#god. i've never been one to believe people can be born inherently evil but i'm really starting to believe i may be the exception.

[artekai]

*gets ghosted* ohhh i get it now. I will never be loved again

[aceofwhump]

Guys

The Weeping Monk.

The Weeping Monk has become my new obsession. I love him. I knew I would because seeing all the gifs of him in tumblr is why I watched in the first place I didn't not expect for him to capture my interest so much. It's not the strongest hyperfixation I've ever had but it is one nonetheless and I'm thrilled. Welcome the list of "Ace's Favorite Whumpees"!!

SPOILERS ALERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Seriously I got ramble and let some spoilers loose so if you want to watch it still and don't want spoilers just keep scrolling

-

-

-

-

-

-

So not only is Daniel Sharman fucking gorgeous but Daniel Sharman looking like this?

With the eyes and the hood and the darkness and the scruff. Oh hell yeah! He's like some omen of death with that cloak. I love it.

So why do I like the Weeping Monk so much?

Well first of all I LOVE A GOOD REDEMPTION STORY!!!!! Like so much! I blame Zuko for that. But if you give me a bad dude who's done some bad shit but also has one hell of a traumatic past then put him on a path of redemption and healing? I’M SOLD! And at the end of the season, The Weeping Monk has been set on his redemption beginnings and I will die if Netflix doesn't give us a season 2 so I can see this boy walk his new path towards redemption and healing. I crave it.

But anyway. This man right here. The emotional angst and whump he exudes is so lovely.

Towards the end of the season we find out that he's Fey and I fucking lost my shit. This boy is a Fey who was raised by the people who hate Fey. His people were killed and he was taken as a child by the same people who murdered them. He was then brainwashed to believe he was demon born and evil and a sinner purely for existing and was taught to punish himself for it (he whips himself in a form of self flagellation!) and I'm sure he was punished for all sorts of things growing up by his "Father". The amount of self hate and self doubt he must feel breaks my heart. He knows he's Fey! He remembers his real name (also that reveal sent me to another plane of existence) so he must have some memories of his family and his people. But he's spent his whole life being used as a weapon against his own people and brainwashed into thinking he was saving them because fey are inherently damned. And that's all he is to the Red Paladins. A weapon. But he sees them as his people, his family because that's all he knows!

This dude is so broken and brainwashed and lost it just breaks my heart.

LOOK AT HIM!! Look at this lost and broken boy!! He just needs some love and affection dammit!! I mean he flat out asks "Do you love me Father?" AHHH!!

And oh my god this conversation between him and Gawain?!

Allow me to share the whole conversation because I need to talk about it.

Gawain: Don’t be afraid Ash Man. I don’t bite. It’s those eyes. The mark of the Ash Fold. There haven’t been any in these lands for centuries. How did you find your way here? Have you just come to watch me die?

The Weeping Monk: Why didn’t you tell them? Before...you could have told them. But you didn’t. Why?

G: Because all Fey are brothers. Even the lost ones

WM: This suffering, it will cleanse you.

G: You parrot these words, but you know it’s all lies. I can feel it in you, my brother.

WM: You are not my brother.

G: They have turned your mind so far inside out...that you don’t know the difference between kindness...and hate. Who did this to you?

WM: We are saving souls. Your soul.

G: Tell that to the little ones that you burn.

WM: I don’t harm the children

G: You burn their homes, you slay their mothers and their fathers, and you watch your Red Brothers run them down on horses. And you see it all through those weeping eyes. That makes you guilty. Brother! You can fight. I’ve never seen anything like it. You could be our greatest warrior. Your people need you.

WM: You are not my people.

G: Then tell them. If this is where you belong, tell them what you are.

WM: I’ll pray for you.

G: And I you.

First of all this conversation is the reason I now ship these two. Just saying. Gawain saw that he was kin, that he was lost, that he was broken and reached out to try and help him even though he is the reason he is being tortured. I can’t with these two! But also, the WM felt guilty about turning him in and worried about his own fate but you can tell that Gawain’s words sink in and set something inside of him and it’s because of Gawain that WM is now on this path of his. AND Gawain! I fully expected him to hate this man after everything hes done but he saw a lost and broken fey brother and tried to help him and I just...Gawain is so good you guys! This whole exchange is just *chefs kiss*. Cause after this the WM saves Squirrel.

