#both martyrs for god

[bibopbi]

does anyone else find the story of cain and abel tragic not just for abel, but for cain as well?

i mean, they were brothers, they grew up hand in hand. tiller and shepherd. one raises life out of the dirt, the other puts the life back into it. they loved each other, so much that abel died, so much that cain killed him.

abel was a tragedy of a child prodigy, the golden child. he was favored chosen again and again, to the point where he was killed. he was as innocent as the livestock he sacrificed. a shepherd into the lamb. he never meant to be, he loved his brother. he loved his brother when they were kids, he loved his brother when they were offering to god, he loved his brother when he followed him into the field, he loved his brother even as he died.

cain was a tragedy of a child pushed aside. how many times had he noticed his brother getting favored? did he know he was undesired, that his effort would never be enough? cain didnt know about murder, it wasnt a thing. did he know how abel choses his sacrifices? did he see how he took the prettiest, most well kept lamb of the flock and took it to god? did he see how god favored the crimson from the lamb more than the gold of his wheat? did he lay abel out as a sacrifice? hoping that in the crimson of his brother, so perfect and good like the lambs he offers, cain would finally be enough?

[daylighteclipsed]

Y’all ever think about if Sora falls to darkness that inside his heart will look like the Destiny Islands falling again

[martyrbat]

batman: gotham knights #2

‘Her experience of being trained almost from birth as an assassin leaves her less than fully able to acknowledge her own capacity for good. Not for doing good. But for being good. He knows all of his partners, sometimes better than he knows himself. He knows, for instance, that if Dick—Nightwing—had disobeyed his order to come back to the ship, it would have been because of his need to be useful—and because of his unabating desire to demonstrate his filial loyalty. He knows that if—Tim—Robin—had come back, it would have been because of his empathy, his inability to leave someone else in harm's way. Jason, the one he lost—he was headstrong and disregarded orders as a matter of rebellious individuation. Batman doesn't want to lose another one, which is why he wishes he didn't so well understand what brings this one back.’

[thelibraryofsylphide]

Loki, the Martyr, the Result. Loki.

Loki Moodboard trilogy: 1 | 2 | 3

[feliformiaboy]

[rabbits-of-negative-euphoria]

anyone else find the lyric

If you let me I will catch fire To let your glory and mercy shine

extremely sobering considering the direction Paramore has gone in?

[selamat-linting]

i have my preferences and im outspoken abt it, but i do dislike really negative/whiny/irony-poisoned ppl in wrestling fandom. like, i wish all of their faves went to the company they hate. thats one of the few things that does happen often.

i was giggling when ricochet went to aew, not because im particularly fans of him (the guys seems alright tho. nothing hateable in him) but because seeing the most insufferable ppl on reddit cry abt him going to aew and stupidly pretend he was never good anyway is genuinely fun for me. what idiots. when ricky starks show up on nxt, i'll be enjoying it as well because now its tumblr's most insufferable ppl's turn to cry and whine about how ricky is shackled in a prison or whatever. hue and cry girlies <3

[gay-caesar-truther]

I need to draw Gabe in his New Vegas fit- its some priest vestments (I know they aren't in game I'm using my powerful imagination) with leather armor peices he took from his armored Vault suit over the top. Of course he still has his spiked knuckles but he also has a rifle with some rosary beads wrapped around the stock.

[tropicalcontinental]

Wait hold on scratch that regularly scheduled programming and that 10 morbillion years reveal this is an EAS Broadcast except it's not that at all and it's just more OC art (also old)

They are NOT this cuddly or even romantic (to me at least, I just can't see it as romantic) in their current iterations in fact my feelings on their relationship is complicated (me below for reference)

[gingerbreadmonsters]

polite and gentle reminder that it is perfectly okay to not say anything about any particular subject, because moralising about events and people that are not real on the internet does not in fact make you a defender of the good and righteous, but instead just makes you and the people around you miserable when everybody inevitably has to hash out the same argument again and again to no avail

[asitrita]

Over half of my Doffy & Rosi playlist (actually, over 75%) is the exact same as my aph Spain & aph Portugal playlist.

[unknownarmageddon]

final hozier!!! the journey has come to an end; how do you feel man?

YOO holy shit dude, so so wild actually wagh

i feel rad actually, i’ve heard more hozier than like. most of the artists i know now /silly

[tsukihigui]

deleted my twitter app (not account) bc i really can’t handle the intense no-nuance high-stakes takes right now. not that here is all that much better but it’s definitely less of a time sink

[incoherent-orca]

💭

🐳

[shivunin]

Hi there! 💜

For the WIP asks... What about 6 and 9? :3

Thank you for asking, Arja! <3

(question list here)

6. Does this chapter/fic have any twists that you’re proud of?

I'm answering for the fic instead of the chapter, but there is a scene in the Black Emporium that I think will be a little unexpected, but I'm really (really really) proud of it. I don't think there are many twists in this fic in general, because it's really about the kind of slow healing that must be done after a deep hurt. Recovery has its ups and downs, but it's not necessarily as plot twisty as other types of plot.

