#hmmmmmmmmm ANYWAY

[springcatalyst]

something about merle and daryls relationship to religion (particularly christianity)

oops this turned out long. readmore time for yalls sanity and my dignity

it's never actually mentioned, but they both seem to have had a rather christian upbringing. it's safe to assume, because they're in the deep south, but its evident in the ways they interact with the presence of religion and with themselves.

when merle is handcuffed to the roof, hes crying about how he deserves this, about how hes being punished, hes been bad and this is what he gets. he pleads with god for mercy before ultimately telling him he doesnt need his help. this is something we can imagine he is familiar with. hes used to the concepts of divine (or otherwise) punishment, violence and pain as something deserved, a consequence of behaving badly. he seems very used to "this is what you get." and ultimately when he pleads for mercy his prayers go unanswered. this is a familiar script, or at least it was. god never helped him before. hes been punished before. he'll get out of this one on his own, just like all the rest. (he uses the exact same line "I ain't gonna beg" with the governor before hes killed: this is something familiar to him). merle quotes from the bible with hershel in season 3: he knows it. not only knows it, but remembers it. he's held onto it

and then daryl. who is so averse, so mocking of christianity and those who follow it. his casual snide remarks whenever hes in a church, making clear his distaste for the whole affair. his disdain with gabriel for a long while after they meet him. ("the word of god is the only protection I need" "sure didnt look like it.") he sees the lie in it all, while it seems like merle still buys into it, even if he doesn't try to follow it anymore, he knows the punishment that will catch up to him and to others. merle frequently damns others to hell. he inflicts punishment, or the deserving of it, as easily as he understands it for himself. daryl, though, has been disillusioned, at the very least. he sees it as nothing more than a tool to manipulate and lie to the people that believe in it. best case scenario, religion to him is a false hope that will never reach fruition. worst case, it's a manipulative power play meant to keep people in line where 'in line' means subservient. its foolish: a waste of time, to him.

theres a deleted scene where he finds a man dead in a prayer room, and he mocks him for all the good his prayers did. for all the answers he found for his trouble. in season 4, after the prison falls, he says something along the lines of 'faith never did anything for us.' he and merle, though their reasons are different, both see prayer and faith (and as a tangent, hope in general) as a useless tact, nothing gained, nobody will ever answer, you're just fooling yourself. nobody is going to save you but you. and when you say it like that, you know exactly how they got there. these are two characters who frequently have been only out for themselves, only able to rely on themselves, anything outside of that is bound to let them down, to variant degrees of harm. plenty of their own prayers must have gone unanswered. nobody saves them but them.

I legally cant talk about the dixon brothers' relationship to christianity without also talking about carol. she has a lot of similar perspectives as the two of them, but we see her in both sides. when the show begins she still appears to believe in god, and when sophia goes missing she takes that time in the church to pray to him. she says god can punish her however he wants as long as he doesnt hurt sophia. she, too, expects punishment in the form of violence and grief when she behaves badly or, in this case, even thinks things she supposedly shouldn't. here, she had a similar relationship to religion as merle does- she still believes in god: more specifically, a wrathful one. as the seasons progress, though, we see her lose that faith and shift to something closer to daryl's perspective. we see her disillusionment in real time as she sees worse and worse things and is subject to worse and worse environments. but she never really stops behaving as if she is deserving of punishment.

her and Daryl are similar in this way: while merle outright says it, accepts his supposed punishment, and then continues doing whatever he has to and whatever he wants to, carol and daryl operate under the same kind of threat but they dont really realize it. when they do things they deem worthy of punishment, whatever harm comes their way as a result- or even unrelated but soon after (and it's the walking dead, things always happen)- they kind of accept it. daryl allows himself to be treated the way he is in the savior compound, yes because he had no immediate out, but also because he felt like he deserved it. dwight gives him that photograph to really hammer home how he got here, and daryl lets it happen, to an extent. after Henry's death, carol goes off the deep end and doesnt care what happens to her. if not for lydia, she would have gone right over the edge of that cliff because it's what she felt like she deserved, like a righteous end to a life shes been leading poorly. they live under the same eye as merle, but it's more abstract with them. rather than being punished by god, they're being punished by fate, or karma, or luck. it's very 'you get what you deserve' with them, because their disillusionment prevents them from blaming an entity, so in its place they blame themselves.

