#and that is because im just very done with this shit

[astertimberwolf]

I feel insane (in a good way) because I somehow managed to do this to myself: resolving all of my trauma, with very little to no guidance. Blindfolded. In the dark. With pitfalls sporting spiky bottoms surrounding me on all sides and while balancing myself on a thin thread.

I did fall and survive being impaled several times, where I thought I was done for, for good- each time thinking "this is it, this is how it ends" ...and yet, finding a way to climb back onto the darn thread over and over again. It only cost me like...

(Hold on im gae, tired and counting with limited brain cells and energy)

...16-17 years of my life to get there? Yeah. That's how long ago it's been, since depression hit me hard... All the way up until now.

That's a long-ass time. Over a decade and a half...

...Was it worth it?

Remains to be seen. Depends on how the next couple of years play out.

I hope a healed mind, heart and body will finally give me the chance to thrive- something I've been robbed of for all of my youth... No thanks to my shitty parents and other blood relatives that enabled neglect and abuse. No thanks to all the people who sexually assaulted or groomed me, r*pist included- and definitely no thanks at all to the shitty human beings that bullied me, used me, made fun of me, verbally, emotionally and psychologically tore me down, never gave me the benefit of the doubt, called me the worst names in any book ever written- and betrayed my trust, taking advantage of my ignorance, benevolence and naïvety. Y'all can go f*ck yourselves. I have forgiven very few of you- and only partially when it comes to some of the things you've done to me. Some (people and things), I will never forgive... Karma will return the favor tenfold, don't you f*cking worry.

*takes a deep breath*

Despite the justified rage boiling up inside of me for all the shit that I've had to endure... I know I've done damage as well, some of which permanent. If anything, I want those people to know that 98.5% of the times where that happened, it really wasn't intentional, planned or whatnot. Life is just chaotic- and at times I've snapped where I couldn't take the pain anymore. But I've become a lot stronger, wiser, kinder, better- and I won't show my anger / rage / ugly side if I can help it.

I'm far from perfect. Doubt I'll ever even come close to scraping- or even so much as seeing perfection.

I'm battered, but sharper than ever. Like steel being turned into a sword, hit after hit. I hope the blacksmith of life is happy with their work. They've created a weapon that will cut through anything in its wake- and will hopefully be used to defend rather than offend.

May blood never coat my blade again.

You will patch up all the holes in 2025.

(this isn’t a post about knitting)

[thewertsearch]

GT: I should preface this request with an overture of appreciation. GT: For how much your cool and brotherly friendship means to me. GT: It has just been… GT: Absolutely *bully* having a standup gent like you in my corner. GT: Just a grade a dude whos a cut above the others in class and camaraderie. GT: Phew… *gropes for fresh kerchief*.

Wow, Jake is fucking terrified of this guy - or at the very least, he seems incredibly intimidated for a guy who's ostensibly just chatting with a friend.

Unfortunately, this is exactly what I'd expect from a Bro who's not any different from his adult self. Jake's acting exactly like Dave did, back when he was forced to share an apartment with the guy.

TT: Take it easy, bromide. TT: Just about the only way I could salvage endearment from this perilous slope of horseshit would be to discover, really fucking soon mind you, it was a preamble to some floundering invitation for me to rush to your vicinity as nakedly as possible.

In other words, you wish he was hitting on you.

I really don't think he's kidding, especially since both Roxy and Jane seem to want a piece of English, too. Jake's sitting at the epicenter of at least three crushes, which is not a pleasant place to be sitting when you're fifteen.

TT: But since we've already shot that wad's eventuality on so many dry runs of flustered ambivalence that were as hilarious as they were one sided, TT: That leaves only one hope for this message to avoid spiraling toward qualification as a critical fucking defect in the hull of the Mach 10 rocket that is my precious spare time.

And here's the guy's actual personality. It's a fairly even mixture of Rose and Dave, a combination which synergizes much better than you'd expect.

He's still prone to Dave-style rambles - but unlike Dave, his streams of consciousness are every bit as eloquent as Rose's text, which some extra swear words tossed in for flavor.

It's very good, and immediately does a lot to humanize him, especially when all we've seen so far is "roof. now." and "State your business."

TT: And that hope lies in the extent to which you were practicing artful insincerity. TT: Now's your opportunity to pretend that's what you were gunning for. I suggest you seize it. GT: I… GT: Oh. Yes! But of course. GT: The ironies! GT: Good grief how i was bandying them just now. You know me dude. GT: *Blows smoke off red hot irony pistol.* GT: *NONSUGGESTIVELY!!!!!*

lmaoooo

Alright, I can't actually tell if that was a Freudian slip or not - but I kind of hope it was. If these two became a couple, the vibes would be incomprehensible.

TT: I'm guessing you're probably jonesing for uranium about now. No? GT: Ok can you please just sendificate me some more already?? Im in kind of a hurry! [...] TT: You know. I've offered to construct the rabbit for you many times before. I would craft a much deadlier model. […] GT: Damn it man ive told you this is just something i have to do myself. […] TT: Yeah, I know this is your policy. You've done a good job and you should be proud. TT: But it's my responsibility as your friend to offer one last time. TT: Just as it's my responsibility not to just fork over a bunch of uranium just because you ask me in a moment of weakness. […] GT: Why not??? TT: It's too easy.

Throughout this whole conversation, I've been trying to get a grasp on Bro's general vibe - and I think I'm starting to understand it.

When you're talking to Kid Bro, everything is a game - and he'll make damn well sure that you follow the rules.

Jake previously committed to making the bunny alone, and Bro refuses to rescind that rule, even if Jake's no longer following it himself. He strikes me as a guy who frames every interaction he has as transactional, confrontational, or instructional. He's not capable of just shooting the shit - there has to be an angle.

Mind you, I don't think there's any genuine malice in it. I think this is just how he's wired - and I really do think he's trying to help Jake develop as a person, in his own way.

The problem is, we've been down this road before...

...and nothing good lies down this road.

[bluem1lls]

Hey I was wondering if you could do a se-mi fic where the reader is really sweet/kind and is apart of Gi-hun's group in the games. So when se-mi starts flirting with her the boys go all big brother/dad mode and start getting protective. I just think it would be funny to see Dae-ho and Jung-bae doing their goofy marines bit, while se-mi is absolutely unimpressed and sassy and the reader is just watching from afar happy that they're all 'getting along'. Thank you and I love your writing <3

✧₊⁺ i'd do it all again

✦ synopsis: she's very willing to flirt with you, even if there's two are always there to try to stop her from doing it!

tw: pure fluff!

authors note: hiiii, its short but its a week update and im DEAD so dhhdhdfh i hope u like it!!! tysm for the request💓💓

-> "fuck" my head hurts from the impact as i open my eyes to see a girl.. on top of me. her eyes widen as she tries to stay still. her arms keep my body trapped underneath her.

