#HE LOVED HIS MOTHER AND NOT HIS FATHER. DEIRDRE SAYS HE WAS A GOOD HUSBAND. HIS DAUGHTER ADORED HIM. HIS GENERAL AND CONFIDANTE WAS A WOMAN

[shibopanda]

Ok actually it drives me fucking insane that Arvis's Fire Emblem Wiki page says misogynistic in his personality section and that I can't even comment how that doesn't make any sense. Lads what the fuck are you TALKING ABOUT the only people he has ever loved and respected in his life save his little brother are all women the Crusader Fjalar was a woman how is your read of him avoiding women bc he's afraid of being his father that he's a misogynist yall are INSANE

[thenorthernrecords]

The Deliverance -- Part Two

As they waited, Jacob set up the table for the Sargenis sisters, Levon, and the others who were arriving to sit. He had ale and mead brought, because the atmosphere told them they would all need some drink. Fay, Riley, and Levon had sat down, and eventually, the maidens helped his wife Carolina out.  When they began to pull out a chair to help her sit, Jacob clicked his tongue, wagged his index at them, and motioned for them to help his wife to him. Once they got her close enough, he reached up and wrapped his arms around Caro’s waist, placing him nice and easy on his lap.

“... It’s more secure than a chair,” Jacob told the rest who stared amusingly, before he cleared his throat, “Anyway, Carolina, I don’t know if you’re aquainted with them yet, but these are Slania’s older sisters, Fay and Riley, Fay’s husband Levon. I’m sure you’ve all heard of the beautiful wife of the jarl by now --”

Polite greetings were made around the table and eventually, Katy walked in, followed by Hana Yasmin, and to his surprise, Estefania.

“Hello girls -- Oh, she knows?” Jacob asked Stef, and smiled when he got a nod in confirmation. 

Katy sat next to her father, and after Hana Yasmin had gone around the table greeting everyone, Fay fished out a folded letter towards Hana Yasmin.

“Hana Yasmin, I was told to give you this letter. It’s from Eamonn.” Fay began quiet, causing Hana Yasmin’s brows to furrow instantly, “...You should read this on your own, and make your own judgement upon it.” 

Hana blinked in confusion, as Estefania behind her raised her brows. Hana nodded, and began to walk towards the exit. She paused by Stef, and mumbled something to her, and Stef nodded, following. They paused at the door as Slania stepped in, and there was a quick greeting. Slania frowned and watched the two women walk off.

She slowly, almost cautiously, walked in, with Benjamin walking in right after. Slania’s growing, almost giant dog, Lugh, had entered, but stayed by the door, like a guard dog. Slania rose her brows as she approached the table.

“ ... ‘ello?” She said with uncertainty. 

Jacob watched as Riley and Fay turned around and practically flew out of their seats. Riley practically ran to Slania, with Fay close behind. Riley was the first to reach Slania. She almost leaped on her much taller sibling in order to embrace her, and Fay followed soon after, wrapping her arms around Slania and Riley. Jacob and the rest at the table watched as Slania almost fell back, but remained steady on her feet, looking puzzled.

“We’re so happy to see you!” Riley squeaked.

“We’ve been so worried,” Fay said at the same time, overlapping their sister’s words.

“Um... Hello to you too?” Slania said, followed by a little awkward laugh, embracing her sisters too. She stepped back and eyed them both, “...While I’m happy to see you here, I’m confused by your presence... does Eamonn know you’re here?”

Fay and Riley looked at each other and Slania understandably began to look concerned.

“Please sit down, Lani, there’s things we need to talk about.” Fay told her.

Slania raised a brow, but stood made her way to the only vacant seat, which was right by Jacob’s right hand. She waved hello to Benjamin and Levon, then she extended her hand towards Carolina, squeezing it once she held it, telling her how good it was to see her up and about. Jacob smiled upon seeing the interaction. He knew Carolina didn’t have any family aside from her estranged, idiot brother, Michael, and since they got married, Slania was her family too. So, he hoped they could get to know each other better as such. 

Jacob watched as Slania then looked at her sisters across the table, and he could just see her instantly tense up.

“Eamonn’s not dead, but ... he’s gone.” Fay said, which caused Slania to blink.

“What?” 

Fay and Riley proceeded to tell Slania, Jacob, and Carolina everything that had occured in Connacht: the attack on Deirdre’s home (the one where Jacob and Carolina went to shortly before his Aunt-in-law passed away), the battle that ensued afterwards, and the aftermath, which involved Eamonn departing from his family forever.

Jacob could feel Carolina’s hand on his, and he mumbled that he was fine in her ear, but he wasn’t exactly fine. He felt irritated. When he looked over at Slania, he could see, at first, that she had a calm look on her face, but as he looked on, he could see muscles in her neck tense up -- she wasn’t happy either, especially since Fay looked like she was going to cry and Riley weeped openly.

“So, you won’t have to worry about Vali Kveldulf joining with your foes, or coming here.  We did more research and we found out that Kveldulf is dead. He died not so long ago. We believe that his death is what prompted his sons to waged war against Eamonn and us.” Fay continued on, “This is the letter he left you.”

Fay slid the letter to Slania, who took it and opened it. When she read it, she lightly scoffed and passed it on Jacob, who read it with Carolina reading along too.

“So, he leaves Slania the legacy of the family, and says I’m allowed to call myself Sargenis too...How charitable of him.” Jacob smirked bitterly, as he was proven once again that his cousin really didn’t listen to a word he said.

The rest of the letter was a lengthy apology towards Slania, how he was sorry he had to leave, and sorry for all the harm he caused. He told Slania she was more worthy of carrying out their father’s legacy and he hoped his absence helped her move on. He signed it with “Your brother for one last time, Eamonn,” which caused Jacob to let out a sigh and toss the letter on the table. The man had been dramatic until the very end.

Silence engulfed the room for a few moments, before Slania crossed her arms and spoke, finally breaking the silence.

“So, it’s done then.” Slania said casually, leaning back against her chair.

“...That’s it? That’s all you have to say?” Fay asked incredulously, beginning to cry, which surprised Jacob since the woman was known to be the more composed one. Levon put an arm around Fay, trying to comfort her, but she continued: “Our brother is gone forever, Lani!”

“Your brother is gone, Fay and I’m deeply sorry for you both. Truly I am. But, who lingered here was meant for you both and Hana Yasmin.”  Slania said seriously, sitting up again, “He gave you both a personal farewell, and I get a letter. How am I supposed to react, hm? Should I cry more? I spent years crying over him.”

Fay grimaced, which caused Riley to interject tearfully, “We didn’t mean to offend you, Lani, we just ... we just expected you to be as upset as we are. Aren’t you a little upset? I know Jacob isn’t, he hardly knew him.”

“And I’m glad I didn’t know him better,” Jacob said with a shrug, lifting his cup to take a drink, “Look, I’ve seen how Eamonn had treated Lani, and I’ve heard about how he’s treated you both. I know you all loved him, and sure, perhaps a part of me did wish that we bonded as cousins, but ... do you deny that he brought you all a lot of grief?”

“No... we don’t,” Riley replied, “But he’s our little brother--”

“And he was Slania’s older brother,” Jacob said, beginning to feel irritated again, “It’s an older brother’s fucking job to protect their younger siblings, and he chose to fail at it. He was so busy with his head up on own fuckin’ ass, he didn’t have time to care about what happened to her.”

“Jacob...” Slania told him quietly, putting a hand on his arm, “It’s alright.”

Jacob huffed and leaned back against his chair. “I’m just fuckin’ tired of this. He’s done nothing but cause Slania and my family harm. I almost lost my wife here, our children... I’m sorry for you both but I’m not sorry he’s gone. Leaving was probably the most considerate thing he’s done.”

Fay and Riley looked surprised by this revelation, and then, crestfallen. 

“We didn’t know, I’m sorry...” Fay said sincerely, with Riley silently nodding while crying.

As Jacob nodded, Slania put her hands on the table. “Eamonn is not responsible for the fire and attack, but he is responsible for taking away all of our options. We tried to tell him, but he dismissed us as children despite both of us being fully grown adults with actual experiences. As a result, I almost died.”

Riley covered her mouth and Fay looked like she was about to lose it. “What?!” She asked loudly.

“I was trying to help the people and I got cornered. I got severely injured...” Jacob could just see how uncomfortable she was telling them as she cringed visibly, “Had it not been for a friend of mine who found me, I would have bled out.”

“Why...Why didn’t you tell us, Slania?!” Fay asked exasperatedly, “How could you not tell us?!”

“Because I didn’t want you angry at him.”

“You’re our family too!” Cried Riley.

“After father died, I felt like I didn’t belong in it. You three and mother always spoke about Wexford this, and Wexford that ... and I stupidly sat there, not knowing a damn thing. Why do you think I sought Jacob?” Slania pointed at him, “Besides, Eamonn made you feel awful for not loving his friend, and he made Fay feel awful about father, which caused a rift between you both and Eamonn for years. You all finally made amends and I didn’t want to ruin that because the three of you needed it..”

“...You wouldn’t have ruined anything, Lani,” Riley said so sadly, her voice broke, it made Jacob sadly frown.

Slania smiled weakly and nodded, “Thank you for telling me that. Listen, I loved Eamonn with all of my heart, and a part of me always will. In the letter, he told me he understands why I hate him, but I don’t hate him. He’s whats left of mother and father besides me, so I can never hate him ... but...” She let out a long sigh, “I always wept over him. For years, I cried. And I believe it’s because, without realizing it, I was already mourning him. Truthfully, Eamonn died the day our father died. What remained here was a shell of who he was, a shell that could perhaps bring comfort to you two, and even Hana but ... not to me. But, I am glad you are both still here, just as I’m glad that Jacob and his family are now here too.”

She stood up, “We have more to speak about, but I really must return to my duties. If you stay longer, we can talk more later.”

“We’re staying!” Riley instantly replied, wiping her tears.

“Yes,” Fay agreed, “We intend to stay for a while.”

Slania smiled warmly and nodded, then walked out, everyone’s gaze following her as she and her wolf hound left. 

Jacob cleared his throat. “Ladies, you and Sir Areli here are welcomed to stay either here, as we have spare rooms, or in the inn where I believe Ben and Katy have been staying...”

The Areli siblings, who had been hearing everything in silence, nodded.

“But for now... who wants dinner?”

[buns-with-a-book]

Meòraich

Meòraich means meditate or ponder in Scottish Gaelic. Since Eternis Brillia, Cassandra’s hometown, is set in Scotland, I figured this title is appropriate.

While set in the Devil May Cry universe, this is purely backstory for Cassandra and what made her leave home. 

Fandom: Devil May Cry Characters: Original Characters Tags: @nimnox @furyeclipse @synchronmurmurs 

Summary: Twice does Cassandra Sagefire ponder over her fate to the portrait of her ancestor Deirdre Sagefire. But the lesson remains the same: her fate is in her hands. 

Cassandra wasn’t fond of large ceremonies, especially in that giant cathedral. It’s grand four wings were decorated in nothing but the best, white draped from every column and the cathedral spotless. It’s grandeur was nothing but breath-taking, especially to guests of the family.

And yet, looking back upon the cathedral, garbed in glorious white, it looked like a beautiful bride to be. Much like her, when she walked down the aisle to meet her groom. She looked to the newest photo on the wall, the large portrait of her and her groom posing in the gardens of the cathedral.

She was in a beautiful silver dress, intricate lace sewn throughout the dramatic skirt. Her veil was held up by a sparkling elegant circlet, an heirloom passed down through the family. Cassandra frowned at the mark on her face, a slap from her own father for trying to oppose the wedding. Even with heavy use of foundation, she could still faintly see the mark. As for her groom, he was in a black tuxedo, his brown hair combed to look slightly windswept. In his black eyes was a hint of disinterest, hidden behind a smile. Pinned to the corsage was the image of an armored lion, holding a banner in it’s maw. That man was Draco Kinnaird, a minor lord in the house to outsiders, but to her, her own personal bully. She could still remember the day that her father had announced she was to marry Draco Kinnaird...

The Sagefire estate was decorated for her eighteenth birthday. Cassandra, being the maiden of the hour, was dressed in her best. Her long blonde hair was braided and draped over her shoulder, pale pink wild roses nestled in her braids. Her shoulderless dress was a dusty pink hue, matching the roses in her braided hair. Surrounding her were the ruling class and the rich of Eternis Brillia, who only attended for her status as the daughter of Nyx and Stella Sagefire, the direct descendant of Deirdre Sagefire.

“Lady Sagefire, what do you plan to do?” A young woman asked. Cassandra took a glance to her, trying to think if she was from another house or something.

“Ah...I’d like to leave Eternis Brillia, actually.”

“Oh my! Leave our fair city?” She exclaimed in surprise.

“Yes.” Cassandra nodded. “I don’t want to stay here forever as a pretty figurehead. I’d love to actually...explore what lies beyond the walls of Eternis Brillia.” The young woman looked ready to say something before the gentle but attention-snapping ting of metal against glass caught their attention. Cassandra looked up to the table, where her father, Nyx, stood. His black eyes scanned the crowd.

