#because birth control is fallible

[smallswingshoes]

Your local pharmacy technician here.

The medication is called Isotretinoin, aka Zenatane, Amnesteem, or Claravis.

It can cause severe birth defects, which is why it's required for patients to be on birth control if they have a uterus and to be repeatedly educated on the risks of the medication. To be fair, men on the medication also have to be repeatedly educated on not having unprotected sex while on it.

It has, iirc, a 30% chance of causing birth defects in infants. You have to understand that this is extremely high for any medication on the market. Compare that to fetal alcohol syndrome, which, if I did my math right, is something like a 7% chance of happening when drinking alcohol while pregnant, although numbers vary. That's a significant difference.

There are many, many medications that could, theoretically, potentially cause problems for a baby if taken during pregnancy, but they don't have a THIRTY PERCENT CHANCE of causing birth defects.

I'm seeing people in the notes calling this dystopian, but, frankly, the ipledge system requiring people to prevent pregnancy while on this medication is the only way this medication could have made it to the market. It's nearly a 1 in 3 chance of causing birth defects.

Part of the reason there are these measures put in place is because, on a grand scale, you just can't take "I pinkie promise" from patients as any kind of guarantee. You just can't.

I know it's incredibly frustrating, but imo the solution is for more medications for acne to be available and/or more birth controls to be available so that there are more options.

It would be criminally irresponsible to put isotretinoin on the market without some sort of stopgap in place.

If it was really about "but what about the babies?", believe me, there would be so many more medications attached to the ipledge system. It would be a logistical nightmare and impractical to boot, even ignoring the moral implications.

Please believe me when I say there's a good reason isotretinoin has the ipledge system. It literally wouldn't be available at all without it. I am directing this message less to anon and more to conspiratorial commenters on this post.

You know what medical pet peeve, I kind understand it but I still find it stupid and hate it. There's this medication I wanna try for my skin, but I can't use it unless I use birth control. I forgot the English name, sorry. Literally I cannot get it unless I'm on birth control and actively taking it, even though I don't fuck, I don't do casual sex and I am not dating, I'm completely soloing life. Ok? I would also have to piss in a cup each month to prove I'm not pregnant. I can't get the medication unless I take birth control because when pregnant it's bad for the fetus. A fetus I'll not have because I don't fuck, and have no interest in it, and I also in my current position and maybe future, just do not want children.

I can't fucking take birth control because all of the ones I tried leave me completely destroyed mentally and physically, I just don't have the body for any birth control. They make literally everything worse, bloating, nausea, periods, weight fluctuation, itchy for some reason, one even made me leak and then my breasts got so badly inflammed wearing a shirt was agony, etc. The medication I want to take isn't the best for general health either: Dry skin, liver, some other shit. I fucking hate it, I either have to just not do the medication, or I have to completely ruin my health in two ways because of a pregnancy that is just is not going to happen because I don't fuck.

I am guessing this is because of people lying about their sexual activity or some shit, but for the love of everything, now I can't get the medication that would actual improve my quality of life because of these people. I think what got me the most is that the Doctor I spoke to said that even if a woman doesn't have the ability to have children she would still need to take birth control and piss in a cup.

--

[redwolf17]

Hozier and romanticizing Ireland, or why the “bog man” shtick should be dropped back into the bog from whence it came

So after a slapdash, frustrated post about the politics of Hozier's music went batshit yesterday, I wanna do a quick follow up about the whole bog man thing, which multiple people mentioned in the reblogs and tags.

Artists are usually known by their names, either the one they got at birth or the one they picked for their career. Beyoncé Knowles Carter goes by Beyoncé, Stefani Germanotta goes by Lady Gaga, Taylor Swift goes by Taylor Swift, etc.

Andrew Hozier-Byrne goes by the stage name Hozier. When talking about him online, most people just call him Hozier, or sometimes Andrew for emphasis or to be silly. Then you have the people who call him stuff like this:

Yeahhhhhhhh, that's just some of what I found in like a 5 minute search. If you search tumblr for "bog man" or "forest daddy" it's almost all posts about Hozier; there's a lot more (and weirder) if you go look on TikTok.

People from other countries romanticizing Ireland isn't new, but that doesn't make it acceptable. Ireland is very much a modern country with modern problems, despite media (mostly American) which prefers to focus on Ireland as an exotic, idealized land, a postcard from the past where everyone lives in cottages and dresses in green and only speaks in mysterious rhyming couplets. Heck, only 3 in 10 Irish people live in rural areas. The other 7 in 10 live in urban or suburban areas, including Hozier. He lives in County Wicklow, which is quite close to Dublin, a city of over 500,000 people and also Ireland's capital.

Like, I'm not saying anyone is The Devil for making a couple "bog man" cracks. God knows I made a few of them back in 2019; one of my old posts makes me cringe because I joked about Hozier and fairy mounds. And you can find old examples of Hozier humoring the gag here and there, whether because he found it funny at the time or because he was just playing along.

Lately, though? When the bogfather/fae king stuff comes up in interviews, Hozier seems uncomfortable with it, even though he stays polite:

Like. Hozier is just a guy. A dude named Andrew who sings and plays guitar and writes songs and is a fallible human being. Artists can't completely control their image, but if you're a fan of someone's music, you should try to treat them as a person, not a mythical creature or a bundle of stereotypes about their country or a flawless statue to be stuck up on a pedestal.

All of us (including me!) fuck up sometimes. But once we know better, we should choose to do better.

[pokelolmc]

Fixing TUE Part 4.5--Clockwork and the Observants Headcanons

Welcome back to my analysis of The Ultimate Enemy. Anyone who wants some juicy Clockwork lore, welcome! I've criticised his canon portrayal in Part 4, so here we are onto the changes!

(Part 4), Part 4.5, (Part 5)

I’m not entirely sure on how I'd change the events of The Ultimate Enemy itself—but I can spitball some ideas for background lore of what Clockwork is, what he's capable of and how he works. Establishing limits/profiles of Clockwork’s power, knowledge or moral compass to help guide how his character would act in a rewrite.

Idea one: Limit Clockwork's knowledge. He can only see time by viewing the time window, and has the ability to gain knowledge in real time. He's distinctly fallible.

Idea two: We could limits Clockwork’s power to act on his knowledge by saying that his existence happens outside of normal time—and mixes with it like oil and water. Perhaps his tower/lair is a rift in time, the temporal dimension bleeding into the Ghost Zone—so it’s sort of a “negative space” compared to normal time. Rather than his “Time Outs” being just a tool to manipulate time…it’s his only means of navigating the flow of normal time itself. He can interact with normal time only by existing in these moments “in between”.

The amulets allow him to bring other elements or people from regular time into this “gap in time” to talk to them, but he has limited power outside of communicating with them during these time-outs so they can act in his stead. Hence, why he relies on other ghosts to do his dirty work.

The only problem is, of course, that would still leave the question of “Why not inform the other characters of Dan’s origin story?”, “why not get other characters to interfere with the birth of Dan” and “why not just bring Dan outside of time to fight or contain him?”…but I don’t have answers for that just yet.

Idea Three: Alter Clockwork's intentions, morality or free will. For example, what if Clockwork wasn’t a ghost in control of time, or a master of time, but literal time itself? 

That is, he was less of a person and more of a force of nature. As if the rift in time, which created his tower, leaked energy in the Ghost Zone until it gathered enough ectoplasm to create an avatar for itself. Clockwork is time’s ghostly extension, or an extra limb…or if time itself had its hands up the back of an ectoplasmic sock puppet, making it talk.

Time itself could be a primeval or fundamental force. But just like in real life, it’s not a person. It doesn’t really have thoughts, or feelings, or free will/agency to act on its own behalf. Time…simply is. It just exists. It just…happens the way it does. If time is a program, Clockwork could be like the holographic interface or pop-up window telling the user what’s going on in the OS. An ectoplasmic AI which has learned how ghosts communicate, but isn't as self-aware.

