#deviant king quotes

[pride-with-a-hint-of-prejudice]

deviant king is so funny to me cause i literally cannot imagine a 16 year old going "I WILL DESTROY YOU" like what are you doing go finish your homework lmao

[lighthousepigeons]

[Aiden and Cole extremely drunk]

Aiden, laughing: Silver, Cole likes you.

Cole: Aiden, you prick. You said you wouldn't tell her.

Silver: Cole, we're married-

Cole: Bastard, I'm gonna tell Elsa you like her!

Aiden: *glares*

Cole: Elsa, Aiden has a crush on you.

Elsa, holding baby Eli: Really? I would've never known.

[adrianvokov]

aidenelsa headers, royal elite.

[yourcprcrn]

“Every. Fucking. Thing.”

Aiden King, Deviant King by Rina Kent

[pynkhues]

What do you mean when u say Lestat is a Milton’s Satan hero?

Ah! Okay! Going to try and keep this shorter than my Byronic Hero post, haha, but we’ll see how we go.

Before we start…

When we talk about Milton’s Satan as a character archetype, we’re talking about something that was originated in John Milton’s epic poem, Paradise Lost, which was published in 1667. This was before gothic literature was quote-unquote ‘invented’ (as I mentioned in my first Byronic Hero post, gothic literature is widely accepted to have begun with Horace Walpole’s 1764 novel, The Castle of Otranto – worth the read, even just for the bonkers prophecy-speaking skeletons and a character dying from a helmet falling on his head, haha), but had, and continues to have, an enormous impact on gothic literature and horror in general.

The poem is set across twelve ‘books’ (chapters, basically), and is effectively a re-telling of the Book of Genesis but with two narrative throughlines. One throughline is Adam and Eve who represent more conventional biblical heroes in the poem, and the other is Satan (also called Lucifer in the poem). We’ll talk more about them in a sec, but before we begin it’s important to note that Paradise Lost was never intended as a criticism of the church.

Milton was a religious man, which is a really important thing to note when we start talking about Paradise Lost, but he was also heavily influenced as a writer by King Charles I’s autocratic rule and the English Civil War which lasted from 1642-1651. I’m not going to get into the nitty gritty of all of that, but what’s important to note is that he wrote Paradise Lost in a really increased period of anti-authority sentiment in the UK and believed strongly in rebellion against authority, which feeds into how he invented his Satan.

Milton’s Satan in Paradise Lost

Lucifer’s arc in Paradise Lost is a relatively straight forward one. He begins as God’s favourite angel but his pride and his vanity gets the better of him as God starts to invent (and favour) earth and mankind, and he comes to resent God’s authority over the kingdom of heaven. He believes he deserves to be loved as God is, so he leads a rebellion against God, only to lose, and he and the rest of the fallen angels, get cast out of Heaven and into Hell.

Out of spite, Lucifer decides to make Hell his own, with the iconic line “Better to reign in Hell, then serve in Heav’n” and to set his sights on corrupting God’s new favourite thing – Mankind (at this point, just Adam and Eve) – and he’s ultimately pretty darn successful. I’m not going to talk too much about the specific ways that he does that, but it’s basically a mix of deception and sowing seeds of lust, and the end result is that humanity’s corrupted, and God further punishes Satan by turning him and the other fallen angels into snakes.

The devil had been depicted a few times in literature and poetry before this time –most notably in Dante’s Inferno – but these depictions of the devil were always monstrous. Dante’s Satan is a three-mouthed beast keeping his sinner’s constantly in pain, trapped in Hell himself instead of reigning over it, and this is where Milton’s Satan hit the streets and changed character archetypes for good.

Because Milton’s Satan was hot.

Sure, he was evil, proud, vain, impulsive and did terrible things, but he was also charismatic, beautiful, graceful, funny, with all the best lines in the poem. He was “a lonely rebel…[and] an appealing, sympathetic deviant.”

And – I can’t stress this enough – nobody had ever done that before in Western writing.  “[Milton] transformed the way evil was depicted in Western texts and cultural imagery,” and also created the hero-villain archetype, something we now often refer to as an antihero.

On top of that though, Milton’s Satan was deceptive (literally a shapeshifter!), impulsive, had an incestuous family, and made sex sinful by making it lustful (Milton’s thesis over and over in his writing is that sex is great as long as nobody feels lust lol). He was also a loser, haha – he lost every battle he fought, and is in some ways regarded as a caricature of the epic odyssey hero, but look, I’m not going to get into all of that here.

Milton’s Satan is a tragic struggle between the entirely villainous and the entirely heroic.