9. What is your favorite dialogue you’ve written so far?

hehehe well, I love writing a good argument, so here's this from the most recent chapter:

“And you,” he snapped at last, unable to bear the silence, “Would you rather let yourself be pummeled than allow me to do my job and block the blow?”

“What?” Elowen said, turning toward him, and Cullen looked at her at last, “But you—”

“You stood between me and that—that thing. You—and you do not even have a shield! Why would you—”

“You’re too important to lose, Cullen,” she said, frowning, “Of course I stepped between you. No shield? I had a barrier on the whole time, or I’d be a bloody smear on the floor by now.”

That was not reassuring. Cullen scoffed and looked away again, hands tightening on the reins. 

“I am too important to—can you hear yourself? You’re the Inquisitor. I am only the—”

“I don’t know why you’re angry with me. I was only—”

“Only showing a potent disregard for your own safety,” Cullen snapped, “When I’d read the field reports I thought they must surely be exaggerating. You said you wanted to know how to protect yourself better in close combat—I thought you intended to do so in the way it was meant to be done, with ample protection and forethought. I did not think you would be throwing yourself bodily at threats instead of—”

“Instead of what?” she snapped, angry at last; Cullen did not think he had ever heard her properly angry before, save perhaps when she’d raised her voice to him in Haven over the message from her clan. 

“Instead of allowing you to be exposed to a substance when we don’t know what it might do to you?” she said, “Instead of—watching someone I care for be beaten to a bloody pulp?”

“You are supposed to let me—”

“Let you stand between me and danger? Cullen, despite the way you’re acting right now, I am not one of your charges. Either you have faith in what you taught me or you don’t, but I won’t apologize for taking a blow meant for you, and I won’t take it back. I do this every day when I’m not at Skyhold; I know how to handle myself, no matter what you seem to think.” 

Cullen sat back in the saddle. His horse, alert to his every motion, began to slow immediately. Elowen didn’t stop; she looked at him over her shoulder when she finished speaking, and face was fixed in an uncharacteristic frown. 

“Be angry with me if you have to; I’ll be here when you’re actually  ready to talk.”

[joycrispy]

Awhile ago @ouidamforeman made this post:

This shot through my brain like a chain of firecrackers, so, without derailing the original post, I have some THOUGHTS to add about why this concept is not only hilarious (because it is), but also...

It. It kind of fucks. Severely.

And in a delightfully Pratchett-y way, I'd dare to suggest.

I'll explain:

As inferred above, both Crowley AND Aziraphale have canonical Biblical counterparts. Not by name, no, but by function.

Crowley, of course, is the serpent of Eden.

(note on the serpent of Eden: In Genesis 3:1-15, at least, the serpent is not identified as anything other than a serpent, albeit one that can talk. Later, it will be variously interpreted as a traitorous agent of Hell, as a demon, as a guise of Satan himself, etc. In Good Omens --as a slinky ginger who walks funny)

Lesser known, at least so far as I can tell, is the flaming sword. It, too, appears in Genesis 3, in the very last line:

"So he drove out the man; and placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life." --Genesis 3:24, KJV

Thanks to translation ambiguity, there is some debate concerning the nature of the flaming sword --is it a divine weapon given unto one of the Cherubim (if so, why only one)? Or is it an independent entity, which takes the form of a sword (as other angelic beings take the form of wheels and such)? For our purposes, I don't think the distinction matters. The guard at the gate of Eden, whether an angel wielding the sword or an angel who IS the sword, is Aziraphale.

(note on the flaming sword: in some traditions --Eastern Orthodox, for example-- it is held that upon Christ's death and resurrection, the flaming sword gave up it's post and vanished from Eden for good. By these sensibilities, the removal of the sword signifies the redemption and salvation of man.

...Put a pin in that. We're coming back to it.)

So, we have our pair. The Serpent and the Sword, introduced at the beginning and the end (ha) of the very same chapter of Genesis.

But here's the important bit, the bit that's not immediately obvious, the bit that nonetheless encapsulates one of the central themes, if not THE central theme, of Good Omens:

The Sword was never intended to guard Eden while Adam and Eve were still in it.

Do you understand?

The Sword's function was never to protect them. It doesn't even appear until after they've already fallen. No... it was to usher Adam and Eve from the garden, and then keep them out. It was a threat. It was a punishment.