“Honored guests, I would like to make an announcement. Lord Theon Kinnaird and I have come to an agreement that will benefit all of Eternis Brillia.” Cassandra frowned, drifting away from her conversation partner as she watched Lord Theon stand with her father. “I would like to announce the engagement of my daughter, Cassandra, to Draco Kinnaird. In six months time, she will be a lovely bride!”

The world felt like it was falling around her. A young man with blond hair stood up with Lord Theon, a man she recognized as Draco. He stepped around the table across the room towards her. Cassandra could barely hear the rest of the announcement, her heart was hammering in her head as he took her hand.

“T-There must be some mistake. I can’t marry you, you bullied me when we were children.” Cassandra breathed, shaking from shock.

“There is no mistake.” Draco’s voice sent shivers down her spine, shivers of fear. “I hope our engagement will be fruit-” She blocked out the rest of his words, promptly pretending to faint. She heard cries of shock around her, followed by some maids rushing to her side to get her out of the stuffy ballroom.

‘A good pretend fainting is perfect for getting out of this situation.’ She thought. As she was taken out of the room, her mind was starting to figure out ways to get out of this unwanted marriage.

Despite all her planning and efforts, the marriage continued. She looked down to her ring, a gaudy creation made of diamonds and gold. She hated it. She hated everything about this marriage, about Draco, about her father resorting to physical violence to shock her into going along. She reached up, rubbing where her father’s hand hit her face. It was the shock of being slapped by her own father that stunned her into going down the aisle.

Cassandra let out a heavy sigh, moving her gaze away from the portrait. Her eyes moved to the portrait of her ancestor, hanging over the roaring fireplace. Her ancestor Deirdre Sagefire, considered a saint in the city, stared back at her. Her blond hair fell freely, a crown of sage and roses upon her head. She remembered all the legends about her ancestor, how fearless she was in the face of adversity and danger to lead a rag-tag army to victory against the armies of demons led by Mundus, the King of the Underworld. Of course, she was never alone, as she had four other maidens with her when the Earthmother gave them the gift to fight back against the demons and Cassandra herself was not embroiled in life or death combat with the King of the Underworld.

However, as she stared at the portrait of the serene saint, she could only wonder.

“Saint Deirdre…” She murmured. “What was it like, to stare down the master of all demonkind? What kind of strength did you pull from to even think about fighting him? Is that why you told your followers to persevere in the face of adversity?” She looked to her left hand, the hand that she used to wield Astra, the Blade of the Stars, the gift to those of the line of Sagefire. “Is this why you tied your blade, a gift from the Earthmother, to those of your bloodline? To remind them of your strength? To give hope in times of need?” She sighed. “I’m gonna need that strength...I don’t know what to do…” She looked up, finding no answer in the portrait. She let out a sigh and walked away to her room. She refused to share a bed with Draco, she would rather die than do that.

Her bedroom was a simple room, decorated in pale blue and beige. She looked out the window, overlooking the city and the highlands beyond. In the distance, she could see the river Spey. The midnight sky glimmered with countless stars, a breathless sight. She changed into a silken nightgown, her mind racing with thoughts. She knew she wouldn’t get any of her answers tonight. Passing another look to the midnight sky, she slipped into bed. She would think of a plan to make the best out of this unhappy marriage in the morning. For now, rest was calling for her.

---

Fury burned through her body as she stormed through the Sagefire Estate, bag full of legal papers and supplies to last her. The estate was empty, everyone else off at the Kinnaird Estate for the party, a party that Draco was throwing just to show off the money he had from marrying into her family. That was money that could’ve been better spent saving her mother, who slipped into death weeks after the wedding. The mere thought about her mother, slipping away in her arms, while Draco partied it up in the nearest pub only added to her fury. She could still feel the sting of Draco’s words, her own lawfully wedded husband (that she never wanted).

The grand gazebo in the gardens of House Kinnaird were decorated lavishly for the party. Cassandra frowned at the wasteful grandeur, the party only being thrown just because Draco had the money and nothing to do with his evenings aside from lavish wasteful parties. As she walked amongst the rich and ruling class, her footsteps led her to Draco (much to her chagrin).

“As I was saying, I think we should focus on investing in our security.” Draco was saying. “Wouldn’t do to let outsiders into Eternis Brillia, right?”

“Security? From what, demons?” Cassandra asked, making a face at his words. Draco turned to her, away from the men he was conversing with. She recognized them as members of the High Council. “Our security is fine enough, we should invest in educating the populace.”

“Cass, Cass dear, this doesn’t concern you.” Draco grinned, his tone the same patronizing tone that irritated her.

“I’m quite certain it does. We’re supposed to be married after all.” Cassandra said coldly.

“How about you go get me a drink, dear?” There was no love in the pet name and she felt it. “I’d hate to get you involved in council business.”  

“Considering you only have my hand because of a deal I didn’t have a say in, I suggest you get your own drink.” Cassandra narrowed her eyes at Draco. Draco smiled nervously at the councilmen.

“Excuse me, I need to have a chat with my...wife.” He took her forearm, his grip tight, as he roughly dragged her off. They found themselves behind the rose bushes, not too far from the gazebo.

“Let go of me.” Cassandra snarled, ripping her arm out of his grasp.

“You’ve embarrassed me, Cassandra!” Draco hissed. “I thought you were raised as a proper wife.”

“Proper wife?! You bullied me, Draco.”

“Oh, you’re still on about that?” He growled. “We were children then-”

“And you haven’t changed a single bit, you wasteful evil little cockr-”

“Silence!” Draco snarled. “Just let the men handle the business, it’d be too much for you.”

“For me. You’re worried about me.” She whispered. “You liar. How dare you talk about that when me dealing with your flippant partying is the biggest strain on my mind. I would rather deal with the council than you.” Draco rolled his eyes.

“Cassandra, look, it’s a man’s world. I don’t care if you’re Saint Deirdre’s daughter, you’re my wife. That’s all you’ll ever be.” He said. “Now, if you’re going to be a bitch about it still, go home and...I dunno, clean the house or something.” He pushed her aside as he returned to the gazebo. She watched him go, breathing heavily, before promptly leaving the gardens of House Kinnaird.

That was the last straw.

The fancy dress she once wore to the party was long off her, changed into a dress more suited for travel. The white transitioned into gold, the skirt reaching her knees. Underneath the skirt were shorts that stretched to her mid-thigh, her mother warned her never to wear skirts without matching shorts. Beautiful heels were changed to boots. Around her shoulders, the fabric stretching down to her wrist, was a white shrug. Connecting the two parts of the shrug was a deep green jewel. She remembered how her mother adored the jewel, saying how it matched her eyes. Cassandra was often reminded of the deep dark depths of an ancient forest. Hoisted around her chest was a travel bag full of documents she would need outside the city. As she moved, a familiar portrait above the fireplace caught her eye. Cassandra stopped, staring up at the portrait over the smoldering fireplace. As before, the saint stared back at her with her painted smile.

“Is this what you meant, to face the challenges of life and fate and grow?” She asked, Astra snapping into her sword hand. “Trapped in a marriage I never wanted, with a fate I never asked for...I’m taking my fate into my own hands.” She stared at the blade, glimmering in the faint light from the moonlight outside and the simmering embers of the fireplace. She took in a breath and held up the braid of her hair. Sliding Astra between her hair and her neck, she wrapped the braid around her other hand to hold it steady. With a swift movement, she pulled Astra through her hair. It slid through effortlessly, as if it was nothing more than air. She could feel her hair fall to the sides of her face. Her eyes fell upon the braid, rubbing the hair with her thumb.

Twenty years of maintaining her hair, living peacefully and without conflict, rested in her hands. It was sobering to see the braid in her hand, a symbol of the luxury she lived in for so long. She looked to the smoldering embers in the fireplace and threw the braid in, watching as it burned away into foul smoke. Astra disappeared in her hands. Her eyes moved up to the portrait, dark green meeting painted blue eyes. A silence fell between them before Cassandra turned, her back to the portrait. She strode out of the room, not daring to look back to the remains of her hair, of the symbol of luxury she once lived in.

Her feet led her to the stables of the estate, walking to her personal horse. The brown Clydesdale horse, Alasdair, let out a neigh as she approached.

“Hey there.” She murmured, guiding him out of his stall. “Wanna go for one last ride?” She asked. The horse nuzzled her. “Good boy.” She laughed, getting his saddle on him. She knew of a secret exit, a crack in the wall that surrounded the city. Perhaps it was her sympathetic heart that wanted to have one last ride on her horse before she left Eternis Brillia for good. She didn’t dwell too long on that, not with the time she had ticking away. With the saddle secured to the horse, she secured his bridle onto him and led him outside. She quickly hopped on Alasdair and urged him onward, the Clydesdale running through the moonlit fields towards the wall. As she approached the crack, hidden by bushes and trees, she skid the horse to a halt. She couldn’t take Alasdair with her to the world beyond, a mobile lifestyle away from Eternis Brillia would make it difficult to give him the care he needed. Given the best thing she could offer was fighting, a life of the mercenary, she couldn’t take care of Alasdair. She eased Alasdair to a stop and dismounted. She reached up, giving the horse a gentle pat before giving his hind a harsh slap. The horse, spooked, raced off back to the stables. She watched the horse go before crawling through the brush.

‘First step in taking control of your fate: dealing with spiders and dirt.’ Cassandra thought, pushing aside leaves and cobwebs. She found the small crack in the wall, the crack barely large enough for her to crawl through but, undeterred, she began to crawl through. She made sure to hide the crack in the wall behind her. She didn’t need the guards of Eternis Brillia trying to pursue her and drag her back.

Finally, she reached the other side of the crack. Cassandra looked upward, seeing the wall of Eternis Brillia stretch above her. She let out a breath, freed at last. She quickly took off along the moors, towards the town of Rothes. From there, she would begin a new life.

[salafiway]

Sexual relationships outside marriage: Fornication, Adultery and Pornography

Objectives: Know and understand the Muslim attitude to pre-marital sex (sex before marriage), adultery and pornography.

Pre-marital sex: A sexual relationship which takes place before marriage.

Adultery: Sex outside marriage where one or both of the couple are already married to someone else.

Islamic view on pre-marital sex: Islam forbids pre-marital sex. It is called zinā or fornication. The Quran says that if an unmarried man or woman is found guilty of fornication, and they live in a country that practices Shari’ah law, they must be lashed one hundred times. This lashing is not meant to kill or maim (so that part of the body is permanently damaged) the recipient.

الزَّانِيَةُ وَالزَّانِي فَاجْلِدُوا كُلَّ وَاحِدٍ مِّنْهُمَا مِائَةَ جَلْدَةٍ ۖ وَلَا تَأْخُذْكُم بِهِمَا رَأْفَةٌ فِي دِينِ اللَّهِ إِن كُنتُمْ تُؤْمِنُونَ بِاللَّهِ وَالْيَوْمِ الْآخِرِ ۖ وَلْيَشْهَدْ عَذَابَهُمَا طَائِفَةٌ مِّنَ الْمُؤْمِنِينَ – 24:2

“Those who fornicate, strike each one with a hundred lashes of the whip. Let not pity for the two hold you back from obedience to God, if you believe in God and the last day. And let a party of the believers witness their punishment.” (Quran 24:2)

Anything that leads to pre-marital sex is also forbidden and strongly discouraged. The Prophet (peace and blessing be upon him) told his followers that if two unmarried people (a man and woman) were left secluded together, the devil would become the third, tempting them to sin; so, free mixing of the sexes is discouraged. Women have to dress modestly so that they are not a temptation for men.

Sex before marriage is a major sin, disobedience to Allah and is punishable in the life after death. Muslim parents use sex education to make it clear that the only certain way of not getting pregnant is to avoid courtship and sex before marriage. There is no allowance in the Muslim religion for boyfriend and girlfriend relationships which are commonplace in Western societies. This type of courtship is forbidden because it leads to temptation and eventually fornication. Muslim parents also use sex education to warn of the danger of sexually transmitted infectious diseases like HIV/AIDS, etc. Practising Muslims strongly disapprove of anything that encourages pre-marital sexual relations between young people including GP prescription of contraception to teenagers. In British society, many people choose to live together rather than get married. Islam forbids these types of relationships.

Activity 1: Two real-life scenarios.

A) A Muslim teenager at university ends up sharing a house with two Muslim boys and two Muslim girls. Here are some opinions on his situation:

“This is wrong. He is opposing Allah’s guidance and upsetting his parents who are practising Muslims.”

“He is learning how to share with others, and how to get on with women. This will be useful when he gets married.”

“This is OK; his parents don’t mind, that’s the main thing.”

“He is facing too much temptation. He is showing disobedience to Allah. Islam teaches one to care about his honour and the honour of others.”

