#imagine thinking the avatar is irrelevant
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I actually do think that doing magic takes a lot of work and is kinda hard and there aren't very many good shortcuts, and many modern shortcuts actually just amount to leaving out steps, which means you either have to be powerful enough to brute-force it or it fizzles.
Look, I know some people are just much better at magic and witchcraft; anything they do works with little effort, and the lengths some of us have to go to accomplish magic seems bizarre to them. Those people are cool and I wish I was like them but I'm not.
But I also think some of the truth of how to work effective sorcery gets paved over by these "witchcraft has no rules, do anything you want" support posts.
Because A) that is not true, I believe that witchcraft has lots and lots of rules (it's just that nobody else can tell you what they are), and B) I think do anything you want is taken to mean anything you do should work, which is also not true.
I feel like I always see advice given that you don't need to do things (like use physical tools, or cast circles, or whatever). But I never see anyone explaining the techniques and paths of power that are supposed to replace them.
Let's just imagine for a moment that clear quartz really is a universal substitute. Discordians would say that it totally is. So does that mean all you have to do to sub out clear quartz is to just put it on the altar and do the ritual as if it's something else?
Or do you have to do something more?
Do you have to consecrate the stone as being something other than what it is? Do you have to ritually birth it into a new life and baptize it like a baby? Do you have to spend weeks or months honing your technique of focus and beliefs so that you can mentally shift from consensus reality to a personal reality where there is literally no difference between clear quartz and sodalite?
Do you have to raise energies of sodalite and imprint them into the quartz crystal, perhaps working over it for an extended period of time? Do you have to use energy work to tie the clear quartz into Ideal Sodalite so that it becomes like an avatar?
No, you don't have to use physical tools if you don't want to. But that shouldn't be taken to imply that tools are useless or can be replaced in a way that matters by just visualizing that you have them.
A witch spends six months propitiating a tree, ingratiating themselves with the land, offerings and acts of fealty to the tree, a week-long branch harvesting ritual, blood offerings at midnight on a holy day, then another year curing the wood and crafting a wand. Big effort, right?
And you don't need to do that. But if you want that power, what are you going to do instead?
Same with circle-casting. Same with magic on the full moon. No, you don't have to wait until the full moon. You don't have to wait until the moon is in Libra. But there's a really good reason people do those things. So if you want those effects, what actions can replace those effects?
You literally could not do the spell while the full moon is in Libra. That's fine. But then what will bridge the gap? Will you have to raise more energy somewhere else? Include a new aspect? Modify the spell for the moon you can work with?
"You don't have to follow the moon phase for magic" doesn't mean the moon phase is irrelevant and some witches just like to inconvenience themselves for no reason. But it does mean that you can probably adapt your working to overcome the moon being in the inopportune phase.
Every time I talk about how much time, energy, and effort magic can be I feel like someone always replies, "well, it's just not that hard for me! I do what I want with what I have when I need it and it always just works, with very little effort."
Which I think is very great for them, but I also don't think that most people can get results with such low effort.
So anyway my entire point is that I think sometimes the reason people struggle with getting witchcraft to work is because they are operating off of out-of-context soundbites that make it sound like you can just completely cut out some of these foundational concepts of witchcraft.
Maybe you don't have to accomplish those steps in traditional ways. Maybe you don't need all of those steps for every spell you're doing.
But if you've just cut out swaths of steps only because you heard someone say you don't need them (not because of your own experiments working with magic and determining what works best for you), then is there enough left to constitute a functional system of magic?
#don't worry even I am lowkey board of my apparently traditional phase#is this a seasonal thing? am I tedious because it's winter?#I can almost guarantee some time late march I'll be making a post like yeah fuck the moon and circles anything you want is real#beginner witch#witchblr#tbl
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actually going crazy over your last post like i wish i could use better words but itâs actually reduced me to soup for brains rn.
OK BUT imagine all that and includeâŚ.. forced proximity.
like i have this hc ab having him asigned to you during his transition into the jj world, maybe bc ur technique counters his well somehow? (irrelevant to my horny brain, but i also like to imagine a technique similar to the avatar from atla very ambitious ik, which would include blood bending) and the elders want to be really sure heâs not a threat. so here you are the first few months (im ignoring everything bad going on in the manga lmao) with Choso following you around everywhere bc youâre not allowed to have him out of your sight. can you imagine the first few times he caught on to your âheatâ and didnât know what to do with himself? he can barely get away from you long enough to clear his head and it drives him crazy.
anyways, i could go on forever ESPECIALLY ab Choso, but yeah love your writing and i wanted to share what it made me think of <3
(cw: voyeurism; primal/prey (ish?) )
nonnie, please, let's talk about this some more. choso isn't leaving my head today and I feel like I'm about to go insane.
(ps. the details of your technique countering/balancing choso's is such an amazing idea!! I love that!!)
oh, our poor baby boy. he would be positively frazzled in the beginning - he'd struggle to cope, and look visibly distraught. at first you just think it's an inherent strangeness that he has because he's half cursed spirit. but then you start realizing that this reaction doesn't always happen because there are times when he's completely normal and not like he's been plagued with visceral discomfort.
you like choso. you think he's sweet, a little innocent and naive, but kind overall. he never gave you any reason to doubt that but even you can't deny the dark glimmer in his eye when he looks at you. it's a gaze that he shares with no one else. and the expression on his face, cheeks red with a friendly smile, simply counter the danger that swirls in his irises.
it's a look that makes you want to hide like a bunny scampering away from a lone predator.
of course, you have to tell yourself that you're being foolish. shrugging off your ridiculous nerves when you remind yourself that this is choso you're worrying about.
the man can barely hold it together when yuji shows him one of those adorable cat videos that he finds online. there's no reason for you to be so unnerved by him.
and yet, you're you're hyper aware of how small the space is whenever you're forced to share a room together while away on a mission. you notice that choso, is in fact, quite large and takes up plenty of the space. he's all broad shoulders and ripped muscle; obsidian details contrasting against his smooth, pale canvas. you can't turn without him being in your line of sight.
trapped in a cage of four walls.
it's when you're alone with him that you pay attention to how those eyes deepen, sinking further into the depths of peculiar mystery, revealing a puzzle that you can't seem to decipher. it's when you're alone with them where you realize that sometimes his attention will drop to your lips, or to your breasts. it's when you're alone with him when you feel the pulse of adrenaline reverberate across your skin, goosebumps rising with your heart beating wildly as you ponder whether or not to let your guard down.
he slips up once when you're both away. you swear you felt him breathe in the scent of your perfume against your neck, but choso reacted like nothing was out of the ordinary as you spun on your heel to confront him. his discipline strikes with a twitch of his jaw and a clench of his fist, and he simply fibs that he was looking over your shoulder to observe the mission documents on the table.
his cheeks are blushing furiously now, and it twists your stomach into knots.
he can't possibly...
you shake your head, refusing to reduce his behavior to something so simple as a silly crush.
yes, you both spend a lot of time together, but choso is a death painting womb. he isn't even human. there is no way that he could be feeling those kind of feelings. and especially not with you.
but the thought sits in your head until later that evening, when you're standing in the hotel bathroom. there's an ache in your chest that's spreading down between your legs. you've never actually thought about choso in this capacity, and you don't understand why it's making every nerve tingle.
it's bold of you to make the decision and open the shared bathroom door until it was ajar. to then step into the steamy shower, the silhouette of your enticing, captivating curves a print for the wolf to track. and you can't help but wonder as warm droplets trickle over your soft, delicate skin...if he's standing there right now, and observing you patiently from the shadows.
#choso x reader#choso x you#choso imagine#choso smut#> secret mail đ#NONNIE PLEASE YOU DID NOT HELP MY BRAIN ROT TODAY#sos send help I need this man to mount me
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I have a beard, of a particular slightly-distinctive style. I've had that same beard for the entirety of my adult life.
This is, obviously, the most contingent kind of fact about me. If I wanted to shave it off, or to style it differently, I could do so right now with zero difficulty. It's not a cultural signifier, or a marker of group belonging, or anything; even to me, it doesn't really mean anything other than "this is a symbol of me-the-person because it is associated with me because I have it." I started cultivating it in mid-adolescence for ephemeral irrelevant reasons, and kept it going basically out of inertia.
Nonetheless: it is really important to me. Like, really really important.
I basically cannot use character-creators or avatar-generators of any sort unless they have appropriate-enough beard options. When I contemplate getting rid of the beard...well, based on the way other people use the term, I think that the appropriate word for the feeling I get from that is dysphoria. During a brief period when I thought that I might have to get rid of the beard for medical reasons, I seriously considered wearing some kind of full-face leper mask whenever I left the house, because the thought of hiding my face from the world forever made me less unhappy than the thought of having people see me clean-shaven.
And, crucially, this affects my ability to Identify With People in literature and media. I am about 900% more likely to have an "it me" mental reflex if the character in question has a Beard Like Mine, regardless of whether there's any actual substantive commonality or grounds-for-sympathy there. I can control this with deliberate effort, but -- it takes deliberate effort. This phenomenon has probably had some measurable effect on my personality and philosophy, simply by causing me to identify or not-identify with potentially-high-impact characters in a subconscious (or conscious) way.
For example: I basically always see elves as Other and Not-Me, because elves are usually portrayed as the Beardless People, even if there are all sorts of obvious reasons to map myself onto a particular elvish character or elvish culture. Which there often are!
You might be inclined to say that this is, uh, stupid. I wouldn't blame you. It is, at the least, definitely very irrational; it's an aggressively hypertrophied bit of mental DNA, the sort of thing that you might fairly-if-uncharitably call a "psychic cancer." But of course it's never going to change, because the phenomenon operates deep down on the level of appreciative impulses and happy-buttons, which are mostly impervious to reason. (Assuming that you're inclined to try and alter them through reason, which is usually not worth the effort even when it can work.)
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It's not actually a problem for me that beard-related neurosis prevents me from identifying with elves. Not much of a problem, anyway. I guess I lose out on some cool Line of Feanor feels.
But I can imagine it being a problem. I can imagine the world in which the cool resonant myth that everyone cares about, the thing around which you want to build big chunks of your identity, has only elves with whom to identify. I can imagine the world in which all the cool smart people I want to be my friends are endlessly talking about their elfsonas.
And, y'know, in that hypothetical world, there's a few different ways I could react. I could say "fuck you, fantasy myth is for losers." I could be a mythic entrepreneur, and aggressively push my own homegrown stories featuring dwarves and ogres and other beardy folk. I could try to [shudder] map myself onto a beardless elf in my mind, and let that image occupy space in my fantasies, and hope that the revulsion and dissonance don't tear me apart. I could just be kinda sad about it all.
Or I could say: Hey, guys, could we maybe just agree that elves can have beards? Since they're made up and all, and their beardlessness doesn't even really matter to the myth anyway?
If I were so inclined, I could even follow that up with: Look, this is a really big deal for me. I'm pretty sure it's a much bigger deal for me than it is for any of you. That would be 100% honest.
And I imagine that many people would respond: What? No. Ew. The elf stories have clear lore and a well-defined aesthetic, and you're proposing to shit all over them with your weird beard nonsense. You don't get to do that; you don't get to make the akashic commons worse for your own private benefit; it doesn't matter what your reasons are. Play by the rules, or go play another game.
I would have a lot of sympathy for those people.
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(Yes, yes, I know, Cirdan the Shipwright, don't @ me.)
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There are, of course, lessons in this. Perhaps I will spell them out in another post, soon, if I find myself feeling less tired and cranky. But for now: he who has ears to hear, let him hear.
