#if my dissolution even WORKED in the first place

[svbhuman]

idk man. i should be humble and whatnot but i have to defend myself

[etz-ashashiyot]

If you are upset about Jews living in Israel, first ask yourself: What factors led to them being there in the first place? Was my family complicit in these atrocities? What have I done to address these historical wrongs? How do my answers to these questions inform how I view other refugees?

If you are upset about Jews moving to Israel in the present, first ask yourself: What have I done to make my area a safe place for Jews to live in the present? How have I stood up to antisemitism here, now? What guarantees against future violence have I worked to put in place?

If you are upset that nation-states exist and want Israel to be disbanded on that premise, first ask yourself: What have I done to dissolve my own country's nation-state? Who is likely to be hurt in the ensuing chaos of this dissolution, and what can be realistically proposed as an immediate practical substitute so that it doesn't devolve into rule by brute strength? If your goal is to start with Israel, why Israel over any other state, given that there are numerous countries that are committing atrocities on a much wider scale? Why do you object to Jews having a state more so than all other peoples with states?

If you are upset about land theft from Palestinians, first ask yourself: Am I living on land I am not indigenous to? Is it somewhere that the native population was violently dispossesed of? If so, have I devoted even a tenth of the time, effort, and emotional energy to rectifying these local historical wrongs as I have to this conflict in an entirely different country? What is my responsibility to do so? Is this cause just a way to "atone" for the original sin of the settlers in my country without changing anything about my own life?

There is a conversation to be had here, but until you can answer these questions earnestly and thoughtfully, you are not a serious enough person to have these conversations with.

[redclercs]

DELICATE✰ CHARLES LECLERC.

INTERLUDE: this is why we can't have nice things.

— the one where everybody's waiting to see the fall out.

warnings: this is basically like the INTRO chapter with all media, we're going to pretend publications and broadcast timings are not mistaken or fake, okay? ok. am i myself if i don't mention taylor swift in every chapter? no. foul language.

masterlist ✢ next

By Tom Gill // June 23rd

Vic Presley confirms y/n hasn't reached out to her even after Vic called asked her to in a publication a few days ago.

"I think she has blocked my number by now," Presley said, "I am devastated by this. I didn't think it was like her to discard relationships so easily."

Presley and y/ln have been friends since 2020, when they met at the opening of the SENSE Club in downtown Los Angeles and quickly became inseparable.

"y/n really was— is my best friend. I miss her and I want her to come back to me."

Vic Presley also commented on y/n's split from Aidan Kim in her own way: "I hate that she hurt Aidan. I was not aware they had so many problems, that's definitely the kind of stuff you tell your best friend."

y/n was spotted just a week ago with alleged (and constantly denied) boyfriend, Charles Leclerc on a stroll around Central Park. Victoria Presley couldn't help but speak her mind on this.

"y/n has changed so much since she met that guy. I met him in Miami and Monaco, he's not one of the good ones. He's managing to isolate her from everyone who loves her."

Once again, Victoria urges y/n to contact her so they can rekindle their friendship. "I am not angry at her, disappointed maybe. But I will always have my arms open for her."

SEE ALSO:

→ Victoria Presley and Mia Kim collab in new project promoting Presley Beauty.

→ y/n y/ln, a disaster waiting to happen.

→ Aidan Kim is 'almost done' with debut solo album

By Paul Dean // June 28th

Aidan Kim has been in the spotlight since 2012, when he debuted as a member of boyband phenomenon Star-5 with their hit single "End Of The Day". After the band's dissolution in late 2018 due to creative differences between the members and rumored jealousy disputes that included Aidan himself, the Korean-American superstar decided to pursue a career in acting, in aims of expanding his horizons.

'Supercut' in 2019 was the start of a a succesful career followed by '1922' (2021) and 'Conversations with Friends' (2022) plus the series 'Crimes of the Academy' (2022) before Netflix decided to cancel it.

While it is true that 'Supercut' was a box office hit and sent Aidan Kim and co-star—and former partner—into a whole new level of stardom, Aidan Kim might be regretting ever making that movie.

"Supercut holds a special place in my heart," Aidan commented, politely. "It was my first real movie." Of course Aidan doesn't count the "3D Concert Experience" he starred with his other four bandmates as a real movie. "But I carry the consequences of making Supercut with me to this day."

The whole world is aware of such consequences, as y/n y/ln is keen on having the last word when it comes to the breakup from Kim. It wasn't enough to leave him humiliated by turning his marriage proposal down.

"Someone was looking out for me that night, I think," Aidan has tried his best to let go of such bitter memories by turning them into something positive. "At the end of the day, I'm glad y/n said no. I can't imagine spending the rest of my life with her. You're witnessing how unstable she is."

"It's quite shocking honestly," Aidan Kim didn't expect his ex-girlfriend to act like this. "I helped her however I could. Talked to producers, casting agents and journalists to give her a shot. And she says I never did anything for her."

Kim couldn't help but take the chance to refer to his ex's new lover: "But I've moved on. And I hope she does the same soon. If I were Charles Leclerc, I'd be worried my new girlfriend is thinking about her ex-boyfriend so often."

Lastly, Aidan teased his upcoming album, "I've worked very hard on it. I missed making music and I hope you'll like this new sound I'm trying after leaving Star-5's commercial music behind."

"The thing about music, is that it lets you tell your side of the story too. I hope you support a man doing this the same way you root for Taylor Swift, because double-standards are so 'in' right now."

SEE ALSO:

→ Mia Kim, the talented sister of Aidan Kim, set to make big screen debut.

→ Were Mia Kim and Victoria Presley mocking y/n y/ln in new Youtube Video?

→ Mia Kim: "y/n should have kept her mouth shut, there's still shit to be exposed about her."

FROM THE DREW BARRYMORE SHOW — JULY 6TH

[Y/N]: ❝(...) What matters to me right now, is that people now I am nothing of what they're calling me. I am not perfect, nobody is. But I have never cheated on a partner or used someone else as a 'toy' and most importantly, I built my own career.❞

[Y/N]: ❝It gets exhausting, you hear things about yourself you never even thought possible. It could be laughable if it wasn't so cruel❞

[Y/N]: ❝My relationship ended in February, but I believe it was over way before that. I acted in a way that was not fair to my ex-partner nor to myself, and I expressed my regrets about it. He had the right to not accept my apology, but not to make stuff up about the whole situation.❞

[Y/N]: ❝He's feeding his ego, he's a man, after all. But doing it at the expense of my work and my reputation is disgusting. I want one producer or casting agent to come forward and say they gave me a role thanks to my ex-boyfriend's input, just one.❞

[Y/N]: ❝I have surrounded myself with different people. They have been a great support system, always motivating me, and holding me back when I'm about to do something stupid. This also means I have left some people out of what's going on with me, and it's for the best.❞

[Y/N]: ❝Taylor Swift, bless her soul, has given me a lot of advice. She's the sweetest person ever and since the same guy that is trying to drag me has gone after her in a few interviews, she wants this to be over as much as I do. I think he made a mistake by messing with Taylor too.❞

[Y/N]: ❝Rumors will keep running, but I am finally at peace with knowing who I am and who I can trust. But those 'sources' should know my patience is running out.❞

By Jenny Highland // July 20th

Mia Kim and Victoria Presley are the hottest topic right now, but not for the reasons both influencers wish, as they are in trouble!

Both Los Angeles locals have received a 'Cease and Desist' letter from recovering actress y/n y/ln this week, per her team's advice. This was confirmed by both Presley and Kim on Twitter, saying they are 'flabbergasted' that y/n is accusing them of defamation.