B) A Muslim man and his partner Helen have chosen to live together rather than get married. They have a young son. Here are some opinions on this situation:

“This is forbidden in Islam and is called fornication. He should have married first. He should have invited her to Islam. Also, Islam allows a man to marry a chaste Christian or Jewish woman; so he should not have taken her as a girlfriend as that is prohibited in Islam. Marriage gives rights to the husband, wife and children – it brings families and communities together.”

“This is not a good example for a child as he grows up.”

“A wedding is only words and only a formality, it doesn’t matter that they are not married. His parents wouldn’t have let him marry her, she’s not a Muslim. What matters is that they love each other. Religion surely cannot come in the way of love?!”

Questions:

Do you think the student is right? Explain which comment is most correct.

Do you think the unmarried man is doing right? Explain which comment is most correct.

Adultery: According to Muslim belief, if any married person has a sexual relationship with someone other than their spouse then they are committing adultery. Adultery is seen as something even more serious than pre-marital sex. This is because the person doing it already has a partner who can satisfy their sexual needs and has broken the trust to their spouse of loyalty that Allah commands in the Quran. They are also showing a total lack of respect for their partner.

Muslims believe that Allah has forbidden sex outside of marriage for very good reasons. These relationships lead to many problems in society:

disobedience to the Lord of the worlds who has wisely legislated marriage,

a disregard for family values,

lack of commitment and mutual respect for something that is very intimate,

disrespectful to women (and men) who are used and then usually discarded,

maintenance rights are taken away from women who are left alone,

single mothers struggling to look after children on their own,

many children who never know who their father is,

mental anguish for children who feel unwanted,

lack of comfort and security found in a loving family,

increase in violence upon women who are left without the protection marriage offers,

the break-up of extended family structures and communities because the mother lives with a series of different men having children with them,

loss of lineage and parental lines that can be traced which provide an anchor for families.

So pre-marital sex, adultery and loose sexual morals lead to exploitation of women and children as well as discord and breakdown in society.

Allah’s Messenger (ﷺ) said: “Allah fixed the precise portion of fornication which a man will indulge in – there is to be no escape from it. The fornication of the eye is the lustful look, the fornication of the ears is listening to lewd talk, the fornication of the tongue is lewd speech, the fornication of the hand is the lustful grip (or embrace), the fornication of the feet is to walk to where he intends to commit fornication and the heart yearns and desires for what  he may or may not put into effect.” (Sahih Muslim 2658)

And he said: “A fornicator who fornicates is not a believer while he commits fornication, and the one who steals is not a believer while he commits theft, and the one who drinks alcohol is not a believer while he drinks it, and repentance may be accepted after that.” (Sahih Muslim 57) This explains that faith (imān) decreases because of disobedience and its perfection is diminished. The Prophet also stated: “Any man who fornicates with a woman then the child born from fornication does not inherit, nor is it inherited from.”(Tirmidhi 2113, sahih) In this situation, the child is attributed only to the mother and not the man she fornicated with.

Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, asked his Companions about fornication and they said, “It is unlawful. Allah and His Messenger have made it unlawful.” He said, “It is less serious for a man to fornicate with ten women than for him to fornicate with his neighbour’s wife.” Then he asked them about stealing. They replied, “It is unlawful. Allah and His Messenger have made it unlawful.” He said, “It is less serious for a man to steal from ten houses than it is for him to steal from his neighbour’s house.” (Al-Adab Al-Mufrad 103, sahih)

A woman confessed to adultery in the time of Allah’s Messenger and she was executed. So afterwards he prayed for her (the funeral prayer). The Companion, Umar said: “Are you praying for her even though she committed fornication?” He said: “She has repented such that if it were to be shared among seventy of the people of Madinah it would suffice them all. Have you ever seen repentance better than the one who sacrificed herself for the sake of Allah, the Mighty and Sublime?” (An-Nasā’i 1957, sahih)

The decline in the Fabric Society and Health:

Dr Chris Iliades, MD states: Having a large number of sexual partners has been linked to poor sexual health and decreased longevity. Why? The more sexual partners you have, the greater your risk for sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) like HIV/AIDS and other life-threatening conditions like prostate cancer, cervical cancer, and oral cancer. “Promiscuity is one example of a class of high-risk behaviours,” says Deirdre Lee Fitzgerald, PhD, assistant professor of psychology at Eastern Connecticut State University in Willimantic. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 19 million new STD infections occur each year. Among the most common STDs are chlamydia, gonorrhoea, and syphilis, but the most common of all is the human papillomavirus (HPV). Additionally, research shows the couples who are in long-term relationships are much less likely to suffer from domestic violence. [1]

A report in 2004 stated: With few exceptions every month uncovers more evidence of the declining sexual health of the UK population. Levels of chlamydia have more than doubled in the past 10 years, nearly forgotten infections such as syphilis have returned to plague new generations and overall, sexually transmitted infections (STIs) are higher than at any time since the National Health Service began in 1948. Furthermore, while some reductions have been made in teenage pregnancy rates, these have been modest and still leave the UK with one of the highest rates in Europe. By and large our attempts to avoid a sexual health crisis and, more recently, to manage it have failed. [2]

In the United States, (a source of broadcast content for many countries), 64% of general television programmes contain some form of sexual activity. Equally, in the UK, adverts use strong sexual imagery to sell everything from alcohol to cars. [ibid]

History: Punishment for Fornication and Adultery in Elizabethan England (1558–1603):

Fornication and incest were punishable by ‘carting’: being carried through the city in a cart, or riding backwards on a horse, wearing a placard describing the offence – an Elizabethan version of naming and shaming. Many offences were punished by the pillory – the criminal stood with his head and his hands through holes in a wooden plank. This could be as painful as public opinion decided, as the crowd gathered round to throw things at the wretched criminal. Stones were banned, in theory, but if the public felt deeply, the offender might not finish his sentence alive. Sometimes one or both of the offender’s ears were nailed to the pillory, sometimes they were cut off anyway. A sentence of whipping meant that the offender’s back was laid open raw and bloody, as he staggered along the appointed route through the city. [3]

The penalty for Adultery and Fornication in the Bible:

Christians and Jews: Most practising Christians and Jewish people around the world strongly disagree with sex before marriage. Also, all three religions (Islam, Judaism and Christianity) completely forbid adultery.

The penalty for adultery in the Bible is death: “And the man that commits adultery with another man’s wife, even he that commits adultery with his neighbour’s wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.” (Lev 20:10) (Deu 22:22) The act of Fornication and Adultery (between a man and a woman) is the same, but the death penalty is always prescribed for Adultery in the Bible, and at times for Fornication. The difference would be due to the fact that Adultery involves the wife of another man: “You shall not covet your neighbour’s wife… nor anything that is  your neighbour’s.” (Exo 20:17) “Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed undefiled: but fornicators and adulterers God will judge.” (Heb 13:4); “You shall not commit adultery.” (Exo 20:14).

The Bible prescribes the death penalty for other evil activities such as:

Murder (Exo 21:12,14, Lev 24:17,21)

Harming pregnant woman (Exo 21:22,23)

Sorcery (Exo 22:18)

Bestiality (Exo 22:19, Lev 20:15,16)

Homosexuality (Lev 20:13)

Blaspheming the name of the Lord (Lev 24:16)

Worshipping false gods (Deu 13:6-10)

Prostitution (Deu 22:24) and others.

Pornography: A Gateway to Fornication, Adultery, Sexual Immorality and Depression

From the greatest adverse effects of the growth of the internet and the spread of social media is the exponential rise in the production and viewing of online pornography. An article from the Reward Foundation [4] stated: “Over time constant bingeing and seeking that dopamine reward hit, can lead to a deep habit that is hard to kick or cause ‘pathological’ learning in the form of addiction.”

This means that the porn addict craves this behaviour despite its negative consequences. The negative feelings are experienced when he misses the habit, such as depression or feeling flat, so this drives him back to it, again and again, to try and restore feelings of pleasure. Consuming pornography tends to make people more prone to seeking new relationships and are more likely to become promiscuous and seek illicit and non-conventional sexual gratification (e.g. prostitution, group sex, rape (acting or real), etc). Research shows that consuming pornography correlates with a lack of commitment to one’s wife. In a study of university-age males, difficulties with social functioning increased as pornography consumption rose. This applied to psychosocial problems such as depression, anxiety, stress and reduced social functioning. Research also reported a strong link between high levels of pornography consumption and low sexual desire (for one’s wife for example). The 2008 Study of Sexuality in France found that 20% of men 18-24 have “no interest in sex or sexual activity”. In Japan in 2010: an official government survey found that 36% of males aged 16-19 “have no interest in sex or have an aversion to it” and they prefer virtual dolls or anime! [4a]

Dr David J. Ley Ph.D. states: “When we hear people talk about starting with one form of pornography, like Playboy Magazine, and ending up later looking at some extreme forms of porn like rape porn or bestiality, it makes common sense for us to worry that porn could have a tolerance effect, that might lead people to pursue harder and harder forms of it, in order to reach the same level of stimulation. That need for greater stimulation could also make it so that men can’t get erect with real women, but only when faced by their fantasy images. If that slippery slope of porn tolerance might lead men to watch extreme porn like rape porn, then might it not lead them to act on those desires?” [5]

Summary: You should now know and understand the Muslim attitude toward pre-marital sex, adultery and pornography. All of these are forbidden in Islam and Muslims believe that they are forbidden by Allah for good reasons.

Activities:

Explain what is meant by ‘pre-marital sex’.

Explain what is meant by adultery.

Give two reasons why not allowing pre-marital sex may be a good thing.

‘Adultery is always wrong.’ Why do Muslims believe this?

____

References:

[1] https://www.everydayhealth.com/longevity/can-promiscuity-threaten-longevity.aspx

[2] Bellis MA, Hughes K, Ashton JR The promiscuous 10%? Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health 2004;58:889-890.

[3] https://www.bl.uk/shakespeare/articles/crime-and-punishment-in-elizabethan-england

[4] Common Sense about the Effects of Pornography: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog

[4a] Ibid (adapted).

[5] http://www.rewardfoundation.org/porn-health/mental-effects-of-porn/

Source: https://www.abukhadeejah.com/fornication-adultery-and-pornography/

[theguildedtypewriter]

Planning It Out Part Two: Electric Boogaloo

So, you’ve now all seen the basic facts and run down about Arrow. Well, next was of course creating her foil character, and eventually love interest, Grey. He was quite loud during the process and simply would not let me finish fleshing out Arrow’s backstory before I got started on him, so this is actually from half way between starting Arrow’s basic characteristics and taking her personality tests. 

God damn Grey, just chill.

Any who, here are Grey’s basic characteristics. Again thanks to @thewritershelpers for the character sheet.

Full Name: Grey Mercenary of Ebora, was Garyth Nickname(s): None Age: 32 Date of Birth: July 26th Hometown: Ebora, a harbor town to the west Current Location: Céth

Ethnicity/ Nationality: Human, mercenary for theft, battle, guide, general mischief, from the same Northern Britain, Welsh, Celtic, Gaul area Gender: Male Pronouns: he/him Orientation: (romantic and sexual) Bisexual, demiromantic Religion: Mother believed in the Old Gods, but his father’s treatment made him believe that the world is simply a dark and cruel place. No religious beliefs. Sees there could be a plan once he starts seeing things with Arrow. Political Affiliation: Hates people who stand in the way of him making money, believes all politicians or lords/kings are corrupt and just want the most land. Occupation: Learned on the street, had a mentor of sorts in Cadman, the man who got him into mercenary work, they have a guild of sorts. He is quite smart, especially street smart, and is a crafty negotiator, very persuasive, has fought for quite a few armies, sometimes opposing sides during the same war. Mercenary, dislikes new leader of the guild, doesn’t mind most of his coworkers except for Iden(wealthy) the fence. He believes he takes too large a cut. Language(s) Spoken: speaks common, celtic, gaulish, ancient chinese, some african Accent: muddled, similar to ancient british

Physical appearance; how the character feels about their physical appearance: Grey is taller, fair but not overly pale skin, dark hair with long bangs that are side swept, green eyes, he is proud of his appearance, and works to maintain it, he comes off as a bit snobby but it is a defense mechanism because he grew up poor. Thinks looks are important and being charismatic is a crucial life skill.

Height: 6’0” Weight: 170 lbs. Build: Lean, but very muscular from battle, thinner Tattoos: can include links to images no Piercings: can include links to images no Clothing Style: Fine cloth shirt, leather pants, tall leather boots, all very fine, wears a few baubles on fingers, long chain around neck Usual Expression: proud smirk, one eyebrow raised Distinguishing Characteristics: nimble fingers and sharp tongue Health- Physical Ailments: google the proper medical terminology- just has old wound that aches on occasion Neurological Conditions: google the proper medical terminology- none Allergies: dogs Sleeping Habits: describe frequency, time spent, goes to sleep early/late, wakes up early/late- Stays up late and rises late, often at the brothel sleeping with people in his bed, rarely  falls asleep sober, when out on a gig, falls asleep by fire, dagger in hand as well as his money pouch, says it's an old mercenary habit but is concerned he’ll have his money stolen, heavier sleeper but still has training to protect himself. Eating Habits: describe if they have a special diet, healthiness, frequency, amount- loves food, eats at brothels and on the road a lot. He is willing to try anything. Will spend a pretty penny on wine and other alcohol. Exercise Habits: describe the type, frequency, exertion- sporadically exercises, loves to practice throwing his dagger at stumps, regularly climbing and runs as a part of position but doesn’t “exercise.” Emotional Stability: rate from 1-10 or describe/give reasons- 6, he is very cut off from his fears and true desires, he is reckless, a bit snobby, has several defense mechanisms to keep people at a distance. Sociability: do they prefer to be alone or with other people, do they require alone time, how do they feel when alone/being social?- Enjoys being with whores, doesn’t really like to get serious with anyone, not even friendship, doesn’t like being alone however, then he is too much in his head and haunted by the past.