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Hey, love your blog! Something doesn't sit right with me about Aang's attachment problem. Didn't he let go of Katara? We see him give her up and then gets shot by Azula. But he still opened it. If that's the case, why is Aang still attached to her? And why is he braver about it? (Asking her for a dance and kissing her twice, not that kissing her was a good thing). Did overcoming his attachment meant he saw her as more (romantically) approachable? But it's weird for him to overcome an attachment while in the next episodes he's more in love than ever. What do you think?
Yeah, the thing is, getting rid of his attachment should make him romantically braver and should ultimately make him closer to Katara. Because the problem with Aang's attachment was that it was an insecure attachment. Which is what made him act in ways that reflected that insecurity, like being anxious that Katara would not reciprocate his feelings. This actually hindered his relationship with Katara in book one and two because it prevented him from being honest about his feelings with Katara for fear that she might reject him. (Remember the whole "I'd rather kiss you than die" debacle?) This insecurity about losing her is also why he imagined her in peril when the guru asked him to let his attachment go.
And no way, no way is Aang going to get over that insecure attachment in a moment when Katara is in dire danger, in the heat of battle, when he couldn't do it before when he was with the guru and we're explicitly shown that the thought of Katara in danger is what is keeping Aang tethered to that insecure attachment. It's just not possible. I don't believe it.
What would have happened if Azula's lightning had not neutralized that conflict by making it irrelevant, is that realistically, after failing to save Katara and Ba Sing Se, Aang should be more insecurely attached to Katara than ever. And that is what happens. He acts more on his feelings but in ways that show that he's more afraid than ever that Katara will not reciprocate, and that then translates to entitlement towards her and anger at her in Ember Island Players for not reciprocating his affection.
So not only does it not make narrative sense for Aang to be able to open his chakra when he did, the narrative carries on as if he didn't and the excuse they use for why Aang can't is "because Azula shot him with lightning." The plotline about Aang forming a more secure attachment to Katara is completely dropped in favor of putting the onus on Katara to reciprocate Aang's feelings.
That's a large part of why book three feels like a mess. It actually would have been a compelling narrative if Aang HAD learned to be more secure in his attachment to Katara. Which should not mean he doesn't love her, it means he's secure enough to accept it if she says no. Which actually would make him braver romantically because he would not be afraid of rejection. So much of Katara and Aang's narrative feels like nice guy bullshit because the narrative blames Katara for not automatically returning Aang's love instead of having Aang pluck up the courage to actually ask her out. The reason so called "nice guys" always think that girls love jerks instead of them is that they don't realize that you actually have to ask a girl out to get her to be your girlfriend, instead of waiting for her to just fall into your lap because you're too terrified she will say no. And by the time Aang does make his intentions clear to Katara, it's "why aren't we together?" instead of actually asking her how she feels and what she wants.
And I've theorized that it actually was the original intention to have Aang go through a period of being more insecure in his relationship with Katara than ever before learning to be more secure in his relationship and thus unlocking the Avatar State, also rounding out the parallels between Aang and Zuko in book three, which also feel like missed opportunities that are never really followed through, most likely because the writers were either unwilling or unable to take the same risks with Aang's narrative as they did with Zuko's.
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Infinite and his relationship with his squad
This was something I've been mulling about ever since I saw this poll.
Disclaimer: This post isn't about fanworks like art or fic nor is it about fan interpretations that are purposefully divergent from canon. This is strictly about how people view canon Infinite.
My first thought was "wow that's more lopsided than I thought". My second thought was "ok the wording/choices played a role in that".
Imagine if Infinite's feelings towards his squad can be measured on a scale from 0 to 100, 0 being "they are like the lint in his back pocket" and 100 being "basically found family". Between the three main categories shown on this poll (I wasn't sure how to interpret "other"), how would you divide that scale?
This is just my viewpoint, but "not at all" sounds like it can't be anything more than 10, "he did" is anything above a 60 or 50, and "mixed" being anything in-between. To me, the threshold to qualify as "caring for something" is much lower than saying that "you don't care at all" because you can put your parents, your abusive partner, your dog, and your old classmate next to each other and say "yeah, I care for all of them". There is no limit to how much you can care about something but saying that you don't at all is much more absolute.
I was satisfied with that conclusion because it made sense in my head, but I'm just one person and others will of course have different takes on that matter.
For example, I answered "it's complicated" in this poll because my personal HC is that he did, but he never wanted to admit it. I felt that he cared more about himself than anything and valued his strength as an individual, but whether he liked it or not, he did get a little attached and after their loss, he resented that fact. It became something he wanted to purge when he created his new identity. Now you could say that "oh, so if that's his reaction, then he didn't care for them that much since his ego is a higher priority." Or you could say "wow he cares about them but denies it, what a tsundere." There's a kernel of truth in each of them, hence "it's complicated", but it makes me wonder if I would categorize other people's takes if I had the opportunity to read them all.
At the end though, it was all personal interpretation and that is something all fans are entitled to. Yes, misinformation and lack of critical thinking can be a factor (it's true for all fandoms as infamous as the Sonic fandom is), but when it comes to a character like Infinite who isn't as fleshed out as he could have been, I feel that there is a lot of freedom in how you interpret him compared to other Sonic characters who have longer histories and larger presence. There isn't really a set-in-stone answer for a question like "did he care about his squad or not". I don't think anyone is stupid for believing in one answer over the other.
Which bring me to the main point of this post: Infinite's design as Forces' villain doesn't require him to be indifferent about his squad (past or present)-- it requires him to be self-absorbed. Those are not the same thing. A having greater value than B doesn't mean B has no value. It could, but maybe it isn't.
No, I don't think Infinite needs to be "Shadow 2.0 but swap out Maria with his squad" in order for Infinite to have "depth". In fact, I find that take to be rather shallow and contradictory to what's established of Infinite... but I also don't think he needs to be Mephiles 2.0 just for all the pieces to fit, if that makes sense.
Infinite was designed with keywords like "cruelty", "adherence to power", and "disbelief in bonds"-- the last one being important within the context of Forces because it's the primary reason on why him and the Avatar are foils (which I went on a whole thing in a different post). That, however, is only relevant when encapsulating Infinite's personality within the story of Forces. Whether or not he cared about his squad in the past is irrelevant because even if he did, he threw it away when he chose to be "reborn" as someone else. This can be interpreted as a form of denial, but the keywords "disbelief in bonds" would still apply since, well, it would be the source of his denial in that scenario.
Then, there is the Rise of Infinite comic where Eggman and Infinite meet for the first time and against his squad mate's advice, he agrees to team up with Eggman. Again, this says less about his opinion of his squad and more about his own desires, but I should also note this is also just one guy's opinion. We see the Jackal Squad as this monolith because they are background characters with little identity outside of being Infinite's past group, but realistically, they are individuals. Whether or not they agree with their boss, whether or not they view him as a friend, whether or not they were easily persuaded, whether or not they had ambitions outside the squad just like Infinite-- those are all open questions that don't have a single correct answer. There is no requirement for them to be these poor victims of their boss's selfishness; they could also be like-minded and rather than a traditional bond of friendship, they could have a form of mutual understanding/comradery between selfish mercenaries. (As if Infinite was lacking in reasons to be a considered a bad guy om)
The possibility of Infinite having some sort of care towards his old squad does not have to be a tool to excuse or soften his flaws; it has the potential to highlight it instead. It could be used to highlight how Infinite could've been like the Avatar in another universe and vice versa-- showing how Infinite deceived himself into finding hope in the wrong place. It could be used to contrast Shadow's purity, direct with his goals whether it was revenge or his friend's wish, to Infinite's impurity, clouded with ego and insecurity that caused him to compromise on something important just because he thought it was holding him back. Forces may have pushed a very simple "friendship is power" message, but simple themes can have nuance and even if Sonic Team is bound to its self-imposed restrictions, fans are not.
But yeah, that's about it. I hope this doesn't come off as accusatory, but I'm putting this out there because I feel like the conversation around this is a bit too black-and-white for my liking. There is nothing wrong in hc'ing that the Jackal Squad was nothing more than a posse to inflate Infinite's ego nor is there anything wrong with interpreting the Jackal Squad as a somewhat close-knit group that tragically fell and their leader giving in to his vices over his bonds and honor. I just wanted more people to understand that regardless how you would answer that poll from the start, there is no wrong answer as of the time I have posted this, and it will stay that way until Infinite's past is expanded on in canon.
I still don't get what "other" entails though lol.
#another midnight ramble about this dog i swear#he just gets the brain juices running in me even though i could be doing something else#*cough* my pile of wips *cough*#sonic forces#infinite the jackal#sth
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Iâm not sure if you know or care who Th3Birdman is, but heâs a former Christian movie YTer, just saying to preface this. I stumbled across this statement he said about God and human suffering in his Suicide Squad video, Iâll need to put it in quotes to get the entire context, so excuse the formatting:
Movie: âIf God existed, wouldnât this be proof that he wasnât good at all?â
CS: âWell no actually, Godâs goodness, at least biblically speaking from a New Testament perspective, is not something that prevents all human suffering but rather something that offers grace and redemption to all those who have suffered.â
Th3Birdman: âBut that skirts the fact that this hypothetical god created everything, including the concept of suffering, and that he knew the people he created would suffer, thereby making him the direct cause of suffering. Thatâs the problem with primitive fairy tales â they fail at logic and canât keep up with societal morality. Imagine believing an all-powerful deity needs to send an avatar of himself to Earth with the intention of dying to forgive sins instead of⌠just forgiving the sins⌠that he knew was going to happen anywayâŚâ
In another video, heâs also agrees with CS saying that parents force religion onto their children when theyâre young since they canât object, and that Christianityâs âreal nameâ is Christian Mythology. I wanted to know your thoughts on these perspectives since I think it sounds a bit off and you know more about Christianity than I do.
I'm not familiar with him but he sounds like someone who is very hostile against Christianity and God and also doesn't understand the nature of God.
His premise is that suffering is bad and since God is the creator and allows suffering and "created the concept" of suffering then that means God can't be good. But first he has to explain why suffering is bad. Sure, we don't like to suffer but why is the reality of suffering evidence of God not being good?
It sounds like he's saying if God were really good, then he, Birdman, would just be able to do whatever he wanted whenever he wanted, he could reject God and disobey him and if God were really good, He would just allow it and Birdman would never have to experience any consequences for anything and never worry about repentance because if God were good he would just forgive him and never let anything bad happen to him while Birdman just does whatever he wants.
For God to be "good" according to his misguided opinion, God would have to eliminate choice out of the equation. And God giving us choice and freedom was a good thing. God didn't create suffering, we created it. And if God took away the concept of suffering then that would demand he take our choice away with it.
We can't have the choice to follow God if the choice to not follow him is not also there. And whether Birdman likes it or not, the evil and suffering in the world is what life is like when we don't follow God. God is not a do-gooder, he is goodness itself and if you choose not to follow goodness then you are left without goodness. We are living in a world that we brought evil and suffering into by choosing to reject the goodness of God. And you can be like Birdman and think well if God was really good he wouldn't have made it so not following him is bad. As C.S. Lewis wrote "God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there." But that's what Birdman wants. He wants peace and happiness apart from God, where it cannot exist.
He is criticizing God for allowing evil and suffering but he's also criticizing him for stopping it because he's not stopping it how the pseudo-intellectual Birdman is thinks it should be stopped. Whatever Birdman thinks God "could have done" is irrelevant to what reality is.