While y/n is far from gaining her place back in the public's heart, we are not blind to what Victoria and Mia have done for the past month, riding the wave to get views and followers talking about their shared time with y/n. Who has every right to ask them to stop, as she has done in several interviews throughout the month.

For many people, this makes it more evident that it was either Presley or Kim who contacted tabloids to get their five minutes of fame and sink y/n deeper.

Actions have consequences for everyone, and if y/n decided to pick this fight at this point in her downfall/rerise/wherever it is that we are with her, it's because she knows she can win, right?

─── team principal radio: ❝thank you for reading! please let me know your thoughts! I know I'm ending your patience with this slow burn thing but I promise you we're getting there! Charles is back next chapter and you'll see haha. again, your interactions mean the world to me and i'm sorry if sometimes i don't reply to your comments, i'm just awkward but i love you all♡❞

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[paeliae-occasionally]

Hello! Intro Post.

Hi, so I’ve been hanging around for a while now, but I have recently started posting more so I have decided to write an intro.

Online I go by Pae, (or Pae pae) I am non-binary. (they/them) and I write and draw.

Current WIPs

Blue Posts are the essentials of you want to send me an ask , or if you just want an intro to the blog.

Pink are my personal favourites.

Scenes

Memory and death

Marsh Prison scene

Lore stuff:

Magic

Magic Systems

The history of the runes

More runes lore

Culture

The mages immortality lore

The death realms

The gardens

Languages

The Druids

The Mulai’Kaleppi

The Opyri

The Tiel’Drysar

(More Necromancy)

The lighthouse keepers

Laith’Zairel

Gods Culture

History

The blood wars

Blood wars 2

The mist war

The Separation, Dissolution and Accords

Maps

-Laith’Emeris 1

-Laith’Emeris 2

-30BD map

-Laith’Zairel

-How I make maps (continents)

Join the Tag List~

Summaries:

Paeliae - Magic politician

A mage living in the period when the god vs mages war starts. (8 BD, before dissolution) He is a politician, despite having no patience for the ages old elvish mages who currently run the council. He is obsessed with leaving a lasting legacy even if that means dying today. As such he is vehemently against the concept of immortality, During the war he helps negotiate with the gods to come to a truce. 27, He/Him.

Xaeren - Runic Inventor

Xaeren designed 42 of the 47 runes and uses them to protect himself from the vengeful goddess Schaeres. When she finally attacks him, Xaeren realises there were very few limits to what he could do with the runes and sets out to kill Schaeres, both as payback and just to prove that he can. But some things can’t be done alone…

Xaeren lore 1

Xaeren lore 2- (This is a bit old so some of the Kell stuff has changed)

Xaeren lore 3

Kell - Magic Student

Xaeren rescues her from a small dock town and gets her a place at the Lysandri school of magic. Kell is thrust into a world of magic and has to keep up with the help of Xaeren’s tutoring, but as she begins to fit in with the mages there, her loyalty to the criminal godkiller Xaeren comes into question.

Tyro - Traumatised Sorcerer

lives in the modern day (about 1500 PD, post-dissolution). They have recently escaped from the abusive cult that adopted them as a child, with their adoptive brother Apollo. They are a sorcerer, so have born magic, but also we’re taught to use runes by the cult. They never used them because of trauma but they could if they wanted to. They are currently running from the cult and trying not to be noticed by the government, who take in all sorcerer children so they can have a monopoly on magic. They have found a family in some other sorcerers living in an abandoned manor outside the city. 17, They/them

Apollo - adopted older brother of Tyro.

He took care of them and the others in the cult, despite being abused severely himself. Despite the trauma he is a very powerful runic. He is currently being attacked by, and looking for other cults like the one he was adopted into to help other children like him. 21, He/They

Ez and Rin (~1000 BD)- The gay bois, who definitely don’t start the apocalypse.

Ez (short for Ezemhaziel) is the god of refined magic. He falls in love with Rin when he is researching to create the runes. He is somewhat of a Prometheus figure, as he brings the first magic to mortals by teaching Rin.

Rin is a gardener working for one of the altic kings, who equally loves Ez for his magic and creativity. Ez and Rin end up working on the runes together. The other gods get mad that Ez gave magic to a mortal, and they let the mortals murder Rin. Ez is mad. This will spiral and cause the start of the godly war, which then ushers in the godly mages war, where 3/4 of all mages die and the gods are removed from the world.

Ezemhaziel lore

Daimion and Marsh - the regretful and the merry murderer

Daimion and marsh grew up together being trained for an elite military unit, which they both got into. While in the unit they are ordered to fire on civilians and they do it, but later Daimion regrets killing innocents and leaves the unit without notice. He goes on to find the daughter of one of the people he murdered that day and the woman who has been taking care of her. He protects them fiercely and tries to make up for what he did. Marsh however, fully commits to the ‘I kill people as a job, I might as well enjoy it’ and ends up being so recklessly violent that he is imprisoned in the highest security jail in the country, which he later breaks out of to commit a massacre, then returns to his cell like nothing happened. This occurs a couple of times until Daimion has to go get him. - Marsh intro - Marsh lore

Just a brief overview of some of the things I am currently working on. I plan to post more about the magic systems and historical events of the world. I also post maps.

Feel free to ask me about this, and tag me in games. Interact here to join the tag list:

Tag List~

Thanks for visiting, feel free to stick around <3

[raayllum]

Anyway earlier this month I said I had a lot of feelings about how visual framing is used in Viren and Harrow's relationship so time to talk about it, i.e.

Harrow is almost always framed as being above Viren

Now, some of the meaning behind this is obvious. In spite of their longterm friendship, the fact that Harrow was king and had the final say, and Viren very much did not (and likely went from being Harrow's closest advisor to second fiddle with Sarai, and then back again) is something that Viren concerns himself a great deal with: "My whole life I've been chasing after things I didn't have. Status, influence, power" (4x02). Due to this difference in status, Viren's plans are suggestions, whereas Harrow's word is law, and Viren each time has to present his ideas accordingly, and the framing reflects that:

We see this desire to be close to Harrow and power more generally bleed over into other areas of Viren's life, such as his obsession with the mirror. Viren assumes the proximity to power begets or informs importance/worth, and that because "the mirror was kept closest to where [the Dragon King and Queen] slept, it must be important."

This of course is a mirror (ha) to his image of himself, in which, "I thought you were going to be something special, something important!" (2x02) and exactly why Harrow's words of, "I see the problem now: it's that you believe you are special, above the laws of this kingdom."

His happiest moment with Harrow then arguably, within the text of the show, is when Harrow invites him up to be on equal standing (and also why said portrait is what inspires Viren to offer himself up as Harrow's "equal" - amid a self-importance kink, of course). When they were 'brothers', and why the dissolution of their bond undoes this framing entirely.

It's not surprising, then, that his psyche reenacts the Happy moment with the portrait with an even sweeter, cherry on top of not just Harrow's forgiveness, but his love, acceptance, and admiration, in Viren's dark magic dreams.

Symbolized by Harrow lowering himself in order literally lift Viren up from a kneel, to standing as equals, and into a hug (+ acceptance and a mutual assurance of familial connection/importance).

(Bonus points for Harrow's sword being changed into Viren's staff immediately after their hug, btw.)

But just like 2x05 with the portrait, this moment of reconciliation and happiness even inside Viren's mind cannot last forever, as he's pushed and stumbles into an even lower place than on his knees, and this part of the nightmare is over.

This is also, of course, the most overt framing to display power and control vs feeling powerless or helpless.

That said, while Harrow above and Viren below framing wise is the most consistent framing we see for the two (besides just regular shots with things like pillars and titan hearts in between them) are the ones where Viren is framed above... and it's not usually good.

We see the Standing to Kneeling to be on level with Harrow to Standing again progression as Viren makes his case regarding Zym. Like before, I think this serves a few purposes.