I think that's the only other option they see, and its part of the reason they are both so different from merle. merle can still blame this outside force, can shove all his problems onto something out of his control that isnt his fault but can be resented for it, so he becomes this hateful, violent person because the one thing hes really angry with is untouchable. daryl and carol lack that, and cant blame anybody else because they are the only common denominator, so it instead turns inward. they hurt other people less because of this, but it's still not healthy, and so in their place they're hurting themselves more.

I have to think they are all intimately familiar with god as a reason. as a justification for damage or an unattainable perfect form that when fallen short of, is punished for. merle still operates on this warped justice system, on punishment for bad behavior (reinforced by his many experiences with prison and the military), while daryl has rejected it entirely. merle still buys into it, but daryl sees it as nothing more than that justification, than that false sense of security. neither trusts god, or religion, or christianity, but the difference I think is that merle still feels the eye of it, while daryl feels the absence.

[holoship]

Hot sunny days, cool breezes at night, never-ending tropical drinks with the little umbrellas, and nothing but young, beautiful adults looking to make vacation memories. Male and female, right? Elle, two weeks of pure heaven.

[abirddogmoment]

Rory has been trending a little bun-obsessed lately, probably because we have lots of bunnies in our condo complex and she has to practice a lot of impulse control as she can't chase or really fixate on them, so I've been looking for ways to help her fulfill her bunny-murder urges safely.

Unfortunately we don't have a ton of areas I comfortable coursing her (letting her chase buns until she can't see them or catches them) because our bunnies are mostly urban animals BUT I was at the bougie pet store for unrelated reasons and they had dried rabbit feets which gave me an idea!

I bought a few and got some paper bags and put Rory in another room while I hid them around the apartment to sniff out, destroy, and eat. I figured it would satisfy some of her murder urges, even if it's not the whole predation sequence.

She was pretty happy about it! I'll try to add this to our rotation of enrichment activities and maybe get a few rabbit feet to chuck at her outdoors sometimes. Hopefully it'll help vent those bunny frustrations so they don't build up and hurt my good dog behaviours.

[sampegger]

do you guys think the writers would have taken it more seriously if it had been alastair around relentlessly tormenting dean in late seasons as opposed to lucifer with sam

[covington-shenanigans]

christ alive I love my parents and I'm glad I got to see them but they are just. so fucking exhausting

[kaisollisto]

leaving this unfinished otherwise she'll never see the light of day.

[jvnart]

Happy anniversary @doktorventure im so glad today is just our anniversary, and that there are no major political, historical events happening 😌

[reihimura]

im so glad idgaf about bnha anymore because what the fuck was that

[lesbianfakir]

They're soooooooooooo ヽ(♡‿♡)ノ

[elirium]

I have like an hour to draw gotta decide quickly what i want to draw

[stuck-in-the-ghost-zone]

preemptively sorry for how fucking long this is it is YOUR FAULTT THOUGH!!!! large bowl of seeds for u. it is almost 2am sorry.

SO. there are. two ways to assign the prime defenders powers etc. the first way is just, like, categorize their existing powersets within the prt framework, & the second is to give them entirely new abilities based on the way worm works. delightfully, all the powers they Do have work really well for the most part, so even that doesn't require a ton of shuffling.

categorizing their pre-existing powers:

wiwi-- breaker w/ a shaker subclass. neither of them rated very high, but that's already a rare and versatile enough combination!!

dakota-- brute babeeeey!!! brute/mover its so straightforward. hell yeah babey. i don't know what he'll end up looking like post-heart removal & stuff but my guess is that'll end up looking more like a mover/striker.

vyncent-- now THIS one gave me trouble. i... hm. to say this without talking about stuff that i don't think has come up much already, (hey!! you're at that clockblocker pov! directly related to what flechette says!) i'd call him a grab-bag cape, irt the greats at least. post-greats-- again, i don't know what his powerset will look like after this arc! but if he's going all in w/ the fire magic, that would for sure be some striker shit! :]]]

giving them new powers... man i'm reining myself in so hard from five more paragraphs on Why exactly i'm saying all this.