The reality is sin is real. The reality is consequences are real. The reality is sin is separation from God and it has a price and Birdman better be glad God sent the "avatar" of himself to die and take the punishment that Birdman deserves.
And the thing is God did create a sinless world. We were created in a perfect state with no evil and no suffering and then we broke it. We created it. Blaming God because itâs possible to break perfection is like blaming a chef if you drop a cake they made on the floor and saying, âwell, if they were a good chef, they would have made their cake in such a way where throwing it on the floor wouldnât have destroyed it. And Iâm not going to clean up my mess but if they clean it themselves it just proves they arenât a good chef because they could have made a cake that wouldnât make a mess.â
Also, he calls it a fairy tale because it doesn't "keep up" with societal morals. And, uh, that's the point. Christianity is not supposed to keep up with societal morals. We keep up with God's morals. Society should be keeping up with God, not the other way around. Societal morals are crap and ever changing and he's a fool if he considers them something God should be "keeping up with."
Does Birdman think he is a good person? If he is a good person and knows how to correctly do forgiveness, which means no one needs to be punished we can "just forgive," is that what he practices and is that how he wants our justice system to work? Should we not prosecute rapists and murderers and just "forgive them" because that's what goodness is like? Is it bad for people to experience consequences for their choices or not? And unless Birdman is without sin he cannot claim to be an authority or even a credible source as to what goodness really is.
Another C.S. Lewis quote because I think it's relevant to Birdman's claims.
âMy argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust? If the whole show was bad and senseless from A to Z, so to speak, why did I, who was supposed to be part of the show, find myself in such a violent reaction against it?... Of course I could have given up my idea of justice by saying it was nothing but a private idea of my own. But if i did that, then my argument against God collapsed too--for the argument depended on saying the world was really unjust, not simply that it did not happen to please my fancies. Thus, in the very act of trying to prove that God did not exist - in other words, that the whole of reality was senseless - I found I was forced to assume that one part of reality - namely my idea of justice - was full of sense. If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never have known it was dark. Dark would be without meaning.âÂ
I hope that answered you and made sense. Sorry it's a little all over the place. Sometimes it really irritates me when atheists try to pass themselves off as intellectuals just by the very nature of being atheist when their arguments against Christianity boil down to "if God were good then evil wouldn't exist" which just shows they don't even have a basic understanding of the religion they're trying to criticize. They like to throw out phrases like christianity is a "fairy tale" and then pretend they are wells of logic and intelligence when that's one of the dumbest statements you can make. You don't have to believe the Bible or Christianity but if you think it's a fairy-tale that's an objectively ignorant and shows you really have no idea what you're talking about.
And he can pretend religion is "forced" onto children when they're young by their parents but I could say the same about atheism. Parents are going to raise their children in accordance with the values and beliefs they subscribe to. Religion is no more forced onto children by religious parents then atheism is forced onto children by atheist parents.
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It always occupied a space in the back of my mind, but I now OFFICIALLY have a specific way in which I ship AzulAang,

[And all it took was an entirely DIFFERENT set of alien romance which is technically entirely headcanon because they never elaborate on the details in the comic.]
Ok, so hereâs a physical demonstration
TheyâreâŚâŚfiguring it out.
But as for the explaination:
- First and foremost, the relationship would have to take place Post-Canon. I know the images used are show PNGs but I didnât feel like looking for comic PNGs. Due to Azulaâs whole psychiatric situation at the end of the series, along with the fact that Aang has probably not yet fully processed that she killed him that one time, theyâre gonna need a little time apart!!
- When they meet up after that initial separation, though, a very particular dynamic forms
- While a VERY dedicated shipper could argue that Azula previously harbored some pitch feelings towards Aang, I personally feel she would not be able to keep that hatred or aggression to a fully romantic context, and after they reunite she may find those pitch feelings irrelevant, as like I said, they wouldâve probably had the tendency to spiral into NON-romantic hatred, which is something sheâd no longer be able to display now that the Avatar is an internationally protected citizen instead of a wanted criminal
- As for Aang, I honestly just have a hard time imagining him in any pitch ships in general ig?? I just donât think his feelings would ever skew that way, closest I have to that is Aang in an ASHEN ZuKatAang and thatâs about as dark as it goes for him personally. There IS still a particular tension there with Azula, though, one that could much more-so be considered a desire for mutual trickery
- And thus, they enter the Blue-Diamond
- Their Blue-Diamond relationship, being the most neutral of the ennead, puts them in a perfect middle ground in which neither are necessarily entirely malicious or entirely malevolent when it comes to the hijinks between them.
- Itâs likeâŚâŚcan I say Tom and Jerry?? Am I allowed to say Tom and Jerry?? Itâs a continuous line of slapstick between the two, but in a way which itâs very structured routine-wise, and itâs balanced out with moments in which hijinks cease entirely in favor of calmer moments
- The difficulties lie, though, in Azulaâs competitiveness and Aangâs cordialness
- And thus, they enter a Trove in Progress
- While Azula both softens up to Aang over time and is now legally required to NOT seriously harm him, some of those remaining pitch feelings still bubble up sometimes, but due to the restraint she now has to maintain, that intensity is lowered down to an intense desire for hijinks and a lowered desire for affection, thus sending her feelings into Stars at times
- On the other hand, while Aang has a naturally unserious demeanor, he IS still a little sappy at times, so while thereâs not necessarily a FULL stop of hijinks, he sometimes teeters into Clovers
- While this COULD lead into a nice Trove, their past experiences with each other have led to a bit of a difficulty in emotionally understanding one another, as well as confronting one another about those misunderstandings
- This, unfortunately, means that they donât usually line up when it comes to Stars or Clovers, and due to not fully understanding the otherâs intent, one usually ends up shifting back into the neutrality of Blue-Diamonds, which will sometimes confuse the other further, but also sometimes line up with the other shifting back into that same ennead just around the same time
- All and all, they DO have the potential of entering a Trove, but at the current stage I imagine the relationship in thereâs still a lot more soul searching and conversations that need to be had between the two
- Until then though, they DO still have the comfort of the ennead they mutually share, which at the end of the day still serves as a testament to their shared feelings towards each other
- Nobody here knows what the fuck Iâm talking about.
#atla#a:tla#avatar the last airbender#avatar: the last airbender#avatar aang#aang atla#princess azula#azula atla#azulaang#azula x aang#aang x azula#quadrants#quadrant shipping#leprechaun romance#leprechaun romance shipping#enneads#ennead shipping#the last two prolly arenât tags#Iâm going fucking crazy#AA gang please donât hate me I just got here#we got the explanation vid linked#I mean thereâs a fuck ton of tangents because the title is a lie#but the explanation IS there#fast gif#cw fast gif#flashing gif#cw flashing gif
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What compels you about Baatar Jr.?
Oh goodness, I do love talking about why I like him I cannot lie! (foreshadowing for the length of this, I come back to ominously warn retrospectively..)
Honestly even back when the show was initially airing, he was a character I always liked. Being big into anime in middle and high school I was 100% a "megane man" enjoyer lol which is just to glasses men XD (they get a special genre title because they are apparently very popular in Japanese anime communities which honestly, based) so that was the first thing (not to mention he's voiced by Todd Haberkorn who I knew from anime dubs since he's in so many).
But okay so what I find compelling about Baatar. I think he had such potential to be a very interesting character and one that could have been really put to use in the story. He had such interesting groundwork to me, especially in tandem with Kuvira. You can always trust me to stan the troubled eldest sibling lol, in Baatar's particular case I call it "eldest sibling inferiority complex" (idk if anyone has coined that phrase but I'm claiming it until proven otherwise) but it's something I relate to a lot. Baatar being the first "heir" essentially of the metal bending capitol of the world, founded by the metal bending daughter of the inventor of metal bending itself Toph Beifong, and he isn't a bender in any regard is something I think about way too much, I don't care whatever way you slice it I know that must have SUCKED for him because he was just.. inherently kind of a disappointment? Like he came into the world with the "Oh, shame he isn't a bender." tagline on his life. And then the brother he gets soon after IS a metal bender which I can imagine practically felt like an instant replacement because he wasn't "enough". Ofc that may not have been why Su and Sr. had Huan but I can see Baatar feeling that way. Then the twins ofc have metal bending and Opal later on gets air bending and he's just pushed further and further into irrelevance in the family. Like history will always talk about the Beifong family, the inventors and masters of metal bending, Suyin's younger sons all being prodigies in their own right, her daughter later being blessed with air bending, but what would ever be said about Baatar? He was just "the one who was a non-bender". I thought so so much about how being in a position like that would feel. And even the framing of the writing of the show itself always felt so dismissive of him. When Su is introducing all her kids he gets the least mention, no one ever says his name even, he only has 3 scenes in the entirety of season 3 and only in 1 is he even animated. It just always felt rather sad to me, he really was in line to just become the Beifong family's forgotten son.
I've talked about how I wish something had been said with Baatar and Huan and how starkly contrasting they are. Baatar feels trapped in his father's shadow with nothing of his own, not his own name, nothing of his own to leave an impact with and just quietly relegating himself to the background, meanwhile Huan is so obsessed with his self expression and individuality. I can imagine Huan seeing Baatar and how miserable he was when they were younger and not wanting to end up like that so he takes a hard turn into the opposite direction.
I really think Baatar was the perfect character to bring back the discussion of disparity between benders and non-benders, from a villain standpoint of course, because he is a character who- even from his seat of clear privilege, still has to deal with the effects of it. Like the world of Avatar really is for benders and non-benders are just allowed to live in it. I don't think Baatar actually wants bending, I actually think quite the opposite. I think he just doesn't want to be seen as lesser than for not having it, and prove that he doesn't need it in his life. That's why I love the setup of his relationship with Kuvira so much. I genuinely think the two of them were accidentally written and created so perfect for each other and the writers just.. did it by sheer accident and didn't even notice and thus squandered them completely. They give each other exactly what the other needs. Kuvira wants acceptance and to feel genuinely wanted which Baatar gives her, and Baatar wants recognition and to feel appreciated for who he is and that's what Kuvira gives him. She is one of the most skilled metal benders in the world but grew up in a family that didn't want her or care about her (ignoring Ruins entirely, Ruins of the Empire my beloathed), and Baatar grew up in one of the richest families in the world, the family whose whole identity is metal-bending, born into the lap of luxury but was still written off somewhat because he was a non-bender and thus the family legacy really didn't have anything to do with him. And when Su takes Kuvira under her wing they're both living in what is considered a "utopia" but are both still unhappy because they always feel "outside" of it, and they are able to relate to each other in that way and validate each others' feelings. Having Kuvira choose him- someone considered very remarkable choosing someone most consider very unremarkable, and him being the first person to ever genuinely truly want her and all of her is my Roman Empire, it is the hill I will die on. Like idk how the LoK writers had all that literally right in front of them and chose to do nothing with it, it bothers me so much lol.