"shit- i'm so sorry" she whispers slowly, trying to not get caught by the doll from the game.

as i can hear it say 'green light' once again. she stands up quickly, lending me her hand as we start running. i can see my brother's eyes moving across the entire room trying to find me because he lost me out of his sight. when he does, he lets out a big sigh as he runs to my side, staying still as we hear the 'red light'.

-> once we're get to the finish line, i lay on the floor, exhausted. my eyes try to find the short haired girl. i stare as i see her bent over, trying to catch her breath.

"you're not allowed to leave my side, ever" dae-ho, my brother, grabs my shoulders as i rolled my eyes. "i'm serious."

"i know, i'm sorry. a girl tripped over me."

as we turned around to head to the main room, i see the girl's eyes follow me until we arrive.

-> as we're done voting, my brother, being the social butterfly he is, already got us a group.

i sit besides gi-hun as i stare the surroundings. i can feel my brother's arms around me as i groan. the girl who fell on top of me stares, quickly removing her eyes of me as i find her sight.

-> and i try multiple times to talk with her, but everytime i seem to get somewhat close, she's moving around as i frown. maybe she's awkward after the way we met but, i'm still curious.

-> as the second game begins, we get together until they announce 'group of 5'. their eyes widen as in-ho tries to move aside, i grab him as i shook my head no. i turn to leave as dae-ho grabs my arm, serious.

"there's no way-"

"listen, i'll be fine. i have an idea. i promise i'll be fine."

"no you liste-"

it's too late, because i'm already running to the pierced girl as she stares up and down at me with a smirk. great, finally an excuse to talk to her and i know she can't run away this time.

"you owe me. and i need a group" i said to her as she scoffed in amusement.

"oh? i owe you?"

"you fell on top of me!" i reply as she hums, playing with her lip piercing.

"what's wrong with your boyfriend's team?" she lifts an eyebrow as i stare wide eye. boyfriend???

"that dumbass?!" i point at dae-ho."he's my brother, ew."

her expression turns into a surprised one, quickly returning to her normal one. was that why she was avoiding me this whole time? i chuckled softly as she did too.

"oh- right. sorry. so um, let's go get three more people" she says, turning around as we see the purple hair guy coming in our direction. we both stare at eachother at the same time, smiling.

great.

-> as we pass the second same, i sit with them, waiting nervously for my brother and the group's return. i see them arrive with a smile as i get up to throw myself into his arms as he hugs me tight. i hug every one of them, happy to see them again.

-> as the night comes, i eat my food while chatting with the group until i see a someone in front of me. i lift my gaze to meet her brown eyes.

i lift my eyebrow as i slowly smile. "hi"

"hey.. thought you could use the company" she said with amusement, sitting next to me. "and, you never told me your name.."

as i tell her, she replies with hers. se-mi.

"pretty name for a pretty girl" i chuckle at her poor attempt to flirt as she laughs with me.

i feel arms wrap around me as i turn my head. of course. i roll my eyes as i sigh.

"hello ladies. i'm dae-ho" he says (to se-mi, mostly) with a serious expression as she stares unfazed and gives him a head nod. "her brother, but you probably guessed since we have the same 'pretty face', like you said." he tells her, trying to put his most 'older brother' face as i elbow him on the ribs.

"get out, oh my god you're so annoying" i said removing myself from his grip as he stares, offended.

"i'm trying to look after my little sister! you can't date someone from this game"

"we're not dating! leave!" i whisper/shout at him as he stares like a puppy while i push him out.

"i was in the marine, by the way!" he tells to her, turning around one last time as she smirks.

i sit again besides her as i huffed. she smiles, amused.

"so that was.. interesting" she plays with her lip piercing, the smirk never leaving her lips. i nod as i stare away, too embarrassed to meet her eyes. "does that mean every time i'll try to talk to you, you'll have a bodyguard?" she chuckles as i nod, embarrassed.

"i mean.. probably"

she hums as her gaze meets my eyes.

"i can do that."

and she means it.

-> and as the days go by, we become closer and closer. hugging eachother everytime we see the other one survived the game, teaming together and staying all night talking.

and she's so pretty, that it doesn't feel surprising when she's making me blush from staring too much, or when i get butterflies everytime she whispers sweet things to me because she knows i love it.

-> and after one specific hard game, i realize i wanna spend every little minute with her. too scared to loose her, i'm asking her to bring her mattress besides mine. as i'm helping her to move it, i can see two people standing in front of us, staring to see what we're doing.

"are you two sleeping together? i don't think thats a good idea." jung-bae says as my eyes widen. "you look like a good young girl, but we can't trust too much" he says to se-mi as this one stares and gives him a soft chuckle.

"that's true. sleeping together is a step too far. are you two dating?" my brother nods at jung-bae's words as i cover my face in embarrassment.

"not yet" she smirks at my brother as his eyes widen.

"can you two just... shush away?" i murmur to them, staring at both.

they look at each other as i move them softly aside.

"i can't believe the disrespect we face. from two young girls" jung-bae says as dae-ho nods.

-> and as the night comes, we lay side to side while talking.

"i really like this.. spending time with you" she says, making me smile. i feel her cold hands with the rings cup my face as i stare at her. "do you think your brother's awake?"

my expression turns into confusion. "um.. no? i don't think so?"

"good" she mumbles against my lips as she kisses me. i let out a soft moan in surprise as i melt into the kiss.

"i knew you weren't a good girl!" my brother jumps from the bed, his finger pointing to se-mi, making us break from the kiss to stare him.

"oh my god where you spying this whole time? you're a fucking-"

"hey careful!" he says, his finger now pointing at me. "now. if you want my sister, i will make your life a living hell" he warns se-mi as she lifts her arms, smiling.

"she's worth it" she says as we both stare at her.

-> and he means it. because even when we leave the game after voting 'x', she warns me many times i'm not allowed to disappear now that she's attached. not like i was going to. but wherever i go, he's also always there too.

and all the guys are also there. even gi-hun, jung-bae and in-ho, warning her every step of the way, as me and jun-hee chuckle. and se-mi starts loving them too, because she's sure she won't be able to get rid of them (she tried!)

with our poor relationship with our father, jung-bae ends up turning into more of a father figure to us, being the one supporting my brother through everything, but also being there for me everyday.

and with time (a lot of family dinners we have together) they start to soften up for her.

-> so it's not a surprise when a few years later, at our wedding, she takes a video of how our life together has been and a video of my brother and jung-bae shows up.

"are you- are you asking us for our blessing?" dae-ho sobs as jung-bae seems to be suppressing his tears. i can hear her laugh, although i can't see her because she was the one recording the video.