Family Father: can include the name/age/occupation of birth, step, sperm donor, adoptive, figure, etc. See above and Bricriu (the poison tongued) he was always a right bastard and abusive. Arrested frequently, when he still had a job he was a merchant who sold furs, fur trapper, didn’t want a family and kids but got mother pregnant and was just noble enough to stay with her and help, sort of. Mother: can include the name/age/occupation of birth, step, egg donor, adoptive, figure, etc. See above and Deirdre (sorrowful), was a naive girl who fell for a jerk and wound up pregnant, not very smart but sweet, gets stepped on by her husband, sees he doesn’t love her eventually and resents having gone with him. Sibling(s): can include name/age of blood, half, step, adoptive, etc. Two brothers, full Family’s Financial Status: Poor

Hogwarts House: Slytherin Moral Alignment: Neutral/Chaotic Good Primary Vice: Lust, Gluttony/Greed, Pride, Envy Primary Virtue: Temperance and Prudence will be needed, as well as a bit of Justice, has fortitude Element: Fire

And of course, he has his own Enneagram and personality test results. I even figured out zodiac signs for my two main OCs things time! Crazy! 

Next time on planning it out: Look for exploration of Enneagrams, zodiac signs, and more! Or maybe just lions, and tigers, and bears. Oh my!

[valflame]

♡ mother

send ♡ + a word for a hc | ACCEPTING

                                   you’re really trying to open a can of worms there aren’t you

under the cut because if you know arvis in canon you know exactly why.

Arvis loves his mother. He loves his mother. It goes well beyond a child’s natural devotion toward their parent and barrels straight into unhealthy and obsessive. When his father Victor was alive he abused and mistreated his wife and child to no end; Cigyun was criticised for everything she did whether she was right or wrong and thoroughly punished for it, rarely allowed outside for fear of her cuckolding him and never treated with any kindness by her husband, and Arvis clung to her like glue. They were kept locked away within Castle Velthomer while Victor went out philandering — he was infamous for being a known alcoholic, rapist and short-tempered man, but none of it mattered in the eyes of the public. He was duke of Velthomer and the inheritor of Valflame, and that meant that he was untouchable. He did as he pleased and didn’t even bother hiding it, and nobody in the noble courts cared enough to even attempt to put a stop to it, and it drove Arvis wild with rage and confusion. He hates his father more than he hates Manfroy, which is really, honestly saying something. There’s no-one on earth he hates more than he hates Victor, and Victor’s abuse left so many psychological scars on him that pretty much every issue he has can be traced back to it.

The writer’s notes for the game say that once his father killed himself and his mother disappeared he outright refused to believe in any of the truths Victor’s suicide note brought to light, because his love and devotion toward Cigyun was so intense that he was blinded by it. He refused to believe that she’s engaged in an affair because she was perfect, and Victor was a liar, and he was only trying to slander her and smear her name; he refused to believe that she’d wilfully abandoned him, because he loved her to the point that she haunted his thoughts and influenced his actions even without being there and plagued his dreams and nightmares at night, and she was good and perfect and had to feel the same; he threw every mistress Victor had and all their illegitimate children out and banished them from court save for a maid that he’d raped and her child, because she’d been unwilling and hurt by him too and she’d been his mother’s favourite, and he saw her and his half-brother by her like family. He canonically has zero attraction to women up until he meets Deirdre and even then it’s only because she looks so much like his mother and she reminds him so much of her and he has a canon oedipal complex. Cigyun threw him away and he kept waiting for her indefinitely and forever because he believed in her that much.

On the surface he does an excellent job of seeming totally put together for someone who Freud would have a field day with. He’s basically a walking Freud Was Right beacon.

[nonpareiltactician]

Trope

Trope Meme || {always accepting!}

{ ooc. since this was the only one sent in, I’ll just go ahead and chuck a handful of tropes your way, because I love this poor, forgotten bastard- }

“WELL DONE, SON!” GUY

Our hero may be a perfectly Nice Guy, respectable, successful, a loving husband and a good father. But what he really wants is for this one guy to acknowledge this.

Most often, that one guy is his emotionally distant father, though it can also be The Ace, The Mentor, an Aloof Big Brother or especially that Always Someone Better individual, usually as an old friend of the hero. Almost always a Special Guest, and often a Large Ham as well. When it’s a recurring character, usually a controlling parent.

In the end, one of two things happens. Rarely, the “Well Done, Son!” Guy will turn out to have some kind of massive character flaw, and our hero will realize that it’s been a mistake to weight his opinion so highly. This may result in the betrayed hero Calling the Old Man Out. Most of the time, though, everything comes to a head when the “Well Done, Son!” Guy finally asks the hero why he’s gone to such ridiculous ends. The hero fesses up, and the “Well Done, Son!” Guy explains that he’s respected the hero all along, and assumed the hero already knew (You Didn’t Ask). If the “Well Done, Son!” Guy is the hero’s friend instead of his father, he’ll often also explain that he’d always desperately wanted the respect of the hero as well (hell, sometimes the father wanted the kid’s respect, especially if there’s something big and nasty in his past, probably either ignored by or unknown to the hero).

{ ooc. Would he ever admit this? No. But part of him just wants to have his father say that he’s made him proud and/or that he loves him. }

THICKER THAN WATER

Blood relations have a claim on each other. In fiction, as in Real Life, characters will put up with a lot from relatives that they would never endure from unrelated people. Even when the blood relation comes out of the blue (Luke, I Am Your Father, Long-Lost Relative, Luke, You Are My Father), even when the characters were Separated at Birth. And they will leap to each other’s defense. Indeed, the Big, Screwed-Up Family may object to any of its members being mistreated in a far milder manner than they routinely subject this relative to.

And other characters will expect this of them, too. Failure to acknowledge the bond is a serious flaw, even if it can be outweighed by other moral considerations. Youngsters may learn this in An Aesop.

Pushed too far, this results in Moral Myopia. A character who must sacrifice blood ties to other responsibilities may find his relative shocked that he would do such a thing, no matter how flagrantly in the wrong the relative is. Pushed as far in the inverse, characters will use it to justify their love.

{ ooc. I mean… his half-brother gets possessed by what is essentially dragon satan and he still goes to take care of him, despite knowing this. That and I also think that regardless of how distant he acts towards his father, or how he feels as though said man is excluding him from the family, Saias still cares about him. }

GOOD ALL ALONG

A character that is thought to be one of the bad guys turns out to have always been on the side of good.

The Hero has had a rough encounter with the Big Bad’s mooks. It looks like our hero’s done for, but wait! Why is The Dragonsuddenly saving the hero? Did he just kick the villain away from pressing the button that’ll allow him to Take Over the World? Wasn’t he helping the villain out? Wasn’t he a bad guy? Well, apparently not. It turns out, this guy was a good guy the whole time. We just didn’t know it.

This trope occurs whenever a character seems to be a bad guy, but is later revealed to have been secretly good the entire time, but for whatever reason, the audience was unaware of this fact. This is similar to Heel–Face Turn, with the difference being that this character was never truly a bad guy to begin with.

IT’S ALL MY FAULT

You see characters blaming themselves for major messes fairly often, especially when they’re not the only ones who are suffering as a result. It’s a universal phrase used in every genre and medium.

In the future, it is likely that a Big Bad, The Rival, or an Evil Counterpart will take some opportunity to remind the character of this culpability.May be the result of failing to make amends. May end up being a Career Building Blunder. May be uttered by someone laboring under The Chains of Commanding. See also My God, What Have I Done?, in which case it typically is all “my” fault, and “I” have just realized the consequences of “my” actions, and Failure-to-Save Murder. When death ensued, see These Hands Have Killed. If a character has so many It’s All My Fault moments that it becomes almost a character trait, it’s a Guilt Complex. Characters may irrationally think of this if I Wished You Were Dead. Contrast with Never My Fault.

{ ooc. Over his mother’s death, of course. Since Manfroy was hunting down Saias, not Aida, and she died protecting him, he harbours a lot of guilt over her death, and blames himself for it.Doesn’t help that his own grandfather later reminds him of this fact later on before forcing Saias to abandon him in the middle of a battle where, in 9/10 playthroughs, Cowen will also be killed, and his last words will have been said to protect Saias by making him run away. 

That and Saias blames himself for Julius being born with the blood that he has, and therefore also believes that Deirdre’s death, and the abuse his father has endured from his half-brother is his fault, too.}

HEROIC BASTARD

While the badass hero or the Anti-Hero may get called a bastard, it’s not usually meant literally. This trope is for the heroic protagonist for whom “bastard” is just a factual description, not a comment on their personality. They could easily be very pleasant and well-mannered, but their parents never married. 

{and, the most important one of all:the computer is a cheating bastard Hacks the game so he can have 10 leadership stars, is immune to attacks as an enemy, with an inability to be captured even if you steal every single item in his inventory. You’d never think a bunch of pixels could make you feel so personally victimised until you’ve played through the chapters where Saias shows up in as an enemy.}

[fu-ru-rin]

Post #4

Okay. So I've watched 'Good Omens' six or seven times now, and I need somewhere to write down just how much I enjoyed it. Nothing essay-like, just a list of things that I appreciate. Because, you know, this show is a gem, and I will love it forever. So there.

Episode 1. In the Beginning

1. God's voice and intonations. Always. '...and who smiles all the time'. I didn’t know how well charming and annoying could blend until that one. 2. Cheerful minuet-like music starting at 'This proves two things. Firstly...' 3. Writing brilliance of the Earth being 'in the same daily round'. Lol 4. Adam and Eve looking ripped 5. How relaxed Crowley is talking to Aziraphale, and how suspicious Aziraphale is of Crowley ❤ 6. Aziraphale looking up ('why not put it on a high mountain?'). And then up still ('or on the moon?'). 7. Aziraphale sheltering Crowley from the rain with his wing ❤ (I'm going to keep adding these wherever relevant, please blame Michael Sheen and David Tennant) 8. Opening credits: music! animation! little people falling of a cliff! 9. Hastur's slim figure. Thought he was played by Tilda Swinton at first glance. 10. Queen! How on Earth did they get to play so much Queen in this? Must be the magic of being Neil Gaiman. 11. David Tennant's walk 12. 'All hail Satan.' 'Hi, guys.' All of his intonations. 'Deeds.' 'Nice one.' 'Triumph.' 'Glorious tool.' 13. Lighting on Ligur's face. Teal and orange can be boring, but teal and orange can be subtle. 14. Ligur's disapproving smile at ‘craftsmanship’ 15. All characters' eye lenses. Hastur is made almost puppy-like by his, if you don't look at anything else. 16. Visual effects of Crowley signing the delivery slip 17. 'It's Italian. Means 'food'.' 18. Talking in Japanese. Does Neil Gaiman speak Japanese? I seem to remember that the script had these phrases translated already. 19. Eating sushi as 'I love food'. Aziraphale's disbelieving 'IT'S SUSHI!!' makes me want to eat some every time ❤