Baatar descending (ascending truly in my opinion lol) into his villain era when he is finally away from home because he is reacting out of spite, paranoia, and existential dread because this is his chance to be known for something in his own right and not for anything to do with his family and slowly becoming the instrument of his own destruction is my bread and butter, I love it so much. I hate the fanon that he left Zaofu only to pad after Kuvira, I truly think he saw his one chance to leave with someone he cares about and financial stability and took it. I don't think he's very altruistic, like if I'm being frank I don't think he gives a hoot or a holler about the Empire itself LOL like he is absolutely here to support Kuvira and help her achieve her goals but to him the Empire is just something he can cultivate to facilitate himself and his needs. It's more of a symbiotic relationship to him where he'll always prioritize himself but will do what he needs to to keep the host happy. I do think that when he initially left he DID have good intentions they just were also very self serving, and then as time went on he leaned further and further into the self serving and see's himself as "doing the right thing for them because it is the right thing for me so no one can get mad :)" lol like yes darling, you are the moment, give us everything and nothing. I love love love the thought of him really leaning into the fame and attention because he's actually getting recognition, people are interested in what he's doing, he has the facilities to work on things he wants to work on, and can really just do as he pleases. One thing you will not see me do is say that he was trying his best for the Empire's sake the whole time lol like the man truly was out here in his Applause by Lady Gaga era. The idea that he does in fact do good for the people but for selfish reasons is just so funny to me. He's like "Do you think I'm out here bringing running water and irrigation to rural towns out of the goodness of my heart? No bitch, I'm just not about to get giardia in the name of freedom." LMAOO like yeah he is a little bit wretched but I'm still stanning, I'm still streaming, my shower is working so I have to thank him. Like I do genuinely find the idea of "guy who is doing good things for selfish reasons but is still doing good things regardless" very interesting to think about. Like what does it matter where his heart is at if he's still doing humanitarian work because it provides him in return with accolades and material wealth lmao. In his case though I can see him melting a bit when he sees the good impact his work can have but he has to keep up his big sassy bitch face bc he has a reputation to maintain.
Also withing the Empire era, that is like my peak Baatar contemplation era because wow it was so rife with potential for him. A non-bender being second in command of what was probably the biggest military force in the world at the time must have been an insane line for him to walk. Because all his authority is superficial. Because Kuvira gave it to him and for almost no other reason. No matter what he does, he will always be weaker than the weakest bender inherently, but he still has to command respect because everyone KNOWS THAT. Him walking through their camps he literally has his life on the line at every second because anyone could just decide to kill him at any moment for no reason and there's nothing he could do to defend himself. So he has to be smart, he has to be scary, he has to be mean, he has to be intimidating because if he doesn't he has nothing else to shield himself with. He can't let his anxiety over it show either because every bender would be able to hear it through the ground. The idea of Baatar having genuine anxiety regarding benders all his life is something that is so important to me. Even in his own home, his heart rate couldn't be something that was private. I love to hc that he quickly learned to become an Azula tier liar like you could never catch him lying because he needed to learn how otherwise his own emotions couldn't even be private. Aiwei could never catch this man and he hated it so much lol Baatar loved every second of it. He would just say lies to Aiwei's face and they both would know he was lying but Aiwei couldn't ever really know and it made him so mad.
I really do think a lot of what Baatar does comes from a place of genuine hurt, and wanting to feel like he has some form of control in his life and he expresses it through anger because his anger is the only power he feels like he has but he lets it eat away at him until he just has this void in him that will never be satisfied. He wants his family to understand how he feels, why he feels so hurt, and for them to acknowledge it, but he needs them to realize it themselves without him saying it because if he has to tell them then it must not be real. Plus how could they understand when they're free of the experience that makes him feel this way. They'll never know that feeling of being a disappointment on arrival. Opal did, but she's beyond it all now. Thinking about his relationship with his father, I think he actually loves his father so much, he was a daddy's boy from day one and still is, he wants his father to feel similarly as himself, not the anger but just acknowledge that "yes, the world really does revolve around benders, and it's okay that you feel scared and unnerved by that reality, there's nothing wrong with your feelings it's okay for you to have them" but his father doesn't feel that way and Baatar takes it as almost a kind of betrayal. In his mind he needs that shared experience because it tells him that if someone else feels like this then his feelings are real and he isn't just making shit up, he can feel that way even if he never acts on it, just knowing someone else feels the same. He doesn't go about it in a healthy way at all and I am by no means defending his actions or blaming his family for everything bad that he's done, you'll never catch me doing that, Baatar 100% engineers his own downfall by choosing to feed into his anger for catharsis. The fact that he did everything he ever did because he didn't want to be forgotten by history, only to get his wish, he'll indeed be remembered forever, but remembered as the engineer of monstrosities is the perfect poetic irony to me and his most perfect kind of villain arc in my eyes. He is so consumed by his anger and paranoia. His fear of being forgotten by time because to him being forgotten means there was never any point to his existence to begin with.
Also okay yes let us briefly discuss my buff Baatar lol I do have reason for it I swear! So okay yes, I do that for me because I love big beefy glasses men okay, sue me, i am indeed an animal in that way. But also I do think it just kinda makes sense for him??? Like he is someone with some clear anger issues and exercise is in fact a very good way to relieve anger and stress. I think it's funny that he just gave that a try because he needed to vent his anger on something and it became his primary anger management and now he's just massive lol but also this is also him making a statement of like "I can take my body even this far but I'd still always be at an inherent disadvantage", he'd have a lot of reasons for doing it- his own vanity, his self-esteem of always feeling unimpressive or unremarkable, wanting to feel like he could in even the smallest way be something of a protective force for Kuvira. Plus him having the kangaroo effect on people between seasons 3 and 4 is so funny, where when people think about kangaroos they're like "aaw cute lill hoppy fellas c:"(season 3) and then they actually see a kangaroo and are like "bitch what the fuck is that"(season 4) lmao like have you seen how jacked kangaroos actually are? Everyone is like "Yeah we know what Baatar looks like" and then they see him for the first time in season 4 and are like "Who the fuck is that?" LMAOO Also yeah he just looks nice that way to me.
God I just scrolled up this to see where I was at and this ended up way longer than I intended alksjdf I'll stop myself here I'm so sorry, I just truly cannot Shut Up about this man. He genuinely means so much to me. For so long I didn't talk about liking him or did any art of him because in the early days of the fandom and even relatively recently, the hate for him was so... vitriolic and cruel it genuinely made me so uncomfortable. I'd see rare pieces of fanart of him and the comments would always have people expressing their hate for him in them, I've even gotten comments like that on my own art. It really has always baffled me tbh, even the writers and Bryan himself are not shy about talking about their hate for him, one of the s4 episode writers called him "the worst character in the entire franchise" and it just hurts my heart so much. Like they wrote him already down and just continue kicking him while he's there like they weren't the ones who put him there. In that way Baatar's spite and anger feels almost all encompassing as corny as that sounds. I just love angry sad men and Baatar is the angriest saddest man of my heart haha if he has no fans I am dead. I really cannot express how much it means to me to hear that people have become to like him more because of my portrayal of him, I've even had people who used to hate him tell me they love him now because of me and I truly could cry about it, I really could.
#Ask Matsu#LoK Thoughts#Baatar Jr.#[ if you read this whole thing I appreciate you so much lol#I really did just start typing then blacked out and when I came to there was all this :'D#I now really embrace my love for him he truly is my guy#I can safely say he is my favorite fictional character of all time#no other character holds the place in my heart that he does and yes I'll say that with my whole chest as ridiculous as that sounds haha#me at Baatar: you're beautiful you're amazing and you never did anything wrong my darling you're a star#Baatar: has done so much wrong has created horrors beyond imagine in fact ]
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The threat to the Plane of Darkness, the inevitable return of the Shadowscythe, and what lead to the Exalted Alliance theory and speculation
Something has been on my mind lately, namely regarding the Proclamations and Reckoning war. At the conclusion of the Reckoning War, all eight Avatars of the elements were essentially left diminished, reduced to the form of elemental orbed embodiments, and are now being contained by Lock and Key until they remerge from their dormancy. The current inactive state of the Avatars explains much of why the Proclamation rifts have been such an issue to the extent that theyâve been. If the Avatars were active, weâd likely be having less of a harder time closing the ones that clearly link to the section as. What bothers me now though is that out of all the Avatars rendered dormant Voidstar is probably the one we would want down the least right now. I say this of course due to the ever-present threat that is the Shadowscythe and their agents of Doom.
It has long since been established that the Shadowscythe and its agents will never cease in their quest to plunge all of existence into Darkness in this current timeline. To remove, in their eyes, the pollution of the Elements influence on this reality at any cost.
And now, their biggest rivals, the Avatars of all eight prime elements have been forcibly placed into stasis for the time being.
Meaning the avatar of the only elemental plane that is safe for them to move freely in without heavy risk of annihilation is no longer in a position to bring the hammer down upon them to halt their corruption. While I have no doubts that much as it appears to be the case with other avatars that Voidstar has left behind some form of entourage or progeny to govern the Plane of Darkness in his absence, like Celeritas's family or the Lagohmorph royalty in the case of Haeos' plane,
I fear that may not be enough to hold back the problem the Shadowscythe present.
The Shadowscythe have shown numerous times in the past that they are more than content to manipulate and corrupt those around them when they feel that overwhelming force simply isnât a viable course of action for a plan to be set in motion. These manipulations have ranged from outright lies, offers of comfort, or the corruptive properties of their powers. Hell, sometimes they'll use all three of those methods.
We even know that they are capable of convincing those that hail from the Darkness Plane to support them despite the fact that it is within the interest of Voidstar to maintain the balance of the elements.
So, with Voidstar now out commission, whatâs to stop the Shadowscythe from attempting to gain some real ground within the Plane of Darkness, outside that potential back-up of governance I previously mentioned? Even if the Shadowscythe choose not to attempt shall we say some sort of combative assault on the governing powers that might remain in the Darkness Plane, they might still have the option of indoctrinating or persuading its inhabitants to support their cause in bringing about Darkness everywhere.
I donât think the Shadowscythe would have a hard time amassing more followers at the moment either. There are elementals that seem to be somewhat guilty of desiring for the element they are aligned to win out over the others, so I imagine it's not going to be too difficult for them to convince some darkness elementals to side with them outright. From there it might be a simple process to make note of the absence of Voidstar to point out that perhaps to float around the idea that itâs time for the plane to be placed under a different vision and management. One that they might allege serves the interests of the Darkness plane, whether this would be an outright lie or them conflating that to what the Darkness means to the Shadowscythe would be irrelevant I imagine.
Which brings me to another advantage the Shadowscythe might have here: the chaos of the Elemental Wastes. It was established back in Awakened Depths that the Wastes are effectively a battleground for elemental beings of all shapes and sizes to duke it out to gain dominance over the others.
Furthermore, as King Thorin would imply, there are champions of the Wastes, with no specified allegiance to a single element, that seem to attempt to encroach upon the sovereignty of the other elemental planes which would indicate even more factions vying for more control within the overall Elemental Plains.
I could easily see the Shadowscythe presenting themselves as the solution to darkness residents that will end or at least ward off the chaos presented by the Wastes: namely its champions and warbeasts alike. This of course is dependent on how well the Plane is when confronted with the onslaught of forces from the Wastes, but as Iâve speculated in the past, I suspect not all planes are handling the matter equally, especially now that their avatars are gone.
Alternatively, it may also be plausible that the Shadowscythe could cause havoc within the Elemental Wastes. How could they do that, you might ask? How can the Shadowscythe, beings so reliant on the darknesss that smallest candlelight can make them go poof, be active within the Wastes? A place likely filled with a myriad of elemental entities that can harm them. Well, much like the Wastes has its champions within all that elemental dissonance, I suspect that the Shadowscythe and its doom spirits might function similar to warlords within certain âsafe zonesâ in the Plains for them. We know that, when necessary or strategic, doom entities are capable of engulfing regions into shadows and darkness, either as means of spreading their influence or protecting themselves from being outright destroyed by outside elements, namely the light.