"i don't think i would be able to go through it if i didn't" she says, softly.

they're both crying now as they hug her.

"i knew you were the one!" jung-bae says, sobbing like a baby while she laughs.

"we knew it! that's why we went easy on you!" dae-ho says, wiping away his tears.

"yeah, i figured" se-mi says, her tone dripping in sarcasm.

i turn to the side to hug her while i kiss her, laughing as dae-ho and jung-bae stare at the video, blushing red.

"we agreed that was a secret!" jung-bae says, embarrassed as gi-hun hugs him with a chuckle.

"that's-that an edition. se-mi! you said you wouldn't play that" dae-ho says to her as she shrugs.

i cup her face on my hands as she laughs. her gaze meets mine. "i love you so much." my stare filled with love like the first day i met her.

"mh, i love you so much too. happy family, happy wife and happy life right?"

[f3mtguy]

i wake up. go to my volunteering job where ive been for a whole year, where ive introduced myself as a guy from the very start. i come in. "good morning girls." i say nothing, because the last 10 times i did didn't do shit.

oh well. its done now. gotta go buy some groceries. let's see what i need. "excuse me ma'am." right... well they're a stranger, so. "good morning ma'am." "here's your receipt ma'am." "have a good day ma'am."

at least i got my groceries. now onto the bus stop to get back home. "hey pretty lady." "where are you going girl?" "don't be like that, give me a smile." ignore them ignore them ignore them.

i come home, get ready for theater, where i've been for years, where i consider some of these people my friends, where i play the role of three seperate male characters all within the same production. i come inside "there she isss!" sigh, right. onto the stage for rehearsal we go. "hey where's /she/ supposed to stand?" sighhhhh, i don't smile or feel comfortable for the rest of the night.

i get driven home, because my mental issues have made it difficult for me to get a license, and im still working on it. problem is, i get driven home by the man who molested me since i was six. he touches my hand and my thigh the whole drive home. i sit frozen in silence until i can finally get out.

finally im home, no more people, i can unwind, hallelujah. i log onto my social media to see what's been going on. oh look at that. "another tmra" "ew a transandrobro" "you just wanna oppress (trans) women" "you cling onto your afabness" "you have afab privilege" "you have male privilege" "you are a disgusting man" "all men are evil" "kill all men including trans men" "trans men have it easy" "trans men dont know what misogyny is like"

.................

fuck all of you.

[fromchaostocosmos]

The amount of incorrect things being said in it are innumerable. Once again it just show the total lack of understanding about Judaism.

On even the most basic rudimentary and fundamental things.

Also the disrespect to Native Americans and their practices is noticeable as well. To use words like demons to describe entities from a culture that does not a have a word "demon" is rude at best and is a form colonization and Supersessionism at it worst.

I know that you are not supposed to say W*ndigo and especially if there is snow. I also know that many Native American people censor the name when writing not out of respect, but as a preventive measure because you don't want to bring attention to it.

That is why I have censored it.

I find it disrespectful to call it a demon.

All this demonology stuff you are entitled to believe in, but what you need to understand is that it comes from Christianity. That is a fact and the reality.

And thus it is rooted in Cultural Appropriation and Supersessionism just as Christianity is.

Because you are still working in that Christian frame work.

Malachim or as they wrongly translated to angels do not have free will within Judaism. Free will is something that unique to humans. That is what makes us human, that is why humans struggle, and that is why humans can not be perfect.

That whole thing about free will and humans being the only creation to have it is a huge part of Judaism and Jewish philosophy. The idea that we straddle the animalisitic world, the base desire, and the spiritual world, higher self, and the balance we need to find in that is again a major aspect of Jewish philosophy.

Yatzer Hara, the evil inclination, is not sin. That is not what it means and that is not what that concept is about.

Listen let me explain something I grew up in studying my people, my faith, the history of my people, the culture, and more both at home and in school.

I took tests and wrote papers on this stuff. I wrote speeches on the Tanach. I studied it. I was and still am immersed in it. I was surrounded by it from birth. I went to school from 8:30 to 4:45 and for the first of the day did Judaic studies on varying topics.

Much of what I described is not uncommon for most Jews.

I still like your average Jewish person find a way to participate in the study and discussion of the documents, scripture, commentary, etc. because that is what we do.

We Jews live it and we breathe and that is how we have been doing since before the Greeks and the Romans and Babylonians, and the Assyrians and whoever else.

And while they might be gone, we on the other hand are not. So for you to try and think that you lecture any one of us on our own stuff is laughable.

You do not have the knowledge, experience, and time to be able to do that.

We study and debate and discuss and argue because for us that is how it is and when we agree it still sounds like we don't because we are passionate and because the Tanach is alive. It lives in every Jew and we breath it. It is a living document.

Everyone deserves the freedom to their own beliefs, but that does not give them to right to steal and take from others and then be dishonest about what they are doing.

Lilith from Judaism is not Lilitue of Sumeria and they are very different.

Lilith is not and was not Adam first wife. That idea comes from a satirical work that was written in the Middle Ages. Not an actual serious philosophical or theological piece called The Alphabet of Ben Sira.

There is a reason that Jew groan every time we see or hear Lilith being called Adams first wife.

I mean there is a lot more fascinating and actual commentary about Adom and Chava that already exists, some of my personal favorites coming from Ramban רמב״ן (Nachmanides).

So thanks for theft and Supersessionism, but like no thank you our dance card in regards to both of those currently already full. You know maybe you make an orderly queue and that would it easier for us to deal with all of you who keep stealing from us and colonizing us and you doing the whole Supersessionism thing to us.

Or maybe we can the like take a number thing. Basically we need to find a better system.

Or maybe just maybe you could just stop doing that shit to us and others. Just a thought.

Hi, Shi! So, I saw your post about white saviours in the community and I wanted to ask about the Judaism one specifically. I am not white but nor am I Jewish, in ethnicity or religion, but I was also told that demonolatry spreads harmful ideas about Judaism. Because of that, I kind of stepped back from my demonolatry research for a moment. But your post did get me thinking. I guess I'm kind of just asking for clarification. Is it okay for me to practice demonolatry as a non-Jewish person or not? Sorry for the super long ask. Thank you, love your blog!

Okay, this is a kind of complex topic.

Demonolatry is the practice of worshipping demons. This can apply to any demon not just those with English names. There are people who worship the demons mentioned in Islam just as much as there are those who worship those with Jewish and Latin names, and there’s a ton of overlap.