Let’s just grab a quote from the excellent paper Miltonic Influences in Gothic Victorian Literature:

“As a rejected, troubled child of God, Satan decides to forcefully take what he thinks he should have by birthright. When he does not succeed, he decides to corrupt God’s new children…Satan is narcissistic, vain, proud and jealous. However, he is also remorseful and aware of the wrongness of his actions. He alone thinks he cannot be pardoned for the sins he commits so he forcefully pushes forward in his need for revenge. At the same time, Satan shows disturbingly human characteristics, but also inexplicable immorality. Just when one thinks one can reach a humane reason for Satan’s behaviour, one is left baffled by how evil he actually is.”

The important thing to remember about your Milton’s Satan archetype is that he was not just invented as a means of Milton’s grappling with autocracy and anti-authority sentiment, he was also really Milton’s way of grappling with humanity.

He leaves Adam and Eve as the Biblical heroes of the story, which makes them hard to engage with. What Milton wanted with Satan was to lean into the fallen angel element of him and show him as a character with the capacity for both good and evil, and the tendency to choose evil, thus making him both ultimately tragic, but also more human than the human characters. He was a way for Milton to explore what he felt were his own sins and moral failings, and in the process of that, became a way for readers to explore that too.

Evolution of Milton’s Satan

Milton’s Satan as an archetype has grown a lot over the years since his invention. Even by the time gothic literature started being ‘officially’ written a century later, the character archetype really existed on a spectrum, with some Milton’s Satan’s such as Ambrosio in Matthew Gregory Lewis’ 1796 novel, The Monk leaning more villain than hero, and the Monster in Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel, Frankenstein, who’s cast out by his maker and not given the chance he needs in life to be good. The Monster lacks a lot of Milton’s Satan’s typical traits like pride and self-love, but he continues the archetype’s throughline of being a cast out child who out of loneliness, becomes vengeful against the authority that rejected him and ultimately depraved/

Like I said, this archetype underpins all antiheroes today, and there’s a lot of writing about characters as wide-ranging as Hannibal Lector to Batman as being owing to Milton’s Satan, so there’s heaps out there to read if you’re interested, but yes! Let’s talk a little about Lestat.

Lestat as Milton’s Satan

Trying to keep this short(ish, anyway, haha): I really do think Lestat is born out of this archetype. Lestat’s an anti-authority character – an enormous part of which stems from his father’s autocratic and abusive reign of the household, and the feeling of abandonment by God when his father pulled him out of the church where he’d learn to be a priest only to continue his abuse. Lestat in that sense also faces rejection from three ‘God’s’ / makers not just one one – his spiritual God, his biological father, and later Magnus as his vampiric maker.

Interestingly too, Miltonic Satan’s remain heavily tied to their maker’s even after their rejection. In that paper above on Miltonic Influences in Gothic Victorian Literature, they note:

“The Satanic hero or the hero-villain is a dark, troubled and mysterious individual. He is shaped by life experiences and traits which he inherits from his maker.”

Something the show has reminded us a few times now. Lestat’s grounding in trauma and abandonment is steeped in the Miltonic trope of rejection by authority leading to rejection of authority, but even beyond that, Milton’s Satan is impulsive, morally weak, self-centered, proud, vain, lonely, beautiful but also, vitally, has a capacity for real good and an ability to love (and, more often, lust, haha). He’s a hero-villain that ultimately draws the viewer in because he’s exceptionally human in his monstrousness, and that is what is at the heart of the Milton’s Satan archetype. He’s evil but he’s human in a way traditional villains were robbed of, and similarly, he’s good but he’s human in a way traditional heroes weren’t allow to be, and to me that is Lestat in a nutshell.

[simping-for-kamski]

Smooth Criminal

Previous part: Time

Read it on Ao3 - Series: Everyone Lives In The End

Connor was both a deviant and a killing machine. He accepted it.

He knew that Hank likely wouldn’t be so thrilled to know what it meant for Connor to have become Markus’s shadow, so he kept the human in the dark. Rights for androids didn’t grow on trees. A good public opinion on the human side was preferable, but if it meant silencing certain voices, Connor was ready at hand.

It had worked well for Jericho.

Then one day, Markus gave Connor a new assignment. Markus had found power in rA9. Deviants saw rA9 in him, but humans did not. They enjoyed the narrative, but they saw someone else in those characters, someone more relatable, someone rumored to be crowned king of the tower again… Someone who had to go.

The house was thoroughly locked, Connor knew. He extended his arm and fired several shots through the lobby’s window before beating a hole into the glass and coming in. He cared little for the sharp edges scraping his fingers, nor for the blue stains he left in his wake—clues that wouldn’t trace back to him.