So, with that in mind, what if members of the Shadowscythe, if not the entire organization, have managed to section off certain parts of the Wastes for themselves by employing these shadows, on a larger scale, though not so large they would draw attention from the Avatars, and have these sections act as bases or outposts as both as a means to not always be under the watchful eye of Voidstar and to conduct operations in the Wastes and Lore abroad. It might be possible then that they might find ways to agitate other forces, be it elemental factions in the Wastes or leftover Warbeasts, into attacking all other Planes or just the Darkness Plane should taking it over be in their interests.
Now of course this is all speculation on what the Shadowscythe might do with Voidstar gone for the time being. It could be easily feasible that the Shadowscythe are simply patient and will do nothing with this opportunity as they coalesce in the shadows when they feel like the right moment is on handâŚas much I doubt theyâll do nothing for now.
It is here where I want to address something else as well. I cannot help but think back to the Last Stand of EhrâIshin, in which the Engineer mentions specifically those that stayed low in the shadows would survive the firing of the Exalted Artillery.
This could of course just be an off-hand reference to practically any creatures or entities that would have stayed far away from the blast radius of the weapon as is the case for the other locations mentioned on the same page. However, given that beings derived from Doom and the Shadowscythe respectively are so often affiliated with shadows throughout the games. I suspect a more sinister element here.
You see, ever since we got the reveal back in Rebirth that the Shadowscythe managed to sneak their way into the current timeline, avoiding being removed after the Reset, and it was revealed that they had an embodying force that exists in opposition to the Aequlibria, I came to a suspicion.
A suspicion that the Shadowscythe, this Whisper, as Notha and Remthalas call it, was in some shape or form responsible for the Exalted Alliance forming against the Aequilibria. I donât think that Notha was wrong in her analysis that âdoomâ was considered to be analogous to freedom as labeled by the Exalted even when it was revealed there was a tangible force of Doom they made note of alongside the Aequilibria.
I suspect that the Whisper, whatever exactly it is, was able to instill within certain Infernals and Celestials the need to break away from whatever vision or mandate the Aequilibria had for them. Perhaps a dose of ambition if you would consider. Essentially, the basic idea behind the Exalted is to yearn for something beyond what they were meant for at their very cores and wills upon their creation. How exactly the Whisper did this Iâm not sure. Coming into contact with it in some way could have corrupted/influence a few members, like what is believed to have happened with Lock and Key as well as the Avatars, and let the idea of rebellion spread from there.
Perhaps they could have actually communicated philosophical ideas with a group of Celestials and Infernals and thatâs how the Alliance got started. Perhaps even the mere existence of the Whisper was enough to get the Exalted started as displaying an entity that is opposed to your god may have been enough to convince some of them that the Aequilibria were not the absolute and final law of their universe. In achieving this rebellion, the Whisper and its Shadowscythe were given the perfect opportunity necessary to remove their polar opposite off the playing field for a time.
If the Whisper and its forces playing a role in the Exalted rebelling against the Aequilibria and subsequently putting them to sleep is true, as I presented it as such, then it only further displays how conniving they are when pulling off their schemes.
Furthermore, it cements that they'll always keep coming back and that feels clearer now more than ever now that a certain doom bomb is on its way to the Mana Core of Lore. Ah, but that concludes my thoughts regarding the Shadowscythe and the role they could play in the Elemental Plains and the role they might have played in the Exalted rebelling against the Aequilibria.
#dragonfable#dragonfable lore#the shadowscythe#Doom#The Whisper#The Darkness Plane#I seriously hope Voidstar left some people behind to maintain the darkness plane while they were away#Wills. Ambition. Choices. Chaos. Freedom.#dragonfable theory#It also might be simultaneously possible that the Exalted form to rebel against both the Whisper and the Aequilibria alike.#But that's just me spit balling.
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korra is not a Mary sue ( the claim that she was or the attack I saw) along with being reminded of similar accusations regarding mako
I just saw some people on Twitter calling korra that and bashing her ( going all she did is sleep around with her krew and "joking" that all her successor would get is info about an orgy " which disgusts me going her krew were just a bunch of people sleeping with each other ( it also annoys me that my genuine complaint about that last minute retcon korrasami which was thrown into the last two minutes of Korra making it so that all the member of the krew had a thing for Korra at one point into that sentence annoys me )
it is just an example of people abusing terms that are supposed to mean something in order to attack korra like the people who claimed mako was a Gary sue or creators pet during b1 or b2 claiming he got special treatment or favoritism because something good happened to him/
They even twisted his words or actions out of context to make him out to be a womanizer equating him to yue's fiance ( its why I highly suspected that korrasami was only began due to the irrational hate for mako so they shipped it to spite and punish mako helped when they claimed him ending the show single was karma for being a human being with flaws and mishandling a messy situation . asami being a nice girl is irrelevant her getting hurt emotionally is irrelevant
mako didn't need to be punished for the love triangle
I cant help but imagine an au where the last minute retcon didn't happen and the show ended with Korra single but hints to makorra getting back to get her eventually. and bryke outright say that. those mako haters would claim creators pet or Gary stu again which would make me go its not mako being given favoritism or being a Gary stu you are twisting those words to mean something they aren't . a creators pet isn't a character who you dislike getting a compliment or a good thing happen to him. mako doesn't twist the existence/break the rules of the world
mako ending b1 ( which was supposed to be the only volume) in a relationship with Korra and the series with hints to them getting back together isn't him being rewarded for his mistakes.
mako making a mistake not getting punished for it having something good happen to him afterwards ( b1 issue) isn't him being rewarded for his mistakes or his flaws being ignored. mako and Korra broke up in b2 over their mutual flaws and they both overcame those flaws by b4 and figured out proper conflict resolution.
this also applies to Korra she had to struggle and fight she had taken multiple l's worst of all what happened to her in b3 finale
korra has flaws
both Korra and mako's flaws are acknowledged by the narrative
mako ending the showing
)
or they attack her for losing the connection to the prior avatar's as if she is the only avatar who made a mistake or failed ( look at aang he nearly stopped the avatar cycle period not to mention getting trapped in an iceberg and the 100 year war . could be compared to what happened with korra)
I mean they claim that everyone just worshipped her when complimenting her isn't the same as worship
.( the only reasonable thing I saw on Twitter was that Korra should have been called out on how shitty her action towards bolin was how while she was on a semi date with bolin went to mako hit on him ( going when you are with her you think of me ) kissed him ( mako kissing back doesn't make it okay) I would say that both Korra and mako were at fault for the love triangle
and I wish Korra apologized to bolin or we got a scene where they made up even small
but mako's mistake was not telling asami about it and trying to avoid the conflict ( and when it got found out he tried to suggest they talk about it later due to the current circumstances since he tends to focus on physical needs over emotional ones ). mako was the zuko minus the angst in that he had a rough /jerk demeanor but had a heart of gold.
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Picture
The Fabelmans
EEAAO
The Banshees of Inisherin
Top Gun
ElvisÂ
Tar
All Quiet on the Western Front ------bar of certainty------
Avatar (I want to drop this so baddddddd)
Nightmare Alley Babylon
The Whale SandraBullockWell.jpg - Women Talking Neon is busy trying fill up as much of Best Documentary as possible - Triangle of Sadness Fell off - Glass Onion The Year is 2080 and We Have Spent Half a Century Honoring Chadwick Bosemanâs Monumental Contributions to Film, Television, and Humanity - Black Panther Luckily the internet canât make everything happen - RRR
Director
Steven Spielberg - The Fabelmans
The Daniels - EEAAO
Todd Field - Tar
Martin McDonagh - The Banshees of Inisherin
Edward Berger - All Quiet on the Western Front Donât encourage him - Baz Luhrmann - Elvis The bright side of this would be that it would humiliate the CCA - Joseph Kosinski - Top Gun Iâm starting to doubt - James Cameron - Avatar Was he top 3 at BAFTA? I have questions - Park Chan-wook - Decision to Leave Todd Field is an Honorary Woman - Sarah Polley - Women Talking, Gina Prince Bythewood - The Woman King, Charlotte Wells - Aftersun
Actress
Cate Blanchett - Tar
Michelle Yeoh - EEAAO
Viola Davis - The Woman King
Ana de Armas - Blonde
Michelle Williams - The Fabelmans Just feels like itâll slip through the cracks - Danielle Deadwyler - Till They just love nominating them! not enough though - Margot Robbie - Babylon, Olivia Colman - Empire of Light Knows what happened to Shelly Miscavige - Andrea Riseborough - To Leslie
Actor
Colin Farrell - The Banshees of Inisherin
Brendan Fraser - The Whale
Austin Butler - Elvis
Bill Nighy - Living
Hugh Jackman - The Son (donât @ me if this happens Iâm not manifesting) Good luck diva - Paul Mescal - Aftersun Movie doesnât exist - Adam Sandler -Â âHustleâ Your boots sir - Tom Cruise - Top Gun
Supporting Actress
Kerry Condon - The Banshees of Inisherin --------bar of certainty---------
Angela Bassett - Black Panther (imagine having her career and finally getting nomination #2 for this)
Jamie Lee Curtis - EEAAOÂ
Hong Chau - The Whale
Nina Hoss - Tar (you CAN @ me if this happens I AM manifesting) This movie will probably end up leading the nominations but the cult needs this snub so they still feel like theyâre rooting for an underdog - Stephanie Hsu - EEAAO Girlboss - Dolly de Leon - Triangle of Sadness Gatekeep - Jessie Buckley - Women Talking We specifically decided to not do this so she wouldnât win - Michelle Williams - The Fabelmans Gaslight - Janelle Monae - Glass Onion Girlboss - Carey Mulligan - She Said Gaslight - Claire Foy - Women Talking
Supporting Actor
Ke Huy Quan - EEAAO
Brendan Gleeson - The Banshees of Inisherin
Barry Keoghan - The Banshees of Inisherin
Paul Dano - The Fabelmans
Eddie Redmayne - The Good Nurse (I donât buy this) Or this - Judd Hirsch - The Fabelmans Or this - Bryan Tyree Henry - Causeway Or this - Ben Whishaw - Women Talking Who is this -Â âAlbrecht Shuchâ - All Quiet on the Western Front
Adapted Screenplay
Women Talking
Glass Onion
Living
The Whale
All Quiet on the Western Front Not exactly what theyâre looking at here - She Said Presumably âWrittenâ - White Noise Sequels! Remakes! Reboots! - Pinocchio, Top Gun, The Son
Original Screenplay
The Banshees of Inisherin
EEAAO
The Fabelmans
Tar
Triangle of Sadness You had a good go at it...thanks for your input - Aftersun WGA bait - Elvis Iâve been sensing this lurking - Nope Mubi will not shut up about it - Decision to Leave
Cinematography
Anyone ever seen a plane? (Top Gun)
Roger Deakins (movie irrelevant)
Not Emmanuel Lubezki (Bardo)
Shiny Objects! (Elvis)
This branch likes him more than the guild (The Fabelmans) I think I might be predicting this movie in all the wrong tech categories - All Quiet on the Western Front If this gets nominated itâs probably gonna win - Avatar Obsessed with people predicting a 2/5 ASC overlap - The Batman
Costumes
Elvis
Black Panther
Babylon
Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris
Corsage ???? - The Woman King Thatâs all I got but here are some more movie titles - EEAAO, Living, The Fabelmans, Amsterdam, All Quiet on the Western Front
Film Editing (bombing this category as usual)
Top Gun
EEAAO
Elvis
All Quiet on the Western Front
Tar (sticking with the overperformance narrative) Theyâve snubbed Michael Kahn for flashier work - The Fabelmans Certainly a Best Picture frontrunner! - The Banshees of Inisherin Sound! Light! Movement! - Avatar
Makeup and Hairstyling
The Batman
Elvis
The Whale
the first name I randomly pulled out of my hat...Babylon
the second...Blonde The third - Amsterdam The fourth - All Quiet on the Western Front I didnât put them in the hat - Les crimes du futur, Emancipation
Production Design
Babylon
Black Panther
Elvis
Avatar
All Quiet on the Western Front in descending order of likelihood - The Fabelmans, EEAAO, Pinocchio, Bardo
Score
The Fabelmans
Babylon
Women Talking
The Banshees of Inisherin
Pinocchio Iâm making this up - All Quiet on the Western Front, Black Panther, The Woman King
Songrbfhddsishgdbk
RRR
Black Panther
Top Gun
Pinocchio
Till I donât know which one is the title of the movie and which one is the title of the song - Applause/Tell It Like a Woman Hague - Crawdads White noise - White Noise
Sound
Top Gun
Elvis
Avatar
All Quiet on the Western Front
coin toss EEAAO coin toss - The Batman They prefer Elvis - Babylon
Visual Effects
Avatar
Top Gun
The Batman
All Quiet on the Western Front
Thirteen Lives annual bullshit nominee alert - Jurassic World annual bullshit nominee alert part 2 - Fantastic Beasts and your guild nominations? - Doctor Strange, Black Panther, Nope
Animated Feature
Pinocchio
Turning Red
My Fatherâs Dragon
M*rc*l th* Sh*ll w*th Sh**s *n
Inu-Oh Continuing to pretend that they donât like sequels - Puss in Boots Maybe if it were better? - Wendell and Wild Disney payola - Strange World
Documentary Feature
All the Beauty and the Bloodshed
All That Breathes
Fire of Love
Navalny
Moonage Daydream Literally started typing my international predictions which should tell you how much thought went into this - Descendant See also - The Territory, Bad Axe, Retrograde, Last Flight Home
International Feature
All Quiet on the Western Front
Argentina 1985Â
Decision to Leave
Bardo
Joyland A24 forgot they had this - Close GROUP A Alternates (potential replacements for #2-4 above) - The Quiet Girl, EO, Holy Spider, Saint Omer, Corsage GROUP B Alternates (potential replacements for #5 above) - Return to Seoul, Last Film Show, The Blue Caftan, The Artist Formerly Known as Boy From Heaven
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How would Lucifer, Mammon, Levi, Satan, Asmo, Barbatos, Solomon, and Diavolo react to a male MC who wears skirts (because *chants* men in skirts, itâs masculine af) on the daily? bonus if the MC wears black nail polish!