The concept of “demon” can only exist if you conceive of some kind of supernatural divide between Gods and spirits. Many demonolaters consider all spirits including Gods to be “Spirits”; the distinction is not important and doesn’t have any real meaning. It’s rare to hear of demons in religions or spiritualities that do not have a dualistic philosophy, you don’t hear about Hindu demons often for example. And the word “demon” in English comes from the Greek “daimon” actually referred to any spirit or divine being. Pinpointing what is and isn’t demon, daemon or spirit is a matter of perspective.

The idea that you can only work with demons that have Hebrew names if you are a Jew is one that literally doesn’t make grammatical sense.

If you are a practicing Jew or hold an Abrahamic theology, to worship or revere any demon would be a violation of your theistic laws. It’s a sin, a big one. Every deity, spirit, God/Goddess from every other religion or belief is a demon to you because you believe there is only one true God. That means Norse, Greek, Egyptian, etc. deities are also considered to be demons.

Because of this theology, every time that people of Abrahamic religions (Christians, Catholics, Jews, Muslims) encountered pagans who worshipped other Gods, they were demonized. Aphrodite/ Astarte became Astaroth, Phosphorus became Lucifer who then became Satan, Cerberus became Naberius, and so on and so on.

It’s incredibly important to remember that just because a name is written in a certain language, Hebrew for example, that does not directly imply that the deity is closed to the religion of Judaism. Not all people who spoke Hebrew were Isrealites, and not every spirit that was described by them was closed to them. Lilith for example was a deity/spirit that was recognized by multiple groups of people before the Israelites existed as a definitive and monotheistic group. Lilith was described by the Sumerians for example, her strongest surviving name and archetype is that which was described by the Jews because the Jews themselves survived and the Sumerians did not.

Most demonic names you will encounter will either be written in Latin, English, or Hebrew, not because these demons are closed to those cultures but because their documentation was only ever really considered legitimate when it was done by the followers of Yahweh. This is one of the major effects of colonization in general. If I as a Phoenician pagan say that Astarte is kind and beautiful, that doesn’t matter to any Roman Catholic. If I as a Catholic say that Astaroth is a perverted demoness who tricks men into demonic sex, the church might actually listen and write that down. Us 1000 years in the future may look at that name and assume Astaroth is a Roman demon and not a Phonecian Goddess who was described by Roman people and documented in Latin.

We speak English, so the demons that are accessible to us are usually recorded from the Abrahamic religions that speak English- Christianity. Our demons are not cosmologically “Christian” nor necessarily have anything to do with the Christian God specifically (Lucifer is a Roman deity and would have had no biblical interactions or connection with YHWH according to their origins). But Christians gave them names and we use those names for the sake of consistency and to reduce confusion across languages. Many times, the original names have been lost and the infernal aspect and name is all that remains. It is the life’s work of many Demonolaters to restore their deitie’s cult to its glory, to discover these dead names or to ensure that the surviving name… survives.

There are a select few demons who’s names originate in the Jewish tradition, Azazel for example, was the scapegoat of the Isrealites who then went on to command the Watchers who became the fathers of the Nephilim. But these demons aren’t necessarily considered to be closed to Judaism- again, because no Jew is ever going to reach out to a demon before the big GOD himself. There is no theological reason why Azazel would only recognize Jewish or Christian people. If you acknowledge Azazel as the scapegoat and use that name, you are referencing his archetype as it was described by the Isrealites. Likewise if you use the name Lilith and consider her to be Adam’s first wife, you are also using her archetype as she was described by the Jews. But that doesn’t mean that Lilith herself is considered to be a sacred figure within the religion of Judaism any more than Aphrodite is. They’re all demons. There is only one God.

There’s a stronger argument to be made for the big three Jewish angels - Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael, being closed to the Jewish religion because they literally are the angels patroned to the people of Israel and they are majority involved in the actual worship of their God- although I don’t really consider them to be closed either because, according to their theology, they would protect any human being created by God (which would be everyone).

The thing that you actually need to consider is if the deity is:

1. Culturally tied specifically and only to the people inside that closed religion- Demons were said to fuck with everyone, all of humanity, not just Jews. The Wendigo was a culturally significant creature that specifically targeted the Indigenous peoples of Turtle Island.

2. Intrinsic to the actual act of worship/ practicing itself- No practicing Jew incorporates Lilith or any demon into their prayers in the way they might with Archangel Michael.

3. Conceived of by the culture itself- Lilith is far older than Judaism and they do not claim to have conceived of her, whereas Michael was literally created by the Isrealites and was always said to act in the best interest of Israel as a nation.

4. Is revered and considered sacred- If I call Lilith or Belial nasty little whores, no jew is going to flinch, they probably agree. If I even speak the name of their God which is considered to be so sacred that it should not even be said in prayer, that’s insanely offensive. If I use the Tetragrammaton or wear it frivolously, someone is going to call me out.

Many western occultists have certainly appropriated sacred things from other cultures, ESPECIALLY from Judaism. Rather than admit their clear inspiration they bastardized the names and essentially stole incredibly important spiritual concepts (Qabalah). As much value is there is in the Qliphothic tradition it is also majorly appropriated from Jewish mysticism which is supposed to be knowledge closed to specific Rabbis. That’s why I’m not the biggest fan of people like Aliester Crowley.

This doesn’t mean to say that you can’t learn about anything Jewish, or Indigenous or Muslim etc. I try my best to always learn from people who are actually of the faith and not asshats who try to take the culture out of the practice. Some things genuinely are sacred and should not be appropriated, I don’t think that demons in general are one of those things.

It’s also important to remember that practices and deities aren’t always synonymous.

The Loa sprits of Voodoo religions are closed because they are ancestral spirits specific to the people in that culture. I can’t invoke my Haitian friend’s great great great grandmother and expect her to do my bidding. I can’t invoke the ancestral spirits of the Indigenous peoples of America and expect it to recognize me. I can’t even pronounce those names.

Hoodoo being closed to the black community is due to Hoodoo being not only a practice,but a survival mechanism of the black slaves who were imported into America during the slave trade. It was the blending of African spirituality with the assimilated Christianity of their masters. But theologically, most black people who practice Hoodoo have a predominantly Abrahamic faith, with belief in the Bible (although usually an alternate version) and belief in the one true God. You cannot practice the act of Hoodoo if you do not have the context of your experience as black person and the unique familial/ancestral relationships and knowledge they possess.

Likewise, you cannot practice Native American spirituality, or smudge with white sage because you do not have any experience or context living as an aboriginal in this land. Due to … yknow, colonization and genocide, most aboriginal tribes have opted to keep their practices extremely closed and sacred. I couldn’t even do it if I wanted to because I don’t even know where to start, I would have to be taught by the people they have elected to know this sacred practice.

You cannot be a practicing Jew if you are not initiated into the religion. Working with these fringe spirits is not nearly the same as appropriating the closed Jewish practice. What I and other demonolaters do is not even remotely close.