Viren standing at first when Harrow does not reflects their attitudes, specifically Harrow's relief that it's finally over and Viren's suspicion that it's not

Viren then moves to be on Harrow's level and this communicates how he's pleading / trying to have Harrow understand his point of view by bringing himself down to Harrow's level. This, of course, is ironic, because by doing so, Viren is bringing Harrow down to his level in terms of morality

Viren straightening up again indicates assertiveness, being active rather than passive, and perpetuating a path that offers agency, safety, and control, horrible as it is.

And it works, since as we know, Harrow goes along with and agrees to it in spite of his reservations.

However, the most interesting flip of "Viren looking down at Harrow instead" has always been this one at Harrow's funeral in 1x04, as Viren is attempting to rush things along and take his former's friend throne. All the power is there within his grasp as he stares impassively into the fire, and yet it rings hollow and reminds him ("In his final hours, he called me brother") of precisely what lies he's telling not only the populace, but also himself.

Because the only way for Viren to look down on and at Harrow was for him to be dead.

[briefcasejuice]

quite genuinely i think zdarsky making mike matt's foil was probably the best post-soule mike murdock decision ever because not only does it enhance matt's already existing story and makes you question how mike would fit into everything that you read pre-real boy mike, it also gives mike his own rich inner life just by making matt his foil. it gives you an already incredibly fleshed out basis for how his inner world works with that one narrative decision. it seems so simple but really and truly it adds so much with so little 'effort'. like my favourite thing to do ever is reread the man without fear and think about where and how mike would fit in kind of in a similar way to how mike nicely slots into the born again detail of matt's story when maggie visits matt at the hospital after he's blinded.

the very fact and nature of exactly how he has to slot into every crevice of matt's story (metaphorical of the fact that mike never enters matt's hospital room, he sleeps and remains outside and at the door, even when he witnesses maggie's presence) is kind of it's own homage to the 'purpose' of mike murdock in the first place. he's an alternative to the lifestyle that is either matt murdock or daredevil. he was privy to matt's struggle‚ being quite literally matt himself‚ and subverted matt's identity into compartmentalised divisions. he does something similar with his sheer Real Boy existence by simply existing within the narrative but his inclusion is also his exclusion! he is unable to fundamentally alter aspects of matt's life that need to happen despite the purpose of his initial existence being that of alleviating the pressure that comes with matt and daredevil's existence, and that crevice of matt's story is exactly where the crux of his character as a foil of matt lies! he lives with every inherent nuance of matt's world that matt had to live to explore, that exists beneath a layer of dissolution; case in point: maggie as their mother and mike's different view of their father

[bittersweetresilience]

author's commentary part one

now that we've reached the end of the fic, i will finally explain the beginning.

i named this piece after 大鱼, a song whose title means big fish. in the fic, jing yuan references void songs twice, which i imagine are the sounds that void song whales make. if you remember, yukong talks about these whales in her visitor dialogue. they swim freely through the stellar seas while their sibling species on the luofu has disappeared into history.

whale songs. dream fish. the call of the void. the language of longing. to me, renjing.

author's imagery only the most important bits

the sky is freedom and departure, and it is jing yuan, eventually. the sea is the dissolution of the self and the thing that will swallow him, and it is yingxing. the lightning is the portent of death, but also the electricity of being in love. the wine is the representation of shared wishes and togetherness and history. the starskiffs are the memorials of the past and the vessels into the empyrean. the fire is desire and destruction. the ink is the color of blade's hair and the sincerity of the letters jing yuan writes. the bandages and the iron are blade and the violence of his existence. the paper birds are the fragility of jing yuan's memories, which cannot be buried. the nightclothes are the vulnerability he will shed in the morning. the string is the red string of fate between renjing, but also the strings that tether jing yuan to the luofu and to his ending. the womb and the egg are the places of rebirth and the representation of returning to the beginning. the sun is the stellaron, and it is jing yuan before the sky and the sea consume him, and it is the end of the dream.

author's commentary part two

below is my translation of the song.

大鱼 big fish

海浪无声将夜幕深深淹没 the waves soundlessly submerge the night 漫过天空尽头的角落 rising over the corners of the edge of the sky 大鱼在梦境的缝隙里游过 the big fish swims in the rifts between dreams 凝望你沉睡的轮廓 watching your sleeping visage

看海天一色 听风起雨落 seeing the sky and the sea in one color, hearing the winds stir and the rain fall 执子手 吹散苍茫茫烟波 holding my son's hand, i blow away the hazy ripples of smoke 大鱼的翅膀 已经太辽阔 the wings of the big fish are already too vast 我松开 时间的绳索 i let go of the thread of time

怕你飞远去 怕你离我而去 afraid you'll fly far away, afraid you'll leave me 更怕你 永远停留在这里 even more afraid you'll stop here forever 每一滴泪水 都向你流淌去 every tear flows toward you 倒流进 天空的海底 flowing backward into the ocean floor of the sky

(...)

看你飞远去 看你离我而去 seeing you fly far away, seeing you leave me 原来你生来就属���天际 so you were born to belong to the sky all along 每一滴泪水 都向你流淌去 every tear flows toward you 倒流回最初的相遇 flowing backward into our first meeting

without this song, this fic wouldn't exist. every part of the two was intimately interwoven. in particular, the line about the thread of time was what made me certain it would be a nonlinear narrative and the mixing of the sky and the sea was the image that created the entire story.

i further drew from the lyrics the most important imagery, the idea of ending on the beginning, and the son's hand as not only yanqing but everyone jing yuan leans on today in order to support himself against the weight of history. i drew the themes of dreams and reality, the dialogue on leaving, and the breathless, surreal atmosphere of melancholy and yearning. but in addition to all of that there is a double meaning in this song to me.

the first time you hear it, you think it's about jing yuan. and it is, of course. everything is about him. he is the holder, the sleeper, the one submerging. but by the last verse, you realize it is also blade, talking to him as he walks into scalegorge waterscape. trying and failing to call him back from within the endless dream.

both of them were born to belong to the sky. only one of them truly died in it.

author's dictionary

rèn, 刃, word for 'Blade' (lit. 'blade's edge') jiāngjūn, 将军, word for 'general' gānbēi, 干杯, word for 'cheers' (lit. 'dry cups') mèngdié, 梦蝶, word for the shortness of life (lit. 'butterfly dream') (this was not said explicitly but alluded to in the first dream) shīfù, 师父, word for 'martial master' bàitáng, 拜堂, word for the act of bowing to the heavens and the earth, the parents, and then each other in marriage (this is what the high-cloud quintet was joking about) yǐnyuè-jūn, 饮月君, word for 'Imbibitor Lunae' (lit. 'moon-drinker') nàihé qiáo, 奈何桥, word for the Bridge of Oblivion where souls drink Meng Po soup to forget the memories of their past life in preparation for reincarnation húlu, 葫芦, word for 'gourd' (this is what bailu uses to dispense medicine) qīng, 卿, word for 'senior official' (this is the honorific jing yuan uses for fu xuan in light of her position as master diviner) xiàngqí, 象棋, word for 'Chinese chess' (this is what starchess is based on, where my vision designates aurumatons as cannons, starskiffs as elephants, and cloud knights as pawns) gē, 哥, word for 'older brother' (this is a casual term of address for older men) shíhuǒ mèngshēn, 石火梦身, word for 'Starfall Reverie' (lit. 'sparks in stone, body in dream')

author's references

all of the xianzhou trailblaze missions. all of the relevant characters' character stories and companion missions. character dialogues. visitor dialogues. battle dialogues. battle mechanics. lightcones. relics. readables. item descriptions. character designs. character messages. the new trailblaze continuance. area maps. chinese voiceovers and their english translations. character trailers. combat guides. animated shorts. possibly more things i'm forgetting to mention. my wealth of insanity.

author's appreciation

wiki editors who came before me. people who upload youtube videos of different dubs of each trailblaze mission. spouses and ssswips. my beloved commenters. the composer of 大鱼. renjing.