REACTING TO MC THAT WEARS SKIRTS
LOVE THIS PROMPT đ
During this I imagined đđťđđťđđťTANGO DANCER SOLOMON and thats going into my art idea list
masterlist
âď¸MALE MCâď¸
Not unlike all the other boys, Lucifer is willing to risk it all as soon as he sees it.
His favorite cut of skirt is the classic a-line ones, both modest and not.
A CLOSE second goes to wrap skirts.
This is a SFW blog so I will not be going into any detail at this time â¨
Literally loses his breath everytime he sees MC, and it surprises him.
If MC isnât already wearing the RAD skirt, heâs already offering to get him a set. Almost too eagerly?
When MC decides to not wear a skirt one day, he tries not to make it too obvious, but heâs simply curious as to why is all. Maybe a tad bit let down.
MC insisted one time that Lucifer painted his nails for him, and...
âWell, normally Asmo is the one doing that for all of us...â
âBut Lucifer đĽşâ
âAlright... Fine. But Iâll have to continue my paperwork in between each layer.
Itâs just kinda cute to think that he would spend an incredibly unnecessary amount of time on each nail, trying to perfectly lay down the polish. Occasionally, his tongue will poke out because of his concentration.
Thereâs some slip ups here and there, but mentioning them will only get him flustered.
I donât use this word lightlySIMP SIMP SIMP
He thinks he loves MC in every skirt imaginable just as equally as the last (which, he actually might) but deep down he canât deny that a mini skirt just hits different.
The first time he saw MC wearing a mini skirt, mammonâs initial reaction was to cover him up before anyone could see him.
However, he failed to realize that he was actually the last of the brothers to see him, since he woke up late.
But thatâs just what being the avatar of greed does to you. You just want to keep whatâs yours, no matter what.
But considering his jacket isnât as big as Luciferâs or Solomonâs, he ended up just holding it up against MCâs lower half and stood in front of him.
It took the coaxing of MC and the snark comments of his siblings to make Mammon finally allow MC to walk around freely.
Looking back on it, Mammon most certainly understands why even Asmo had called him clingy.
But even now, he canât help but hold MC a little bit closer in public when so many demons are staring at him! It just feels wrong to allow them to do that.
Cut him some slack, he thinks MC looks amazing, and he trusts him, but theyâre literally in hell surrounded by demons. He just wants to keep his boy safe <33
Levi doesnât even realize what MCâs wearing at first.
In fact, he doesnât realize even after their first FEW encounters.
He only notices because while Mammon was ranting to him and Satan about money, he brings up MC and his âstupid and cute but also dumb skirtsâ
Levi is baffled that heâs the only one that hasnât noticed it. So, the next time he walks by MCâs room, he contemplates stopping by to talk. Right... Socialize. That.
While Levi is stuck in his thoughts, MC opens the door, presumably ready to go out to a party with Mammon and Asmo.
*fish man short circuits*
MC looks...! S-so cute....!
- thinks the third born otaku.
Because Iâm big on fashion, I can kind of picture an exact skirt I feel would apply to him. Let your mind run free but I imagine a semi-sheer maxi skirt with water-like embellishments uwu
But donât get me wrong, Levi literally loves seeing MC in skirts so anything will get him like đł yall know how he is
Actually starts to get more interested in feminine fashion because of MC. And one day, he purchases a long black skirt from Akuzon.
He saw a popular cosplayer wearing one, and so he makes that his excuse.
No one even realizes the change except for Asmo, who gushes over the new look, even if it barely changed. MC also notices, but only compliments him/brings it up when theyâre alone so Levi doesnât overheat.
I was this close to typing âSatan is a man of beauty and FASHIONâ can you believe that
OKAY ENOUGH SATAN SLANDER
Satan... He can recognize when someone else looks ridiculous.
But he knows for a FACT. That MC very likely pulls off a skirt better than anyone heâs seen before.
Call him biased, but he sincerely loves it on MC specifically.
He likes the puffier skirts because theyâre ADORBS, but for a more casual look, thereâs this one asymmetrical skirt in particular that makes MC look so handsome to him.
He has no idea why men donât wear skirts more often! Surely MC isnât the only one that can do it!
Oh. Right. Gender norms đŞđ¤đź
Satan feels his anger crawl up his skin when he watches MC get ridiculed. And just for something he simply enjoys wearing! The nerve of demons.
He advances to âde-escalateâ the situation in the most âavatar of wrathâ way possible, but when he sees MCâs slumped shoulders walking away from him, he feels more inclined to follow and comfort him.
Satan gives an icy glare to the irrelevant demons, taking note of their faces, and goes after MC.
He doesnât immediately bring up the situation, instead opting to go out on a spontaneous date to a nice cafĂŠ or a shopping district. Anything to distract from the situation subtly.
If his plan works out, splendid. Anything to make light of situation without even addressing it for even a day is good.
If the shopping and food doesnât quite bring MCâs smile to his eyes, Satan will just have to be forward with his feelings for once.
âMC. Iâm not entirely sure how I can get it through to you, but you shouldnât be worrying about what some moronic, low-level demons think of you or your clothes. Much less what they say. Just be you, and make them suffer ten times worse.â
MC relishes in his words, even if the last bit sounded more like a threat than anything.
The last thing Satan would ever do is let MC even hesitate wearing an outfit that he would have had no trouble throwing on any other day because of someone else.
Asmo screams (in a happy way)
âNo, Mammon! Youâre wrong. MC is NOT my personal dress-up doll! Heâs my model.â
Trying to break the stigma around Asmoâs âshallowâ personality, letâs get the obvious things out of the way.
He and MC shop together pretty much every other day. Itâs almost concerning. And nail appointments are, of course, regular.
NOW THAT THATâS OVER,
Yes yes, Asmo loves the skirts and wonderfully glossy black nails, but thereâs still such a massive divide between him and MC. Not physically, or even relationship-wise.
Heâs never met someone like MC, who is so fashion-heavy and just the right amount of self-centered.
He thinks its the fact that theyâre a human and demon. But heâs seen firsthand that the line between what makes a demon so different from a human is very thin. Solomon is an example of that.
But he realizes itâs just MC. Heâs simply dressing for himself and himself only.
Asmo loves himself, thereâs no doubt. And itâs nice to go out and dress fancy for others. He couldnât dream of another lifestyle.
But he has to admit that what MC is doing is working for him. He comes off as a charming sort of man when he ignores the negative comments made about his clothes.
He knows that people in both Devildom and the human realm are a little sensitive when it comes to men in skirts. And the fact that MC continues to wear them is beautiful in and of itself.
This got kind of deep out of nowhere and i apologize but Asmo deserves to be seen for more than heâs constantly portrayed as đ
Diavolo isnât really thrown off that much by it at first, but as time passes, he starts to understand the appeal of skirt-wearing MC.
PENCIL SKIRT LOVER đ¨đPENCIL SKIRT LOVERđ¨đ¨đ¨đđđđŻ
Barbatos has to remind him that itâs rude to stare, but he finds it almost entertaining how whipped they BOTH are for MC.
Like Asmo, he actually loves bringing him out to shop!
The only difference between the two experiences is that Diavolo has no fucking idea what heâs doing when he picks out clothes for him.
Which leads to some pretty funny/terrible clothing combinations.
No, Diavolo, MC will not be wearing a flannel top with a camouflage hi-low skirt. Put those plaid socks away.
Heâs confused and even a little sad when MC continues to turn down his ideas, but he figures that he should turn this into a learning opportunity.
So he lets MC grab whatever he wants, and patiently waits for him to finish up in the fitting rooms.
The store clerk is shitting her pants at the sight of the literal future ruler of Devildom hyping MC up with the energy of a puppy retriever.
Barbatos does an amazing job pretending like this doesnât affect him.
Heâs a classy man, he just internally loses it when he sees MC in any fancy skirt, really. From silky gold ruffles to a victorian-esc vibe, heâs obsessed.
So when Diavolo makes arrangements for an event/ball, Barbatos makes sure to, at the very least, offer to help MC get ready at the castle. He may not be the most fashion-centric but being able to spend time with MC in an extravagant get up is enough to make a demon butler interested.
Most of the time heâs disappointed because in between the seven brothers, heâd be lucky to be able to see MC at all because of how jealous they can all get.
I can imagine that even Diavolo doesnât get to hear what Barbatos has to say about MC and his ability to make him weak at the knees.
But all it takes is Diavolo prompting, âMCâs outfit tonight... It was a sight for sore eyes, correct?â
Then, Barbatos lets a compliment or two slip out.
I can also imagine MC wearing a slightly short snd flowy skirt, and some rather disgusting demons waiting for it to get picked up by the wind, only for Barbatos to already be there, discreetly holding the fabric down and shooting them an intensely calm smile
Barbatos will always be one step ahead of creeps.
đ..
sneaky boy is sneaky.. especially with the constant glances he gives MC.
Solomonâs favorite type of skirt to see on MC is DEFINITELY pleated. No other option.
Unlike Lucifer, if MC isnât wearing a skirt, he makes it clear that he wishes he wouldâve.
Itâs in a playful manner, though! Donât worry.