20. Lighting! Michael Sheen looks truly heavenly in this light. 21. Gabriel's lines and tone. Always. 'Why do you consume THAT.' 22. Sudden lapses of Aziraphale's voice into a deeper tone 23. Aziraphale's 'They won't?' 'They are?' 24. Okay, fine, I'm in love with Michael Sheen. I've known it for years, and I own it with pleasure. 25. Nuns’ whiteboard and cutouts. The one with horns. Love how big and basic they are, just the type you'd want to use to explain satanic essentials to your kids. 26. Mary Loquacious's eyebrow 'You know.. the... *eyebrow action*' 27. How annoyed Mother Superior is 28. How relieved Mr. Young is to not be present at birth 29. David Tennant's profile as he turns and says 'pray that he doesn't'. Really, it's the quintessence of male beauty. 30. 'I'm the father. The husband. Both.' What a perfect capture of a life changing event taking more time than you consciously know to truly sink in. 31. 'A male boy son'. Lol 32. 'Satan give me strength' 33. Great use of freeze-frame and black&white 34. The IDEA of calling your child Warlock 35. Triumphant music concluding the baby swap disaster 36. General observation: love the use of close-ups on actors' faces. It adds so much to the comedic vibe 37. How Aziraphale and Crowley (and for that matter, every couple occupying every bench) fail to look clandestine 38. 'Celestial harmoniesss' 39. 'Was that one of ours or one of yours' says all you need to know about their HQs early on 40. How well Crowley's staring at Aziraphale at the Ritz conveys 'I'll get you there, I know I will' 41. The writing and the acting in the drinking scene is pure joy: 'Great big bugger' 'Bouillaboo- bouill- bouillaba- fish stew! anyway' 'Over and over and over and over and over. And over and over' 'I can't dis- not do what I'm told. 'M'nangel.' And Aziraphale and Crowley being disgusted by the aftertaste of alcohol? Priceless. 42. Aziraphale wincing slightly (note to self: MUST NOT TRUST HIM), and Crowley's super-honest, sincerest snake eyes in the world 43. The CHARM of 'it's not that bad when you get used to it' 44. Nanny and her lullaby. I'm not sure it's called 'liking something' if I wish for it to end immediately and each second of it hurts my soul while making me giggle, but thank you for that anyway 45. The coolest escalator-to-Heaven/Hell effects 46. Crowley's hair during his report 47. How pleased with themselves and how deceitful they both are 48. Gabriel's 200% condescension towards Aziraphale 49. The autumn beauty of the dinosaur park, what a beautiful place 50. 'No one will notice anything. It's reality, angel.' I've always loved the concept of miracles happening pretty much routinely and no one paying attention. Reminds me of a scene from Ghibli's 'Pom poko' with two guys eating their ramen after work and complaining about how mundane and dull and devoid of mystery real life is, while behind their backs the hugest, lengthiest outworldly spirit parade is unfolding. 51. Aziraphale failing to understand Crowley's hints about killing Warlock 52. 'Fun?! It's humiliating!' IT IS. 53. I wonder if Penn&Teller are mentioned as a nod to them appearing in an episode of Babylon 5, which Neil Gaiman wrote. Fangirl squee if it is a nod 54. How motherly and shining with love Deirdre Young is 55. Color schemes in Good Omens are on point. Loved the den of the 'Them' with all its bright red details. Also, the rope and the small pit are very convincing (I mean, I'd totally want to set up my den by a small pit. And to have a thick rope hanging from a tree? Yes!) 56. 'But you are actually a girl, Pepper.' 'That's just sexist.'  57. Beautiful use of slow motion when Dog appears 58. 'So the humans beat me to it.' Again, the first episode lays it all out.   59. End titles music!

[thank-you-for-the-vampire-money]

JUST LIKE HIM

Request: N/A, because no one would be cruel enough to request this

A/N: I… am so… SORRY.

Dad!Steve x reader

Word count: 1680

Summary: Your little girl is growing up to be a carbon copy of her father, you only wish he was around to see it.

Warnings: sadness, so much sadness, angst, nightmares, anxiety and PTSD, smidge of racism (it’s avenged though because racism is not cool) funerals, death

(GIFs not mine)

      It was nearly two in the morning, and, as usual, the bed felt grotesquely… empty. You missed him so much.  You missed him so much it hurt to say his name. You missed him so much, neither you nor your daughter, Deirdre, ever got a full night’s rest.   Deirdre was almost eight, but she still spent most nights sleeping in your bed because of nightmares.

Poor thing, ever since her father left, she’s struggled with terrible anxiety; no eight-year-old should have to deal with that! She was barely old enough to understand what was going on with her brain and she was already popping pills just to ease the pain.  It broke your heart every time you saw that obnoxiously orange prescription bottle in her room.  What made it even sadder, was that the bottle sat right next to a framed photo taken of your little family on your last trip to Disney World.  Everyone was smiling in that picture.  You had your flower mickey mouse ears on, your husband was wearing his Donald Duck baseball cap and was holding Deirdre as she wore her adorable Cinderella costume.

Oh, how Deirdre missed her father.  She may have only known him for six years, but she almost never stopped talking about her dad.  She always talked about the games he would play with her or the time he came to her school’s career day as Captain America; she would reminisce about the family outings in the city her dad always insisted that they have, she even had some framed drawings of his on her bedroom walls.

That was one thing she and her father had in common; they both loved art.  Deirdre always asked her dad when she would get as good as him.  He always responded in the cutest, most heartfelt way, “if you practice every day, create what’s on your heart, and love what you make, you’ll be ten times better than me,”.  That phrase always made you want to cry, more so now than ever.

Deirdre was always so courageous too, just like her father.  You were once called by the school because she punched a kid in the face.  When you and her father went to meet with the principle, you asked why she did such a thing.  Apparently, the kid she punched was making fun of an African-American boy for his skin color.  Deirdre didn’t like what the kid was doing, so he punched him in the nose and made friends with the African-American boy.  Her father was so proud of his little girl.  What was even cuter, was that the Deirdre and the boy she saved, Thomas, are now best friends.  Friends you can only compare to Steve and Bucky.

You smiled at the memory.  Deirdre was always like that, like her dad.  She was so smart and creative, a little reckless at times, but, her heart was always in the right place.  She had his smile, his eyes, his cute laugh, she was exactly like her father.

 Just then, you heard the creaking of your door opening.  You sat up to see Deirdre standing in the doorway, clutching her little, stuffed dog to her chest.  “Mommy… I had a nightmare…” she whimpered, sniffling a little bit, “can I sleep with you?”.

This reminded you so much of her father when you two were first dating.  With Steve’s vivid and often occurring nightmares, he often slept in your bed for comfort.  He would knock on your door, dragging either his pillow or his blanket behind him, and stand in your doorway with an innocent face.  Once you turned to look at his tired figure, he’d look at you and ask, “(Y/N)?  Can I sleep with you tonight?  I had another nightmare…” …. Just like Deirdre would.

 “Of course Deedee, come over here,” you cooed, reaching your arms out to welcome her.  She shuffled over, crawling under the big, white comforter, and cuddled up to you, tucking her head under your chin.  She always made the bed a lot less lonely.

“Mommy, I miss daddy,” Deirdre whimpered, fiddling with her stuffed dog’s ear, “I know Deedee, me too,” you replied.  The little girl shifted over to her back was now to your chest, letting you play with her hair and allowing her to speak more easily. “Do you remember the first time daddy tried to cook dinner while you were on vacation with Auntie Nat and Aunt Wanda?” she asked, sounding slightly happier, but dull at the same time.  You chuckled, “oh, I remember, your dad nearly set the apartment on fire,” you laughed as Deirdre laughed along with you. There it was, that beautiful smile. That beautiful smile that looked exactly like her dad's.

 “Or what about the time he got sprayed with a skunk on his morning run?” you reminded, hoping to keep Deirdre smiling; her smile was so rare these days, you wanted this moment to last as long as possible. “Yeah!” she agreed, giggling still, “he smelled like an old dumpster for hours until you could buy enough tomato juice to make the smell go away!”.

“Oh!  What about the time he bet Uncle Bucky he could do more push-ups than him?” she remembered excitedly, “and Uncle Buck cheated my using his metal arm?  That was pretty funny!”, “yeah, that was not the best idea your father has ever had,” you added.

 For the next half hour, you and your daughter reminisced on good memories you had shared about her father.  You brought up her fifth birthday- oh, her fifth birthday was the best!  She had asked for a Barbie doll that looked like you and a Captain America action figure to go with her baby Barbie, so she could have a doll version of your family.

Deirdre even remembered Georgia, her father’s service dog!  He had gotten Georgia as a S.H.I.E.L.D mandated service dog, to help with his PTSD and Depression.  Deirdre ended up falling in love with this Golden Retriever!  Nothing could separate them!  But, after he left, Georgia was one of the only things Deirdre had left of her father.  But, soon after, Georgia died due to the stress and grief of losing her master. Deirdre was in tears when Georgia left.

 Ugh!  Why did he have to leave on that stupid mission!?  If he had never gone to get that damn USB, he’d still be here!  Why did he have to leave you?!  You started crying at the memory of him, saying the last words you’d ever hear from him over the phone, gunshots and grenades going off in the background…

“(Y/N), baby, we’re outnumbered!” he yelled from the other line.  Your heart sunk.  You were always afraid of something like this happening… “I can’t fight back…” “no! No, Steve!  You always fight back!  Fight back!” you cried through tears of fear and stress.

 “(Y/N), listen to me,” you didn’t want to listen to him, you didn’t want to hear those dreadful words come from his mouth, “I won’t be coming home this time…”.  Those words echoed in your head over and over again.  You didn’t know it at the time, but that sentence would haunt you for the rest of your life.

“(Y/N)… if the rest of the team is going to make it out alive, I need to go ever there and distract the enemy, or else we're all going to die…” Steve sighed over the loud gunshots.  “Steve please…” you begged, nearly sobbing as tears streamed heavily down your cheeks.

“(Y/N)… I have to do this,” he said, right before an explosion went off in the background, “I love you doll, both you and Deirdre.  Tell her that I love her, will you do that for me, doll?”.  You swallowed the lump in your throat, “of course, baby, I’ll tell her that for you…”.  The words almost left a bad taste in your mouth.

“I love you both, and I’ll see you on the other side, okay?  I love you both so so much and I always will,”

“We love you too, St-“ you tried to finish, but a pained cry of agony interrupted you, followed by silence.  “Steve?” you called shakily, clutching the phone so tightly it was possible you could break it, “Steve?  Steve, please answer me!”.  Silence… then static…

He was gone.

Once the body was brought back, Steve was given the most honorable of funerals.  He was buried next to his mom and dad in Brooklyn.  Everyone close to him laid something in his coffin for him to be buried with.  Bucky gave him an old photo of them as kids, Sam left his dog tags from when he was in the Air Force, and Nat laid down the Avengers patch that she wore on the shoulder of her uniform.  You had found something extra special to be buried with Steve.  You gave him your wedding photo and the original ultrasound pictures taken of Deirdre.  You knew he would like to have these.

She didn’t tell you this until later, but Deirdre did lay something of her own in her father’s coffin when you weren’t looking. You asked her what she put in there and she said a copy of the photo taken in Disney World.  That nearly made you cry.  "I wanted daddy and me to be looking at the same picture," she said, wiping tears from her usually bright. blue eyes.

 You looked over at Deirdre, who was, thankfully, sleeping.  It pained you to look at her and see Steve’s image.  Why did he have to leave you two behind?!  He left you, a single mother with a six-year-old daughter, alone!  You were so mad at him!  You were mad but you wanted him back so badly!  You missed his boyish smile, you missed his soothing hugs, you missed his loving kisses, you missed his stories, you missed him biting his lip when he was concentrating; you missed HIM!  You missed Steve and it pained you to look at your daughter and see that she was just like… him.

TAGLIST:

@buckyshattergirl @paranoid-borderline-insane @bitchy-tacos

[softcoresuffering]

Awakening MU Headcanons

Did someone ask about my headcanons for the Fire Emblem Avatar characters???  No???  Too bad, here they are!  I’ll be talking a bit about the Awakening, Fates, and New Mystery player characters in what will probably be three posts, because this Robin one is getting ridiculously long.  The Kris one might be really short though, because my headcanons for them at this point are pretty underdeveloped....  Eh.

 Honestly, this is just a messy worddump about by AUs, so I’m posting it mostly for my own benefit.  If you do read it, I hope you enjoy it, and I apologize for the atrocious formatting!

So I’m a big fan of my “stuff every installment and supplementary material into one canon” AUs, so I like the “Both MUs Exist” AUs too.  This will also align with my “All Fire Emblem Games in one world and timeline” AU headcanons.  The Robins are descended from Deirdre and Arvis on Validar’s side of them family (I like to say through Julius/Ishtar).  From the Robin’s mother’s side of the family, the Robins are descended from Katarina and Kris.

= ROBIN =

I set MRobin and FRobin as twins.  Validar had been planning from the beginning of his relationship with Robin’s mother to be breeding a vessel for Grima.  I like to think a lot of the Grimleal’s religion is grounded in the remnants of the Lopt Sect, you know???  So Validar’s breeding his perfect little vessel of chaos.  Before the birth they’ve already decided on the name Robin.

But then Validar’s wife has twins.  Validar thinks, well, fuck, whatever, now we have a back up vessel.  No need for new names, it’s just one Robin plus it’s replacement should anything go wrong.  The twins are trained in magic, war history, swordplay, war theory, etc from an incredibly young age to prepare them for their fate as Literally The Vessel of God.  Might as well train both kids, so you don’t have to reteach one if the other dies.

(I don’t know which twin to have born first.  I sort of like having FAvatar born first, then MAvatar.  That would make the more popular FAvatar the older one, and, in some cultures the twin who comes out first is actually considered the younger one while the twin taken out second is though to have allowed the weaker twin to be birthed first, which would reinforce my later plans of MAvatar being his sister’s protector....But...  Hm, I don’t know, I’ll have to think about it all.)

 The Robin’s...Robins’s.... Robins’ mother eventually succumbs to her love of her children and disdain for how they’re being raised as objects.  She flees with the kids, out of Plegia in hopes of finding a home beyond the Grimleal’s reach.  They make their home in the Ylissean countryside.  I’m thinking this is sometime around when the kids are older than four but younger than ten.  Six-ish maybe???