[dailyadventureprompts]

Dungeon: Valor's Refute

Past a wall of mist and into the bleak morass of the shadowfell there is a dreary and foreboding isle inhabited by the spirits of those who could not relinquish their blades, so driven by persistence and duty that they could not even rest in death.

Their armoured shades wander the isle's endless halls or stand sentinel over its crumbling, hollow gates, obeying long forgotten oaths to nations and sovereigns they can no longer recall. Some others find a corner in which to collapse in torpor, while others crash through the cavernous ruins, exhausting themselves in battle after pyrrhic battle.

Valor's Refute is not a haven or a hell, it is a purgatory, a place of slow forgetting and inevitable dissolution.... or atleast it would be if over the ages a bunch of darkness dabbling gods and mages didn't independently arrive at the idea that a labyrinthine shadow world full of memory eroding mist could double as a great vault, just as its the ever vigilant and honourbound inhabitants make for incorruptible guards. And so dotted throughout the solemn halls of Valor's Refute are traps and puzzles intended to safeguard artifacts deemed too precious or dangerous to entrust to mortal or material hideaways.

Challenges & Complications

Suffused with the waters of the river Lethe, Valor's Refute is cloaked in a chilling mist that imparts those it touches with lethargy and forgetfulness. Effects are minor at first, but a party can easily take a wrong turn and end up fighting through a fogbank for what turns out to be hours or plunging into the icy water that saps them of a whole day's strength. These effects are best tracked through my attrition system, available HERE.

While exploring the evertwisting corridors, the party encounter the ghost of Ser Zagaver, a knight errant who died uncovering a terrible secret regarding a great evil working in the shadows of the campaign. Having been unable to warn anyone of the unseen danger, she needs the party to swear to carry on her message, and she's willing to force them at the edge of swordpoint. If the party renege on their deal, or get too distracted with ongoing matters, they can expect to be haunted by an enranged ghost-knight until they're steered back on course.

A voice stirs the dreams of those who sleep on the isle, compelling them to seek it out and teasing at their hearts' desire. This voice originates in one of the dungeon's deeper vaults, and belongs to a cursed item known as the "chalice of want". Once the weddingcup of a pair of prideful demigods who later betrayed eachother, it grants those that drink from it visions of how their ambitions may come to pass. Such tastes of future glory are addictive, to say nothing of how dangerous the foreknowledge it grants may be in the hands of the wrong entities.

Art 1

Art 2

[vickyvicarious]

Before I began to restore these women to their dead selves through my awful work, [...] Had I not seen the repose in the first place, and the gladness that stole over it just ere the final dissolution came, as realisation that the soul had been won, I could not have gone further with my butchery. I could not have endured the horrid screeching as the stake drove home; the plunging of writhing form, and lips of bloody foam. I should have fled in terror and left my work undone. But it is over! And the poor souls, I can pity them now and weep, as I think of them placid each in her full sleep of death for a short moment ere fading.

I love this framing. First of all, I love that from beginning to end this is not depicted as anything like a triumph. Even though strategically it may well be so, Van Helsing takes no pleasure, not even in a cathartic revenge way, in killing them. He hates every second of it. Not just because he's afraid but because it makes him feel like a butcher, he can't endure the signs of their suffering.

But he frames it as "restoring" them. This wording is consistent with how he comforted the suitors about the necessity of killing vampire!Lucy, and I love how that doesn't suddenly vanish when the vampire is no longer someone they care about. Van Helsing's only exposure to these women has been as a scary story, or them circling him terrifyingly in the night. He never knew them as people and never will. But he still hates having to kill them, and he still finds great comfort in the idea that by doing so he is freeing them from this evil state, and restoring them back to the way they should have been after death. Mina does the same with Dracula tomorrow - even Dracula. And she has some extra reason to be personally invested there (I'll try and find my post from last year about it) but I just like how consistent this detail is.

[wavesoutbeingtossed]

(I actually think TTPD is full of so many parallels to older work that I could like, quote the entire album.)

Do it (inserts image of Kermit the frog wearing a black cloak)

Jokes aside, I’d love to read what parallels you found with her older work

OK well now that you’ve put me on the spot, I can’t actually think of them that freely 😂

This isn’t going to be exhaustive, nor particularly accurate I guess, but maybe more like… similarities? (Man, I’m gonna fumble the ball here.)

This is kind of out of left field, but from the very first listen, for instance, But Daddy I Love Him reminded me of Love Story. I joked on release night that But Daddy was just the unfiltered version of Love Story; the girl is the Scarlet Letter because she’s the loud, mouthy heathen who’s been caught with her dress unbuttoned iykwim. The girl in LS feels misunderstood, is infatuated with this boy, begs to run away with him away from the prying eyes and judgment… Which is exactly what the narrator in BDILH feels too, except more explicitly. The girl in LS is demure and mindful, the one in BDILH gives zero fucks. Which is reflective of Taylor’s own evolution in her relationship to her public image, I feel: she strove to be a perfect role model never putting a foot wrong in her younger days, but the whole point of TTPD is that she is done listening to anyone else’s opinions on how she lives her life. In LS, the boy talks to her dad and pulls out a ring, and in BDILH, no one else is invited to that wedding after everything she’s learned. For all we’ve talked about how one of the major themes of TTPD is about reclaiming her youth, I think it’s kind of genius that BDILH, intentionally or not, plays on the song that launched her megastardom as a teenager and gives it a grown-up bite.

This is maybe less parallels and more just a continuation of a story, but I think one of the obvious ones is You’re Losing Me and So Long, London. One of the immediate callbacks is the thread from “I can’t find a pulse, my heart won’t start anymore” to “I stopped CPR, after all it’s no use.” YLM comes at a crisis point, the make or break moment of the relationship, and SLL is the aftermath reflecting on that. Her stopping the CPR after that moment in YLM is what leads to the dissolution of the relationship and the reflection in SLL.

The rest of the two songs mirror each other so painfully well. “Do I throw out everything we built or keep it?” To “You say I abandoned the ship, but I was going down with it.” “How can you say that you love someone you can't tell is dying?” To “You swore that you loved me, but where were the clues?” “I know my pain is such an imposition” to “Just how low did you think I'd go before I'd self-implode?” “How long could we be a sad song 'til we were too far gone to bring back to life?” To “So how much sad did you think I had, did you think I had in me? How much tragedy?” “I wouldn’t marry me either” to “I died on the altar waiting for the proof.”

And I think the one that really brings it full circle is the evolution from “My face was gray, but you wouldn't admit that we were sick,” to “And I'm just getting color back into my face, I'm just mad as hell cause I loved this place.” In YLM she’s dying a slow death at her partner’s ignorance (unintentional or willful) of the crisis she’s in, and in SLL, the decision to leave has brought her back to life, even if she mourns everything she had to give up to get there. To go from sitting in the room that was once lit with what they loved to sitting in the dark mulling this life-changing decision, to reflecting on the moment of “warm sun” in her life that this relationship will ultimately end up being in her memories (but just that: a memory, not a life) is really nuanced, and really shows how it’s the end of a chapter but not the end of the book.