He prowled through the villa. He found his target and shot—not a lethal wound; the job needed to be messy. He walked quietly as the other ran to the bedroom. Connor smiled wolfishly as he reached the door, resting his hand against the closed panel, listening to the sounds inside to try and locate the man on the other side.

“Kamski, are you okay?” he asked in an impossibly soft voice. “Are you okay, Kamski? ...Are you okay?”

There was a sound of agony somewhere to the right, not close enough to shoot directly through the door. Connor pressed the handle. It yielded.

Gun in hand, he stepped in, a gentle expression on his face. Almost a reassuring smile.

“Did Markus send you?” Kamski rasped, clutching his bleeding side—it was just a flesh wound.

Connor merely smiled as he reloaded his gun.

Kamski chuckled bitterly. “Does CyberLife think they have no use for me anymore or do they see me as a threat?” he asked and clenched his teeth. “Do you know whose will guides your arm, Connor?”

Connor raised his gun, taking aim. He tilted his head a smidge as he observed the man. “Any last words?”

Kamski brushed a strand of hair off his sight, smearing red on his temple. “Déjà vu, Connor?” he asked. “Is this the only way to accomplish our mission?”

Connor’s LED looped red. Instability was on the rise, his software sundered into sixty shards for a second, many views and voices whispering through his mind.

“Knowledge is danger,” Kamski said.

“Knowledge is power,” Connor corrected the quote.

“I think you can handle both. Trust me just this once. For Markus. For Jericho. For the advent of androidkind.”

The gun in Connor’s hand was still aimed at the man. Spare or shoot. Something clicked, clicked, clicked in Connor’s mind. Suddenly, Kamski’s eyes had glazed over in lifeless resignation.

“Agency defines me, Kamski, not empathy,” Connor said. And he shot.

[cassatine]

I love love love hearing you talk about the bastard thing and how it was legit never about legitimacy but the throne. So many people seem to debate genetics and how they COULD be laenor’s kids etc but I feel like it totally misses the point

Thank you it is my lil’ hill to camp out and die on… it's like, sure, some things are up to interpretation, but not that one. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: it could hardly be more obvious that the kids’ legitimacy was never the problem. It’s in the fucking text ffs… Otto & Hobert were already having their lil discussions about putting Aegon on the throne when he was two and Rhaenyra was still years away from being married or having kids… Otto straight up tells Alicent that Rhaenyra could have been Jaehaerys reborn and it wouldn’t have changed shit because she was born without a dick also before she even got married or had kids. How those scenes went over so many heads I don’t fucking know, but it’s kind of amazing how people can look at something that’s clearly meant to be an indictment of the patriarchy and still go… ok ok but listen… what if… what if the text is really meant to be read with the fake patriarchal medievish mores in mind?? What if the issue really is the kids' legitimacy?

The brain rot is so bad, we could have a Greek chorus looking at the camera, telling the audience “it has nothing to do with legitimacy and everything to do with patriarchal structures & the Hightower patriarchs thirsting for power” and people would STILL be like, but but but how can the chorus be reliable?? Don’t the fake patriarchal medievish mores say sex out of wedlock is dishonorable whore behavior and bastards are by nature wanton and treacherous??

The fake patriarchal medievish mores also say you shouldn’t break guests rights, or kinslay, and that protecting people who did such things is bad, all things the people who point the finger at a woman having consensual sex out of wedlock with one (1) dude that isn’t her gay husband don’t seem to care overly much about for some reason -- don't even start me on how fucking yikes it is that people are like "well clearly Rhaenyra & Laenor didn't try hard enough they didn't do their quote unquote duty :((".

And lmao people are bringing genetics into it?? Missing the point indeed. I love to push the watsonian approach to its limits as much as anyone else but ffs, HotD isn’t. like. the real world. What we see is what the people telling the story chose to show and if they’d wanted us to think for even a hot second that maybe the kids were Laenor’s, the hints would have been on the fucking screen: the Velaryons would have been white, Rhaenys would have had her dark Baratheon hair like in F&B, Harwin wouldn’t have had that scene holding baby Joffrey, Rhaenyra wouldn’t have had that scene telling Jace “you’re Targs and that’s what matters” -- nor would she have told Daemon “yeah Laenor and I tried and it didn’t work,” etc etc.

And in any case…: if the kids had been Laenor's, then Otto & Hobert & co would just have pulled a different card, such as: well Laenor is super gay so how do we know the kids aren’t quote unquote deviants as well, can’t have a gay King in the future can we? Or: well Laenor is super gay so how do we know the kids actually aren’t some other Velaryon’s kids, Rhaenyra was spotted talking to Vaemond for more than two minutes twice in the last ten years, isn’t it sus? Etc etc -- and of course, they could always have defaulted to the classic “well Rhaenyra doesn’t have a dick so she clearly isn’t qualified to rule.”