Which leads me to Squirrel and the Weeping Monk. The other reason I desperately need season 2 is because I can't wait to see this unexpected pairing. I mean come on, big bag tough guy with trauma becomes unexpectedly joined with a young child? Best trope ever. Plus he got his ass kicked pretty bad and I need season 2 start off with that so I can see Squirrel take care of this injured man. Anyway, these two are going to have a great adventure getting back to the Fey and I NEED TO SEE IT!!! I want to see Squirrel and Lancelot bond and Squirrel defend him against Fey who hate him and for Lancelot to reluctantly become attached and defensive of this Fey boy and AHHHHHH!!

Oh and side note: One of my favorite tropes occurred. Defeated in battle, manhandled to their knees and hood pulled off revealing their bruised and bloody face. God yes please.

Time for some headcanons:

Okay he's totally touch starved am I right? This boy hasn't known a kind touch in his whole life. Pain is all he's known. The Paladins only touch to punish him or wield him. And he thinks he deserves it. He deserves the pain. The punishment. But kindness? A soft touch? Someone tending his injuries gently? He doesnt know what to do it that. He ends up stiffening or flinching away from the blinds hands of the fey, confused at first but slowly he starts to crave that kind touch.

Squirrel is always hugging him. Like whenever he sees him. And WM doesnt know what the fuck to do with that. You think he ever for hugged? I DOUBT IT! So hes all stiff and awkward and kind of bears it but after a while he starts hugging back kind of awkwardly.

Oh and speaking of tending his injuries I can almost guarantee that he has either had to tend to his own injuries in the past or he didn't do anything for them at all. But he's in a Fey camp now and the Fey help each other so when he and squirrel first show up at the camp and a he's taken to a healer and at first he balks and is like "I'm fine" but people like Pym and Squirrel and Gawain (YES GAWAIN! I have thoughts hang on) are like clearly you're not so just sit down before fall down again and let Pym heal you! AND then we get a scene of them all seeing the scars and fresh lashes and being horrified

Okay Gawain. He's not dead and he and Lancelot become best bros (or lovers cause I kind of ship them so much. Forget Nimulot. It's Gawain and Lancelot all the way) and Gawain protects him from the Fey who want to kill him after Squirrel and Lancelot arrive at the makeshift Fey camp and he's taken prisoner. Gawain watches him and see his humanity and goodness and self hate and trauma and Lancelot has someone who sees him as a "brother" as someone lost but not irredeemable and they fall in love okay bye

His powers as one of the Ash Folk. We know he can track. But from what we saw what if he's also got some camouflage or healing abilities hes never explored. NEVER EXPLORED BECAUSE HE THOUGHT IT A MANIFESTATION OF HIS INNER DEMON!!!

Also, I saw these two onset pics and now I'm ready for this to be s2 WM and Squirrel.

Okay rant over. Sorry. Bye now ✌

[autumngracy]

can i just say that i appreciat that ur open about ur atheism? i've been an atheist for around a decade but the majority of my friends including ppl that i'm pretty close w/ are very religious and i've always been a little scared to tell them that i'm atheist. i don't want them to think less of me for it. so i really, really appreciate ur courage about your beliefs.

Oh, man, I totally understand where you’re coming from. I still feel uncomfortable telling people too, sometimes, because I don’t know how they’ll take it. Console yourself, at least, that even if they did reject that aspect of you, it only indicates that they are closed-minded, and not that there is something wrong with you. It’s more of a “their problem, not yours” kind of thing, but I know it sure as hell doesn’t feel that way when you’re the one facing the consequences.

Like a lot of other things, visibility is critical for acceptance and understanding. So I’ve been trying to be more blaséabout stuff lately (mental illness, sexuality, political opinions, etc). Even so, religion is the one thing that remains very hard for me to discuss with people! Especially because of how complicated things actually are for me.

(this got long, so, uh, ramble under the cut)

I was raised Methodist. My dad taught an adult version of Sunday school. My family was religious, but only in an observational sense, and a “I’ll pray for people” sense, not in like a bigoted or strict way. Very casual stuff.

But even then I was afraid to question things openly. It’s very ironic how you can have people who really don’t read their own holy texts, or really know very much about their own religion, but who will snap and defend it tooth and nail when (deeply) questioned on stuff like logic, even when they’re clearly not 100% sure what they’re defending. And that’s just the laid-back types. God help you (haha) if you actually try to have a meaningful theological conversation with a born-again, literalist type.

My brother became an atheist at some point early on, and I always had a vague disquiet about observing certain religious things, or the stories we were supposed to believe. I like knowing the reasons behind everything, so even as a kid I hunted for facts and origins of stuff. Simply through researching the origins of modern holiday traditions I ended up finding paganism, and for many, many years quietly sought information about many different sides/types of religion.