Another parallel that is so powerful is between The Manuscript and, among others, All Too Well, but really so much of her work from her younger days, as well as the ATW music video. This is maybe cheating because it’s not like a 1:1 parallel, but just the way that The Manuscript reframes so much of her older work and experiences is illuminating. The way in ATW the early memories are wistful, feel like home, etc., and you can feel the warmth radiate through the music and the lyrics, but the slightly unsettling melody of The Manuscript highlights the unease in which that situation actually occurred. To go from sweet disposition and wide-eyed gazes heading out of town to be together, to realizing a decade later that that might have been less romance and more manipulation? What a gut punch.

Similarly, when you think about “nights when you made me your own” in the context of “He said that if the sex was half as good as the conversation was, soon they'd be pushin' strollers,” you really feel how her youthful naivety about their relationship was heavily influenced by the way this person laid it on thick. Like, all these years later, she wasn’t wrong to feel like this thing was serious, or for being so bewildered when it ended. It’s just that what she failed to realize at the time is that what she took as a promise, he intended as foreplay. Then the way the bridge of The Manuscript reveals what is presumably the shooting of the ATW video, where she comes to the realization of just what she went through and how she’s been able to use it to make her art and heal? That’s beautiful.

There are soooooooooo many more, but I’d be here all day, and similarly, I can’t think of any off the top of my head.

[melliae]

Some Alchemical Symbolism (Canto VII Part 3 Spoilers)

While the title of the "Knight of the White Moon" didn't elicitate anything on me, intuition or otherwise, since she (?) was a figure already present in Don Quixote novel (despite her main blue motif, which is supposed to be the color of the quintessence, or philosophical stone), a couple of scenes really catched my attention.

"Albedo: the pure, white stage in the opus, also known as the albificatio. The albedo occurs after the blackened matter, the putrefied body of the metal or matter for the Stone, lying dead at the bottom of the alembic, has been washed to whiteness by the mercurial waters or fire. [...] The albedo is symbolized by all things pure, white or silver, some of which are: *Luna (the white *queen), the *moon (because the matter has attained the perfect state of receptivity, ready to be imprinted by form), [...]" - A Dictionary of Alchemical Imagery

The color white had already been present before, particularly with the Golden Bough recovered from Wuthering Heights, with its text being white even (despite the charred black color it had in the credits), but this is the first time PM hit us so gratuitosly with it. For beginners, despite the common association of vampires and night, there isn't any mention of the moon in regards to bloodfiends. It could also be some sort of representation for Bari's influence, but another fragment of the previous book leads me to another conclusion...

"The clear moonlight of the albedo leads the adept out of the black night of the soul (the *nigredo) into the dawning of consciousness, heralding the advent of full consciousness symbolized by the midday ‘ sun at the final red stage of the opus, the *rubedo."

And really, in simple terms, the entire Canto can be described as Don Quixote/Sancho "waking up" and thus developing her consciousness.

In fact, even the coagulation techniques from Don Quixote can be tied to alchemical symbolism as well, since it's one of the two main process during the alchemical Art: solve et coagula, or dissolve and, well, coagulate.

Firstly, the process of dissolution is commonly associated to water for obvious reasons, and is commonly understood as the step by which the working material is reduded to the prima materia, the primal stuff which is manipulated and refined by the alchemist. This can be traced into Sancho drinking from the Lethe, "dissolving" her identity into an infatile, primitive mindset, upon Bari's direction... which makes a lot of sense!

"The flower is also a symbol for the ‘ philosopher’s stone. The matter of the Stone is often compared to a tree or plant, because it is a growing, organic thing (see *philosophical tree). The beautiful colours which appear in the vessel at the fullest perfection of the work are represented as flowers blossoming from the plant of the Stone."

Bari is blue, the color of quintessence or the final union of the other four elemental essences, and searching for a particular flower. Xichun is very interesting in finding her, in search of the river that can potentially give immortality to the elders of her family.

Anyway, following with the second process, that of coagulation, it's commonly associated with fire, red and weapons, as they are the only method through which the volatile spirits can be fixated in place.

In the first image, at the left, we have the king being pierced by a personification of Mercurius, which can be understood both as the guide of the Great Work itself and its end result. Now, do I have to remind you who brought the Golden Bough to La Manchaland? Sansón is deeply related, one way or another, to Bari, after all.

And by that matter, Sancho's spear acquired a golden and bright light during the last quick-time event, similar to the colors of IDs' extraction. This, in turn, means that Sancho used "fire" to kill Quixote at the end, burning and cleansing the corrupted, rotten matter so "it" - she - could reborn.

"Blood: [...] The alchemical blood appears in various forms throughout the opus. It first occurs as the blood of death and sacrifice at the opening of the opus, when the old body of the metal (or outmoded state of being) is dissolved or killed in order to be renewed. The alchemical principle of death and putrefaction is based on the idea that nature could only be renewed after first dying away"

Naturally, the correlations aren't 1:1, so I can't be fully sure if all this was on purpose or just purely accident. But if this holds any truth, then it means than Limbus Company has officially moved from the Nigredo stage into the Albedo stage of the Magnum Opus, maybe in accordance to Dante's clock hands (but again, I'm not sure).

[grison-in-space]

Hi! Just wanted to say, re:veganism discourse: Excellent Opinions, Great Delivery, Immaculate Vibes 👍 have a great day :)

cheers, ty! it is honestly sort of surprising to me that folks are reading along--as I said to someone else in DMs, I kind of figured that response was mostly something I was putting together in my own head, so I'm pleasantly surprised it's resonating with other people.

I am also just. :| not thrilled to have to be typing up all these "and here's how caring about animal welfare can radicalize you down all these shitty pathways if you add X and Y and Z" because at the end of the day I do think all species are worthy of basic respect; at the end of the day I do think there's nothing fundamentally better about me as a human than any other species. At the end of the day it actually matters a lot to me that my research mice are kept with as much enrichment as I can give them and that their lives and bodies and effort are honored and used wisely. It matters to me that the dogs I teach and the people I teach to train their dogs are learning with minimum stress and maximal confidence. These are all really important planks of my personal code of ethics!

It sucks to feel like I need to sit down and enumerate all the reasons that I think this other perspective of people who start in the same place I do--animals are neat individuals who encompass both the alien and the familiar, which share our lives in a multitude of ways--has developed in such a way that I think it encourages a really toxic way of relating both to animals and ourselves. In general I prefer to focus on places where I can agree with other folks, even if their opinions are different from mine. Someone in the notes brought up "struggle sessions," which are kind of the epitome of toxicity within the left: good values and a desire to help one another get so channeled through perfectionism and backbiting that you wind up with people gathering to literally torture and destroy each other. (Not just in China, either; it keeps happening, cf. Synanon in the US and the dissolution of the Japanese United Red Army.) That's not the kind of way I want to interact with people I'm supposed to be working together with.

So I try not to do that shit too much. I think about the places where people who have values just like mine go down rabbit holes and wind up in bad places, and I try and build barriers so I don't get burned out and angry and dissolve in a puff of flame. (I'm not directly engaging further with this anon for that reason, actually.) But just--aaaaaaaaauuuughhh, ARAs really irritate me because I can see where the roots are, and yet the entire ideology means that there essentially can't be listening. You can see that in the way I'm sitting here going "No, I know what your ideas are, here's why I have rejected them," and still I am getting exhortations to just listen and understand about ARA ideology. No. I did that, the last time there were protests about it in my workplace I went ahead and read the actual detailed IACUC reports released by FOIA that the protestors were shouting about, and bluntly it was a) not convincing and b) exactly the same appeals to emotional knee-jerk reactions and emotional flooding that I decried yesterday. Twenty years I have been checking my responses to these people, and it's never anything different.

I don't think that removing emotion totally from ethics and morals is wise or even possible--we use emotion for decisionmaking and encoding our values, after all, a person without emotion literally cannot decide things--but I do not like or tolerate subcultures that won't leave space to sit, think, and let the first knee-jerk rush of gut response die down. Sometimes, often, I do decide that my gut reaction is right! But I need the space to sit the fuck down and think about it, and if you take that to an ARA space you will mostly get flooded with more emotionally reactive imagery until you agree or leave. And that is coercive.