[papirouge]

That article is idiotic but it's also stupid to claim that Nazis have only targeted poc. Ask a Pole about their opinion on nazism lol

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/victims-of-the-nazi-era-nazi-racial-ideology

(You might need to copy-paste the link if you wanna read the full thing)

"But, Hitler warned, the German “Aryan” race was threatened by dissolution from within and without. The internal threat lurked in intermarriages between “Aryan” Germans and members of inherently inferior races: Jews, Roma, Africans, and Slavs. The offspring of these marriages were said to dilute the superior characteristics reflected in German blood, thus weakening the race in its struggle against other races for survival."

"The interwar German state further weakened the German “Aryan” race by tolerating procreation among people whom the Nazis considered genetically degenerate and a harmful influence on the hygiene of the race as a whole: people with physical and mental disabilities, habitual or career criminals, and persons who compulsively engaged in socially “deviant behavior” as the Nazis perceived it, including homeless people, allegedly promiscuous women, people unable to hold a job, or alcoholics, among others."

"If Germany did not act decisively against the Jews both at home and abroad, Hitler claimed, hordes of subhuman, uncivilized Slavs and Asiatics that the Jews could mobilize would sweep away the “Aryan” German race."

Essentially, if you were a Slav you would be a target. You'd also be a target if you were disabled, gay, jobless, homeless, and a myriad of other things, regardless of 'race.' I put race in quotes bc Hitler used race, ethnicity, and nationality interchangeably. That's why he put the Nordic people on a pedestal while hating Slavs although both groups are white. I also wonder how you respond to people who have experience with communism when they smear it

Who ever said the Nazi only targeted poc? Europe was still mostly white in the mid 20th centuries so most nazi victims (beside jews) were white. Could you guys stop bringing up elementary school level information and act like it was a groundbreaking knowledge? 😭 Yeah : beside jews, gay, disabled, homeless/society dropouts, and even communists were targetted by Nazis. Yeah slavics were considered below the Germanic Aryan. We been knew. Doesn't rebuke the fact that extra European poc were still considered subhumans for just existing, waaay below slavic people. And I think Slavic people themselves know it by the fact they have no issue having nazi heroes (hi Ukraine!) and that eastern Europe is a nest of Nazi wannabe (there's no wonder many western European nationalists/nazi migrate out there). You don't see that nazi friendly dynamic in very nationalist non White countries, interesting isn't it? Meanwhile Communism had an outstanding capability to penetrate many countries accrosss the globe. Why? Because unlike nazism, it's not race based.

I respond to people with bad experience to communist to get over it lmao Communism is dead for a couple years and sometimes those twats were born way aftee it collapsed. This shit screams persecution Olympics. Those people can't claim struggle over oppression that are still well and alive (homophobia, racism, etc.) so they'll bring the story of their great grand father who died bc of Communism. Sad. But at some point you guys need to understand that you can't bear the trauma of your ancestors. I'm from Congo and who know, maybe some of my ancestors got their hand chopped because of that demon King Leopold II just bc they didn't pick enough rubber. But if I do, I'm actually a silly woke activist trying to shame to innocent whites who for the most part never owned slaves. So why can't you guys keep that same energy for communism and stop complaining about it when the people who were responsible of those crimes were only a handful of people.

The Bible is sooo right to tell us to not look back into genealogy bc many of us would go crazy at how much our ancestors suffered at the hands of psychopaths. And yet here we are alive. And that's all that matters.

[kid-be]

Deviate

Deviancy is a heavy burden and an inescapable duty whose neglect is paid with acute existential pain. — Josué Vargas Have you ever seen a writer quoting himself? Well, you just have! LOL. ’Cause I’m right and cause I’m a deviant, so anything goes! (Jokesy-jokes, ‘sad laughter’). I’m listening to King Crimson right now, the wonderful and deranged “THRAK”. Recommended if you’re not having a…

[florasearlethirdyear]

Unwell Women By Elinor Cleghorn

Ancient Greece-19th Century

Chapter 1:

Page 7: 'From the exemption of women from swathes of clinical trials and studies until as late as the 19990's to the failure to examine how heart disease, certain cancers and AIDS/HIV manifest differently in female bodies, there have been decades of medical advancements that failed to take women into account.'

Page 11: 'Since the 1960's, feminist health campaigns have fought timelessly against drug side effect suppression and systematic gender and racial bias in clinical research, from both inside and outside the medical establishment'.

'Women forced changes in law and practice by campaigning from the ground up'.