So, we have an interesting twist on the age-old “wise master of time refuses to interfere because they want to be responsible” trope (like the Time Lords from Doctor Who). It's not that there's some "grand plan". Clockwork’s lack of proactivity to change things optimally is because he is the avatar of time. And time just is--it doesn’t try to change itself. Heavy attempts to alter time are a very human…or…ghost thing to do.

This could be why the Observants are the ones who prompt him into action. Perhaps the Observants were the ghosts to discover time travel, and to whatever extent that they have manipulation over time, they have control over Clockwork. They’ve given up on interfering and instead prompt Clockwork to do their bidding.

If we wanted him to have character development, we could have him gradually gaining more "humanity" as he interacts with Danny. Or maybe the Observants' control stunted the development of Clockwork's ghost as his own person, and Danny releases him.

Or perhaps he already has some level of personhood/his own mind as his own ghost, but since he’s still connected to time itself he has limited free will—he is still largely directed by the whims of fate. Though you would have to establish that some sort of fate exists.

Idea three: This is another limitation or weakness that revolves around Clockwork more as a thinking person than the face of an unthinking force. It’s inspired by the Bootstrap Paradox.

Clockwork, as someone who (in canon) can both affect the events of the timeline AND see future outcomes in the time window…should be theoretically able to see timelines/events that result from his own actions, before he gets the idea of what to do. Either he could see what he does, or the results of what he does and infer what he did in his own relative future.

But if Clockwork only knows what to do, because he saw it (or could only deduce what he’d done) in the results in the time window… He didn’t realise it by himself, but was affected by the information of how his future alterations would affect time—he watched what he would do, and knew what to do from there. And the only reason his future self would’ve done that would be because he saw it in the time window too. In that case, where would Clockwork’s ideas have come from? How much free will did Clockwork have?

Which is why I propose the idea that Clockwork can see the results of others’ decisions in the time window, but not his own. He can see what everyone else can do, but not what he can as a being outside of normal time. He has to predict the results of his actions the way a normal person has to rely on guesswork, but with more intelligence involved.

This wouldn’t excuse stupid actions like giving Danny the CAT answers, since he’d still be highly intelligent or wise, but he at least wouldn’t be already know the impacts of his own choices before he makes them. It gives him more wiggle room to potentially fail, or be surprised by Danny’s choices and humanity. Things could have a viable reason to take him off-guard.

[whocookedthelastsupper]

“Mother Goddess lost her sacred status and the power that went with it; and in this violent downgrading queens, priestesses and ordinary women at every stage of their lives, from birth to death, shared in the loss of the "mother-right" The phallus now separating out from the rites of mother-worship becomes a sacred object of veneration in itself, then the center of all creative power, displacing the womb, and finally both symbol and instrument of masculine domination over women, children, Mother Earth and other men. When all life flowed from the female, creation had been a unity; when the elements became separated out, male became the moving spirit, and female was reduced to matter. With this god-idea of manhood, Mesopotamian males fought through their fears of being slaves of the woman-god by destroying her godhead and making slaves of women.

What this meant for women may be illustrated by the story of Hypatia, the Greek mathematician and philosopher. Trained from her birth in about A.D. 370 to reason, to question and to think, she became the leading intellectual of Alexandria, where she taught phi-losophy, geometry, astronomy and algebra at the university. She is known to have performed original work in astronomy and algebra, as well as inventing the astrolabe and the planisphere, an apparatus for distilling water, and a hydroscope or aerometer for measuring the specific gravity of liquids. Adored by her pupils, she was widely regarded as an oracle, and known simply as "The Philosopher" or "The Nurse." But her philosophy of scientific rationalism ran counter to the dogma of the emerging religion of Christianity, as did her womanhood and the authority she held. In a terrorist attack of the sort with which women were to become all too familiar, Cyril, the patriarch of Alexandria in A.D. 415, incited a mob of zealots led by his monks to drag her from her chariot, strip her naked and torture her to death by slicing her flesh from her bones with shells and sharpened flints.

Hypatia's infamous murder signified more than the death of one innocent middle-aged scientist. In Cyril and his bigots, every thinking woman could foresee the shape of men to come. The aggressive rise of phallicism had revolutionized thought and behavior, but it was not enough. Domination was not absolute, systems were imperfect, there was still too much room to maneuver —control could not be based* on an organ that men could not control. There had to be more-an idea of immanent, eternal maleness that was not physical, visible, fallible; one that was greater than all women because greater than man; whose power was omnipotent and unquestionable— one God, God the Father, who man now invented in his own image.”

All men allow women to have been the founders of religion. —STRABO (64 B.C.-A.D. 21)

Behind man's insistence on masculine superiority there is an age-old envy of women. —ERIK ERIKSON

-Rosalind Miles; Who Cooked The Last Supper? The Women’s History of the World

[volskayadottxt]

"genesis" miniseries spec/hopes

i think this is gonna be auroras origin story (first ep her birth, second exploration of herself + omnic crisis; third her sacrifice). and im hoping it does two things:

demonstrate that aurora had her own autonomy in her choices and that she was as fallible as any human (ideally id like her to be a bit of a girlfailure but i think its unlikely)

show the crisis didnt end just bc of baby ows intervention but bc auroras sacrifice caused the awakening, and now free of anubis' control (and sentient) omnics decided war is bad actually

imo aurora needs to be explained to the casual viewer who doesnt engage with the wider lore, shes too important as a catalyst for post-crisis events not to be. but i also want her to get some real character development because right now (in game and in transmedia) shes regarded by others as either a weird invention (sojourns novel) or as a deity (stone by stone, rama and echos interactions). just humanize her a bit. i think theres some lovely melancholy in the idea that who she was has been lost to time (liaos dead, after all) and that all anyone else has are little bits of knowledge open to interpretation.

other interesting bits from the trailer:

>narrators voice is likely gabrielle adawe (i dont know the va)

>young girl playing teaparty could be sojourns niece bonnie and her omnic babysitter, julietta (thanks @yoshi12370)

>zenyatta mightve been a combat model due to the eye shape of his faceplate (see @wooongwooong on Twitter)

>mina liao cant design omnics for shit (i say this as lovingly as i can)

>aurora might be voiced by laura bailey

[bisexualmoses]

It’s like so humiliating the way people treat you when you have a uterus. But what about your potential unborn baby!!!! Does not matter to them that I’m not having penis-vaginal sex and that I’m on birth control, even the chance that you can become pregnant they will automatically give you a pregnancy test. It’s just humiliating I’m a person listen to me I’m an individual ! I know it’s because people lie about not having sex and birth control is fallible. But why is it that suddenly my autonomy doesn’t matter anymore because there’s a potential “unborn baby”. ITS CALLED A FUCKING FETUS. Fuck that potential unborn baby I don’t give a shit if it has birth defects or not I’d abort it either way. It’s my life it’s my body

Don’t reblog !!

[problemstarchild]

I recall reading somewhere that the elves' self-isolation to their western continents was actually more of a recent recall BECAUSE of their dwindling population -- that's why the governor of the island tells Mr. Tansu that the elves GAVE tallmen the island, and why he feels he can't resist if they want to interfere. I think they had a thin population trying to colonize and control a large swath of land, but because of their death spiral, they've more recently tried to centralize their population to increase elven birth rates.

As far as the comic that I posted with Kabru, I'm not necessarily sure what he thinks of intelligent demihumans! I read someone's analysis of the "explaining kobolds to the Toudens" page where they said it seemed like Kabru did that thing he does where he tried to cut down an explanation into simple, bite-sized pieces to make it easy for someone to understand, but it ended up leading to a misunderstanding. He also makes a mental note that it's against an adventurer's contract, basically, not to kill orcs -- they're supposed to be killed on sight, which is why he assumed that Laios ate them rather than talked to them. That said, Kabru is the one that rushes between Lycion and the orcs to get them to stop infighting when everything is falling apart, so I'm not sure how seriously he actually takes the "orcs are monsters" slant. (Additionally, I understand the sociological background for kobold and orc aggression against humans -- Kabru's whole thing is applying historical and cultural context to current events, so even though any character is capable of just being fallible, it seems unlikely to me that he would fully write off another race as being "inferior", even if they are typically hostile.)