[humbledragon669]

S1E6 – The Very Last Day of the Rest of Their Lives P1 - up to the dissolution of the Horsemen

Well can you believe it? The last episode of the first season! And the first thing I want to make a note of is… the episode title. I really struggle to make sense of it because, linguistically, the only way something can be the very last of the rest of anything, is if it’s the very last of the thing at all. I can sort of make this idea make sense if I look at it from the perspective of the end of episode 5, where Armageddon is starting, and it does very much look like the world is about to end on that particular day, but it feels pretty woolly to me. Neil has been asked about this particular episode title before, but his answer did not help me wrap my head around the concept. In fact, it just made things worse:

Nope. No, I’m sorry, but that makes literally no sense. Anyway, I don’t want to get hung up on the little details... Hey, didja notice how Crowley (aka Aziraphale) greets his trial panel in exactly the same way as he greets Hastur and Ligur in the graveyard?

And that throw away line about getting some houseplants is pretty telling when you remember that  it’s actually Aziraphale delivering that line (oh, spoiler alert there I guess, but I would have thought that anybody reading this far into the labyrinth of my brain wanderings is probably going to have seen this show at least once before). It shows that Aziraphale knows exactly what the inside of Crowley’s flat contains, and that the only thing he would care about enough to actually furnish a space is houseplants. One thing I do question though, is how Aziraphale would know who Hastur and Dagon are. He definitely would have known who Beelzebub is, saw her on the tarmac at the airbase in fact, but those two? I don’t know when he would have come into contact with them before, particularly in their demon forms. Crowley could have given him a description of as many of the named demons as possible I suppose, but it’s a bit thin as a theory goes. But more curious is presence of the montage at this point in the episode.

It’s just short of 7 seconds long, and takes place less than 2 minutes into the episode. It also happens to contain the entire storyline for the episode in reverse. Shots of Aziraphale (Crowley really) tied up in Heaven, Aziraphale and Crowley in the park together, the Bentley and book shop in their respective restored state, Adam with Aziraphale and Crowley complete with wings, Satan breaking through the tarmac – it’s all there. It even comes complete with those fuzzy little lines that you used to see when you were rewinding a video back in the days of VHS (yes, I do actually remember that) to show that we’re watching events in reverse. It’s not like we haven’t seen montages used to represent the passing of time in this show before, but this is the first time it’s been done with parts of the story that we, the audience, haven’t yet seen. It goes by pretty fast so it’s not like you’d be able to work out the plot by watching it in real time, but I think it’s a risky play nonetheless.

Next curious thing in this episode. The music playing from Crowley’s Bentley as he approaches the gates of the airbase is different to what we heard in the previous episode. It’s the same song, but it’s a different section. Not only that, but the music continues playing from inside the car after he closes the door, whereas in the previous episode the slamming of the door cuts the stream of music off abruptly. There is nothing else different about this rendition of the scene from the one at the end of the previous episode as far as I can see but it’s a subtle difference that I find interesting, especially when you consider how many of the beings involved in the events leading up to Armageddon come to have somewhat blurry memories of what happened.

I have to say, the depth of Crowley’s grief at the loss of the Bentley came as something as a surprise to me when I first watched this show.

It’s true, we’ve seen him driving the car a fair amount in this season, and we saw him repairing the dents and other assorted damages following his collision with Anathema in episode 2, we even saw him giving it a pep talk as he willed it through the flames in the previous episode, but he talks about it here almost like a pet.

You were a good car.

But if I was surprised at Crowley’s response to the Bentley’s demise, I was more surprised at Aziraphale’s refusal to allow the demon to grieve purely because he still thinks of himself as “the nice one”. Well, mate, for someone who’s supposed to be inherently “nice”, you aren’t showing an awful lot of compassion here, and towards the being in the whole of existence that means the most to you too. Honestly, there are a lot of times I have been quite forgiving (no pun intended) of the angel’s behaviour because he genuinely believes in his own goodness, but I struggle with this. WHY IS HE BEING SUCH A PRICK? And who said he had to send the soldier anywhere (complete with magical miracle noise, in case you missed it), or harm him in any way? He could just have miracled the gun away, or slid him into unconsciousness like Death and Adam have already done with entire groups of soldiers. Is he just so used to Crowley doing all the footwork in situations like these that he’s lost the ability to think for himself? Or is it that him being “the nice one” is part of their agreed partnership, and that’s the role that the two of them have agreed he will play, not because that’s what he inherently is, but because that’s what makes the most sense and would usually be the most comfortable role play for them? Perhaps it really is the latter, because it’s not too long before we see Crowley make a conscious decision to resume the role that he is being expected to play.

I can’t help but feel like the incoherent noises that Crowley makes are his attempt at trying to ask Aziraphale to deal with this next group of soldiers because he’s not done grieving. I should think he knows he’s pushed his luck on that front a bit too far when his bumbling is greeted with this look from Aziraphale/Madame Tracy:

That is the face of woman/man/angel that is not to be dicked about with. And he knows it, giving himself a pep talk and asserting his position in a way that almost makes it sound like it was his idea in the first place. Almost.

Side note: there are a couple of lines missing from the original script here that I feel very sore that we didn’t get to see:

CROWLEY: Aren’t you going to introduce me to your new body? MADAME TRACY/AZIRAPHALE: Yes. Right. Madame Tracy, this is Crowley. He’s… Well, we’re sort of business associates.

Sad as I am that we didn’t get to see those lines, the tirade of double entendre from Aziraphale telling Shadwell to brandish his weapon so that they can “lick butt” almost makes up for their absence. Watching Crowley’s physical reaction because of his choice of words goes the rest of the way.

It’s interesting that he manages to use this phrase at all, even if it not only looks but sounds as if he’s about to throw up; he couldn’t even bring himself to say the word “Heaven” when he was screaming in the book shop earlier that same day.

Quick note about R.P. Tyler: this really is one strange little individual. He seems to think that a child causing damage to some plants is equivalent to that same child waltzing into a highly classified military air base. Eejit.

We’re taking a quick visit to the soundscape again, inclusive of an Easter egg. I am in no way surprised at the use of a harmonica at the beginning of this scene, particularly given the stage directions provided in the script:

The feeling here is spaghetti western.

I am not of the age that I would remember the original film and scene that this is clearly an homage to (the “Man With a Harmonica” stand-off scene from Once Upon a Time in the West), but I have been to my fair share of Muse concerts (I think I’m in double figures now), listening to the “Man With a Harmonica”, to get the reference. A tribute to the original piece was also used in Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, again as a backdrop for a stand-off. I have absolutely no doubt that David Arnold’s treatment of the Omens theme tune in this way was intended as both atmospheric and as a pastiche of a piece of music that is arguably the most well-known of all spaghetti Western soundtracks.

Do you remember how I waffled on about the parallels between the members of The Them and the Horsemen? Well, in case you weren’t sure about that being a thing, or maybe just hadn’t cottoned on yet, this shot should spell it out loud and clear for you:

It’s interesting to see the character development that Aziraphale has gone through since his realisation that Heaven is perhaps not as “Good” as it portrays itself to be when we see him taking control of Shadwell’s gun to kill the Antichrist with, something which he has adamantly declared that he would be unable to do previously.