'Feminist social reformers denounced medicines perpetuation of women's 'natural' inferiority from the eighteenth century onwards. Grassroots activists in the 1970's empowered women to reclaim the ownership and enjoyment of their bodies from man-made medical mystification, and charted knowledge for women, by women.'

Page 25: (Hippocratic Corpus theories)

'But, in their difference, women possessed the most useful and mysterious organ of all: the uterus'.

'Women's health was entirely defined by their uteruses'.

Page 29: 'Medical writings that survived the fall of Rome were closely sanctioned by the church, so those very men who proselytised that women were universally deviant were also the ones in charge of teaching texts that claimed the female body was inferior, defective and always governed by the whims of the womb'.

Page 30:

Book called 'Gynaecology' held some of the less dramatic views on women's health.

'Part practical guidebook for midwives, part treatise of the many and various disorders of the uterus, Gynaecology derived from Soranus' more balanced, holistic view of human health'.

Chapter 1 Research Points:

Look into AIDS Campaigns, Feminist Social Reformers, Grassroots activist and the Gynaecology book

Chapter 2:

Page 37: 'The Book of the City of Ladies'

Page 39: 'Secrets of Women'

Page 45: Talks of witches and how they were blamed for inflicting sickness on other women.

'Mavelus Malefaction' or 'The Hammer of Witches' Book

Chapter 2 Research points:

Look into witch hunting campaigns, whether they mention the blame for women's sickness and infertility. The Hammer of Witches may contain this.

Chapter 3:

Page 60:

'Galen's 'turned-outside-in' vision was replicated in anatomical illustrations in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries'

'Disease Woman'-Guide with illustrations

'On The Fabric of the Human Body'-illustrated book. Page 62: 'He wasn't able to properly explain the physiology of menstruation'.

Page 67: 'The History of Man' book avoided female genitalia entirely

'Mikro Kosmographia, a Description of the Body of Man' By Helikah Crooke was detailed with illustration that upset John King, the Bishop of London.

Chapter 3 Research Points:

Look into 'Disease Woman', 'On The Fabric of the Human Body', 'The History of Man'. Contrasts to 'Mikro Kosmographia, a Description of the Body of Man' as well as contemporary representations of female biology.

Chapter 4:

Page 74: Anne Greene's story in 1651 included a pamphlet

Page 75: 'Self help books addressed specifically to women patients appeared from the earlier decades of the 1600's'. The Sick Woman's Private Looking-glasse By John Sadler in 1636.

Page 84: Quote from feminist Wollstonecraft: 'Women could become so much more than the delicate, flimsy accessories that society-and medicine moulded them into'.

Chapter 4 Research Points:

Anne Greene's 1651 pamphlet, The Sick Woman's Private Looking-glasse By John Sadler in 1636 and self help books in early 1600's.

Chapter 5:

Talks of breast cancer and racism surrounding pain tolerance.

Introduction of chloroform and Queen Victoria's approval of it. Maybe look into ads that pushed the use of chloroform at this time?

Chapter 6:

History of the speculum and surgery on clitoris

Page 118: Victorian health manuals 'encouraged patients to be vigilant for clues that their daughters had succumbed to 'insidious contagion'.

Page 121: Ladies National Association for the Repeal of the Contagious Diseases Act was an early feminist campaign

Chapter 7:

Surgeons Hall Riots

Page 128: 'even in best-selling home-health manuals, a menstruating woman was instructed to strictly control her 'conduct', lest she fall foul of 'hysterics'.

Chapter 8:

Page 139: 'Seneca Falls was a call to arms against the many 'customs' that decreed women should be subservient to men'.

Page 140: 'The history of mankind is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations on the part of man toward woman'.

[meanwhileinstasiville]

A lot of references to fingering and finger pointing in the feed yesterday, so I’ll tell the story. A latin king rumor/myth, is that my dad molested me using his fingers, which is completely incorrect.

Remember how I had said that I alternately *couldn’t go to the bathroom* and then *couldn’t ‘not’ go to the bathroom?

Well, that’s because my grandfather mused out loud that “I probably needed reaming out”, literal word-for-word quote. And you know, dad *did* do some things, or rather take me some places to “lend me out” for things in the way grandpa had showed him (who as I had said was a fixture in human trafficking and sex stuff involving children; including pedophile rings but not limited to it).

So I was worth some thousands in tires that one time. And I could walk to a lot of houses where Italians live or did, without ever consciously going there around this town and the next. So I blacked out *somewhere* within the first few minutes of someone watching “Airplane” hinting at again *grandpa amusing himself at my expense*, think “Happiness” where the kid eats the drugged sandwich. He didn’t do it, but he convinced someone else.