Demonolatry is not organized, it’s a self actualizing practice. Sure we have priests and priestesses, but we usually operate in cults.

I don’t know how to explain the irony in this take because if demonolaters and outcasts don’t work with and worship these spirits … literally no one will. The left hand path is crooked for a reason, alternative subcultures are alternative for a reason. The cults of Phosphorus and Lilith have never been as big as they are now. For these fringe deities to have survived so long and somehow even entered the mainstream is honestly incredibly impressive lol.

People who are unconcerned with being outcasted from Abrahamic theology aren’t going to stop practicing with their demons because religious people think it’s bad. I’m already practicing witchcraft. I already don’t believe in monotheistic theology, and there’s an entire rainbow of other things I do that are unacceptable to Judaism, Christianity and so on. The thing I care about is not disrespecting the actual culture and the things that are truly important to them.

You won’t really catch me wearing crosses, referencing Catholic practices, or talking about my practice in reference or opposite to Christianity or Judaism. I don’t defile Jewish or Christian traditions or bastardize their teachings. My practice is not the invert of their doctrine. It’s a completely separate and individual practice and philosophy.

This is LONGER THAN I MEANT IT TO BE

TLDR: No, demonolatry is not antisemitic.

It can be antisemitic if you happen to be antisemitic and many antisemitic people have historically ruined the fun for the rest of us (thanks Crowley)

But no, practicing Demonolatry does not make you racist. Being a pagan also doesn’t mean you hate religion.

[dustykneed]

pov: you're having your comphet removed 🌈🤯😤 (doctor's orders) 🙏🏼💫🩻

this is why bones only gets to play dress-up as a treat 😔 if they'd put him in a little blue tunic in plato's stepchildren it would've been deadly

@very-bad-poetry-captain was watching the cloud minders and generously brought these skimpy little guard outfits to my attention. and then i blacked out for two hours and...

[stealingyourbones]

recently watched a handful of episodes of Supernatural and im kinda impressed with Dean's steadfast belief that all monsters are monsters and can't be redeemed.

With that in mind... there could be some VERY angsty Danny Phantom crossovers with that as the main premise

[cent-scratchnsniff]

Please don't hurt yourself

[deoidesign]

I literally just had the thought "I'm sorry I draw so much sexy art" and then I was like what the fuck? No I'm not. You all followed me you know what you're getting into.. you can unfollow me any time you want... What do I have to be sorry about. In fact. You're welcome for all the sexy art. Congratulations you've won by being here and getting to see it.

[stiffyck]

people hating a character because they very clearly misunderstand them is forever going to make me so mad

[ef-1]

🍷<3

[rxttenfish]

Asking because I’m extremely curious about this, how did MonProm’s writing get different over time? I remember you saying that the lore and characters feel different, and that it's missing sincere character interactions, too. I know almost nothing about the lore and I’ve only seen a few people mention the characters, so I’d be interested in a rundown of what aspects you think got worse in the series

I wouldn’t mind a very long response since I’m not that active in the fandom, I need to catch up on what happened

sorry for taking so long to answer this! i kinda waffled on it for a long bit, mainly because i started doubting myself again, and whether or not this was me simply overreacting or being tinted by nostalgia or simply being extremely picky and choosy in what i like (the last of which is true, i seldom get into fandoms at all for this reason and stay away from most popular media, but i wasn't sure if it applied here). i've posted about it already, but i'm in the middle of a psychotic episode where i can't feel a lot of pleasure to begin with + most things i do experience ending up solidly in the "very bad" category, so as you can imagine, i really didn't want to mislead and check that i was actually in objective reality.

as it is, this is also when a lot more screenshots started to be posted in the monster prom tag, and that helped me bridge the gap back into returning to the games themselves and feel like i was making a more accurate judgement. if you're one of those people who have been posting screenshots, i sincerely thank you, and i appreciated seeing you in the tag greatly.

for those not in the know — i've been in the monster prom fandom since it first released, prior to even the first additional ending to be added (the "Punch the sun" ending, and i recall the minor fandom drama that happened at that time due to it). my impression of monster prom is very much influenced by this, as what got me into the first game was the fact that the characters genuinely seemed to care for each other and were friends with each other (not merely tolerating each other's presences nor dressing it up, they sincerely thought of each other as friends and were open about that fact), on top of the wide variety of small details and statements that, if taken at face value, could create compounding complexity in the lives of each and every character and had wider implications for their lives.

no, they were not necessarily explored nor even necessarily "real", with so many conflicting events and statements, but i liked this too, because it meant a wider flexibility in what you could imagine, helping to create a more tailored experience for everyone who thought about these characters. this was what i liked about the early fandom too. what was baseline "canon" was so vague and minimal that you could have wildly different interpretations of the same characters' histories and relationships with each other. you would have radically different perspectives on what the world itself looked like, what it was like, that there wasn't really any wrong answers so long as their personalities remained the same. this is where you got the old headcanon of polly and liam being childhood friends who knew each other as humans, or that the world of monster prom was post-apocalypse where humanity itself had gone extinct or only existed in tiny pockets, or my personal headcanon that both monster and human society existed right next to each other and had minimal crossover for petty cultural reasons. this was also prior zoe-as-ro, and there were wildly different interpretations of zoe's personality, with most going for a far more disquieting creepy-cute than the deep nerd we got.

this is why you get stuff like the timeloop theory, where everyone is repeating the same weeks leading up to prom over and over, and are perhaps vaguely aware of it but broadly unconcerned. this is also why it felt like the joke that, the characters were still in high school but were all fully legal adults with most in their 20's, best landed, because it was absurd and strange and didn't quite make sense, but the world itself was inherently absurd and semi-malleable to begin with. realistically, i felt like everyone understood it was making fun of the trope of having adults play teenagers in american sitcoms and wildly casting outside the age range, but for more in-universe explanations it wasn't any different from the way that you would have a large, dramatic ending in which everything changed, but then you'd restart and everyone would be right back at the beginning with nothing different, or even having conflicting events in the same run. it was a dream-logic that fit with the tropes and, thus, diagetically made sense.

to be clear, i don't mind canon having a set, well, canon on which it refers back to itself. i don't mind expanding that or including more things which are set in stone. but there was a perceivable shift in how the games handled this over time, becoming a lot more... bitter, it felt, towards all of these different branching ideas and concepts that, yeah, the people making them knew wouldn't necessarily be "canon" because "canon" already liked to contradict itself so much. most people weren't even sold on any one idea, and there was a much greater sense of enjoying and appreciating all the varying ideas people would come up with even if you personally didn't share them. making the characters be out of character was the real crime, because then it didn't diagetically make sense in the same way, didn't wholly fit.