Crowley’s stance on the other hand appears not to have changed at all – he’s more than happy to support the decision to end the life of an 11-year-old boy in order to save the world, just so long as he’s not the one pulling the trigger. In fact, he not only supports that course of action, he vehemently chastises any doubts in it being the only one available to them. Madame Tracy’s interference with this particular plan of action feels to me like another statement of a recurring theme throughout the show – that the presence of free will is an inherently human quality. On this occasion, we see two non-earthly entities that both believe that there is only one course of action to be taken (i.e. there is no free will) whose actions are disrupted by a human entity who believes that this cannot be the case. What’s interesting to me is that the theoretically weaker of those entities, the human, wins out this little battle, suggesting that the actions taken as a result of free will always be victorious when pitted against actions taken through a lack of choice.

I absolutely adore watching Crowley’s expression when Aziraphale and Madame Tracy are separated. He can barely take his eyes of the angel, except when Madame Tracy announces that the separation made her feel “all tingly”.

That side glance looks almost jealous to me… And what's with the little head dip with the flirty yet smitten (smited? smote?) shoulder squaring…

Oh, that’s right, it’s love. And probably not just a little bit of gratitude and relief that Aziraphale has been returned to him, at least for the moment. There’s even a slow blink at the very end of that clip that looks a bit like he might be trying to keep the tears away. This tiny sequence of body language cues has my heart melting every time I watch this scene, and bearing in mind that David is actually acting in the background of the shot here it speaks volumes to just what an incredible job he’s doing that I don’t watch anything in the foreground – my eyes are firmly fixed on him and his reactions. I’m pretty sad we don’t get to see the moment when Aziraphale goes to join Crowley (this assumption is based on the positioning we see in this shot and the one immediately after Newt tells Anathema he isn’t really a computer engineer) – there is a part of me that screams to see the eye contact and facial expressions involved in that whirlwind of inevitable emotions.

For a show that’s filled with dark comedy, there’s a slightly jarring sense of social delicacy in the dissolution of the Horsemen in that we don’t see any of The Them actually land a “fatal” blow. We see them take up the sword, see them holding that same sword after they impale their respective Horseman, we even see the suggestion of an impact, but we don’t see the brutal imagery of an 11-year-old child thrusting a weapon through the middle of an adult-shaped monster. The speech at the end of this episode is heavy on the subtext of the disappearance of innocence from children as they grow older, and I suspect the desire to maintain the feeling of childlike innocence in each of The Them is the reason we don’t see them committing a very violent act. We’re not only allowed to maintain that image, but it’s strengthened by Adam’s empowerment of each of them to do what needs to be done, and his assertion that the things they’re doing battle against aren’t actually people, but concepts. It makes the whole thing feel like children playing games in the woods, which I think is probably the whole point, and the reason we saw them doing so much of it earlier in the series (and especially in the book – honestly I actually got a bit bored of how much “children playing in the woods” content there was in the original text).

As a side note, and knowing that it has been pondered over by many others before me: how did Aziraphale’s flaming sword become War’s flaming sword?! I remembered to look in the FAQ list for this one, and couldn’t see that it has ever been answered.

Next side note: Dagon says that all of the legions of Hell that are readying for battle were angels before. Does that mean that every demon is a fallen angel? Because that’s a lot of fallen angels (Beelzebub says that there are 10 million of them later on in the episode).

That’s also a pretty big revolution to have taken place “before the Beginning”. Surely if you were in charge of a place where half of your employees took place in an uprising, you’d have to question the validity of your leadership skills? There’s a little kudos going out to the sound editors here too – that effect of Beelzebub’s voice to make it sound like she’s buzzing like the flies she’s lord of is brilliant, mostly because it’s not there all the time, but fades in and out for maximum effect.

I also love the idea that a nuclear holocaust could all be avoided by running the disk defragmenter. It’s actually kind of appropriate, the job of the defragmenter being to rearrange important elements so that they fit together better, eliminating bad clusters as it goes, and all to ensure the hosting system can perform more smoothly. Feels like quite an appropriate analogy of a world gone mad with war.

Bearing in mind that I have been rattling on about parallels between the members of The Them and the Horsemen, there’s something interesting about Death’s parting comment to the group on the tarmac.

I AM CREATION’S SHADOW. YOU CANNOT DESTROY ME. THAT WOULD DESTROY THE WORLD.

If we’re considering that the previously mentioned pairings are mirror images of one another, would this suggest that Adam also cannot be destroyed? Or would it mean that his destruction would result in the creation of something else? Or if we took the words literally, would that make him the product of shadow (“shadow’s creation” instead of “creation’s shadow”). I like this latter idea, given who his father is (at this point anyway), but there’s something to be said for his potential for creation too, especially given his chosen name. I think there’s probably a lot to be said for possibilities for Adam’s character, which I’m planning on exploring in the future so I won’t go into this any further here.

Given the repeated suggestions we’ve seen that death = starlight (I’m paraphrasing for simplicity) in this show, and in other works by the original authors, it’s hardly surprising that Death disappears into a cluster of starts. God even tells us that, although they look like stars, they may be something else entirely, and that they reside within Death itself.

The complete dissolution of the Horsemen feels to me like a good place to stop. As always, questions, comments, discussion: always welcome. See you next time 😊

[lolaandthens0me]

Hey Lola! I love your posts and content! I gotta ask this: What has your Poly Journey looked like for you, and is there anything that I should be mindful of within my own journey?

Salutations Anon! And thank you for the kind words.

Wow, what a fantastic question! It has been quite the journey filled with much love, some heartache, an abundance of patience and growth, and real hard work in self-awareness and compassion...along with more than a smattering of fun, fuckery, and so.much.travel.

My journey began with a quiet aching within my heart and unsettledness within my gut. I think I've always known that I was polyamorous and bisexual, but I've not always had the vocabulary to express that. I am a being with an extraordinary capacity to love, and although I had so much love within my marriage (and still share with my ex), my heart was calling for more. There came a time where I felt that if I didn't make a change, the real person I was inside was going to be gone forever. The part that makes me Lola. I believe that I was put on this Earth to love, to share my body, and to share my heart and empathy in order to help others learn how to heal and love themselves.

The first step was to learn how to communicate honestly, even if it meant hurting someone I loved. I read books and blogs about how to be an active communicator instead of a passive one. And then I practiced. I surrounded myself with wonderful friends who listened, pushed me to speak my truth, and helped me figure out just what is was that I felt I was missing, I was being called to pursue, and they supported me, every step of the way, in who I was becoming.

Then I had to learn how to ask for what I want. This is a lesson that I continue to relay to all of my friends and partners. I have learned how to compassionately, but confidently and with kindness, ask specifically for what I want. One way that I continue to do this is by being very upfront about who I am and what kind of life/relationships I want with any potential play partner/kinky friend/partner...the people that I want to be my whole, true, unedited self with.

I also had to do the hard thing. After months and months of therapy, couple's therapy, open, honest conversations, time spent alone and together, trials of compromise and an open relationship to a degree - I had to say that I wanted to separate. I was married for almost 15 years at this point. That was one of the hardest days of my life. But I felt caged, frail, like the color was being completely drained from me. They say that it takes a good 2 years after a separation/dissolution/divorce to get your life back to something normal again. I have not quite made it to that mark yet...but I believe that's true. My ex and I chose to rewrite a new chapter for our relationship, to write our own book, to remain friends and in each other's lives...and wow, has that been hard. But I am so fucking grateful and happy that we've done that work. And we are in a wholly different, beautiful place.

Now for the fun, but also tricky part...I began forming new relationships. I think I've always known that I would be someone who would want and thrive with a Primary partner. I was lucky, my Primary partner, RY, was a friend first, and grew very organically and beautifully into more than that. We both made a promise to each other very early on that we would keep checking in and evaluating the health of ourselves, our processes of getting over a breakup, and the state and wellbeing of our relationship as it blossomed and grew into what it is today. As long as we were both still growing individually and encouraging each other into happy and healthy people, then we would continue growing our relationship. We communicate openly and honestly about everything, we have been patient in allowing one another the space to mourn the loss of our marriages with empathy, and we have taken our time to rebuild ourselves, bringing our best selves to each other. It worked out that he also was looking to explore polyamory. We're both still new at this, but we talk about and work through every growing pain along the way.