I know fishmen are not actually very close to humans, also! Laios said they're closer to cows, but there are a lot of monsters that humans classify as demihumans, which includes fishmen. Laios also mentions that harpies are just fully birds, they only look humanoid -- a lot of the classification seems to stem from appearances alone, and it's inconsistent.

That's all I was pointing out, before -- kobolds and orcs are confirmed intelligent demihumans, but even if fishmen aren't quite human either, they participate in self-decoration to look more like mermaids. Mermaids are also demihumans and are capable of singing and (apparently) feeling awkward about a social situation (???), so that begs a question about how intelligent you have to be to be considered an INTELLIGENT demihuman.

That final panel with Laios talking to the orc and kobold child made my heart sooooo happy. A lot of kobold and orc aggression can be traced back to human manifest destiny, abuse, slavery, kidnapping, and murder. Territorial resource-guarding is also a big thing. As Kabru explains on that very page, short-lived humans and demihumans basically squabble over very shitty land because that's all that's left after the long-lived races took everything good for themselves. Laios building a country and emphasizing agriculture, and making it a place where humans and demihumans can live together peacefully without fighting over resources, is SO perfect.

Something that completely flew over my head (I am not very observant), I was rereading chapter 87: Winged Lion II to re-check some things about dungeons and I just now realized the ancient humans weren't from the current races we know.

They seem to have characteristics from several of the human races together, and some of them even seem to have fur (like demi-humans?)

It's even implied that the lifespan differences and physical differences (the two asking for muscles and using magic in the background) were due to the Demon granting wishes

I did notice this part but I didn't realize this was probably part of the source of the race differences rather than the races already being different and wishing for different things.

So at some point the human races might have been even more closely related, before a powerful being influenced their evolution.

[carolinemillerbooks]

New Post has been published on Books by Caroline Miller

New Post has been published on https://www.booksbycarolinemiller.com/musings/fate-lies-not-in-our-stars/

Fate Lies Not In Our Stars

“I’m back to magical thinking,” the woman emailed. She was expecting a devastating medical report after a series of tests. The reply I sent back came after a moment of pondering. “I’m imagining the doctors have misread the original data. It happened to me.” To give false hope is wicked, but medical mistakes do happen and are more plausible than magical thinking.  As Alexander Pope wrote, “To err is human.” The aphorism, too mundane to serve as poetry, is a truism. Experts can’t think of everything. The toddler who penetrated the impenetrable fence around the White House is proof. Error is why we age. The process is a distillation of repeated biological mistakes. Meant to keep us in good repair, our RNA sometimes blunders when it mends our DNA. One or two mistakes are tolerable, but when they accumulate, our bones become fragile and our eyesight fades. Diet and exercise may slow the decay, but death is inevitable. Dissolution may be part of Nature’s evolutionary plan yet I marvel that blunder is at the heart of it.    Because we are fallible creatures, we create fallible societies. The mightiest empires crumble. Sometimes, the fault lies in our stars.  Prolonged droughts or floods trigger mass migrations. But war, political corruption, and the destruction of the environment are human accomplishments.     China and Russia have stubbed their toes on their way to empire because ill-considered decisions have left their countries with younger generations too small to support older ones. China’s One Child Policy, though no longer enforced, will see its population halved by the end of the century.  Vladamir Putin’s Ukraine war hastens a decline that was already in place. After years of dictatorships, its demoralized men don’t live long enough to become fathers.  They die early from alcoholism and despair. Elsewhere, populations are also in decline.  Contrary to the belief that humans will one day overrun the planet, our growth will peak at 8.5 billion in 2040.  After that, an implosion will follow, posing a danger similar to the one China and Russia face.  Americans opposed to immigration take note. Our population is also on a downward trajectory.     Anti-abortion laws that force women to give birth won’t help.  Nor will denying affordable childcare to working mothers to keep them at home.  They work because they must. Harsh policies place an undue burden on them and increase the risk of developmental and health problems in their children. Equally regressive are proposals to end no-fault divorce, forcing women to remain in unhappy marriages. Men would be equally affected, but historically, women suffer more.  After no-fault divorce became law, women endured lower incidents of domestic violence, spousal homicide, and female suicide.  Efforts to control a woman’s womb overlook the obvious. These efforts do not affect climate change, a pending disaster that threatens the species. Technology may save us, but being a human invention, it has its flaws. Many fear Artificial Intelligence will one day make avatars our masters.   Even so, an error has its virtue.  We learn from it. Knowing we are flawed should make us humble. Knowing we are flawed should make us forgiving.  When we forgive, we exercise compassion. Everyone knows what compassion is–the recognition that we belong to one another.   ___________________________  3rd book cover teaser before the June reveal 

[yanban-san]

I agree Darling's form would be largely unique to them; based upon the essecense of their immortal soul, which is/was originally human. Though I also like the idea of Darling inheriting a few of the boys' traits as well. Either because the twins are the ones to turn them, or because Darling's love for the twins influnced the form they took. I think Darling's evolution would take time, there's an immediate change yes, but it starts mentally/emotionally. A change in behavior follows, then little things about their appearance shift with mood and bursts of power, then maybe they start getting the disembodied organs, so on and so forth. Personally, I want Darling to be incapable of taking a full eldritch appearance and being able to tap into their powers until the end of their human life. They might die for just a few minutes, or maybe they don't die, but go comatose/paralyzed for a few weeks/months while their body completely changes form.

I have this idea for the DNA of the Soul, I'll call it soulcoding for short, which is how cosmic energy was arranged to create a given soul, parallel with how proteins are arranged to create physical DNA. In Soulmate AUs, I like to think fated pairs share soulcoding with each other, they're not completely the same, but similar. It can look like sychronisities in personality, fears/insecurities, values, goals, likes/dislikes, needs, ectera (I also what to point out that these similarities won't always be obvious. One mate may have a case of values dissonance, be in denial about certain traits, may have the same emotional issues as their soulmate, but they arose for different reasons and/or handled in opposite ways). In human-to-human couples I'd assume they could share a lot of soulcoding because their souls were created in a similar way, where as Darling and the Eldritch twins would share a lot less because they are different beings. Likewise, I don't think Darling's humanity can ever be fully stripped away. They may lose their human perception, they may or may not remain humanoid, but there will always be a signature of humanity in them. They will never fully be the same thing as the twins and vice versa.

I like this idea for a variety of reasons. Partially because there's angst potential here. An old post of Yanban's mentioned that you may be the twin's soulmate, but they may not be your's. Or even if the soulmate status is mutual, they could still share less soulcode with you than the average human. Less than Elesa, less than Skyla, and less than John Doe over there. Even worse if Pokemon share more soulcode with you thanks to being from the same universe and potentially having the same creator. (Arceus is the God of Pokemon and I think the general consensus is he created humans too, but what if he didn't? Pokemon Earth could've been a collab with another God creating humans). Also, I feel letting Darling completely lose their humanity is a cop-out. A big theme in this AU is the fundamental differences between Darling and the Eldritch Twins. Seeing all the trouble (big and small) it causes all parties involved, the potential for even more trouble should the twins' plan fail or be hindered by anything, and being able to work through them and fall in genuine love anyways despite nature being against it. On a funnier note, eldritch beings come into existence knowing what to do and have full conscious/voluntary control over all their body functions, whereas human's body functions are largely unconscious/involuntary and we actually have very few instincts from birth in favor of plasticity. The idea of post-bonding/converted Darling being reduced to an almost infantile state while they learn about their new body is hilarious to me. Like Babe, how do I close my 6th Dimension eyes? They're getting tired.