But this good mama ain’t gonna be raising her kids as objects.  They get their own damn names.

FRobin keeps the name Robin.  Her twin brother is renamed Daraen, the name used for the Avatar in the Spanish version of the games.  I considered using the Japanese name Reflet, but I like to use Reflet as either the twin’s surname or possibly the name of their mother.

I like to think that because of Awakening’s timetravel mess, there are alternate timelines where either Robin or Daraen join the Grimleal and become the game’s Grima, with the other remaining Chrom’s adviser.  I use this storyline to replace the “future Robin coming back in time to target present Robin” in my AU.  Instead of the scene where a future version of Robin, now Grima, comes back in time and attempts to merge with the present version, causing the amnesia, I paint it like this;

The Grimleal found Robin, Daraen, and their mother-who-may-be-named-Reflet.  Actually, let’s just go ahead and call the mother Reflet.  Reflet had been chosen as the mother of Grima’s vessel in the first place because of her high ranking in the Grimleal, being their tactician and adviser during the Plegia-Ylisse war Chrom’s father fought , and basically Validar’s second in command.  She was a genius and incredible mage with mastery of all magic, the dark arts above all.  Basically, she sure as all hell wasn’t going to let the Grimleal take her children back without one hell of a fight.

Reflet dies at the hands of the Grimleal that came for Robin and Daraen, but not without taking the assassins down with her.  She uses some sort of spell aimed to rewrite her children’s memories, to remove all they know of the Grimleal and replace it with a happy Ylissean life to make it harder for the Grimleal to find them again- then a warp spell to get them the hell out of wherever the fight took place.  But Reflet is literally dying at this point, the memory spell fucks up and erases EVERYTHING they know of their pasts.  When the twins are found by Chrom, the first name they remember is Robin, although neither twin can figure out which twin the name belongs to.  They later remember the names Daraen and Reflet, with the brother readopting his name Daraen and the twins deciding Reflet must be their family name.

They could still eerily remember Chrom’s name from the time they spent in Ylisse before shit hit the fan, but IDK.  But, hell, I digress.  Point is, in one timeline Robin returns to Plegia and becomes Grima while Daraen stays by Chrom’s side and, if this timeline isn’t the doomed one, helps kill his own sister.  In the other timeline Daraen becomes Grima while Robin stays Ylisse’s tactician and does the parricide if it even happens.

I like the characterization of the M!Avatar, Daraen, being more timid and empathetic then the F!Avatar, Robin.  Right now I’m considering that the Robin-becomes-Grima timeline is the doomed one, because Daraen is unable to bring himself to kill his own sister- He was raised as her replacement and protector, and even if he doesn’t remember that, it’s still deeply rooted in his mind.

In the good timeline, it’s Daraen who becomes Grima’s vessel, and although it sure as hell isn’t easy for her, Robin is able to make the final blow.  I consider her the more pragmatic of the two- the one who would chose the “sacrifice Emmeryn” option during the game where Daraen would chose the “sacrifice the Fire Emblem.”

Unrelated to the worldbuilding stuff, I also want to mention my personal shipping setups and the Morgans.

To differentiate between the Morgans, I’ll be calling FMorgan Morgan and MMorgan Marc, their Japanese name.  For the sake of the actual, finalized AU, they might actually end up with the same name because thus far I’m planning for neither Morgan to be able to come from the same timeline.

The idea is that Morgan (FMorgan) will only be born in a timeline where Daraen becomes Grima, as she is born to be the next vessel.  Marc, then, can only be born in a timeline where Robin becomes Grima.  Due to timetravel shenanigans, however, they CAN and will end up in the same timeline for the final, ‘True’ timeline that Lucina and friends travel to.  So I don’t know about the names, but for now it’ll be Morgan and Marc.

I don’t have a lot of headcanons for Marc’s timeline yet.  I haven’t but much thought into it, except the traits that they’ll share with Morgan, IE they were born to the Grima of their timeline and raised to be the next vessel, constantly desperate for his mother’s love and basking in the rare, short moments when Robin is more, well, Robin than she is Grima and actually shows him some love.  I don’t really have a character from the first Awakening generation that I want to be Marc’s father.  maybe it’s the generic village maiden

For Morgan’s timeline, though, I’ve kind of gone overboard.  Most of these headcanons revolve around Daraen, honestly.  As of right now I’m a supporter of Daraen/Lissa.  The idea is that, in the Robin-is-Grima timelines, Daraen stays with Ylisse, marries Lissa, and has Owain.  In the Daraen-is-Grima timelines, Tharja follows Daraen back to Plegia as a dedicated Grimleal who later becomes his right hand woman and wife.  They begin ‘breeding’ the next Grima vessel.  First born is Noire, who proves to be unfit to become the next vessel, and receives neglect from her father (except for the rare moments when he’s more Daraen than he is Grima, where he tries to advocate for her) and distain from her mother.  Next born is Morgan, who is considered successful.  Tharja stays with Morgan for a while, but from about the same time Morgan starts walking Daraen/Grima kind of pushes Tharja out of her life and keeps the child close to him as an attempt to prevent what happened when his own mother Reflet grew a conscious and ran off with Grima’s Heir.

In this timeline, I MIGHT have Daraen marry Lissa and at least impregnate her with Owain before he runs off to become an evil demon lord, but I don’t think so.  In theory, the Daraen-is-Grima timeline is either one where Owain isn’t born or one where Lissa has a different husband.  I like the narrative of the first option, personally.

This......... got A LOT longer than I planned for it to be.  And, as usual with my notes, got a lot messier than I had planned.  If anyone actually reads all of this, wow, holy shit, thanks dude.  Hope you thought it was neat.  I’ll post the Corrins and Krises later, although neither of them will be nearly as long as this.  I haven’t worked on them very much yet.

[moranument]

quick rundown of sebastian’s parents,   some details that may come into play if muses intend to meet any of them in threads. can be verse dependent.

sir augustus moran, cb.   FACECLAIM: ed harris. the great and powerful augustus moran, menacing and influential, is sebastian’s father. born into a lower class family in london, augustus ( auggie to his childhood friends, and occasionally to his wife ) had no formal education, and enlisted at age 16 with his father’s consent. his mother died the day before his fifth birthday, so augustus spent much of his life without a female figure; he became as strict and pragmatic as his dogmatic father, with the military only strengthening his severity.

augustus remained within the military until a few years after he achieved the rank of general. by then, his exceptional tactics, military prowess, and ferocity granted him the order of bath. he met deirdre donovan at the ceremony, and a year later, the two of them were married. they welcomed sebastian in 1980, and severin in 1986.

augustus moran is a constant in sebastian’s life, authoritative and persuasive. although he allowed sebastian to attend university, it was under one condition: the day he graduated, he was expected to enlist, just as augustus had. the military breeds good character, his father would say. you will become a man there. and while sebastian initially resented his father’s coercing, something that stayed with him throughout his career as a hitman, he’s come to appreciate him. though strained, their relationship has improved greatly since he “retired” from assassin work, but he has yet to inform his father that he resumed.

augustus is “traditional” ( he’d call himself that, much to sebastian’s dismay ) and impolite in many cases, and will most likely disapprove of any same-sex relationships sebastian chooses to engage in.

deirdre moran.   FACECLAIM: angela lansbury. deirdre moran is the balance sebastian needed growing up, the perfect other half to her husband. bookish, resourceful, and witty, deirdre is and always has been a huge influence on her sons.

born deirdre donovan to irish parents, deirdre spent the first half of her childhood in ireland surrounded by family. she attended school, but valued what she learned from her parents and siblings more than any formal education, and spent much of her free time with her nose in books. her father received a job offer in london when she was seven, and the donovan family quickly relocated, deirdre bringing her books with her.

london brought deirdre many opportunities as she grew up. she attended university ( thanks to her parents’ encouragement ), majoring in english, and accepted a position as a secretary within the british government. there, during an order of bath ceremony, she was introduced to augustus moran. while slightly off-put by his no-nonsense demeanor, she found him intriguing, insightful, and handsome, and the two began dating. they were married in 1978, and had their first son, sebastian, in 1980.

while her husband delivered stringent guidelines and set harsh rules for their sons to follow, deirdre was always softer, always kinder and lighter, loving to her sons, sebastian takes after her, and has always aspired to be as warm as she is. while the first half of his life was spent in the shadow of his father, this new part, this new step in the right direction, is all based on her.

deirdre is exceptionally kind to all, and will welcome any of sebastian’s friends and/or lovers as if they were her own children. she’s the only one who can keep her husband in line.

[gascon-en-exil]

I finished FE4; that last chapter was an absolute slog, but then frankly all of Gen 2 except Chapters 6 and maybe 8 felt like that. Thoughts:

My first name shows up in a FE, whee. The English version of my saint’s name is already in FE10 as the name of Dawn Brigade myrmidon who memetically blocks axes with his face, but I believe that prior to this patch the eldest Dozel brother’s name was translated as Burian. It does raise the question though of why his father didn’t have Helswath in Chapter 6 aside from the plot contrivance that comes with a chapter of entirely fresh units.

I found Hilda rather disappointing to be honest. She’s talked up in fandom as this heinous proto-Sonia who’s such a pleasure to kill, but I just wasn’t feeling it. Part of it is that she’s just not around as much. She’s the first boss of Chapter 10 and then in Endgame she’s just one of the many new or reappearing enemies that pop up on the way to Belhalla. It doesn’t help either that all of her abuse of Tailtiu and Tine is told as backstory, and that Blume is almost as much to blame in first kidnapping his sister and niece (are we ever told why he didn’t just kill them?) and then turning a blind eye to whatever Hilda was doing to them. At least we actually see Sonia manipulating and abusing Nino and the Reeds several times before she becomes a boss, plus there’s that whole delusion of humanity angle she’s got going for her. Hilda meanwhile is...a social climbing mother pushing her daughter into a political marriage, which feels slightly out of place although it does ground the Empire’s politics more in the real world in spite of all the child sacrifices and evil dragon worship.

On a related note, I still don’t quite know what to feel about Ishtar, aside from her possibly being the most annoying boss in this game. She’s a Camus with a doomed love, but she’s also explicitly defying Julius’s orders and saving kidnapped children. Has she figured out by Endgame that he’s clearly unhinged but sees no way out of the situation?

Manfroy may be fantastic at the political long game, but compared to Gharnef or Nergal or even Sephiran he had very little presence as a boss. He doesn’t even get a special class or tome.

Miletos is such filler, even on a geographic level because having Seliph go straight back to Grannvale after Thracia would have meant another desert map. Thank goodness we dodged that bullet, but Miletos...meh. At least Carcino over in Magvel gets its politics delved into a little bit, and I believe Rennac is from there? It’s been forever since I’ve played FE8.

I like how the character endings are divided up by country and can change according to pairings in both generations, though the number of women whose endings consist entirely of “wife of X” stands out. In my playthrough only Tine inherited something on her own rather than join her husband (Ced). Also, Verdane got annexed by Seliph because something something Deirdre worship which I wasn’t expecting. I imagine the only way to have an independent Verdane is to pair up Jamke?

Diarmuid always returns to Agustria with Ares, unless I assume he marries a woman who inherits something which will never happen in my files because I’ll take what I can get in this het fest. Is Ares/Diarmuid a thing? Sure, first cousins, but so is Ares/Nanna, and the cousin angle might actually help convince Ares that it doesn’t really count and so doesn’t mess with his image of heterosexual knightliness.

Also, Ares is Owain played for drama. That was an odd revelation, to say the least. There’s no question as to which of the two non-Camus black knights inspires more genuine dread.

Why does Oifey have to take Chalphy? Seliph says he “can’t” inherit it as King of Grannvale, but Arvis was Emperor despite being the Duke of Velthomer so this really just feels like an excuse to give Oifey something to do in the ending. If Seliph’s fine with annexing foreign countries (and apparently the whole continent if you kill off all the right people) why is his own major blood inheritance off limits?

I remember that years ago I read that Jugdral had no Fire Emblem, but in the ending we’re told that that’s the name of the insignia of House Velthomer. That’s completely reasonable in the context of the story, but that makes its appearance in the title a little strange (aside from being the title of the series and all). I suppose it’s because most of the central conflict of FE4 (and 5? I get the impression that one’s more of a tangent from Arvis and Julius and all) comes from Velthomer.

We’re still a few weeks away from the international release of FE15, so now I’m wondering if I should track down a translation patch of either FE5 or FE3/12 (though more likely 12 as I don’t imagine there’s much reason to play the games with remakes anymore). I’ve read that New Mystery has had a competent patch for years whereas the one for Thracia 776 has been in partially-completed flux. Sticking with Jugdral would be nice, but I’m not looking forward to FE5′s infamous difficulty. Or I could just replay Genealogy using different units and different pairings....