wiwi still breaker for sure, maybe breaker-master, maybe master-stranger. yknow. powers are fluid, the prt categories are pretty rigid. i... don't know. enough about his situation yet to be clearer than that vague idea yet-- i really like the idea of him just. ditching his body & using a noncorporeal form but he still has to keep an eye on his body i think that's great. the noncorporeal form would b able to change its visibility but still b limited by proximity to the body. & fluctuating energy shit powered by fluctuating amounts of recent-death in the area, maybe probably also limited in that it's only accessible in his breaker form.... also i think u will appreciate this style note from the [UNNAMED PARAHUMANS TTRPG] i'm referencing a lot here.

dakota--in this situation he probably would not. have that mechanical heart and shit. he' would still be a mover/thinker-- thinker rating is for faster mental processing + senses imminent pain for the people in his immediate vicinity. not danger, just pain; it immediately registers ambiently & can be generally traced back to whoever it is. no he can't turn it off ever, it manifests as feeling a similar level of pain, yes it works on himself. + mover-- he can fucking fly. no super strength, just very fast flight & the general "won't splat himself flying into something" capabilities, which meshes well w/ the faster processing & reflexes. i'm split on how exactly this would work mechanically but i will NOT go into that now. i am also not going into the 15k discussion in my brain on why dakota 'notoriously bad at thinking about things' cole would be a thinker but u gotta trust the process ok??

vyncent-- trump!!!! somehow this is the only straightforward one to me? he can copy powers at the full strength or ability level of the original for an unspecified amount of time that's usually 1-30 minutes by touching the cape. crucially, he doesn't have any edge on how to use these powers + can easily misuse or become extremely overwhelmed by them. he's easily the most powerful out of the three of them <33

ashe-- ashe is NOT HERE currently and also it's 1:30 am so i gotta go fucking sleep soon BUT they would be a master. easy. :o) they can make some lil guys n do stuff with them!!!!

in general these are pretty fucking cracked abilities, all of them would b oosely above a seven or so in a number rating once they're really settled in their powers-- this is mostly because i'm assuming that they would still be heirs-apparent to the prime force equivalent, which would b the triumvirate :]] anyway. good lord. this is like the cliff notes edition of what i've been thinking and scribbling in the notes app for the past several hours. sorry if it's fucking incomprehensible. gn!!! <333

AAAAAH FUCK YESSSSSS OKAY OKAY OKAY my response is probably going to be equally as long. so it's fine. oooouh buddy.

I KNOW WHAT BREAKER MEANS NOW !!! I dontttt think ive learned shaker yet. breaker is like.... breaking the laws of physics/shifting planes or whatever. PERFECT for william hell yes. for putting them actually in worm world ... ughhhh breaker/master william is REALLY cool. I havwnt learned stranger yet but i think he would develop a complex over being classified as stranger <3 (like how weld doesn't like that he's classified as a brute even though that's not exactly what it means, he just doesn't like the word) . GODDDD just thinking abt putting pd boys in worm is fucking me up haven't they been through enough. I want to see them all in a fit of despair. william ditching his body is SO good I miss when he would do that, also the powers being limited by how far away he is AND THE AMOUNT OF RECENT DEATH IN THE AREA. holy shit. that's so fucking good . im sure he would not overthink at all the fact that he is stronger when more people around him have died . I'm sure he'd do awesome in the leviathan fight for sure for sure .

DAKOTA BRUTE <3 DAKOTA BRUTE/MOVER I LOVE THIS A LOTTTTTT hellbyes. awesome. it's so perfect for him <3 worm world I'm SURPRISED u didn't stick with brute for him. eyes emoji. I trust your judgement but now i am Thinking... Hmm..... YOU BRING INTO QUESTION something I have been thinking about. and I'm going to probably get derailed a little here but stay with me. how the way powers manifest directly relate to the trigger event. because for a WHILE before we learned taylors I was like "OH i bet the powers are going to be directly related to what traumatic thing happened to them" and then we learn about taylor and grue and a couple more and I kind of lost that theory because while you can. technically draw relations between their powers and their events it seemed like too much of a stretch to do . HOWEVER now my thinking has changed AGAIN and I think the powers ARE related to specific trigger events but it's not as straightforward as "oh something scary happened to you with bugs so now you have bug powers" I think it's gonna be more complicated than that. WHICH. THE WAY THIS RELATES. BACK ON TOPIC NOW. to DAKOTA . assuming his trigger event is still he and katori falling off the building I think it's AWESOME that his powers would manifest as FLIGHT for one. and the fucking. pain sense thing. fuck me up. dakota extreme hero complex cole would be so fucked up by a power where he ambiently senses pain from the people around him at all times and cannot turn it off. I'm sure he would feel so normal about being around william chronic pain wisp 24/7. also I can SO CLEARLY imagine how this power specifically would lead to him getting super overwhelmed in chaotic situations like he does in canon. and just fucking. bolt out of there because it's too much. again. he'd have such a wonderful time in the leviathan fight