Sidenote, I like the idea of non-omnipotent/fallible Gods, so I headcanon that while they can "summon" a new soul into existence, they don't have full control of where the energy/material needed to create a new soul comes from, or even full control over what kind of soul is born. So when Darling was made, somehow a sliver of energy from the nth dimension was pulled in and threaded itself together with the rest to make your soul. And eons before that, the source Nobori and Kudari came from, had drew energy from what would one day be the primary source for human souls.

Sidenote 2, what if post-bonding/transformed Darling gains the ability to "see" who is/isn't soulmates, and becomes the best matchmaker in the world. The eternally human part of them wants others to be happy and feel the same love they do with the boys.

Speaking of Nobori and Kudari, I need to finish their arts. I had a slightly different idea for Kudari's wings hit me and somewhere I have a sketch for Nobori. Life and ADHD have been in my way though.

I hope you like these brainworms.

Ohohoho, yes Creep- I love all these ideas! (I have not proofread my reponses because tumblr has deleted this twice now and it's 1 AM so I apologize for this being late) Under cut for being long, Creep's original words are indented- Nothing but random lore talk, not necessarily a story or anything. :)

I agree Darling's form would be largely unique to them; based upon the essecense of their immortal soul, which is/was originally human. Though I also like the idea of Darling inheriting a few of the boys' traits as well. Either because the twins are the ones to turn them, or because Darling's love for the twins influnced the form they took.

Absolutely. It's based primarily on whatever darling's "perception" of their monstrous self would be- But also because what's turning you into a monster in the first place is the Twins, you'd "inherit" some of their traits. Darling's power may be something betwixt these two aberrations- Or simply something that compliments their own abilities. I think it would be something that compliments them, though I would need to sit and think- I think some kind of alchemical/transmutational themed eldritch aberration would work best- Though how it would work, I'd need to think it through more.

Personally, I want Darling to be incapable of taking a full eldritch appearance and being able to tap into their powers until the end of their human life.

That is an interesting idea- I did sort of imagine a "death" of sorts being required before Darling becomes a true, full-on Eldritch Aberration. (something something hero's journey framework) In the OU there was a way to become one of these eldritch monsters technically- Or to become a "sorcerer" who could wield their powers- And it requires "dying", essentially.

I have this idea for the DNA of the Soul, I'll call it soulcoding for short, which is how cosmic energy was arranged to create a given soul, parallel with how proteins are arranged to create physical DNA. In Soulmate AUs, I like to think fated pairs share soulcoding with each other, they're not completely the same, but similar.

This is very interesting- My idea in their OU and specifically for their race, the soul binding is a way of "fixing" their "imperfect" selves- They aren't supposed to exist, and seek ways to correct their selves- The best analogy would be that they are "wounded" and they need to be healed. Soulbinds exist between two aberrations- The bind fixing their "broken" or the "wounded" parts of their self. Without it, they eventually lose their consciousness- Their awareness, and fall asleep- Never to wake again, and then "die" in that sense.

But all in all, I don't usually put too much thought into "soulmate" stuff normally, lol- I like leaving details about "fate" to the reader's imagination. I may make notes about how something works "behind the scenes", so to say, but it's not something I normally reveal-People's ideas and takes are always more interesting to springboard off of and explore. The "soul-code" idea is interesting- I would say that for the eldritch AU, darling having similar soulcode to eldritch abominations would be more akin to say, code injection? Like it's not supposed to be that way, and something occurred that changed your wiring- Injected a virus into you, so to speak.

In human-to-human couples I'd assume they could share a lot of soulcoding because their souls were created in a similar way, where as Darling and the Eldritch twins would share a lot less because they are different beings.

Right on the mark- The reason their coupling is considered a "defect" is because human's souls aren't "wounded" like their own souls are. I don't really have a good idea of what language to use to describe it, to be completely fair- I've been trying to think of it, though the analogies usually end up a little too macabre and angsty for what I try to maintain.

Likewise, I don't think Darling's humanity can ever be fully stripped away. They may lose their human perception, they may or may not remain humanoid, but there will always be a signature of humanity in them. They will never fully be the same thing as the twins and vice versa.

Absolutely. Darling will always be a lil human, at least for a very, very long time- Your self is what makes you, well, you! And the eldritch boys adore you- No matter what you may become or how you might change. :)

I like this idea for a variety of reasons. Partially because there's angst potential here. An old post of Yanban's mentioned that you may be the twin's soulmate, but they may not be your's.

Yup. I try to avoid angsty posting too much, but that's their unfortunate reality- They adore you. They can't help it. But you just don't have that same drive. Even if you love them, it's not that intensive need they have; Humans, in this realm, do not have the concept of soulmates outside of fiction- You simply don't have that intensive drive.

Even worse if Pokemon share more soulcode with you thanks to being from the same universe and potentially having the same creator. (Arceus is the God of Pokemon and I think the general consensus is he created humans too, but what if he didn't? Pokemon Earth could've been a collab with another God creating humans).

I like to think it was a different God(s?) that made humans and they've ended up in so many different realities due to time-space/interdimensional tomfoolery- So I do like that idea of a different God being responsible for humanity, it's a neat concept, though I don't know if I'd ever explore it too deeply. I do like exploring the idea of humanity as a reflection of the divine though- "Made in the Image of God" and all that. Humans as agents of divinity or as creative forces themselves is a very interesting idea that I might play around with in the future- and have a little bit, in some unpublished thoughts lol. Also, on a side note, I find it interesting how most everyone immediately jumped on the idea of Arceus wanting to protect you rather than seeing you as the source of the problem of these eldritch termites digging into his precious creation. :)

Seeing all the trouble (big and small) it causes all parties involved, the potential for even more trouble should the twins' plan fail or be hindered by anything, and being able to work through them and fall in genuine love anyways despite nature being against it. On a funnier note, eldritch beings come into existence knowing what to do and have full conscious/voluntary control over all their body functions,

Ohohoho, the twins would be much less nice if anything were interfering with their plans- Even you. They want your genuine affection and love, but they are also two misinterpreted sentences away from deciding that perhaps it would be better to just lock you up forever and make you their darling little prisoner, given everything you could ever dream of and more in the hopes that maybe instead of this silly little game they've been playing- If they just make you theirs, they can figure out the rest later, and keep you forevermore. I do prefer the idea of them trying their absolute damndest to get you to genuinely love them back, though. Like they may be that close to snapping- But they are also just as easily reminded of their true goal when they see you smile or pout or doing just about anything- So sweet, innocent- Beautiful, perfect just the way you are- And would you hate them if they took you away? You would, wouldn't you? And so they don't.

I don't know if the eldritch beings have full control over their powers when they pop into existence from whatever primordial eldritch soup they crawled out of, though some might, others have a more intuitive understanding of their powers that they gradually gain control over. Ingo and Emmet are in the boat of not knowing exactly what they do, but knowing they can do it- I think this might also used as a sign of them having a human soulmate too.

The idea of post-bonding/converted Darling being reduced to an almost infantile state while they learn about their new body is hilarious to me. Like Babe, how do I close my 6th Dimension eyes? They're getting tired.

Oh absolutely. Being more human than eldritch leads to the twins becoming protective of you. Both of them helping you learn to control your extraneous, hyper-dimensional limbs and gently closing your eyes for you as you figure it out. Emmet would probably end up teasing you for being unable to keep your eyes off of his light, only for Ingo to intervene- Something like that.

Sidenote, I like the idea of non-omnipotent/fallible Gods, so I headcanon that while they can "summon" a new soul into existence, they don't have full control of where the energy/material needed to create a new soul comes from, or even full control over what kind of soul is born. So when Darling was made, somehow a sliver of energy from the nth dimension was pulled in and threaded itself together with the rest to make your soul. And eons before that, the source Nobori and Kudari came from, had drew energy from what would one day be the primary source for human souls.