[fathersonholygore]

Hulu’s The Path Season 2, Episode 13: “Mercy” Directed by Jessica Goldberg Written by Jessica Goldberg

* For a recap & review of the penultimate Season 2 episode, “Spiritus Mundi” – click here Here we are: the final episode of The Path‘s Season 2! What a ride it’s been, I do hope that we’re getting another season. But first, let’s see where this one ends. Last we saw, Richard (Clark Middleton) was about to set himself and the compound, specifically the archives room where all the unburdening tapes – the blackmail weapons – are kept. Sarah (Michelle Monaghan) and Eddie (Aaron Paul) are together with their daughter. They’re living a different life, out in the real world, in a seaside Canadian town. “Are we safe now?” Summer (Aimee Laurence) asks. Is this a vision of the future, a life beyond Meyerism and its cult for the Lanes? Or are we seeing a dream? It looks like reality. We then see Cal (Hugh Dancy) go back to his little room with Mary (Emma Greenwell) and their newborn baby. It looks as if the Lanes finally made it out, all of them – well, aside from Hawk (Kyle Allen) it seems. Everyone else is moving on, three weeks after the birth of Emma’s child. The events of the previous episode set off a series of repercussions that everyone’s still learning how to deal with, still understanding. Sarah’s confused; her daughter wants her parents back together, but mom isn’t entirely sure. The entire web of relationships is fractured, possibly beyond repair. Sarah tries justifying what she did with the blackmail, yet also harbours deep guilt over Richard’s death. The Meyerists continue trying to move past Richard’s death, the fire. They all lay cacti and plants at the site, a sort of ceremony. Meanwhile, Hank and Gab (Peter Friedman/Deirdre O’Connell) wonder how things will continue, as Bill and a reluctant though present Felicia (Brian Stokes Mitchell/Adriane Lenox) assure them – Cal is “good for the movement.” Right. The fearless leader’s too busy licking his wounds over Sarah that it’s a wonder he can concentrate at all. Between that and having a lovechild with Mary, one everyone’s gossiping about behind their backs. It’s nice to finally see Eddie, Sarah, and Summer living a normal life away from the compound; too bad Hawk’s brainwashed. The three walk on the beach, they spend time in the open air without having to do any creepy, weird shit. They’re an actual family again, bound by themselves instead of some cult nonsense. More than that it’s clear Sarah’s never actually fallen out of love with her estranged husband. On the street, Eddie runs into Abe (Rockmond Dunbar). He’s not happy that his case essentially up and ran away. He came to see Eddie, to “bring him back” to his people. Whatever that means. At the centre, Hawk gets an envelope from his mother reading DO SOMETHING WITH IT – the results from the Clarkesville water tests. Hmm. There’s something bigger, more major coming with that whole plotline. I’m just curious to see where Hawk takes it, and whether it changes him. Abe drops Eddie home. Following nearby is Russel (Patch Darragh), too. Inside are the former Deniers, all meeting to figure out what’s their next step. Eddie tells them about his visions, how it isn’t clear. It’s not about seeing the finish line; he’s on a journey, like the rest of them. “I don‘t know if I‘m the one,” he tells them. He’s unsure, even with the blessing of Steve Meyers (Keir Dullea). Nevertheless there are people who now count on him, who BELIEVE in him. Of course Russel brings information back to Cal – Sam Field isn’t who he said he is, he’s been in league with Eddie. And he tells Cal of the Deniers, their hope to reform Meyerism. That doesn’t sit well, either. Cal’s fragile psychological state is scary. When he goes home to Mary she’s asking questions about Eddie. This further reveals that Cal believes “people don’t know what they want.” He has contempt for others. But Mary’s smarter than he understands. She tells him: “You are what we want.” And she suggests something must be… done… with Eddie. So the two have a chat when Cal shows up down at the Deniers HQ. He acts quite threatening, as well as too sure of himself, full of ego. None of his behaviour will drive Eddie away, though. Unless it comes down to Sarah. Speaking of her, she’s out experiencing the world, dinner at a friend’s place. Then comes the questions of where she came from. Why nobody can Google her. So on. Sarah gets paranoid, so she and her daughter sneak out the bathroom window and run. They head to their house, grab a few things, and they take off. An intense scene, with a pounding score. Hawk walks in to find Eddie, Cal, and Libby Dukaan. Troubling, not to mention the fact his father appears not as enraged or defiant as normal. A little later Cal talks about Eddie, saying he’s willing to drop all he believes in to help Sarah; funny, as this shows that Cal cares most about the movement and himself. Sadly, Mary can’t see that, not yet. Although she’s full of spite enough to try and twist things up for the father of her child; the identity of whom she reveals to Hawk, in order to stir up some trouble. Sarah heads for the border with Summer, determined on doing the “right thing” so that her daughter can be proud of her. Will she turn herself in? Is that actually her plan? Meanwhile, Hawk goes to see his dad. He discovers the truth of Eddie as Steve’s chosen one to lead the movement. He also finds out that his dad got Libby to pay back the people Sarah blackmailed. But this also means there’s nothing going ahead with the water tests. Eddie further believes he isn’t the one to lead. Through it all, Hawk, the one who was so brainwashed, falling away from his dad, may be the one to convince him.

A great sequence cuts parallel between Eddie preaching about mercy and Cal practising a speech about loss. What we see is how Cal has to rehearse his movements, whereas the compassion for others, the speech, it all comes easy to Eddie; like a natural extension of himself. This is THE GREATEST SEQUENCE OF THE SERIES! Hands down. And all the while as we visually comprehend the differences between the opposing leaders, Sarah wanders a rock maze, trying to rediscover her own way on the path. Just amazing filmmaking here in this scene, from writing to editing to score. One good thing, I suppose, is that Cal comes into his own as the father of Mary’s child. They name him Forest Roberts, due to his being born in the wilderness. Sarah confronts Eddie about his choice to reverse the blackmail. He assures her that her life “will be hell” and she won’t need to look for punishment, not from the law or anywhere else. For once, she’s now the one who wants to walk away and have a family, away from a cult. She doesn’t want him to “go back inside.” She worries it’ll wash away what’s good about him.

At the compound, Ascension Day is underway. Sarah walks into the midst of the celebration, as Cal preaches his rehearsed speech. Everyone eats it up, too. They love it and him. They sing songs of Meyerism, acting like a big, happy family. Then they’re distracted by a noise from out at the gate. The Deniers have come, Eddie leading the crowd. Hank even lets them in willingly. What a stunning moment! Some greet Eddie, others leave. Perfectly Radiohead’s “Everything in its Right Place” plays in the background. Soon, people walk from out behind Cal, joining the rightful Guardian of the Light. A change is coming. Just a case of who, and what, is left standing when all is said and done. I LOVED THIS FINALE! Even better than the Season 1 finale, as well. Spectacular work, especially now as we sit on the edge, waiting to see how Cal moves forward – no doubt treachery and violence are on his path – and how Eddie handles the movement, plus I can’t wait to see what Sarah chooses as her own personal way forward. Hulu: renew this, or feel my wrath. The Path – Season 2, Episode 13: “Mercy” Hulu's The Path Season 2, Episode 13: "Mercy" Directed by Jessica Goldberg Written by Jessica Goldberg…

[valflame]

::ooc// give us a headcanon that you wanted to post but haven't had a reason to yet OR give us family headcanons!!

gimme gimme headcanon asks | ALWAYS ACCEPTING

Fun fact I’m REAL BAD at going with broad topics like ‘do anything you’d like to do’ because I’m the most indecisive person on this green earth dfjbgdf SO I’M GONNA GO WITH THE LATTER OPTION

I wrote a headcanon post on general family things to do with him a little more than half a year ago so I’ll just… Copy paste it here and add to it a little

as always whenever discussing House Velthomer there’s a WARNING in place because canon material pertaining to the family goes over the topics of abuse, neglect, abandonment, rape, incest, suicide and infidelity. The game is often compared to ga.me of thr.ones; a lot of the same problematic issues are covered in both. Please let me know if I missed anything and need to tag this with anything else dgkfxbsf

Arvis acts like a foil to Sigurd in a lot of different ways, but one of the big ones is basis. Sigurd’s got loads of friends that he’s fiercely loyal to and a warm, loving household with a close relationship with his father and his sister. Arvis got to grow up with an abusive drunkard philanderer for a father, a ( WAY too overly idealised in his head, to the point where Kaga’s notes literally say he has a mother complex ) mother that abandoned him when his father killed himself, and a bastard little half-brother that was the product of his deeply loathed father raping his mother’s favourite maid/the initial trigger for her cheating on her husband with the prince that led to Victor’s suicide that led to the suicide note that led to Cigyun running away in despair and confusion that led to seven year old Arvis getting a duchy dumped into his arms to run and an infant brother to raise and effectively being robbed of any childhood he might’ve had otherwise, and according to the game design notes he took this hard.

                                                    … Understandably, but hard. Arvis pulled in and just never gave back out; where Sigurd went to Belhalla’s military academy and got to meet people and interact with and make friends with his peers, Arvis was a literal little boy stuck with going to the same meetings and dealing with the same responsibilities as every other duke in the realm, and since every other duke is old as heck he only very occasionally got to ever really meet people his age at all. He became cold and just shut people out: everything that happened with his parents put a foul taste in his mouth with people, so he already blocked out most of the population through that, and the game guide goes out of its way to say that he just isn’t attracted to women ( Deirdre is the sole exception, and that’s only because of his Oedipus complex and the fact that she looks so much like dear old mom, which opens up a whole different can of worms on its own ), so in stark contrast to his womanising father he never bothered with courtship. He didn’t have any interest in romance, he didn’t have any friends outside of Aida, and that’s really only because as his confidant and his right hand man she’s basically shadowing him constantly and he has to like her for that to work out, and despite the real, powerful love he felt for his little brother Azel says himself that he’s terrified of him because Arvis is terrifying. Everything he does is ridiculously severe and no-nonsense, and it’s directly because he got saddled with such an absurd amount of responsibility when he was so little. On top of this you’ve got Saias, his illegitimate son by Aida, which throws a whole other slew of drama into the mix because you know that he despised his father and he doesn’t want to be associated with him, and that word getting out of him having a bastard child of his own when his father was known for having a countless number of them because he just went and had affairs wherever he went would just mark open season on comparisons there… Except Saias is canonically 27 in the year Gran 776, which would make him about nine during the time of the massacre at Belhalla near the end of the game’s 1st generation. Arvis is still described as young here, presumably around Sigurd’s age and too young to really have a nearly ten year old child, and canon supplementary material still points out that he simply wasn’t attracted to any women before Deirdre, so that doesn’t really help cement a real concept of family for him. What’s most likely is that it was a mistake a la alcohol on both parties’ fronts, but it’s complicated; no canon ages are given to Arvis outside the manga, which puts him at 25 in the first generation, but that means he would have been around sixteen when Saias was conceived, by a woman that he loved dearly as a friend but not at all in any sexual or romantic light, while he was still trying to raise his then-nine-year-old younger half brother on top of leading Velthomer duchy. Saias was also a product of genealogy’s prequel and thus never actually shows up in game or gets mentioned until Thracia 776, so there’s no way to see what their relationship was canonically like, but regardless the additional stress that came with suddenly knowing you had a child out of wedlock in a very medieval setting and the immediate mental comparisons to his ever-hated father would have been crushing.

It all culminated in him both growing up way too fast and never really growing up at all.

Arvis is very strict, very arrogant and very pragmatic. He’s got a ridiculously overly idealised worldview in his head that says that he can do anything ( and nothing has ever done anything to suggest that he couldn’t; he led a duchy when he was seven, he demanded the respect of the other dukes and got it despite the decades-long gap between them in ages, he leads the royal guard and tends directly to the king, etc. — he’s accomplished plenty ), and since he can do anything, clearly he has to do good things, for the people. If a few innocent people have to be mowed down for the needs of the many then it isn’t a problem at all to him, because in his mind nobody else is capable enough to do what he can do. And he gets away with it!! Kaga’s notes talk about him outlawing slavery and punishing strict and unfair merchants when he first becomes emperor, and the people adore him for it. He wants to be a good guy, and as long as the people think he is and he does things to genuinely help them then he is… In his head.

Except that they, you know, don’t know anything about how he orchestrated the events that culminated in House Chalphy getting unrightfully saddled with high treason.Or how he ( unknowingly at the time, admittedly ) married his sister.Or how he’s a Loptyr blood carrier.That Loptyr blood thing and his actions regarding it play pretty well into his mindset; he never grew up socialising properly or being raised properly, so he just stuck to the idea that if a thing can cause trouble it ought to be hidden so as to avoid punishment, and being Loptyr-blooded definitely helped that along. If anyone knew about it he’d be burnt alive in a witch hunt, so of course he did whatever Manfroy told him to do on threat of blackmail, and, like a child, he justified all the gradually worse and worse things he did in the name of saving his own skin by calling it ‘a sacrifice for the greater good’.

                                                He never grew up emotionally.