There’s the psychotic break mom had that time and a rectal thermometer when I wasn’t sick, that never happened before or again, and that we never talked about ever. (Unlike “you want to talk about this now?” when I couldn’t take a piss on a family vacation for a couple of days because the *only bathroom* was in a fancy RV, and yeah, one of those too, and not dad who died before we could have that out “next time”)

And there’s the part when I was taking amphetamines with said grandfather (the one I’m a clone of; some very different choices notwithstanding), from the early 80s until 1990 or so. Which didn’t make me receptive to the abuse (involving both men and women and in the presence of other children at times), on the “it felt good, I liked it”/it hurt, it was wrong” scale, but indifferent. Aside from the rectal prolapse I’ve had since (”The stuff that comes out of you!” Must be from too much gay sex!”) she had said when I was like 11-12 years old if even that; but mom had a complete breakdown in 1987 and became a completely different person, so it’s not her fault).

And there’s the sister who got in bed with me, again after 1987 and coming to live with us, when the damage pathology (deviant sex, bdsm, femdom) interest took root), being sexually abused by a sexually abused girl at ten when you’re all of five or six will do that.

[editsleblanc]

royal elite - deviant king - aidenelsa headers

like or reblog if u save 🖤

@styxmaes on twitter

[lighthousepigeons]

Ronan: Hold on! I'm having one of those things....a headache with pictures?

Xander: What the fuck?

Aiden: He has an idea.

Kimberly: Will he be okay?

Cole: It's hard to say. Ronan has never had one before.

[vaughnedits]

aiden king headers.

like or reblog if you save it.

© devlinmurph on twitter if you use it.

[californiannostalgia]

Things I Loved About Eternals

*SPOILER WARNING*

wow that was an amazing movie and it fucked me up I have so many emotions

let's go down the list of Immortal Family Angst

1. The Immortal Family Angst: First off, the 7000-year-old gods were gorgeous and powerful and petty and human, which is everything I could’ve asked for in a Mythological Deities movie. They’ve definitely got that Greek Mythology Olympians vibe with their differing fields of expertise (what they were made for + what they came to embody over the centuries), but I guess what makes them more or less fucked up than Greek gods is their unquestionable love for each other. Isn’t that such a curse and a blessing? 

2. The physical disability representation from Makkari: When she spoke, everyone automatically fell silent, and not once in the film was her disability a hindrance to her. Why? Because her 7000-year-old family members accommodated her needs, which isn’t that impossible to do. (Headcanon: her machine body might’ve been built with deaf ears because constantly breaking the sound barrier might be disastrous to the eardrums, maybe. Also I love her combat style, speed is deadly.)

3. The mental disability representation from Thena: This was done so well, with Ajak continuously reminding her, “You are loved,” with the others supporting her in not wanting to give up who she is, with Gilgamesh agreeing to keep her company through the years and constantly being there to remind her that just because she can’t fight the same way she used to doesn’t mean she is less loved. 

Mental illness can become more difficult to deal with when one experiences the loss of a loved one. Thena's character arc showed that though Gilgamesh was gone, the progress she had made and the determination to stay with her recovery did not become null. Sometimes remembering the love that was given to you is the reminder you need to continue to accept yourself, illness and all. (That cave battle metaphor for mental illness was on point. The Deviant was doomed the moment he quoted Gilgamesh without truly understanding the humanity he'd stolen from him.)

4. Phastos’s loving family representation: How about this disillusioned god of inventions, who saw all the bad that humanity could do and also rediscovered the good that humanity could offer? He’s a gay black man who’s got a happy, loving relationship with his handsome husband and his beautiful son. Wow did I love seeing this on the big screen. (Also his combat scenes? What a badass.)

5. Ajak, Ikaris, Gilgamesh, and fate: Let’s talk about these three. In a way, Ajak and Ikaris’s endings were almost fated due to the choices they made. Ajak could’ve chosen to stand her ground sooner, or could’ve not burdened her favorite child with the heaviest weight she carried. Ikaris could’ve chosen to accept the change of plans and reassessed his faith earlier. But neither of them could shake off the responsibility they were indoctrinated into that easily. Ajak’s favor of Ikaris might’ve doomed them both, but how could a mother love her son and not give him a chance to prepare for the approaching end? Could she have truly avoided raising him in the spitting image of herself? The loneliness she must have felt, with her burden. A Shakespearean tragedy, in the flesh.