The flaming sword was given to be used against them.

So. Again. We have our pair. The Serpent and the Sword: the inception and the consequence of original sin, personified. They are the one-two punch that launches mankind from paradise, after Hell lures it to destruction and Heaven condemns it for being destroyed. Which is to say that despite being, supposedly, hereditary enemies on two different sides of a celestial cold war, they are actually unified by one purpose, one pivotal role to play in the Divine Plan: completely fucking humanity over.

That's how it's supposed to go. It is written.

...But, in Good Omens, they're not just the Serpent and the Sword.

They're Crowley and Aziraphale.

(author begins to go insane from emotion under the cut)

In Good Omens, humanity is handed it's salvation (pin!) scarcely half an hour after losing it. Instead of looming over God's empty garden, the sword protects a very sad, very scared and very pregnant girl. And no, not because a blameless martyr suffered and died for the privilege, either.

It was just that she'd had such a bad day. And there were vicious animals out there. And Aziraphale worried she would be cold.

...I need to impress upon you how much this is NOT just a matter of being careless with company property. With this one act of kindness, Aziraphale is undermining the whole entire POINT of the expulsion from Eden. God Herself confronts him about it, and he lies. To God.

And the Serpent--

(Crowley, that is, who wonders what's so bad about knowing the difference between good and evil anyway; who thinks that maybe he did a GOOD thing when he tempted Eve with the apple; who objects that God is over-reacting to a first offense; who knows what it is to fall but not what it is to be comforted after the fact...)

--just goes ahead and falls in love with him about it.

As for Crowley --I barely need to explain him, right? People have been making the 'didn't the serpent actually do us a solid?' argument for centuries. But if I'm going to quote one of them, it may as well be the one Neil Gaiman wrote ficlet about:

"If the account given in Genesis is really true, ought we not, after all, to thank this serpent? He was the first schoolmaster, the first advocate of learning, the first enemy of ignorance, the first to whisper in human ears the sacred word liberty, the creator of ambition, the author of modesty, of inquiry, of doubt, of investigation, of progress and of civilization." --Robert G. Ingersoll

The first to ask questions.

Even beyond flattering literary interpretation, we know that Crowley is, so often, discreetly running damage control on the machinations of Heaven and Hell. When he can get away with it. Occasionally, when he can't (1827).

And Aziraphale loves him for it, too. Loves him back.

And so this romance plays out over millennia, where they fall in love with each other but also the world, because of each other and because of the world. But it begins in Eden. Where, instead of acting as the first Earthly example of Divine/Diabolical collusion and callousness--

(other examples --the flood; the bet with Satan; the back channels; the exchange of Holy Water and Hellfire; and on and on...)

--they refuse. Without even necessarily knowing they're doing it, they just refuse. Refuse to trivialize human life, and refuse to hate each other.

To write a story about the Serpent and the Sword falling in love is to write a story about transgression.

Not just in the sense that they are a demon and an angel, and it's ~forbidden. That's part of it, yeah, but the greater part of it is that they are THIS demon and angel, in particular. From The Real Bible's Book of Genesis, in the chapter where man falls.

It's the sort of thing you write and laugh. And then you look at it. And you think. And then you frown, and you sit up a little straighter. And you think.

And then you keep writing.

And what emerges hits you like a goddamn truck.

(...A lot of Pratchett reads that way. I believe Gaiman when he says Pratchett would have been happy with the romance, by the way. I really really do).

It's a story about transgression, about love as transgression. They break the rules by loving each other, by loving creation, and by rejecting the hatred and hypocrisy that would have triangulated them as a unified blow against humanity, before humanity had even really got started. And yeah, hell, it's a queer romance too, just to really drive the point home (oh, that!!! THAT!!!)

...I could spend a long time wildly gesturing at this and never be satisfied. Instead of watching me do that (I'll spare you), please look at this gif:

I love this shot so much.

Look at Eve and Crowley moving, at the same time in the same direction, towards their respective wielders of the flaming sword. Adam reaches out and takes her hand; Aziraphale reaches out and covers him with a wing.

You know what a shot like that establishes? Likeness. Commonality. Kinship.

"Our side" was never just Crowley and Aziraphale. Crowley says as much at the end of season 1 ("--all of us against all of them."). From the beginning, "our side" was Crowley, Aziraphale, and every single human being. Lately that's around 8 billion, but once upon a time it was just two other people. Another couple. The primeval mother and father.

But Adam and Eve die, eventually. Humanity grows without them. It's Crowley and Aziraphale who remain, and who protect it. Who...oversee it's upbringing.

Godfathers. Sort of.