At the very root of his character you’ve got a man with very good intentions and very very bad methods of achieving his goals. Would he have ever done what he did if Manfroy wasn’t blackmailing him? No, but that doesn’t matter. What does matter is how he reacted when he was frightened and how he keeps insisting on keeping things hidden from everyone and anyone if he can get away with it. He didn’t tell Deirdre a thing when he found out that his wife, the woman he loved, the mother of their children was actually his sibling, and you can bet he didn’t tell Julia or Julius that they were the products of incest. He didn’t tell them about his Loptyr blood, because he would never tell anyone about that. He didn’t tell her that she’d previously been married to Sigurd because that got in the way of his happy idyllic life. Family is overwhelmingly important to him because he just didn’t really have one as a kid ( or he’d rather have not had one; his father pretty much ruined everything ), but it gave him every issue he has and left him scrambling to justify doing some downright heinous things. If his mother hadn’t abandoned him, or if his father wasn’t, you know, an awful hecking person, or if he’d actually had a friend growing up he might’ve matured enough mentally that by the time the issues of the game really start he would’ve been able to handle things better, but he didn’t. He bottles everything up and keeps secrets that cost people their lives and just sits on them right into the grave.

[valflame]

hc + family/love (only if you want to !)

send a word for some headcanon palooza type stuff | ACCEPTING

Family is not an easy subject for him, mostly because House Velthomer plays out like the hecking Oresteia. It’s long, ridiculously complicated and basically acts as the root of pretty much every issue he has. Everything about him reflects his family life.

Under the cut for mentions of abuse/rape/abandonment/suicide/incest/infidelity/if you’ve played fe4 you know what sort of things went down with the Velthomers smhalso becausey’knowthis got long OTL

Arvis acts like a foil to Sigurd in a lot of different ways, but one of the big ones is basis. Sigurd’s got loads of friends that he’s fiercely loyal to and a warm, loving household with a close relationship with his father and his sister. Arvis got to grow up with an abusive drunkard philanderer for a father, a ( WAY too overly idealised in his head, to the point where Kaga’s notes literally say he has a mother complex ) mother that abandoned him when his father killed himself, and a bastard little half-brother that was the product of his deeply loathed father raping his mother’s favourite maid/the initial trigger for her cheating on her husband with the prince that led to Victor’s suicide that led to the suicide note that led to Cigyun running away in despair and confusion that led to seven year old Arvis getting a duchy dumped into his arms to run and an infant brother to raise and effectively being robbed of any childhood he might’ve had otherwise, and according to the game design notes he took this hard.

                                                     … Understandably, but hard. Arvis pulled in and just never gave back out; where Sigurd went to the academy and got to meet people and interact with and make friends with his peers, Arvis was a literal little boy stuck with going to the same meetings and dealing with the same responsibilities as every other duke in the realm, and since every other duke is old as heck he only very occasionally got to ever really meet people his age at all. He became cold and just shut people out: everything that happened with his parents put a foul taste in his mouth with people, so he already blocked out most of the population through that, and the game guide goes out of its way to say that he just isn’t attracted to women ( Deirdre is the sole exception, and that’s only because of his Oedipus complex and the fact that she looks so much like dear old mom, which opens up a whole different can of worms on its own ), so in stark contrast to his womanising father he never bothered with courtship. He didn’t have any interest in romance, he didn’t have any friends outside of Aida, and that’s really only because as his confidant and his right hand man she’s basically shadowing him constantly and he has to like her for that to work out, and despite the real, powerful love he felt for his little brother Azel says himself that he’s terrified of him because Arvis is terrifying. Everything he does is ridiculously severe and no-nonsense, and it’s directly because he got saddled with such an absurd amount of responsibility when he was so little.

It all culminated in him both growing up way too fast and never really growing up at all.

Arvis is very strict, very arrogant and very pragmatic. He’s got a ridiculously overly idealised worldview in his head that says that he can do anything ( and nothing has ever done anything to suggest that he couldn’t; he led a duchy when he was seven, he demanded the respect of the other dukes and got it despite the decades-long gap between them in ages, he leads the royal guard and tends directly to the king, etc. — he’s accomplished plenty ), and since he can do anything, clearly he has to do good things, for the people. If a few innocent people have to be mowed down for the needs of the many then it isn’t a problem at all to him, because in his mind nobody else is capable enough to do what he can do. And he gets away with it!! Kaga’s notes talk about him outlawing slavery and punishing strict and unfair merchants when he first becomes emperor, and the people adore him for it. He wants to be a good guy, and as long as the people think he is and he does things to genuinely help them then he is… In his head.

Except that they, you know, don’t know anything about how he orchestrated the events that culminated in House Chalphy getting unrightfully saddled with high treason.Or how he ( unknowingly at the time, admittedly ) married his sister.Or how he’s a Loptyr blood carrier.That Loptyr blood thing and his actions regarding it play pretty well into his mindset; he never grew up socialising properly or being raised properly, so he just stuck to the idea that if a thing can cause trouble it ought to be hidden so as to avoid punishment, and being Loptyr-blooded definitely helped that along. If anyone knew about it he’d be burnt alive in a witch hunt, so of course he did whatever Manfroy told him to do on threat of blackmail, and, like a child, he justified all the gradually worse and worse things he did in the name of saving his own skin by calling it ‘a sacrifice for the greater good’.

                                                 He never grew up emotionally.

At the very root of his character you’ve got a man with very good intentions and very very bad methods of achieving his goals. Would he have ever done what he did if Manfroy wasn’t blackmailing him? No, but that doesn’t matter. What does matter is how he reacted when he was frightened and how he keeps insisting on keeping things hidden from everyone and anyone if he can get away with it. He didn’t tell Deirdre a thing when he found out that his wife, the woman he loved, the mother of their children was actually his sibling, and you can bet he didn’t tell Julia or Julius that they were the products of incest. He didn’t tell them about his Loptyr blood, because he would never tell anyone about that. He didn’t tell her that she’d previously been married to Sigurd because that got in the way of his happy idyllic life. Family is overwhelmingly important to him because he just didn’t really have one as a kid ( or he’d rather have not had one; his father pretty much ruined everything ), but it gave him every issue he has and left him scrambling to justify doing some downright heinous things. If his mother hadn’t abandoned him, or if his father wasn’t, you know, an awful hecking person, or if he’d actually had a friend growing up he might’ve matured enough mentally that by the time the issues of the game really start he would’ve been able to handle things better, but he didn’t.

[fathersonholygore]

Hulu’s The Path Season 2, Episode 11: “Defiance” Directed by Phil Abraham Written by Vanessa Rojas & Andrea Ciannavei

* For a recap & review of the previous episode, “Restitution” – click here * For a recap & review of the next episode, “Spiritus Mundi” – click here Hawk (Kyle Allen) is in one of those same rooms where his father Eddie (Aaron Paul) sat, staring into the Meyerist eye, repenting for sins. Or whatever. A lot of pain in him. On the outside, Cal (Hugh Dancy) and Sarah (Michelle Monaghan) are basking in the success of their latest talk. Although she’s having a tough time, with family. But Cal says he’s “all in” for their new life, their relationship. Except Eddie’s there to confront him over what he discovered about them. He also shows off the charm Steve (Keir Dullea) gave him, making clear both their leader and Sarah chose him; not Cal. Whoa. Note: Eddie’s cast in light as Cal, once more as I’ve noted time and again, gets cast in shadow, a great visual in this moment! Mary Cox (Emma Greenwell) and Sean (Paul James) are talking with his mother and the cult deprogrammer. They’re asked about whether there’s a threat of violence, which neither of them can answer for certain. He wants to take the second chance. She’s still connected, particularly to Cal. And then there’s Abe Gaines (Rockmond Dunbar), trying his best to blow the lid of the Meyerist cult. He says that “press alone” can take them down, though Sarah’s looking more likely headed to jail all the time. On top of that, there’s the issues with the water, and Abe gets troubling results back on the tests ordered. Through Richard (Clark Middleton), Eddie wants to send a message for his son. That they need to meet. Although Hawk isn’t doing well. His mother’s going to see him, then gets a call from Cal; he’s surprised to find out that Eddie was in fact in Peru with Steve before he died. The stress sitting on Cal’s shoulders right now is so huge, you can see it about to break. Later, he holds a meeting about Eddie slipping past security, and he goes a bit wild. You can see people a bit scared now for the first time. They can see Cal’s instability raging below the surface. Hawk’s having trouble seeing how the isolation is meant to help. He doesn’t feel it’s working, and he knows it didn’t work for his father, either. His mother, brainwashed as she is, pushes him to continue: “The Light radiates in you,” she tells him, feeding him the same shit her parents likely fed her. Speaking of Hank (Peter Friedman) and Gab (Deirdre O’Connell), they go to see their daughter Tessa (Alexia Landeau), defying the Denier Policy. Already, a change is coming in the movement altogether. One that Cal might not be capable of stopping.

Eddie, with help of Felicia (Adriane Lenox), continues on his climb to 8R. He does meditation. He threads a needle blindfolded. All while she narrates his journey. Simultaneously, Cal goes through all his things – his memories of Steve, pictures and letters and all sorts of things – wondering if what Eddie told him earlier is actually true. And despite the madness, the nonsense, there’s something to Eddie’s claim of being the “chosen son” because he has a power in him, somewhere deep down. Returning to life again, Hawk runs into Noa (Britne Oldford). Things are awkward, yet he confesses to being with Ashley (Amy Forsyth). They try moving past it, and he lays on one her lips to prove nothing’s changed. But something has changed, absolutely. He’s only denying it. Then he finds out his father crashed the compound to get to Cal. Coupled with the fact Richard brought word to him in meditation, he’s a confused young man. For his part, Cal is trying his best to hang on to everything. From Sarah to Mary. Of course when Sarah tells him about the latter wanting to possibly leave, things get tough. Cal tries to pretend like he cares, like he’s not putting pressure on Mary in any kind of way. Sarah’s doing her best to root out who’s exploiting and abusing her. Only a matter of time before she finds out more. And piled on top of everything, Noa contacts Cal to tell him Eddie’s trying to see his son. That’s not all, though. Eddie and his father-in-law Hank are still in league, too. And Eddie gets beaten up by three men, brutally. Which starts to make him paranoid about who’s pulling those sort of strings. He tells Hank that he now has to “pick sides” and to go with his own truth, instead of that of his wife, his daughter. But Hank can’t, not yet. Sean gets a bit scared after Mary tells him she let Sarah in on their possible plan to leave. Especially when Cal shows up at their place in the middle of the night. He acts willing to let them go. “You are loved here, the two of you,” he claims. Is this truth? Or merely an act, another mask in the long line of delusions that is Calvin Roberts? Honestly, I can’t tell at this point. What Abe discovers is that he’s a pawn in a game involving Dekaan, the water wars. He feels more and more isolated, as well. Nobody on his side seems to care about what’s truly happening. When people are dying from poisoned water, and the cult goes on blackmailing and brainwashing and ruining lives in their own way. Family dinner now includes Cal, something Hawk does not seem to enjoy. Also, Hank and Gab bring up how intense Cal was during their little security meeting earlier. This starts up a conversation about why Eddie showed up at the compound. Everything gets quite intense. Outside, Cal tells Hawk about him and his mother. Then retroactively admits to offering Ashley’s family a house as a bribe to leave Hawk alone. He likewise tries to make her out to be the horrible one. Not a good idea; shit. That night Eddie’s waiting for his boy as he gets back in the city. Things don’t go well, Hawk wants to throw him away, he believes whatever Cal tells him. He won’t accept anything, and says that Eddie has to accept everything, that he must move on. Poor kid. He goes one step forward, three steps back. Into the muck and the mire of Meyerism.

Sarah goes to see Eddie, and they argue over their respective responsibility for their actions. She’s shocked, knowing that he knows what she tried to make restitution for, and this sends her away angry. Now she can likely guess Richard’s been meeting with her husband. She goes back to the compound rifling through his things, trying to find a clue. Packing their things into a car in the middle of the night, Sean and Mary plan to leave. But she runs back, unwilling to let go. All he can do is turn around and leave on his own. This is not good. At home, Eddie hears a noise. Wielding a bat, he finds Abe out poking around his place. He reveals that his child made it, just as Eddie prayed for “to the Light.” More than that he explains why he’s on Eddie’s side. “Everything else has been a charade,” Abe says. Then he reveals more: he’s with the FBI. Finding keys to a hotel room, Sarah discovers Felicia there. In the woods, Cal has a vision. He sees Steve “painting flowers on [his] walls of doom.” He attacks his mentor, mad for not receiving the pendant, the one he says he earned. He chokes Steve, but the man only smiles. A terrifying, waking nightmare. We have an idea of all the devious ways in which Cal had to… earn, the pendant. This is the trauma that lingers in Cal constantly, haunting him.

What an intense episode! One of the most emotional, eerie, powerful episodes of all. Excited to see what happens in “Spiritus Mundi” next, as we get closer to the end of this psychedelic, strange, visceral Season 2. The Path – Season 2, Episode 11: “Defiance” Hulu's The Path Season 2, Episode 11: "Defiance" Directed by Phil Abraham Written by Vanessa Rojas & Andrea Ciannavei…