(again, this is not to say fanon didn't happen and characters weren't smoothed down into a simplified personality that fit these varying fan-interpretations instead of the game itself. certainly damien love/lust was just as bad as it had ever been, and everyone loved to mangle his character into a more stereotypical "bad boy with a heart of hold" all the time. but it certainly felt less set-in-stone about it than it does now, with any deviation from the norm being considered strange and odd and even broadly shunned from the wider fandom.)

all of this is setup for establishing what the writing, lore, and characters felt like in the earlier days. the characters were the strongest part, with their relationships to each other being equally as important. the lore played it fast and loose and was far less interested in setting anything in concrete because that wasn't the important part. the lore wasn't the important part, which was what made it all the more intoxicating to think about, all the more fun to play with.

montrip is easily the biggest offender when it comes to setting everything in all-or-nothing terms and demanding absolutism from the world. broadly i blame the hitchhiker conversations for the worst of it, but i think ultimately the way they handled the entire premise of the game is where this problem stems from. it's not really an exploration in the same sense that you might explore the first game, discovering different perspectives and different people with different relationships to each other. it's an exploration in the sense of a sequel that over-explains the monster, that takes the most boring option out of all those that were possible and floating around and settles on something that was blatant, obvious, typically rejected not because of how novel it is but how trite and par for the course it is in the rest of the genre.

yeah, okay. humans know nothing about monsters and there's a "monster dimension" that exists separately from the human dimension. there's no crossover between the two of them. of course there's a big grand-scale fight between the eldritch powers that zoe used to be a part of, from which not only are slayers the main organization against them, but also the merkingdom has some horse in this race too. it's an urge to make things so universal in explaining them, in revealing connecting threads which unite everything that's ever happened in here, that makes the worldbuilding and lore immediately much more boring than it ever was before.

and it didn't have to be this way! nothing in the first game contradicts any of this too explicitly (see the above, the first game loves to contradict itself), and i would even be happy if this was basically canon but never stated or confirmed to be the big overarching everything going on underneath it all. i believe you should probably know these things about any world that you create and have them in the back of your mind. the difference is that you can know these things and keep them in mind, even focusing on things where its very relevant, and still not reveal them. this is why you have lore bibles, after all. every horror writer knows exactly how their monster works and the full underlying reason for everything that happens, but that doesn't mean the audience will see it or possess this same information too, and leaving it intentionally obscure will make far better stories.

which, this is bad enough, but it wouldn't be the breaking point for me if this was all there was.

but the worst thing of all has to be the slow decay of the very same characters that sold me on this world, this lore, this game in the first place. monster prom is nothing without the characters in it. it's a dating sim, it has nothing but characters to get you to play, and liking these characters are the entire reason anyone would pick up monster prom in the first place.

and the first game pulls this off extremely well. it's all in the tagline: be your worst self. they are, indeed, all terrible people. yes, even that character that you just thought of right now. they all have points in the game where they commit atrocities, where they kill or hurt people, where they do inexcusable things that could not be ignored in a more serious setting.

but that's the point. i think there's something very powerful in creating a character who not only do you love and love their personality and the way they interact with the world, but who also are inapologetically terrible, and to have the humor and the charisma be so good that you don't get bogged down in the "this is awful". likewise, it never feels the urge to really go out of its way to justify what's going on. this is not to say theres no discussion of if someone "deserved it", but usually there's still the sense that the joke is on them, that this is still an extreme reaction specifically for comedy and not necessarily something that can be justified. you can have damien set leonard on fire and have it feel earned, without prompting the needed reaction of what it's actually like to watch someone burn to death.

this is what sets the prank masterz ending apart from the rest of the game, and really establishes it as the first real "bad ending". because nothing that you do or happens in the prank masterz ending is any different from anything else that happens in any other run. you summon evil beings from other dimensions as a throwaway gag on how visiting one location raises your stats. you kill other people and damn them to terrible fates. you watch as body horror happens. the only difference is that, in the prank masterz ending, the laugh track doesn't play.

the rest of the game and the writing echoes this philosophy, this careful interplay of tropes that keeps everything tongue in cheek and yet sincere enough to make sure emotional beats still land when they're needed. the characters feel true to themselves and their own emotions, even when the world is extreme and excessive, when everything else runs on comedy logic.

this is also what i noticed failing first as time went on.

like i said, fanon has always existed and there's always been very specific ideas as to what characters are like in the same way fanon always flattens down characters into the same tropes over and over. scott is stupid and innocent and doesn't know what sex is. damien is violent and hot and too cool for anyone else. miranda is the idiot girl character. repeat over and over and over until you get sick of it.

but it's been an issue as time has crept on that canon has started to approach fanon and began to merge with it. now, scott is so innocent that he can't even curse. polly starts being mean to her friends and saying things that would be very hurtful to hear. the merkingdom isn't really super evil and fucked up, it's just miranda that's like that. they become simpler, easier to digest, streamlined for social media posts and mass-sharing. they become less and less subversions of existing tropes and moreso just another example of them, something else to add to the collection, not their own individual stories.

even further from this, what more complex traits they had are now stated and not shown. polly is stated to be smart and clever in a way that her party girl persona doesn't imply and to be sincerely rather down to earth with the people she cares about, but we seldom ever see this anymore unless its the game specifically trying to make a point about it, in which case it won't let her do anything that implies cleverness and moreso will just outline it in the narration. vera is stated to care for people in a very genuine and heartfelt way, but seldom will get a chance to do so, and every opportunity for her to do so to their faces is missed while she will just outright state it later. it does not feel consistent, it does not feel like any of these are intended reads of their actions. it feels like the devs have something they want to do but no idea on how to actually do so. and forget it if you want these traits to manifest in small ways that show up in unrelated moments and scenes.

the dialogue becomes harder and harder to tell between each speaker, if you are just looking at what's said and not at the pictures attached to it. the characters' distinct voices have been eroded away, so that they speak more and more like each other, relaying the same terms and ideas in the same words. perspective becomes a suggestion, instead of a must.

this is something that started back in monster camp too, as all of the endings in that game felt ultimately the same as every other ending. it's very hard to place or define the full reason why, why there feels like there's no emotional stakes nor investment, why everything feels moreso like selecting different coats of paint and trying to find all the different ending pictures rather than being interested in exploring the characters as characters.

stranger yet, the series that started with the tagline of "be your worst self" has experienced a kind of... softening, for lack of a better word? what i mentioned about being able to handle the balance between terrible people who do terrible things and the light tone of the game starts to change, as abruptly the same characters who were down with violent murder in the first game start to lose their nerve, acting more and more on more typical morality. it's one of those things that feels like it's starting to damage the tone, as abruptly it's not as absurd as it used to be, demands less suspension of disbelief which could buffer and support the rest of the setting on it. there's even a part in one of the endings in montrip which involves current-polly and current-scott looking back on their monprom selves and reacting in horror at how violent and careless their pranks are, in a way that fundamentally felt like it was undercutting and disparaging all the things that felt fun and made monprom what it was.

