re desperate to make amends But through a simple soul we lie complacent  Love brings us dreams But grief makes the heart burst at the seams  As light fills my eyes I’ll picture me beside her And pray that I’ll inspire  I promise I’ll be here until the end I promise I’ll be here until… Our story has been told Til our bodies break down every door Til we find what we’ve been looking for

terrified she’ll never forgive him and terrified of what will happen if she confronts the gods again, yes. but terrified of her?

the enemy was right. we’re desperate to make amends. grief makes the heart burst at the seams. i’ll picture me beside her. ozma isn’t terrified of salem; he is, explicitly, ashamed of himself and desperate to make amends and longing for her.

listen. you don’t have to go salem did dot dot dot something to hurt him. we KNOW exactly what she did; rejected the mandate, fought him, burned him alive. they blew up their home and killed their own kids. is this insufficiently traumatizing to explain him.

similarly i do not have to go ozma did dot dot dot something to salem: we know exactly what he did. we know why she’s furious and bitter and still hurting. it is not ambiguous.

he’s spent the intervening centuries hiding inside a narrative where salem is the Great Evil he must defeat because the guilt he feels for deceiving and manipulating her and the grief for everything he sacrificed is so unbearable that he can’t touch it except through layers and layers of distortion. but it’s bleeding through the cracks everywhere. the infinite man tried to be a hero and is a fool who may not be worthy of forgiveness, ozpin suggests. look far enough ahead from the ending of the girl in the tower, and you’ll find the hero who saved her turned out to be a villain.

he hates salem. (he deserves her hatred.) this is the wrenching internal war he fights with himself day after day and life after life; the only way he can live with himself enough to function is by hating her, but the hatred is a fiction, a lie, to protect him from his fear. the truth is that he neither hates her nor deserves her hatred.

i am being intentional about calling him ozma, by the way. i am also intentional about when i call him ozpin or oz. i do not think ozma is a deadname. i don’t think ozma is an ideal he is trying and failing to live up to. he doesn’t identify himself as ozpin; he says “the professor ozpin you all met was not my first form.” he dons these other identities as a mask—i am the combination of countless men who have spent their lives trying to protect the people of remnant—because he hates himself. ozma is who he’s running away from because he doesn’t think ozma has ever been enough.

that is why. salem distinguishes between ozpin and ozma the way that she does. and why she is able to differentiate between oscar and ozma even when oscar is mimicking ozpin, because ozpin is the latest in a long series of masks that ozma wears.

(ozpin is tippetarius enforcing his own exile, and thus he became the wizard. ozma is the true self imprisoned by the curse. he’s… named ozma for a reason.)

”what if you could be anyone?” <- the blacksmith does not ask ruby this question because ruby needs to stop being herself in order to be happy. she offers ruby a metaphorical representation of ozma’s curse—what if you could be anyone, slip into a like-minded soul and become that person—in order to guide ruby to the realization that only her true self is the right fit. this is what i like to call blunt force foreshadowing.

ozma is trying to be a thousand different heroes and salem has only ever wanted ozma. ozma then is not the same person as ozma now, but ozma is ozma is ozma. the ship of theseus is the ship of theseus, then as now. on those who enter the same rivers, ever different waters flow. read heraclitus.

the thing is. yeah. he’s going to snap like a brittle twig when he learns the truth about the gods… because he already knows salem is right, deep down. the enemy is right. it bleeds through even into the lost fable, which is narrated in his voice. jinn’s telling—his telling—obfuscates and twists away from salem’s interiority, her feelings, her motives except for the moment of her realization about the brothers: perhaps the gods were not as powerful as they seemed; she had lied to them, turned them against each other; they were fallible.

the enemy is right. he knows she’s right.

hearing what the kids learned in the ever after is going to shatter the cognitive dissonance preventing him from acting on that knowledge. it’s going to surface ‘until the end’ but now joined to the hope he has—since the end of v8—that he can make amends for his cowardice and lies.

ozma apologizing to the kids and asking for a second chance to earn their trust was, uh, a practice run for ozma apologizing to salem and asking for a second chance. the fallout of the lost fable (“there was so much you hadn’t told us! how could you think that was okay!” and “i gave my life to you because you gave me a place in this world; i thought i was finally doing some good!”) is a reflection of salem’s distress. the narrative is on her side. because. he lied to manipulate her and grievously betrayed her trust. in exactly the same way he did to the kids.