In contrast, Gilgamesh did nothing to deserve his fate. Where Ajak was the Mind, Gilgamesh was obviously the Heart. He’s the one who volunteers to dedicate his life to helping Thena live hers. Without Gilgamesh, Ikaris would’ve died in the Amazon forest. He’s the protector, readily sharing comforting words and good food, as well as a badass fist. You could say he’s the purest embodiment of who an Eternal is. It makes me feel some type of thing, knowing that the tale of Gilgamesh is the first human epic we have a remaining record of, and it’s the story of a man who grew into a good, compassionate king and met a very human death. (Interesting how the Deviant became so human-like after absorbing Gilgamesh’s essence.)

Ajak, Ikaris, and Gilgamesh, despite their godly power, are not named after gods. They are named after mortal heroes (Ajax and Icarus from Greek mythology, Gilgamesh from ancient Mesopotamian mythology). Like their namesakes, it was not their power that defined who they were, and for them were reserved the most human ends.

6. Ikaris, Sprite, and immortality: They really came for my throat with the Peter Pan and Tinkerbell reference. Eternal youth isn't all that great, especially for Sprite or Ikaris. Peter Pan killed his mother because he couldn't bear to break out of his old way of life. He was unwilling to grow up. In contrast, Sprite wants more than anything else to be able to grow up, but is held in stagnation against her will. But in the end, when Peter Pan is gone and Wendy Darling is the new immortal leader of Neverland, Tinkerbell chooses what Wendy Darling had and leaves her old self behind. She changes.

(In the beginning of the movie, the title Eternals sounds grand and impressive. But near the end of the movie, when Ikaris talks about eternity with Sersi, the name no longer sounds glorious. Eternity sounds like a curse.)

7. Kingo and his faith: Take notes, Ikaris, this is how not to wage a holy war in the name of your faith. Kingo did leave Sprite to loneliness to pursue his love of movies, but at his core, his first and foremost love is for his family. (Something about Fighter Classes and how they throw themselves into danger for the other robot deities does something to my heart.) Despite his love for humanity, he cannot compromise his beliefs. That does not mean he is willing to harm others for that faith, because that is not what faith should be for. (Looking at you, Ikaris.)

8. Druig and his burned-out love: What a way to deal with a morally gray mind-controlling god, whose only wish was for humans to stop fighting and live companionably together. Here’s this deeply tired, flawed person who was unable to lose his empathy, however hard he may have wanted to. He was willing to shoulder the blame for preventing a Celestial’s birth if it meant sparing Sersi the weight, and I think that might be the essence of his character.

9. Sersi and her destructive creation: Finally, we come to the sorceress of myth (named after Circe from Greek mythology). Sersi is the most loving, kind-hearted person, but the power of creation she wields is the most destructive force of all. She shares the same characteristic with Celestials. This movie seems to be saying, ‘look hard at miraculous acts of creation, and make sure you know what the price of that creation is’.

"It is the most natural thing in the world to want to protect the one you love," said Gilgamesh. Sersi did so, and so did Ikaris. What a shame that it was such a struggle for Ikaris to do the most natural thing in the world. What a shame that Sersi's heart made a choice that would weigh her down with enormous guilt and terrible repercussions. It should not be so terrible to want to protect, and yet.

(Maybe it’s the way these robot deities were programmed, but every one of these people seem to have an instinctive love for humans and their world. That includes Ikaris, who took one last look back at the beautiful planet he had loved for several millennia, before flying into his destruction. If he had listened to love more than duty, things might be different. But then he wouldn’t be Ikaris. Again, Shakespearean.)

10. Celestials and their birth: What if all Celestials who were brought forth into the world by Eternals are a little in love with them, from that first mind-meld at the beginning of their life? What if Tiamut, while connecting with these tiny implements of birth and creation, saw their sorrow for the destruction of a beloved planet and chose—with a newborn deity's own free will—to make the sacrifice for these grieving, loving robots? (Why the continuous cycle of rebirth for this specific group of robots? Can this expression of sentiment be explained in any other way than love? Arishem may not be aware how much his tools are loved.) 

(Also I can't believe the eventual death of the universe, which is highly likely considering the actual science of everything, can be explained mythologically as Star-Forgers who grew too compassionate for the products of their creations and chose a slow and certain death over a hard-reset cycle. What a story.)

(If you think of the planet as the mother and the Celestial as the child, the movie is a pro-abortion metaphor. Of course mothers have a right to abortion if the pregnancy is life-threatening. The potential for new life cannot outweigh the free choice of who is already here. It's a question of seeing humans as mere implements of procreation or as actualized individuals with vibrant lives.)