which is odd, really, because more and more i feel like the characters in these games like each other less and less. the friendships and genuine enjoyment of each others company that brought me to this game in the first place has gone. now they don't mention each other as much, don't care for each other's feelings and reactions as much, aren't as willing to support each other. they are more and more found on their own, relied on their own, seem to seek out contact and interaction with their own friends less and less. it feels like they're all separating out into their own worlds, but also feels like they wouldn't willingly want to interact with each other if they weren't already forced together by some other outside contrivance.

if anything, i'd compare it to every other dating sim out there, where you, the player, are the most important person in these characters' lives, and they only feel ambivalent or antagonistic towards every other character. which, again, is not why i picked up monster prom or why i liked it so much in the first place.

and it's because of this that it feels like the current state of the series has to focus on its increasingly weak worldbuilding and lore, trying to form a more serious foundation without character relationships being so tightly bound together, without the characters themselves being more developed and rich, without an aspect of absurd humor to rely on.

more and more i've noticed monprom has to rely on referencing other series to make itself funny and create humor, which, again, it's always done. it was just easier to ignore back then, if you didn't know what was being referenced, because there was always more going on in the exact same scene to bolster it and give context clues as to the setup and punchline at play. it feels like the current games are much more dependent on you knowing pop culture references in order to have any fun with it, and i'm someone who, again, is very picky in what i like or what i'll seek out. i'm not interested in a stream of references about other things that i would much rather be doing than playing through a game that feels like it hates that i like it at all, when i could, again, just be engaging with the thing that takes itself seriously and knows what it wants.

[lunavagans]

Okay but what if Shadow and Link had interacted before the manga without Link knowing? What then?

Shadow just wants to meet the guy he‘ll eventually have to go up against. He wants to figure out wether or not he can just hate the guy or feel miserable about having to fight him. Ganon thinks he‘s scouting ahead for some weaknesses.

Early in the morning, when the courtyard of the castle is still cold and dark, Link meets a boy his same age, with a face so similar everyone else is thankful for the stark difference in hair color. The stranger seems kind of skittish; maybe he‘s just not a fan of being eyed by the knights. They can be a bit suspicious against outsiders. No matter, Link tries to make friends with him, because that‘s an opponent that has him actually scrambling to win in the duel he‘s quickly challenged to.

When Link wins by a hair‘s width, the boy scowls at him, but seems to tense up when Link tells him they can just spar another time and see who wins then. Still, he agrees.

The stranger freezes when he‘s asked about his name. Link can relate - he can‘t stand people remarking about him being named after a mythological figure. This guy must have a similar problem. He diverts the conversation to another topic and gives the other a relating grin.

Soon, the adults leave them alone. Link does most of the talking at first, about what he knows best, which is his life at the castle and his job as a knight. Eventually, the boy starts to pitch in when it comes to the encounters Link‘s had with monsters, once even cackling at him about a mistake that was in hindsight really stupid. The stranger doesn‘t hesitate to say that, either, and yet follows up with a piece of advice on how to do it better the next time. Link tries to ask how he knows that, but the stranger tells him to talk about other missions he‘s been on.

They go to meet Zelda. The boy is awkward around her, doesn‘t look at her and grimaces to the side. Zelda doesn‘t mind, she‘s used to non-nobles‘ struggles about how to behave around her. After a few minutes of slow exchange, Link just snorts, drags the other boy off and promises Zelda to hang out later.

Eventually, the two land in a quiet corner, where Link gossips to Shadow who pretends to not already know all of that. When Link comes back from the castle‘s kitchen with some snacks, the other‘s gone. Link is a bit sad - it‘s rare to make another friend of his age who isn‘t too intimidated by his family and friend to just talk. Still, maybe he had to leave unexpectedly. He had been eyeing the sun slowly rising higher, and goodbyes are always weird.

Link only just now remembers that he could‘ve asked after the other‘s name in private, without others around. He facepalms and then shrugs it off. He‘ll see the other around some other time, he‘s sure of it.

[moeblob]

Amazing, take some of the side character demons from Evil Bound.

Vincie is a menace to Chuck and Chuck alone so in Hell, Chuck hexes his hand behind his back so that he isn't grabbed as much (and it's harder to pet him). Chuck is like the most irresponsible older sibling ever to demons though so Kelvin recruits him (as an older sibling vibe) to go help him get his ACTUAL older sibling from Earth. Chuck agrees. And then drags Vincie from Hell with them because no one else wants to babysit him and he refuses to unbind the hex just to re-hex when he returns to Hell.

In Hell, Kelvin actually doesn't appear much different than his human form! Like Kronos, the lines under his eyes are red in Hell but black on earth. Chuck however? In Hell he has wolf-ish ears and has a fur lining his neck (note the neck scars in human form). In addition to that he has four eyes in Hell (note the scars under his eyes in human form). Vincie just has horns in Hell. And! In Hell the hex doesn't have a silly looking "tied up" look, it's invisible unless Vincie strains it with movement and then its red text. But it shifts on earth to be visible.

Vincie's biggest agony for the entirety on earth is "dude it's colder here than in Hell I want a jacket to slip my arms into BUT I CANT BECAUSE IM BOUND".

[leah2eroes]

yeah make the disabled girl do unpaid manual labour for you outside in the cold when shes been awake for 20 hours whats the worst that could happen haha

[skrunksthatwunk]

idk if i've discussed it before (i have certainly THOUGHT about it) but someone on my kuwa suffering ep 89 comp mentioned it and i just had to go off about it like. ok. sensui tells yusuke something along the lines of "you heard itsuki" when itsuki's inside the uraotoko, implying that not only can sensui hear those inside the uraotoko, but that he expects yusuke to be able to as well. which means that yusuke Almost Certainly Heard And Kind Of Ignored kuwabara's prolonged mental breakdown and wailing about how much he needs yusuke to live etc. which. guHHH i hate him yusuke you ass but also listen.

the only acknowledgement yusuke gives to this (if any) is when he says something like "sensui you're sooo fucking cooked this plan's going perfectly (my friends are going to get strong and kill you when i die)." he's trash talking to sensui, ignoring the others because, i think, he doesn't want to acknowledge what he's doing to them.