âNo skirt today? Bummer. Thatâs fine though, I canât expect myself to feel attracted any less.â
I imagine MC wearing a flowy skirt to some sort of event at the demon lordâs castle, and he uses his magic to make it temporarily sparkle or shine.
This mf flashy and wants EVERYONE to know that MC is dancing with HIM and no one else.
But if you ask him about it, what? Whatâre you talking about? Lights?? Emitting from your skirt??? While we were dancing ?Âż Crazy talk. I would never do such a thing.,.
As childish as it is, he loves to see the way it flows when MC twirls or turns.
Not in a weird way, either. Itâs just beautiful to him.
So, not to be cheesy (which he WITHOUT A DOUBT is.) but heâll occasionally just spin MC by his hand throughout the day, then catch/dip him by the waist.
#obey me#obey me swd#obey me headcanons#obey me scenarios#obey me lucifer#obey me barbatos#obey me mammon#obey me diavolo#obey me leviathan#obey me satan#obey me solomon#obey me asmo#male mc#male reader
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What Star Trek did right wasn't what the modern Leftists call "representation". They had characters. It happened to be that they were sometimes black, but that was never an issue to the people of the Federation. Racism was something you had to read about to understand.
youtube
Can you imagine this dialogue being allowed now? Hell, I am surprised YT even permits it to be said. People are black, white, both, neither. It's not an issue. They abandoned the obsession with race just as they abandoned the obsession with greed or nationalism.
youtube
Just listen to what Avery Brooks had to say about it. Having black people in power positions made sense in Star Trek. It was organic. Leftists misrepresent opposition to 'representation' as racism, but I never heard Trekkies object to black characters. They object to race swapping, they object to tokenisation, they object to the Mary Sues and the flat boring perfect caricatures of people that Leftists make "people of color". Sisko was a strong black character, but he failed.

He lost many times. He had to live with the grief of loss, the grief of failure, the agony of compromising everything he believed in because the alternative seemed to be worse, but he wasn't even sure he hadn't become corrupted for nothing.

Sisko could have been an egomaniac. If you look at his story, he's a supernatural figure, almost a messiah. He ends up in the Hall of beings worshipped as Gods. He is an important figure in Bajoran religion. But we never see that ego on the screen. He's confident, assertive, but willing to listen to others, and admires the strengths of others just as much. And one of the people he admires is Kirk, and you get the feeling he actually modelled himself a bit on him.

Time travel shenanigans meant he met his hero. Write that same scene now, and the black man would be telling the white man "you have to do better!" Star Trek died due to woke writing, and I know some people think there was a revival with Picard Season 3, but it was, imo, the last heartbeat of a dying man. Representation killed Star Trek, and I specifically don't mean black characters, I mean the shoddy political propaganda of Leftists and their obsession with racist hierarchies. And I miss Star Trek.

I miss the years when the race of the character was irrelevant to the story, when the issue was falling for a computer avatar of someone.
Or having to view a workmate's sex fantasies of your friend on the holodeck.

Deanna hated seeing it - but she did date Barclay a few times afterwards.

Star Trek was murdered by the antifans. Maybe something just as good will emerge one day, but I doubt I will live to see it.
Fans celebrate the casting of Nichelle Nichols as Uhura as a moment for actors of color, which they should be.
But I also wanted to spotlight the casting of these iconic secondary characters, seen in episodes of TOS.

Percy Rodriguez was cast as flag officer Commodore Stone, who was Kirk's superior in the chain of command. Stone is one of the officers that presides over Kirk's court martial.

Booker Bradshaw was the original Dr M'Benga, seen in two episodes of TOS. at the time, M'Benga was Starfleet's first and only medical specialist in Vulcan Physiology, having spent a year's residency on Vulcan.

One of the finest minds in computer technology in the 23rd century, and creator of the duotronic computer, Dr Richard Daystrom, was played by William Marshall, who's work in Shakespeare, and his roles as Paul Roebson and Frederick Douglass, added to the gravitas of his portrayal.
A flag officer, a specialist in Vulcan medicine, and one of the finest minds in a field of technology, played by actors of color, during the turbulent 1960s.
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Dialogue Prompts
aka College Prompt List pt. 2: second semester edition. it's been a chaotic year
send a number and pairing/dynamic and I'll see what I can do
âA cute person just complimented me and the sound I made was Not Human and I donât want to think about how gay I am.â
âHey did you know that itâs possible to bruise your ass? Because itâs possible to bruise your ass.â
âYes Iâm in college, yes I just built a pillow fort, please donât ask because I donât know either.â
âIâm going to get sent to counseling if I turn this in.â âEnglish paper?â âYeah.â
âYou donât know if that chicken has body dysmorphia!â
âDid you name your cat after Puff the Magic Dragon?â
âThis professor just heavily implied that he and the head of my department get drunk when they grade student projects and I honestly donât blame them.â
âHow did you do that?â âYou taught me how to do this two days ago.â âNot that, the voice thing.â âYou mean⌠vocal mimicry? Iâm ADHD man, I donât know.â
âIâm being stupid right now and I think the person Iâm talking to is going to be disappointed in me.â
(the follow up to above) âGOOD NEWS HEâS ALSO CHAOTIC AND IS ENCOURAGING ME.â
âWhy did they put cinnamon on zucchini? Thatâs a terrible idea, did they think it was a sweet squash?â
*shrieks* âWHOSE CAT IS THAT?â âOh there you are, Zazu.â â... you named your cat Zazu?â
âI just had to break the news to someone that their favorite singer got arrested so if youâll excuse me I need to go take a nap.â
âHow do we feel about a murder-themed wedding?â âIâm gonna regret asking this. Why?â
âWhat do you mean that was real? I thought that was a low quality meme!â
âHey Iâm back- What happened here?â âThey may have had an aneurysm because of how horribly this paper was written, please hold.â
âViolence⌠can be good for your mental health.â
âYour favorite Avenger is Hawkeye? Are you okay?â
âI donât care that heâs your boyfriend, he called Sam Wilson irrelevant and therefore he has to die, those are the rules.â
âAre we talking about super soldiers? No? Then I donât care.â
âIâm not gonna lie I think I almost died yesterday, but I got my homework in on time so-â
âItâs 10 a.m., I have not had a cup of coffee yet, and I just had to explain to two 20 year olds how to use Google Slides. This is the third time in six months. No Iâm not okay.â
âHey, do you remember that time I almost got stabbed?â âItâs 2 in the morning.â âAnd? Iâm writing an essay. Do you remember or not?â
*hears someone scream Mothman three times* âOh hell no, thatâs some horror movie shit Iâm not fucking with that today, no sir no thank you.â
*R2D2 shriek* â...Dear lord.â
âHave you even seen Avatar? Donât you know how important the moon is?â
âSororities are a cult.â âExplain.â âNo.â
âI donât like the way you just implied that I have a praise kink.â
âWhy wasnât I a business major again? No offense but I would rather punch a frat boy in the balls than write another email.â
âNon-Newtonian physics is really fucking hard.â âThis is an English class?â
âThis is painfully on-brand for me, but I almost just told a cop to go fuck himself while making a professional phone call and I canât imagine that would have ended well.â
âSwords are a short term solution. I need a baseball bat.â
âIâm not your personal tech support hotline, you know.â
âThe statute of limitations for spoiling that movie expired about 20 years ago.â
âI fucked up.â âWhat did you do?â â...I fucked up again because I donât want to admit this to you either.â
âIf you drive a Ford Focus, you legally cannot have The Audacityâ˘. Itâs too easy to crush your car babe, donât think I wonât.â
âYou sound like a turtle having sex.â
*cat noises* âShhhhhh, we have to be quiet.â
âI am dark and edgy and have no weaknesses and you have to help me move across the country because I just baby talked a dog in front of someone I know and my reputation is ruined.â
âYeah I flew through a hurricane once. It wasnât as awful as the time we almost crashed in Boston, but thatâs another story.â
âEvery 90s movie was made while the entire production crew was on crack.â
âDonât touch my food. I am holding a very large knife and I donât want to stab you.â
âHonestly I just saw a person carrying a whole television set through the park so the concept of normal is kind of lost on me.â
âWhy does every 20 year old I meet not know how to use a computer? Iâm going to break something.â
âLook in theory I would have shit done by now, but I also died a couple days ago so please excuse the fact that I decided to live.â
âGetting aggressively misgendered was unironically the funniest thing that happened to me today.â
âThat man gave off John Mulaney energy and Iâm living for it.â
âFirst of all, thatâs not my name, why did you put a D in it? Second, heâs not a girl and if you think he is, your opinion is irrelevant.â
âDonât take this the wrong way, but you look like the exact type of person who wouldnât mind getting their hands dirty for the sake of finding something interesting.â
âTurns out my breaking point was in fact trying to do my laundry at night. My bad.â
âIâm gonna get arrested because I keep giving cops attitude and I didnât even mean to do it this time.â
âIâm convinced this one city block is cursed but everyone I talk to about it just tells me another thing that went wrong, so I have more questions than answers and Iâm terrified of all the buildings there.â
âOkay, Iâm hearing what youâre saying, but everything youâre saying is hot garbage so Iâm gonna need you to shut the hell up.â
âAre you doing okay?â âIâm eating peanut butter from a spork. What do you think?â
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Hereâs my âAvatar Martin to Entity Jonâ bullet point essay since this meme got notes.
I wouldnât call this a âtheoryâ so much as âthe sickest, coolest, sexiest kind of unpredictable but very much grounded in the narrative ending that I can think of.â I do not think itâs going to happen, I simply think it rocks.
To reiterate: even though this is written like a very loose academic essay with references and motifs and everything, I am not expecting any of this.
Entity Jon:
Jane says this in reference to the Archivist: âI see now why the Hive hates you. You can see it and log it and note its every detail but you can never understand it. You rob it of its fear even though your weak words have no right to do so.â Which is something thatâs lived in my brain since I first heard it, and which is what led me to correctly assume that Jon, much like Gertrude, would eventually evolve into a threat to the fears -- to their avatars and manifestations and possibly even to the entities themselves.
Suffice to say, there is something a little odd about the Archivist to begin with, and then thereâs Jon, who has been marked by all known manifestations of fear, who knows their ins and outs more and more intimately with every episode, who is a record of fear, who literally eats fear to survive. Iâve said it before: Jon is fear.
Jon also has a lot of motifs and imagery surrounding him that deal with apotheosis and transformation and immortality, some of them as seen in this post, including rejecting death twice. (Literally, in the case of awakening from his coma, and symbolically, in the case of descending into a coffin for three days and emerging.) If this was Biblical, Iâd say a third time is just around the corner.
Jon is also the king of a ruined world, not Jonah, and the second part of that âI AMâ statement (see this: https://www.gotquestions.org/seven-I-AM-statements.html) claims âand I shall never die.â Like I said, if this was Biblical...
Themes of replacement and transformation run throughout the series, featured in things like the Not Them, the Distortion (how much of it is Michael? is Helen? is the Spiral?) (and the Distortion also serves a mirror for Jon), the concept of avatars in general, etc. Imagine my surprise and delight when I was introduced to a possible fear that deals with macrocosmic change and replacement, in the form of the Extinction.
My immediate guess after Season 4 was that only the entitiesâ fear of extinction would be relevant to the story, and that idea was directly referenced in Season 5: that they fear their own end, and that their end is inevitable. I genuinely didnât think a human version of that fear would show up, and it doesnât really throw a wrench into anything for me, because it was irrelevant to me as a human thing anyway. But now itâs more confusing whenever I talk about this, LOL. (But actually, making it ârealâ brings its themes to the forefront, and that episode did directly or obliquely reference almost everything else Iâve been interested in theorizing about: the idea that the entities arenât as distinct and clear-cut as people think, the idea of gods and divinity, the idea of existence beyond one world.)