When I was doing this it felt extremely taboo, because I approached it with a willingly open mind, and not simply as a Christian. I actually read through the first half of the bible at the ripe old age of like, uh, 13 or 14, trying to better understand the religion–and hilariously THAT was an even bigger factor in me becoming an atheist. Many people share that sentiment, too. When you actually sit down and read the source materials for these things, it just … well. Things become clear.

Anyway. My unease with Abrahamic faiths, and some other major faiths, combined with my curiosity and love of the occult led me to become at first a “Christian Wiccan” (ugh), then (quickly thereafter) just a Wiccan, and then, after a long deliberation, an atheist.

This whole transition was SUPER uncomfortable for multiple reasons. First, I felt uneasy, always looking over my shoulder, you know, either for angry people or an angry god. Secondly, my parents didn’t like it and tried to dissuade me, leading to many awkward conversations. Thirdly, my already atheist brother would express pride in my skepticism but at the same time tell me it was only inevitable that I would become an atheist, mocking me for keeping any ties to religion at all. If he hadn’t been one of those arrogant kind of atheists, and hadn’t made digs at me, I probably would have become an atheist even sooner tbh.

Even so I haven’t exactly severed all ties to tradition. I actually still consider myself an Eclectic Wiccan, but I’m an atheist one (just like how there are atheist Christians, atheist Muslims, etc). I’ve kind of looked at religion as a whole and done a lot of soul searching with it, pulling out what I thought the purpose and sentiment behind the traditions and stories were from multiple cultures (see the “eclectic” part). I examined the sentiments of things, and the way doing certain things made one feel, and why.

It’s really hard to explain what I think these days and why I do what I do. I guess it boils down to a mix of philosophy, anthropology/history, and community. I see the worth in certain aspects of religion, in the sense of them being stories with a moral. The moral is the important part. You know how in the bible Jesus would tell all these parables (moral stories obviously not based in reality) to get across an idea to prove a point? That’s literally how every religion is to me, They’re all parables. That’s the best way I can explain it to people like my mother, who want to understand but are firmly rooted in religion and don’t intend to change.

The problem these days with expressing skepticism is that people are very closed to it. Even if they can understand why YOU feel a certain way about something, they may never ask themselves the same questions in earnest.

So many people view atheism as a destruction of society, of morals, of all structure to life. Some people even see it as their own religion’s view of evil (Christians viewing atheists as Satan worshipers, for example. Sorry, but, uh … Satan is a Abrahamic concept?? lmao) People see atheists and they’ve been conditioned to either think “EVIL!” or “poor, lost soul in need of guidance”, when the reality is … neither.

There is this toxic problem of religion having a stranglehold on morality. “Only the religious can be ethical, understanding, humble, etc” … It’s so untrue. In fact in many ways atheists can be MORE understanding, humble, moral, etc. than those who strictly adhere to what they believe are divine laws. The general point of religion is to be this system of philosophy that is told through stories regarded as true, rather like a “morality for dummies” kind of book. But if you can understand the underlying principles of that morality, you don’t actually need the fictitious examples to go back to for reference.

The problem inherent in all religions is that they have become so complex in their iterations, so needlessly convoluted, that they begin to lose sight of their true purposes. They can even spur concepts that go AGAINST their true purpose, like racism, xenophobia, homophobia, sexism, etc., and in those ways can be very damaging to society–a society they are meant to heal and bring together.

There are many people, even religious people, that are aware of that too. They gloss over certain bits of doctrine in favor of the larger picture of love and acceptance, and honestly, bless those people.

Anyway. I know I made this super long for no reason (but that’s just what happens when someone gets me going on theology). I guess what I’m wanting to say is, despite what many might think, there’s nothing wrong with being an atheist, nor should you be made to feel ashamed of it.

There’s a big stigma surrounding it because of so-called “intellectual elitism,” and people like to whine that only narcissists and assholes who think they’re smarter than everyone else are atheists, but that’s really unfair. There are certainly some atheists who openly mock religions, and are as bad as determined missionaries when it comes to converting people … but that’s their personality problem, not everyone’s.

Being an atheist doesn’t mean being an asshole (that’s a choice). Atheists can actually be some of the kindest people around. And it really does require a great deal of intelligence, empathy, and bravery, to work oneself past religious dogma, especially if you grew up indoctrinated with it.

So I understand why you feel you can’t safely disclose your beliefs (or lack thereof) to people, but I am proud of you anyway, and I don’t want you to feel like you should be embarrassed about it, okay? As long as you have a kind heart, it doesn’t really matter what you do or do not believe. Maybe if you approach the subject from those familiar angles, it will be easier to explain, and you can one day not have to hide anymore.

❤