yusuke is explicitly recreating the experience he had with kuwabara's "death" at the hands of toguro, complete with the announcement of intent (and power) to kill, the inability to impede the threat in any way (barring a power-breakthrough), and the target in some way racing towards/volunteering for their death. yusuke learns through doing, and through tough love-style approaches. it's only effective if it hurts. watching kuwabara die like that was devastating to yusuke, but it sure as hell fucking worked. he beat toguro because of that maneuver. so even if he has to (re-)traumatize his friends in the process, this method will make his friends stronger, and he feels confident in that. but he never had to live with the consequences of kuwabara's death, not really. that's something hiei makes clear before they enter the cave as well, that there are no fake-outs ready to make him or anyone else stronger. the only deaths here will be real. the only power gained will come at a high, permanent cost. hiei's warning is an attempt to keep everyone alive, to keep yusuke from being stupid. and then yusuke decides to take that fatality into his own hands, but it's kind of his friends who would pay the price. he's going to make them live through the days, months, years without him, the actual permanency of loss (assuming they survive for that long), something he never experienced with kuwabara (a new facet of that traumatic scenario), AND he's escaping the emotional fallout of this choice through death. he doesn't have to see them mourn, won't get yelled at, won't watch them fail to move on. he's tapping out and choosing to believe they'll be fine.

but i think he feels guilty. just a little. i mean, yusuke couldn't even believe that people cared about him enough to want him alive in episode one. he's staked everything on his friends, which means he still kind of... doesn't value his own life, at least not compared to theirs. but he believes his friends love him and want him around, and we know that because he has to, or else he wouldn't make a plan that depends entirely on that love. he is actively leveraging the care he doesn't think he deserves, trying to hurt them in a way he is intimately familiar with (only worse), for.... what, exactly?

this is kind of my sticking point tbh. i don't think the answer is... super clear, but let's start with what it's not.

yusuke is not doing this because it is the most practical way to save all of humanity; that would be the mafukan, which he stopped. it could be a gamble to save all of his friends? the mafukan strategy would guarantee koenma's death/eternal imprisonment, whereas this strategy gambles all of humanity on the chance that his friends come out of the Easy Break Oven strong enough to avert the end of the world. if the sacrifice of even one friend is completely intolerable, perhaps he'd accept those slim odds and their steep consequences. yusuke tends to take risks like that, especially when he's got fight-induced tunnel vision. he doesn't think things through too much; his schemes are usually dependent on surprising his enemy enough to oneshot them. truthfully, i think this is the closest we'll get to an answer, and it's a more conventional one for this kind of story. but there is another layer i haven't been able to get from my mind.

i think yusuke is gifting each of his friends an honorable warrior's death.

so, in case it needs saying, yusuke, kuwabara, kurama, and hiei all (at least once, if not several times) exhibit a desire to die in combat in a way they deem noble to give their lives purpose (usually by self-sacrifice, but sometimes by another metric of honor, like hiei's duel with shigure and his desire to die in mutual defeat against an evenly matched opponent; or even kurama's decision to fight shigure in his human form, displaying a sort of passive suicidality via placing being true to himself in this (somewhat symbolic/inconsequential) way over survival). they need to make their lives count for something, because they feel guilty for being alive (kurama and hiei feel guilty for their past actions (hiei's is most evident in his distance from yukina, though that's not its primary reason), hiei, kuwabara, and yusuke have all been ostracized and made to feel like burdens on/unwanted by their caregivers and general society; all four of them have felt profound isolation even from their loved ones (yusuke and hiei are rather obvious; kurama can never tell his mother about the majority of his life nor what she truly means to him in the context of it; and kuwabara is separated from his peers for his spiritual awareness and his "stupidity" (plus his parents aren't around? and he is Desperate to define manhood/manliness through a broader pop cultural one which includes the warrior sacrifice thing bc he has no male role models BUT that's for another post) (i will admit kuwa's the most tenuous one here irt isolation)). they want to die for a cause so badly it's actually physically painful to me. it is passive suicidality, and they define their lives and identities by their relation to, engagement with, and skill at doing violence, etc. they live to die by the sword. anyway. nobody talks about it but i think it's very important to understanding what yusuke's doing here.

because i think he knows that about himself and his friends. they're kindred spirits. at the very least he knows this about kuwabara, who literally made a speech about this before diving into toguro's fingers In The Event That He Is Recreating Explicitly. he is dying nobly like they all want to on the chance that they'll get to break out and fight sensui rather than dying without even getting to take a swing. it's about his pride and theirs. but i don't think yusuke necessarily believes they'll win. he knows better than anyone how strong sensui is, and how wide the gap is between sensui and team urameshi. his stated position that humanity is doomed and that he doesn't care about its fate is, i think, not completely genuine, but if we take it at face value, he's not killing himself so that his friends can survive the end of the world. something's going to come around and kill them eventually. he's doing it so they can survive long enough to fight sensui. he needs them (specifically kuwabara) to be strong enough to free themselves to begin round two. but he's given up on their side winning, on humanity surviving, on his own victory---why should he think his friends are capable of winning? this could be another case of yusuke's fight-blinders. it could be another gamble, more blind faith put in his friends. but honestly it reads more to me that yusuke's giving them a chance to die together on the battlefield. them winning would be great, but it's not his goal. it's a pipe dream.

he knows he's going to be killed. they're probably going to be killed, too. but to make it so they last a little longer against sensui, to make the odds a little more even, so they are killed not like livestock, but like worthy fighters, he'd die a little faster. it's the best kind of death someone like them can have; and he'll deprive himself of it just to make their ends a little sweeter. even if the road to that is far more bitter.

but it's not like yusuke's friends know what he's thinking or agree to it, and he can't exactly make his case for it in the moment. he's making that choice for them. whatever his intentions, whatever odds he thinks they have of beating sensui, he's kind of sealing all of their fates. so how the hell is he supposed to acknowledge kuwabara screaming at him not to die, trying desperately to express what yusuke means to him in what could be their final moments together? this plan is going to hurt his friends terribly. it is already doing so, and he can hear it. his choices to stop koenma from using the mafukan and to die for his friends' strength are both selfish in some way, no matter how you read the scene. if yusuke comforts kuwabara, he might not get strong enough. if he twists the knife, well... how could he forgive himself? and either way by responding he would have to face them all and say yes, i'm doing this regardless of your feelings (with the intention of hurting you). so i think he does what he often does. he avoids it. he lets that emotion glance off him and his bravado and his one-liners so he doesn't have to deal with the fact that he's hurting people, that he's scared and guilty and unsure of himself. that he's about to die again, about to put kuwabara through the grief he saw at his wake again, only worse; about to put his quieter friends through something similar.

yusuke is confronted with the responsibility one has to the people who care for them, and he runs from it in an attempt to give them some small peace. just like when he died before and thought hey, at least my mom and keiko won't be burdened by me anymore. because the only thing he can really do for them is die.