Then along came my other partner. She and I had a connection right away. Our close friendship naturally grew into something more. She and my primary partner were also friends, and honestly, I think that really helps. It is just amazing to see the two of them talk and laugh and genuinely enjoy being around each other, and they both reach out to one another in their love for me. I was always clear about who RY was to me and what our relationship was, and so that helped lay the foundation for my second relationship. I check in a lot with her to make sure that she feels loved, seen, and heard, and that we have enough time in person together. It's fantastic that we can be things and do things with one another that just simply don't fit into our other relationships.

I have learned what my boundaries are (and the fact that I actually need boundaries) within myself to ensure that I remain intact and wholly my own, as well as a giving, loving, deeply connected partner. It was important for me to live by myself right now, not something I've ever done before. I made this choice for the past year because I know my codependent tendencies and I wanted to break out of that mold. I still struggle sometimes with not giving all of my energy to those I love. I must save some for myself and I have found ways to replenish that energy. Time and energy; I'm still learning how to balance these within a polyamorous life.

I continue to work on approaching every conversation with empathy and an open mind and heart. I continue to keep searching within myself and bring that self-awareness to my relationships. I continue to push myself to see a different way and live a different way. I continue to surround myself with open-minded people that see me, know me, support me, and love me in this new life I'm creating. I continue to take time to be by myself and breathe. I continue to search out new opportunities that challenge me and fulfill me. I continue to be a student of life. And I continue to lean into love.

I love you @resonantyes and @hbananer - thank you for this life.

[theseshipsshallsail]

High above the sodium street lights of One Hundred and Fourteenth Street, the heavy storm clouds cast a sombre shadow as Elio haunts the cracked, living room window in Oliver’s studio apartment; occasionally sipping a dark-roast espresso from the unwieldy Dial-A-Brew on the formica kitchen counter.

He’s seldom been a fan of absence makes the heart grow fonder - especially when forced to subsist on a paltry diet of fleeting visits, priority mail letters, and expensive late night phone calls - and as Elio examines the warped casement frame he’s quick to recall the evenings Oliver held the receiver over this very spot, affording both him and his parents a unique flavour of the city he calls home. 

Beyond that, however, there’s a building sense of anticipation as he studies the sky to the east. He certainly hadn’t expected to be out and aboutthis early. Not today: his first proper morning in the States. It’s the weekend, for starters, and after a fifteen hour flight from Malpensa - let alone the tedious baggage delays at JFK - he assumed he’d nap ‘til noon. His muzzy brain, albeit, clearly had other ideas, and Elio’d blinked into reluctant alertness at five a.m; lulled by the muted, Hispanic rhythms drifting from the private courtyard below.

Truth be told, he can’t quite believe he’s really here, but the crushed-velvet twilight is somewhat hypnotic in his chimeric state, and Elio sags ever so slightly when a familiar pair of arms slink slow and securely around him: banishing the pre-dawn chill.

“Hey,” he hears, Oliver’s voice gravelly with sleep. “Everything okay?” 

“Non preoccuparti…” Elio squeezes the barely-hidden tension from his bicep. “Everything’s perfect.”

“And yet you’re awake?”

“And yet I’m awake,” he repeats, carefully balancing his half-full coffee mug on the shelf of a modular bookcase. “Blame it on the time difference, mon cher.”

Oliver hums: low and contemplative. “Long haul schleps are brutal.”

“They are indeed,” Elio agrees, thankful for his current circumstances regardless. “Still. You needn’t get up just because I am.” 

His boyfriend grunts. “I’m not up.” 

“You’re not?” Elio murmurs, savouring the warmth of his larger body. 

“Nope,” Oliver says, his reflection grinning inanely. “Far from it,” he adds, failing to stifle a laugh. “I’m only here to tempt an impoverished college student back to my bed.”

Elio snickers. “Is that so?” he replies, pressing a kiss to his bristly jowl. “And does this impoverished college student have a say in the matter?”

“Assolutamente.” His accent is damn near perfect. “Though I doubt he’ll take much persuading.”

“Ah… la naïveté of youth,” Elio laments as he checks the two-tone Chronograph at Oliver’s wrist, then places his lips right there; right atop the steady thrum of his timpani pulse. “Easily corrupted by the desires of a dissol-”

“Oi!” Oliver sputters: eyes narrowed in faux reproach. “I’ll show you a dissolute!” he growls, and the next few minutes devolve into breathless giggles and retaliatory jabs as he scrabbles his expert fingertips over Elio’s heaving rib cage. “I don’t recall you minding my desires when I brought you off in the airport bathroom…”

“I’m jet-lagged, not dead,” Elio gasps when they’re finished jostling; heels digging deep into the tufted rug when Oliver attempts to make good on his promise. “Aspettare! Aspettare! I want to watch.”

“Watch what?” Oliver asks, face buried in the crook of his neck. 

“The sun, bien sûr! I want to see it rise.” Elio nods at the window; to where a vivid palette of fuschia fire is already splitting the pale blue horizon. “We haven’t done that in forever.”

Oliver sighs: fettered with regret. “We haven’t, have we?”

“Not since we borrowed my parents’ rowboat at Easter.” 

And scandalised a couple local fishermen in the process.

“Every forever derives from a now,” Oliver tells him - dropping another kiss to the hinge of his jaw - and Elio burrows close as they settle in for the duration; safe in the knowledge they’ll be echoing this moment for untold years to come.

[sunnybearvampire]

hold on something just occurred to me while freaking out in the tags of another post. this post is for a very specific section of the go fandom that also watches dropout. hear me out.

there was a quote that suddenly came to mind when i was thinking about the breakup scene in good omens (the last one. i know there's been several.).

"does he love me more than being major?" - delloso de la rue (a court of fey and flowers)

and i kept thinking about how crowley knows aziraphale loves him when he confesses. he says We when talking about pretending. he knows. but he's still worried aziraphale won't reciprocate in the way he wants him to. and by the end of the episode, crowley believes that aziraphale chose heaven over him - belonging to the "good" side. that aziraphale wouldn't want him as he is, would jump at the first chance of changing him - to be deserving, to be forgivable, forgiven.

rue is always the more radical between hob and them. they call for the dissolution of courts - like crowley, they don't believe in sides anymore. this question is the vocalisation of their fear at the end of acofaf - yes, hob loves me, but will he choose me over the only place he's called home, even if he never truly felt like he belonged?

and let's be honest - aziraphale fucking hates being in heaven. he doesn't belong there, doesn't feel good there. he is mocked and put down repeatedly (much like hob, standing out in the goblin court, being fundamentally different from other goblins and wanting to change that - 'that was very honorable and brave' 'i know, i'm working on it')

yet, hob's loyalty to the goblin court persists until the final moments of acofaf - much like we see in season one of good omens with aziraphale. but both ultimately make the decision to follow their hearts and save the world for the sake of their love and happiness (and found family).

but while the romance between hob and rue is wrapped up with a confession and a marriage proposal (see me crying about 'you will never know a lonely day again, as long as i draw breath'), crowley and aziraphale don't fucking talk to each other. ever.

so crowley broke apart when he thought azira died and protected him again and again from heaven and azira threw a ball just to have an excuse to touch crowley and they don't know. they don't have all the facts. so we have a crisis that was resolved very quickly between hob and rue that is still plaguing them.

tl;dr: i make up parallels between my favourite queer couples. am sad.