Verrrry interesting idea- Like the soul is a big pot of soup and someone accidentally added a dash of eldritch aberration to the soup and now you're the way you are. It's an idea I've played around with, and there is some l o r e on that, but with an X reader story, I'm always a little worried about going too lore heavy or characterizing the reader too much- I prefer to leave more stuff up to mystery or reader's interpretation, ya know? My idea though is that in order for a human to "become" a soulmate for these eldritch horrors, they have to come in contact with eldritch-space/eldritch-power in some way.

Sidenote 2, what if post-bonding/transformed Darling gains the ability to "see" who is/isn't soulmates, and becomes the best matchmaker in the world. The eternally human part of them wants others to be happy and feel the same love they do with the boys.

It's interesting, though I think the brothers would be firmly against you doing anything of the sort- After all, there are definitely ways their kind uses to find soulmates already. How do you think the twins found you? And to know that the dear, weak little spouse of Kudari and Nobori can find soulmates, across all possible times, across all possible worlds, across an infinite non-existent space- Would merely draw the ire and violence of them.

But if you had that power? I think even Kudari and Nobori might be a little... curious about your rather excessive omniscience.

[rosiewitchescottage]

An excellent way of looking at it. 👍👍👍👍

I turned from The Church, because I was having trouble feeling God amongst it all.

I found Paganism, and realised how much I'd always felt God amongst the pulsating Life above, bellow and around us, amongst Nature.

I have disagreements with many other people on Pagan Paths. But that doesn't matter. It's God I want to know and interact with.

But something was still missing. And I soon realised that whilst I'd turned from The Church. I hadn't really turned from Jesus.

There had to be some way to honour and love The Son along with The Father and The Holy Spirit.

With that God being the same Creator Father and Mother of the living, breathing Natural World around me. (God is Spirit, so has no set biological sex, as we do. )

And when I saw mentions of Cristopaganism. I realised that I was far from alone in that quest.

It might always remain seen as a 'fringe' practice. But it's clicked things into place for me.

I've begun incorporating decades of The Rosary into my life. So The Gospel narrative is becoming far more meaningful than ever before.

I'll never be able perceive Christ's death according to the 'Penal Substitution' model of Atonement. That feels too much like the emotional blackmail that drove me from The Church to begin with.

But the Christus Victor model did grab my attention.

Here we are fallible and liable to error. God intends us to turn to Him/Her as our Guide and Teacher when we go wrong.

We know there's a difference between good and evil, but lack the wisdom to always know which way to turn. God intends for us to turn to Him/Her as our Guide and Teacher.

But The Powers of Evil also see our weakness, and being who they are, want to lure us away from God, and they set their traps for us.

God, in Divine Love decided that rather than sending some human messenger to pass on advice. He would take on our humanity, through birth by a mortal mother.

And as fully human and fully God would share life with us, teaching us The Way by example.

'Greater Love hath no man, than that he would die for his friends'.

In so many of the greatest stories that we have at our disposal. The power most feared by Evil is Love. In can't understand Love, it can't control it, it can't imitate it. It can only mislead, mock, destroy.

So, it surely follows that God as a Human Man would show that God's Love hold more power than does Evil, by a show of Ultimate Love.

Jesus a sunless man, takes the place of the undeniably guilty Barabbas, to be crucified. (apparently Barabbas first name was also Yeshua. And Barabbas means 'Don of the Father There has be some significance in that.)

Undergoing the unfathomable torture. Jesus also has lessons for us. He forgives his killers, mockers and tormentors. He transcends his own suffering enough to think of the needs of others, telling a repentant dying criminal that he would be in Paradise, making sure his widowed mother would be cared for. And he quotes Scripture, that people used to having to memorise chunks of sacred text, would understand that he is fulfilling.

Then as a master stroke, a show of God's Power that Evil can't hope to top. Jesus is Resurrected.

Faith in him and following the path he demonstrates is a Path to God.

I'll never buy that God Loves us despite our not deserving of it. Because what sort of real Love works like that?

Surely the miracle is that God doesn't demand that we 'earn' Love. Divine Love is a gift, it's Grace.

We can accept that gift with a gratitude that includes letting God be our Guide and Teacher. A Father/Mother, we His/Her children.

And by sharing that Love with each other.

I have religious trauma.

I was raised in a household where my dad wanted to be God, and so characterized Him in a way that left me constantly paranoid.

God was a judge, God was a debt collector, God was a hammer waiting to strike.

My mother was likewise delusional to a point. She used religion as a manner of control, manipulating my egotistical dad and our chaotic little world so she could feel better about herself.

I was abused in the church. I’ve been so many churches since childhood I can’t count them.

I was told I was possessed because I was a child with adhd and couldn’t sit still in a pew. I was told that if I didn’t see visions or speak in tongues, I wasn’t saved. I was told that I must be thinking about God at all times or I wasn’t good enough. That I was lukewarm, unlovable, unworthy.

I was too afraid to take communion. I cried and turned away from the altar multiple times because I was a too dirty to touch the offering.

I was told so many awful things that I grew up with a persistent religious paranoia on top of my already anxiety inducing life.

So… why am I still a Christian, after all of that?

Stockholm syndrome, right?

It would be easy to write it off as that, but I did turn away from religion. In the back of my mind. I stayed cautious in case God was still watching.

It wasn’t until I got rid of the destructive influences in my life that things changed.

My perception of God changed when I left the awful people using His name in vain- or for personal gain.

When I grew up, learned to be discerning about the character of people.

Many people live under the assumption that I did- that God is a tyrant who is waiting for you to mess up so he can smash you and send you to hell. Paradoxically, that almost makes Satan sound preferable.

But that’s not who God is, and he doesn’t want people to go to hell.

Even if you haven’t had good parents, you’ve seen what they’re like. They get excited to share experiences with their children. The first taste of lemon, the first puddles to splash in. First words, first laughs, first steps.

God wanted that for us.

Satan got jealous after his rebellion in heaven. He saw God had something good and wanted it for himself again - even if it was just to spite God.

He offered humanity a choice and we took it.

We can debate why it happened until we’re blue in the face, but what matters most are God’s decisions afterwards.

Everything that has happened since the fall has been God trying to bring his wayward children back without force.

Just like when you see that friend of yours making the same bad decisions day after day, and you know their quality of life would improve if they just stopped. It’s heartbreaking, frustrating. You can give them all the advice in the world but they’ll just keep on doing the thing and complain to you about every headache afterwards.

Now you know a little what God feels like.

Only God is a little more patient than we tend to be.

God doesn’t ask much from us, not as much as people, which is weird to think about.

God doesn’t measure your worth by how good you are at your job, how badly you do in school. He doesn’t equate your value to how rich or poor you are, he doesn’t judge you the same way people do.

The first thing he asks of you is to love him and love each other.

He loves us so much that he opened heaven again if we ask for it.

He came down as flesh and blood in Jesus and took all the punishments we should’ve had. In Jesus death and resurrection, we have a way home.

All he wants for us to do is acknowledge that.

He doesn’t hate you if you can’t pay tithe. He doesn’t talk behind your back if you make a mistake. He doesn’t demean, debase, abuse.

Why am I still a Christian?

Because God was there for me when people weren’t.

God didn’t abuse me as a kid, people did, and used God as a shield.

God didn’t lie to me, call me names, break my things - my parents did.

God didn’t order me to do unbelievable things in order to reach him - my pastors and teachers did.

God didn’t tell me I’m unworthy - people did.

Even if you don’t believe in God, if you’re angry at him, feeling hurt and betrayed.

Maybe take a closer look and see if it’s really the people around you making you miserable, instead of an untouchable, invisible hammer.

[sopstvena]

“Yet there is no denying the growth of the threat to women, as phallus-worship swept the world from around 1500 B.C. The accumulated force of men's resentment of women, their struggle for significance and the recognition of the male part in reproduction had brought an irresistible attack on women's former prerogative.