I AM AT CLOCKBLOCKER POV !!!! actually technically I'm on kid win pov now but I haven't finished his chapter yet. vyncent grab bag cape..... yeah... I think it would be EXTREMELY funny imagining the PRT in pd world trying 2 classify vyncent like. what the fuck does this kid do . what do we do with him. hes got other guys in his head that give him powers. is he a master??? no he can't fucking control them. is he a striker??? only SOMETIMES. is he a blaster?? AGAIN ONLY SOMETIMES. cannot classify him bitch!!!!!!!! giving him worm powers though.. UGH. being able to touch someone and COMPLETELY copy their powers but only for a short period of time???? I fucking love that a lot. he WOULD be the most powerful out of them!!! I can hear taylors inner analysis dialogue about him now and it's very similar to the clockblocker "DONT LET HIM.TOUCH YOU" panic. loooove imagining this playing off of the rest of pd,,, i know there was AT LEAST one time where he had william sort of transfer some of his ghost powers for a minute? I think it was during the lich fight in the theatre but i just remember vycnent floating and going intangible and NOT KNOWING how to control it or anything. loveeee that. in world dynamics I feel like vyncent would be a late addition to their team (instead of coming from another world maybe he just. had his trigger event happen way later than the other two..or something.) and not trusting them as much at first/being REALLY shaky using either of their powers but after a while being really comfortable in a fight with using either Williams or dakotas powers in a fight. Just like. imagining the fluidity of how they'd work together in a tense situation assuming they're not being complete dumbasses <3333 UGH it's really good

AAAASHE ASHE ASHE IM SOOO SO GLAD YOU INCLUDED ASHE IN THIS I miss him.so much every day. from what I know so far master involves having/making/controlling some sort of minion (cannot think of a better word than that rn) AND I THINK THATS REALLYYYY perfect for ashe. i assume he would actually work pretty closely to canon in that his limitation would be the book? or if he doesn't have the book maybe his limitation would be a) having only a few different types of things he could summon (the big hand, the water fairy, duck etc) and/or b) only being able to control them.for a short amount of time after they're summoned so he has to be quick about dismissing them. can't keep the demon hand around for too long or it might start picking things up and throwing them at random. putting teammates in danger bc he can't control it anymore etc etc. alsooooooo in clockblocker pov they VERY briefly mentioned the possibility of having secondary trigger events (?!!!!?!?!) and you know I locked onto that SO FUCKING HARD. ashe being born with powers and then his secondary trigger event being his mom's death <3 im.NOT even going to attempt to talk about how the trickster would work in worm world/if it would even exist in this setting bc i don't know enough about the types of powers and things yet..but just know. I am keeping this in the back of my mind "this is a fun surprise tool that will help us later" style

[rae-unbeloved]

Chat. Any fucking time i watcj a video on yt and fall asleep. Yk who i constantly see when i awaken from the realms of slumber? FUCKIING CHARLUE SLIMECICLE. I LEFT THAT HYPERFIXATION 3 MONTHS AGO MAN CMON. HES STILL FUNNY BUT CHILL. AUGH

[pixlokita]

I don't blame Greg-boy his hostility at all. I mean, Mike grabbed his bandaged arm. Not doing so well as a caregiver so far, eh? :3

Well he’s not really thinking clearly at the moment but I gotta agree :v he needs to be more careful with the poor beans （πーπ）

[navree]

i hate twitter i did NOT just see someone comparing jace and baela and rhaena to the conquerors, the disrespect

[higgs-the-god]

hmmmmmmmmmm

[socalledfreethinker]

nowhere left for us to go but heaven………summer falling through our fingers again……..