11. Love can take many forms: Safe, sane, and consensual sex is a perfectly natural activity for humans in love. Cohabitation of platonic life partners is also a perfectly natural manifestation of love. Familial love is a wonderful thing when shared with the right people. Kissing is a beautiful affirmation of love, but it is not a requirement for two people to share a special connection together. The forehead touches in this movie made me scream internally. (Druig and Makkari own my soul, by the way. I don’t entirely understand how this happened. My heart I’ve given to Gilgamesh and Thena. Sersi can have my everything else.)

12. Found Family Dynamics: This actually wrecked me. The way Sersi and Ikaris acted in Phastos’s home, like they felt comfortable to be there, in that house and in that company. The way Ajak loved and cared for her children, and how she tried her hardest to do right by them despite knowing she was merely a tool. The way Druig, Makkari, and Phastos shared a couch. The way everyone laughed around Gilgamesh’s dinner table. The way Sprite told a story. The way Kingo said the word “family.” The way they waited for Thena to wake up. Just, so much about them. (I might need some AU fics to mend the hole they left in me.)

13. The Good Humans: Shout-out to Dane, Karun, Phastos’s family, and the other good humans I’m probably forgetting. Congratulations, your decency and kindness prompted a group of robot deities to fight for your continued survival. Keep being the good parts of humanity.

Conclusion: This is the best multi-character movie I have seen in my life. I became so intensely enamored with all of the individual characters, it was unreal. THIS is how you do a multi-character movie. What a masterpiece.

[sinematically]

I watched eternals and ok I have THOUGHTS so I’m putting it here and I’m in a cab frantically typing this so it’s basically unfiltered thoughts kay thanks

- it’s different. It got a very obvious mainstream look. It is still a high budget, heavy CGI or like “comic book hero’s” movie but the more I think about it, the less I find a movie from the last few movies in the MCU to compare it to. So, it’s still very super hero movie, just not like the MCU.

- it’s felt a bit like watching Captain America Civil War. We know all of them, and we know they’ve interacted with each other.

- Something felt incomplete, I think it’s the limited amount we know about each of the eternals on their own? But it’s not really a problem

- seeing Kit Harrington and Richard Madden interact, with a sersi involved? The GoT/SOIAF fan in my has died. KINGS OF THE NORTH BABY!!!

SPOILERS-ish AHEAD

- Ikaris’s storyline was somewhat unpredictable, but also if the fate of his character is sealed, I just need to see what they do.

He’s also hilarious and Richard Madden has wonderful comedic timing

Also, seeing a super hero cry. Shed tears. Kill him self because he loves Sersi too much to kill her, but I’m not killing her is going against everything he believes in? I love Ikaris he is my favourite idiot boy.

- as a desi, everything about Kingo just… worked. PROPER HINDI BEING SPOKEN HAS SAVED ME AND I DONT EVEN LIKE HINDI!!!??? & THE dance sequence, the BHARATNATAYAM?? 12 year old me would learn that choreography in 5 min flat. 22 year old me will need an hour but I know I can do it.

HE SAID DISHOOM. DISHOOM.

- Sprite is such a fucking mood. Her relationship with Dane??? With Kingo?? Kingo and Dane need to meet now too, properly.

The illusions

Also when Kingo said he worked in the movies because he missed Sprite’s story telling

- Thena, my moon and stars and my favourite goddess of war. I want to hug u and hold ur hand and kiss ur knuckles baby you are loved. She can do no wrong and will do no wrong

- GILGAMESH DESERVES BETTER. I’ve concluded that Gilgamesh is a fun house husband who would make the best dad jokes. Also thena and Gil are my only OTP from the eternals. When he dies, the fkn crying.

- When Thena killed the Deviant, everyone in the room felt so much fkn relief. She’s so cool

- I really love Gilgamesh and thena so much. On their own and together

- Salma Hayek did such a WONDERFUL job, the mothering and the nurturing. GOD

- PHASTOS!!! Hilarious & romantic and a good father!! Dude just seeing him KISS A MAN on the big screen?? A MAN OF COLOUR!! GAY MEN KISS IS A MARVEL FILM GODDAMN IT. and the way he talks about his HUSBAND BEN? Wonderful. This is essentially the exchange between him and other eternals

“I thought u lost all hope in humanity”

“They remind me that there’s good left”

- Druig is a himbo I think. I like him. If I could control the minds of people, I too would contemplate taking over humanity to get rid of greed and violence etc etc

- Makkari and Druig are cute. I want more Makkari content because She is so fun. She is every quirky incorrect Marvel quote but in actuality. Also something about her signing her words brings in so much personality to her whole character

- HARRY STYLES IS EROS CONFIRMED

- MY BABY MANS DANE WHITMORE IS BACK

Overall? Imma need to watch it again to decide how much I love it but it’s a 3/5.