[...]

What this meant for women may be illustrated by the story of Hypatia, the Greek mathematician and philosopher. Trained from her birth in about A.D. 370 to reason, to question and to think, she became the leading intellectual of Alexandria, where she taught philosophy, geometry, astronomy and algebra at the university. She is known to have performed original work in astronomy and algebra, as well as inventing the astrolabe and the planisphere, an apparatus for distilling water, and a hydroscope or aerometer for measuring the specific gravity of liquids. Adored by her pupils, she was widely regarded as an oracle, and known simply as "The Philosopher" or "The Nurse." But her philosophy of scientific rationalism ran counter to the dogma of the emerging religion of Christianity, as did her womanhood and the authority she held. In a terrorist attack of the sort with which women were to become all too familiar, Cyril, the patriarch of Alexandria in A.D. 415, incited a mob of zealots led by his monks to drag her from her chariot, strip her naked and torture her to death by slicing her flesh from her bones with shells and sharpened flints.

Hypatia's infamous murder signified more than the death of one innocent middle-aged scientist. In Cyril and his bigots, every thinking woman could foresee the shape of men to come. The aggressive rise of phallicism had revolutionized thought and behavior, but it was not enough. Domination was not absolute, systems were imperfect, there was still too much room to maneuver—control could not be based on an organ that men could not control. There had to be more—an idea of immanent, eternal maleness that was not physical, visible, fallible; one that was greater than all women because greater than man; whose power was omnipotent and unquestionable—one God, God the Father, who man now invented in his own image.” - Who Cooked the Last Supper? The Women’s History of the World, Rosalind Miles

[lawrenceop]

HOMILY for 4th Sun of Advent (Dominican rite)

1 Cor 4:1-5; Luke 3:1-6

God is great! And because God is great, he does not need to flaunt his power. It’s human beings, who are little-minded and whose thrones are unstable, and whose authority is fallible, and whose empires change and fall who have to put on displays of power. Hence, the third chapter of St Luke’s Gospel, which actually follows on from the account of Christ’s birth as a vulnerable baby in Bethlehem, opens with a list of important-sounding titles and names. 

Tiberius is Caesar, the Emperor, and he has reigned for some fifteen years. And yet, he would die in AD 37, smothered to death in his own bed, with the mob threatening to throw his body into the river, which was how criminals were punished. Pilate was the imperial governor of Judaea who commanded about 3000 soldiers. And yet, in AD 39, he would be ordered by the Emperor Caligula to kill himself, a common form of execution for Roman aristocrats. Herod, Philip, and Lysanias were tetrarchs, and each ruled a third of the kingdom of Israel, puppet-kings of the Roman empire. Each fell from imperial favour, and were exiled or killed. These were the worldly powers of the time of Christ, and they controlled the known world. The other two names that are mentioned – Annas and Caiaphas – are the Jewish religious powers of the time, but we do not know much about them. In fact, if the Bible didn’t mention them, their names would have been forgotten. And all this tells us how temporary and illusory human power is; how changeable our human circumstances are; and how futile the political struggle for power can be ultimately. For all those so-called powerful men fell into nothingness and knew only a criminal’s death, infamy, and exile. 

Juxtaposed beside these men who were great in the eyes of the world is one John son of Zechariah; a common name in Jewish circles. He did not live in a palace nor wear silks and jewels. He lived in the wilderness, in the desert, and he wore a rough, smelly, camel’s skin. In short, here was a man who could have been mistaken for an infamous criminal, and who lived as though he were in exile; a man without power and who might well have been forgotten. 

But one fact changed all that. St Luke says: “the word of God came to John”. God, who is great, can make us great. And indeed, God’s greatness is shown in the fact that he doesn’t need powerful men to do his work. Instead, he chooses the small, the humble, the unnoticed, the unwanted, those despised by the world. Which is why the word of God came to John. And the name ‘John’, which we know the angel Gabriel had revealed to his father Zechariah, means ‘God has shown his grace and favour’. This name says it all: John is remembered, he is truly great – no matter how badly the world treated him – because God has shown his grace, his favour, his goodness to John. Hence, the word of God came to John. For to receive God’s Word – to hear it and to be taught by it and to live according to God’s Word – is to receive God’s grace and blessings. 

However, it isn’t sufficient for John to receive God’s word. He has to respond and do as the word of God tells him. Which is why St Luke says that John “went through the whole Jordan district proclaiming” God’s word, according to what is written in the prophet Isaiah. Hence, because John is faithful to God’s word and he lives according to God’s word, therefore God blesses him, favours him, and makes him great. John becomes great, not in the eyes of the world – after all, he doesn’t become ruler of Judaea or become the Emperor – but he is great in God’s sight, and God upholds him. And this is true greatness since God alone is great, and he is always faithful to those who seek him, and who love him, and serve him. As St Paul says to the Philippians, those who receive God’s word and deepen their love for God’s word will “reach the perfect goodness which Jesus Christ produces in us for the glory and praise of God.” This is true greatness: becoming good through God’s power and grace as St John the Baptist was.

Now, you and I, as baptised Christians, as a chosen people who are called together to church every Sunday (at least) to hear the word of God, are also destined for the greatness of St John the Baptist. For the Word of God has also come to you and to me: Christ has come and spoken to us, through the Scriptures that we hear every Sunday. And indeed the Church wants us to read the Scriptures daily even. Hence a plenary indulgence can be gained if we read the Scriptures for at least half an hour; otherwise a partial indulgence if we meditate on the Scriptures for a shorter duration. Moreover, Christ, the living Word, has has come to teach us, through the Sacred Liturgy; through the Magisterium of his Body the Church; and Christ gives us a share in his divine life through the grace effected by the Sacraments. Hence, because the word of God has come to you and to me, then, no matter how little or insignificant or despised we might be in the eyes of the world; or no matter how unworthy or lowly or even unloved we might feel, we know, from the example of St John and the words of the Scriptures, that God, who is great, desires to make us great! 

Therefore, as Our Lady declares in her Magnificat, and the Church echoes in her sung prayer every evening, those whom the world thought to be important and great, high and mighty princes, have all been humbled and brought low; exiled and executed. But we, who should have deserved death for our sins have, by the love and grace of Christ, been forgiven and now share in Jesus’s royal dignity through our baptism. 

In the ancient world, royalty travelled on royal roads which took them directly to the king’s city. So, too, we, who have become royalty because of Jesus Christ, can travel directly on the highway to the heavenly city of God the true King. “Every valley will be filled in, every mountain and hill be laid low, winding ways will be straightened and rough roads made smooth”, says St John the Baptist. A highway shall be built to take us straight to God and to receive his salvation, so that we can be made great and share in God’s glory. 

How? What do we need to do to take this highway to heaven? St Luke tells us: John proclaimed “a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins”. Repentance, therefore, takes us from our sinful exiled, death-row circumstances to saved, alive-through-grace circumstances. If we repent, therefore, we shall become great; great like St John the Baptist. The consequences of a sinful life, a life without repentance, sadly, is plain to see in the fates of those powerful important men named in the Gospel. Their sinful lust for power, wealth, pleasure, only led to their downfall and ruin. So, you and I are called today, this final Sunday of Advent, to juxtapose our own lives against theirs. Like St John the Baptist, the word of God has come to us: God has called us to become great; he gives us his power and grace so that we can rise  up from the exile and folly and death of sin to eternal life with Jesus Christ. The word of God has come to us to save us. So, by God’s grace, let us repent – turn away from the wrong ways and false roads of this world, and take the royal highway straight to the Lord; right into the heart of the God who loves us and became a little baby for us. Thus we know that God is great. For God’s greatness is revealed in the depths of his humility. It is this littleness of God that we ponder at this time, for through his littleness we are made great.

So Blessed Jordan of Saxony, the successor of St Dominic as Master of the Order said: “I send you a very little word, the Word made little in the crib, the Word who was made flesh for us, the Word of salvation and grace, of sweetness and glory, the Word who is good and gentle, Jesus Christ and him crucified, Christ raised up on the cross, raised in praise to the Father's right hand: to whom and in whom do you raise up your soul and find there your rest unending for ever and ever. Read over that Word in your heart, turn it over in your mind, let it be sweet as honey on your lips; ponder it, dwell on it, that it may dwell with you and in you for ever.”

Amen.

[thewonderingsorceress]

Marvel HC Complication

So this is all the HC’s for Ella for her Marvel verse (most are geared towards MCU). Most of these were created pre-infinity wars but still fit in the world bc its more about her background and how if affected her. These are summarized as the posts are super detailed that is more stream of conscious. Note: This may change after tfatws if we get more about HYDRA from Bucky. 

Ella basically sleeps in a blanket and pillow nest on the floor, beds are way too soft for her even the ones that you can make super firm. Before HYDRA found her she was sleeping on the grass outside, she slept basically on the floor when she got there because it was more comfortable than the “bed” they gave her. 

Ella’s powers were manipulated in a way technically her powers were not suppose to work- yes her powers healed her but not to the extent they do now and they weren’t intended to be used on others that way. That means that she technically is at her weakest, even though she seems strong and dangerous as she can utilize her powers rather effectively and quickly. It also requires her to use more fuel. 

This also means that her powers always run for 2 way- to heal or in an “up keep” manner to keep her younger longer (the latter wasn’t ingrained in her until later around 21 yrs old)

Ella needs to eat to fuel herself as it uses a lot of her powers,  but not as quickly or as often as she will probably make it appear around others. She is just paranoid and wants to be at 100% all the time, and also it will make people think she needs to fuel more often than not and will allow her an advantage by deceiving them. She also eats a lot because she exercises a lot and like those who exercise a lot she needs to eat to keep up with losses. 

Ella struggles with basics or human emotions and tact, because unlike a mission what is the point of having to bother with these things?

Ella’s powers were not weakened by mistake, HYDRA knew they could use her more efficiently by being an assassin and spy, keeping her off the grid. (They kept everything about her off any files since they didn’t have to account for her in birth records etc, she normally dealt with high level personnel only. Though doctors she dealt with detailed and recorded her torture for themselves). 

HYDRA was obsessed with making super soldiers, and while they found Ella couldn’t help create them with others, they could create one in her. They realized with her height projections and stature, she’d never be quite as strong and they didn’t want her to be quite as muscled- so she is lean and looks weaker than she is but they focused on her speed, agility, flexibility instead. She is still inhumanly strong, she has a fast metabolism about 3.25 times faster, she is immune to almost every poison or drug, doesn’t get drunk, she is super fast, very flexible and very quiet.  

Ella’s childhood was basically torture - which was called power and strength training. Once she leaves she suffers from nightmares and night terrors, she struggles to sleep in general as she struggles with the fact that what happened to her has caused psychological damage. This is a hug struggle for her because in ways she still sides with some of HYDRA’s ideals- or the ones she was brought up to believe and has a hate/feel indebted to relationship as they did raise her- took care of her, fed her, made her someone to be feared. 

When Ella uses her powers as they should be used, she will be incredibly strong once she practices with it. At first, it will be exceedingly draining on her and she will need to fuel up quite a bit, once she gets use to using them they aren’t draining pretty much at all. 

- When she uses her powers correctly her irises, which are blue, glow an almost neon blue and has gold within them (Think like a blue and gold bath bomb), and a fine blue and gold swirling colour, covers her hands like a glove, and encases whatever element /object she is utilizing until she stops. 

Ella is technically very rich, when she left she transferred money from HYDRA (Billions) for her services rendered and for her to leave them alone mostly. She doesn't live to spend them lavishly and has them in various bank accounts. 

Due to the torturous nature of her upbringing the only positive acceptable means of touch to Ella is more sexual in nature, and she very much dominates and control the scenario- male or female. She is very much a top seeming person sexually, as well as dominate. In reality, she is very touched starved and is a cuddly person. Once she trusts someone (Which I wish you luck) fully and completely - she will be touchy. She will cuddle and hold hands and rest ehr head on your shoulder and hug and nuzzle and caress. She will also love being touched- but due to the amount of trust needed anything like massages and hugs being given willingly or allowing will most likely be with a romantic partner or a twin flame. Friends she’d probably let her hair be played with, or be comfortable with them hugging her or more casual touches. 

If you call Ella the villain, the criminal, the hero there are just words to her, or if you call anyone else those terms. She really doesn’t care for any of those terms and she doesn’t let those terms bother her or define her. She doesn’t care about being ‘the hero’ or ‘the villain’ she prefers to do what she thinks is right or best- regardless of what fallible and bias governments have decided. She doesn’t claim to be perfect or always right, but she’d rather make her own mistakes than make mistakes of others all in the name of being ‘the hero’ so if that makes her ‘the villain’ of the story then she quite frankly gives zero figs.

[tyrantisterror]

Also - and I realize this is going to sound very uncharitable of me to say - I think when people angrily argue that they want more one-dimensional, pure evil, unsympathetic villains, what they're ultimately saying is "I don't want the stories I read to have a more complex morality than a Goofus and Gallant comic strip." And, personally, I think that's a demand that should be challenged.

It's not that I can't see where the desire for that comes from. Humans are wired to have an ingroup/outgroup mentality, where the ingroup is good and worthy of consideration and care, and the outgroup is evil and unworthy of compassion or pity. It's a survival thing - if you feel compassion for the deer you're hunting, or for the lion that's hunting you, then you'll struggle to kill it when you need to, and that could end with you dying. To survive, our ancestors had to categorize things as "worthy of protection" and "deserving of death." We are wired to sort things into Gallants and Goofuses.

And it's not like there aren't people who've done everything they can to prove they're worthy of the outgroup label! I'm an American who lived through the Trump presidency, and hot damn did that man do everything in his power to prove he was the most incompetent, cruel, and needlessly evil person ever to hold the office - and given the presidents we've had, given the fact that I also lived through two fucking terms of George W Bush, I think that is saying quite a lot! If there was a Goofus living in this world, that incoherent windbag would be it. Pure, simple, one-dimensional evil in human form.

...but...

Despite what our brains want us to think, and what thousands of years of human civilization have often tried to codify and confirm through legends and superstition and hatchet job histories, the world was not designed with ingroups and outgroups in mind. People were not made in two batches, one good and one evil. There is no inherent original sin, no cursed at birth people.

The reality is that all people, even the most monstrous, are a collection of experiences, including trauma and anxiety. They had choices in how they reacted to those experiences, moments of agency, but they also had things out of their control. You think Donald Trump was raised by a loving, compassionate family who tried to teach him right from wrong, or do you think he was raised by a family of cold-hearted, greedy bastards who taught him other people are only worth the money you can squeeze out of them? We all like to think that, given the circumstances of the lives of people we hate, we'd turn out better, but do we know that for sure? Are we so certain of our own virtue that we can cast those stones without pause?

I don't exclude myself from this when I say all humans are wired for a Goofus and Gallant mindset. When some asshole almost sideswipes me on the road because they didn't check their mirrors while making a lane change and relied on my shitty reflexes to keep us from harm, I don't think, "Well, maybe they're tired or have gone through some personal tragedy and just had a brief moment of broken concentration." No, my immediate reaction is, "What the fuck is wrong with this asshole? This fucking goofus almost killed me! Get off the road, you dumb piece of shit!" Because when your life is threatened, you go into survival mode, and survival is about Goofuses and Gallants.

But when I have a moment of lapsed concentration because I'm tired or am dealing with melancholy or whatever other shit might be gnawing at my mind, and I accidentally cut someone off and they honk the horn, am I acting out of malice? No! And I feel bad for that lapse, that mistake. Isn't it more likely the driver who cut me off is like me? That they're not some Goofus fucking things up on purpose, but a human, fallible and flawed and doing their best but occasionally failing and fucking up without meaning to?

Villains can be a Goofus in a narrative, but they can also be, you know, us. The us the fucks up, the us that meant well but crashed into someone's car because their friend was leaving for L.A. and they were going to be all alone now because everyone they loved was moving to find careers and they were driving home at 3am in tears and didn't notice the other car at the four way stop. Or they can be the teenager driving her dad's big SUV who rear-ends your car as you're on your way home from work, who didn't want to crash but is still learning how to drive and is terrified that the thirty year old man stepping out of the car she crashed into is going to yell at her or even get violent. Villains can be people - people we want to write off as irredeemable because of their actions or even just appearances, but who can teach us a valuable lesson in empathy if we explore why they are what they are and what led them to do what they do.

There's a value in a villain as a Goofus, but there's also a value to villains who are more than that. And, personally, I think it's healthy if we have fiction that challenges us not to sort people into outgroups and ingroups, not to write off every person who fucks up as irredeemable, not to slide into the comfortable mindset that everyone who comes into conflict with you is Evil and Deserving of Death. Because you know what kind of people live in a world where everyone is either a Goofus or a Gallant?

Those goddamn Goofuses, that's who. Those dumb, evil, Trump-supporting Goofuses.

While we’re on the subject of characters who “make you truly question makes one villainous”, what do you think of the take that villains, or at least ‘true’ villains, shouldn’t be sympathetic at all. That villains should simply be motivated by petty selfishness and cruelty. On one hand, that doesn’t sound like it makes for compelling stories, but on the other… most real-life villains really are motivated by nothing but greed and selfishness. And gain power by making people sympathize with them.

"Villain" is a word that has a lot of nuance to it that people in turn tend to overlook in favor of reducing it to "the guy it's ok to hate." "Antagonist" has the same problem, perhaps even worse, but that's another conversation.

Definitions don't help because more often than not they end up being intensely reductive of the broad scope of meanings the word has - again, another word with a similar problem in this regard is "monster," which can mean a bunch of a very different things that are all nonetheless recognizable by bearing some element of "monstrosity" to them.

So, like, one valid definition of villain is "an evil and unsympathetic character the audience is meant to hate." And I imagine if you gave that definition to most people, they'd agree - until you get to sympathetic characters who are still unmistakably villains. Like, would anyone say the word "villain" shouldn't include people like Doctor Octopus in Spider-Man II, or Mr. Freeze in Batman the Animated Series? Is Shakespeare's Macbeth excluded from the realm of villains because the play hinges on us finding ways to sympathize with him despite the horrific evil of his actions? Is Milton's Satan, perhaps the most iconic take on The Devil Himself, excluded from the conversation because Milton gave him pathos?

Villainy can be about the nature of your actions, and it can be about your relationship with society, and it can be about your choice of fashion and hobbies. It can be all of these things or none of them. Villainy is a form of being othered, one that has so many tropes attached to it and folded under it that the aesthetics of it can be divorced from the morality assigned to them easily. Villainy is so vast and complex a concept that a story can analyze it from a dozen different angels and still not capture the full scope of it.

Or, as one movie on the subject put it so succinctly:

It's about presentation.

As a writer and a reader of fiction, I love looking at time-tested tropes from a lot of different angles, and prying them apart to see how they work, and then seeing how far they can bend and twist until they break and become something else. I think locking yourself into one simple definition of what a villain can be is very limiting, creatively speaking, and think it's far more interesting to explore the concept from different angles. There's room for simple, pure evil bastards, sure, but there's also room for multifaceted evils, or characters will all the trappings of a villain but actions that ultimately speak to a nobility of spirit others have overlooked. The complexity of the trope is beautiful, why not explore it?

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

"Your God Is Too Small" - that's why he needs "defending" from cartoonists... That's why he can't cope with new, better understandings of nature such as evolution and climate change... That's why "he" needs protection from all change, be it gay marriage or birth control...

"He" belongs to a time thousands of years bygone, and he is pissed off because you are dragging him with you into the 21st century.

-- Nirav Mehta

He needs to hide behind fallible, sinful, imperfect humans to fight his battles for him, with ignorance and fallacies as their only weapons.

Your god is pathetic and unimpressive.

[ariainstars]

Why Many Fans Just Don‘t “Get” Ben Solo (I think…)

I already wrote my personal, lengthy opinion about why I don’t want Ben Solo to die, in case someone wants to read it: Why I Don’t Want Ben Solo to Die

Over and over, I have to realize that many people simply don’t like the sequel trilogy because they don’t get why Ben Solo / Kylo Ren is so desperately far off from every villain or hero we knew in both the classic and prequel trilogy.

If he is a villain, why is he so often unhinged, doubtful, afraid of what he’s doing?

If he is a hero, why isn’t he handsome (like his father, or grandfather, or uncle)? Why isn’t he swashbuckling? Why isn’t he cool and strong and brave?

He’s unusual, I admit it. But I think more and more that that’s the whole point.

Ben Solo is the protagonist of the saga’s third instalment: until now we saw the story of the grandfather who was a hero and then became a villain, and then the story of the son who was a humble farm boy and became a hero, both as the Force willed.

Anakin Skywalker, as we get to know him, has all prerequisites for being an extraordinary person already at age nine. He often manages tasks which seem impossible. Which is logical - he is the natural child of the Force.

Luke and Leia are the children of the greatest Jedi of his time and of a senator (and ex queen). Both these figures are heroic to the point of unreachable - there seems to be nothing they can’t do when they’re together. It is only logical to assume that the children of these two can be nothing but heroes.

But Ben Solo? He is the child of a princess and a scoundrel. How is he supposed to be a villain or a hero? It’s not possible by all logic that he should be either.

We have seen Ben in his interactions with Rey, when the Kylo Ren persona stepped back for a few moments. Yet many viewers have not recognized Ben Solo, to them he is always Kylo Ren, the wannabe Vader, the whiny sissy etc.

Why?

Because he’s neither here nor there. Ben is not beautiful but neither is he ugly; he has done a lot of terrible things but he is still capable of good feelings; at times he can control his fears (he eliminates Snoke in cold blood), at other times he is overwhelmed by them (he is terrified of Luke).

Who is the young man Rey was talking to, the one she got to know intimately, the one she was perhaps already falling for (this is open for interpretations), but with whom she undoubtedly formed a bond of mutual trust?

Han’s and Leia’s son is, simply put: a good guy. An average guy, the boy next door you could say. His parents wanted him to become a hero like his uncle but he failed, Snoke blackmailed him to become a villain like his grandfather and he failed again.

Why?

Because neither of these are his places in life. Ben is simply an average person, fallible but kind, confused but ultimately well meaning. That’s what he was meant to be by the will of the Force, and what his environment did not allow him to become. Ben was overburdened with a task far too heavy for his shoulders from birth, pushed into becoming someone he never was and never wanted to be. (Besides I have watched a few other movies with Adam Driver and I never saw him interpret the role of the Byronic hero. As far as I can judge, in one or the other variation he always is the “boy next door”.)

I don’t expect Ben Solo to “come back to the light” in TROS. He will find his own way, but not as a hero; no matter how much he regrets, no matter how much good he still might do, he will always be a patricide. I foresee no laurel wreath, no cheering crowd and no prince’s crown for him.

But I doubt that Ben wants any of those. What the vulnerable, funny-looking, shy son of Han and Leia wants most is to be loved and to belong. He will be the hero of his own narrative by being neither hero nor villain, but human.

To make the Dark Side of the Force win, a villain was needed. To make the Light Side win, a hero was necessary. To create balance, we need a human.

And that is what was staring into our faces right from the moment he took off his mask.

Thank you for this beautiful narrative, George. 😊