Regardless, my main spicy thought has been Jon as the entitiesâ extinction and replacement, whatever form that takes. That there is not a more pyrrhic victory and horror ending (a genre rife with final girls, those who survive only to discover that they are still haunted by said horror, those who give in and transform and join the horror, etc.) than Jon becoming an entity himself, in order to destroy or seal the others away.
Iâve said this before, and Iâm going to say it again because I simply LOVE it: Jon eats fear, and god-eating is a concept as old as civilization. (See the TV Tropes page about it: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GodEating)
Avatar Martin:
Martin is first targeted by the Corruption, in what is also the first statement we get from a main character other than Jon. The Corruption is, interestingly, associated with love and belonging, such as with Janeâs iconic line: âI can be fully consumed by what loves me.â Martin is, of course, the Love Interest, and is a character who yearns for belonging, which leads him to be well-suited for the Lonely later.
The Lonely is the entity that Martin is most strongly associated with, aside from the Beholding. The Lonely also has a âlove beats fearâ theme.
The entities being framed by an avatarâs love for them is a theme that comes up from time to time, from Jane to Jude to Mike to Manuela and others, who all show different types of reverence and affection and love for their patrons. Martin asks this of Simon -- âDid you just look up at the sky one day and fall head-over-heels in love?â -- because thatâs how he thinks.
Martin has toed the line of becoming an avatar without committing, which creates an anticipation of wondering if/when he ever will, which is why itâs so fun to speculate about â[insert entity here] Martin.â But becoming an avatar is always about choice on some level (even if the degree varies), and as we see in the bullet point above, itâs also sometimes about devotion and love.
Who is Martin devoted to? Who has Martin always chosen?
Edit: Almost forgot that one interview where Jonny and Alex talk about how Martin interacting differently with fear was in his character concept from the beginning, and how the Lonely was later used to explore that. The Lonely, of which Martin toed the line for the sake of love, unlike other main characters who have wrestled with avatar-dom. Really puts it into perspective, that the prominent fears with which Martin is associated are the Corruption (love), the Lonely (love), and the Eye (synonymous with Jon).
There is ABSOLUTELY a set-up across the series whose payoff will either be crushingly painful or euphorically painful, and itâs that Martin is never there for Jon across Jonâs worst experiences, even though he wants to be. The worms, being framed for murder, the Unknowing, the apocalypse ritual, etc. Something always keeps them apart. So either the series ends with that same scenario playing out again, thus killing me instantly, or itâs a âfour times x happened and one time it didnâtâ kind of thing. And the latter is how I would write it.
So it follows that if Martin is there for Jon while Jonâs becoming an entity, well...
If you have the idea of love overcoming fear, and love being intertwined with fear, and if you have the idea of Jon as an entity, and Martin as his love interest, then Martin being the avatar to Jonâs entity is a natural conclusion. Not love as magically saving the day and making everything right, but love as the hope at the bottom of Pandoraâs Box. Maybe Jon is something else now, and maybe Martinâs finally crossed over that line into being an avatar, but neither of them are alone in that.
So, to put it another way:
#the magnus archives#jonmartin#god could you imagine tho#f: the magnus archives#r: i need him to be okay#*posts
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AVATARS OF THE LASTING ASPECTS
Letâs talk about Players and Aspects.
There are Two to Three Avatars of an Aspect, and then the Aspect itself. The two are the Player, and whatever Familiar / Sidekick / Fence / Companion they may have.
The Aspect itself is The Thing and the Whole of the Thing. For example-- you can picture Time without a Player. Its the measurement of events as they proceed; but its also the Begining and the End, the Pace-- Its Art is Music and its Artifact is Clockwork.
Think of all Aspects as like that.
The Avatar of the Aspect, or the Player, is capable of both introducing and controlling how the Aspect will function. If the player chooses bad choices, the Aspect will turn to those bad choices. The Aspect as the Thing and the Whole of the Thing is a neutral force of nature, only following its function, and its Avatar can dictate how that function is carried out. The Avatar and Aspect, however, are separate in this-- the aspect can still carry out its function without an avatar, just look at the Troll-Godless Earth.
The Playerâs Class often tells you how the Player will dish out their Aspect.
So.
Why is this important?
Consider what we see in Homestuck.
In the Troll Sessions, the Aspects are balanced. There is an avatar for each aspect, and they carry out as players can and will and wonât to do.
But its the Human sessions where all this gets interesting.
Because the Human sessions arenât balanced. They donât have an avatar for each Aspect, and worse still, you can see that a powerful entity-avatar has corrupted the human sessions and one troll session (LE)-- The humans sessions is where it becomes blatant how the Aspects function without someone to direct or with someone with malicious intent.
Letâs start with Beta Session.
Here, we are introduced to Avatars of Breath, Light, Space and Time. Spacetime, its a given we need, because for anything to happen you need Space to fill and Time to pace.
But Light and Breath?
Breath is motion, progression, plot. Everything about the Beta Session is fast moving and constant action, and in fact, is too fast. Everything has to be done quickly, established quicker, and it jumps around.
This is a session without any sort of grounding-- There are no Real Aspects to tie everything down, so everything is all over the place.
Light is Relevance, Meaning and Symbols; Eyes and Color, Consciousness (lights on and everybody is home). There is next to nothing dark about what weâre seeing-- intention is often made plainly clear, most of the characters are in their right minds, and the Beta Session is chocked full of Symbols and Meaning and the promise that things will be made Clear if we can only Look.
But the problem here-- is that its too much all at once. Like above, there are no Real Aspects to ground the Ideals we have. We are given all this information, but have no fucking idea how to process it or where to put it, or whatâs relevant to what.
Without Avatars of the Real Aspects (Void, Doom, Blood, Rage, Heart), there is no SENSE. And the Guardians that are there, are just that-- Guardians. They hold an Aspect, but donât do much with it.
The Aspects that are the Thing and the Whole of the Thing are there, but they merely Are, and do not bend to or over the whims of anyone.
--- Until the Trolls come in, do things start making Sense.
Letâs talk the Alpha Session.
So we have Avatars of Life, Void, Hope, and Heart.
Life is Health, Experience, the Breaking of Impossibility and Normalcy. The Players are Alive, and surprisingly Well, in spite of their awful circumstances. Roxy and Dirk shouldâve Died (Dirk fell in the middle of the Ocean as a Baby, how did he survive? Roxy fell in the midst of Carapacians, how was she not Eaten?). And yet, theyâre just ordinary teenagers.
But now, the Avatars are forced to live through horrible circumstances. There is no Time or Space-- No way to move forward, and no Space to grow. Just Surviving through all Impossibility-- And its fucking awful.
Hope is Coherence, Belief, Fantasy and Divinity. The fact that the players are experiencing something wholly fantastical-- a literal Alien Empress has come to take over Earth, there are Alien Monsters outside of Jakeâs door, their best friends are 500 years into the Future or are in another universe entirely, Apocraplyse and Metaphysical-- Thatâs a helluva a thing to have.
But now all they have is Hope. Hope that thereâs gonna be something better. Hope that something is gonna come down-- and ye gods, thatâs awful. Theyâre living 2020 without it ever being 2020.
And their hope player is a self-serving jackass.
Heart is the Inner Self and Character, the Ego and Persona, the Facet and Aesthetic, Love and Soul and Self. Each character is appropriately themeâd-- Jane is the Heiress to a Cooking Empire and literally acts like the Betty Crocker character we see on the logo (not the Batter Witch). Roxy is a Scientist, and has a Science Lab, and she loves cats and wizards. Jake is a movie enthusiast with a love of adventure, and literally has a Tomb Raider Island just outside his door. And Dirk is surrounded by Robots and Brobots, and quite literal (and distorted) reflections of himself.
And did we mention the Romance Problems.
So many Romance Problems.
Heart here is one of our First Real Aspects. And lot of Dirkâs stress comes from being one of the only Real Aspect Avatars, and trying to temper nearly everyone. Remember that music can be played to the beat of oneâs heart-- Heart here is trying to play Time, and uh-- well--
I mean, you tried but...
Void is Irrelevance, the meaningless Physical, the Dark and the Deep, the Incomprehensible. The world is real damn it, and suddenly it doesnât matter as much anymore. The Session is Void, void of life, void of hope, void of heart, until something comes along and fixes it.
One of the Real Aspects, and it more or less just sits there like a Generic Object. Literally only Roxy is thrilled about this session and for good reason-- sheâs the only one in her element. Void fills in what Space doesnât-- and it doesnât do that good of a job because NOTHING IS HERE.
... So how many of you called Act 6 meaningless? How many of you had quit ship come Act 6? Feel bored or disappointed? Void did its job, didnât it.
So.
What about the Aspects that Arenât here?
Easy, the Trolls fill in what Classes and Aspects are missing. Kanaya brings in Sylph, Karkat Blood, Gamzee Rage and Bard, Sollux Mage and Doom, Terezi Mind, and Vriska brings in Thief (Though it can be argued that Jack Noir originally brought in Thief and Rage).
As an Avatar of Rage, Gamzee is mean to bring Contrivance, Madness and Passion, the Self Evident Truth. The Problem here, is that he only brings in Madness. Take the Juju Episode. He isnât the Avatar of Rage itself, heâs the Avatar of the Lord of Timeâs Rage-- He comes in to do the work of LE, not the work of the real Rage Aspect.
A real avatar of Rage wouldâve shown our Alpha Players that they can change the system to favor them-- because this is bullshit.
As Avatar of Mind, Terezi brings in the Outer Self, the Choice, Cause and Effect, Superego and Karma. The Multiverse at your disposal. When she is down because of Gamzee, suddenly you lost all your Choices and there is no Karma (Pre-retcon Meteor).
Mind is also Memory and the Saved Game. If it wasnât for Terezi, John would not have been able to go back and fix things. For a Narrative, Saved Games arenât particularly Clean-- But SBURB is also a Game and a Story. Weâve seen what happens when the Player dies and lives are lost-- but imagine if you can just go back to a Saved Game and redo an action without having died in the first place.
Thatâs Mind.
As Avatar of Blood, Karkat provides not Character-- but You. Your Place, Yourself, Your Choice. Blood is the most Grounded and the Most Real of the Aspects. Everything might be Fake, but You, the Reader, are here and making it real. Blood falls under being Self-Driven, Promises and Friendship, Collective and Shared. Only as strong as your greatest weakness.
When he is down, youâve lost Everything. When the Avatar of Blood flees, all those bonds and promises go out the window (Murderstuck). When he dies, there is nobody left but despair (Bad End).
As Avatar of Doom, Sollux provides Destruction, The Limit and the Crossed Line, Inevitability and the Impossible-- Death at the End. No matter how bad that seems, Doom isnât a Bad Aspect. Its the Cleaner. Something has gone wrong, and thereâs no way to fix it, you can take solace in the fact that itâll be over soon. Doom is a very sorrowful aspect, with a thankless but needed job.
He tends to avoid the Humanâs (and yet looks up human culture) cos heâs not that interested (Doom avoids the Players). When heâs defeated by the Avatar of Hope, Murderstuck seemingly has no End (and yet, he isnât dead, just changed). When he leaves to go hang out with Friends once the Humans arrive, Doom has left them (Their journey is guaranteed to succeed).
Sollux has a frightful job, being an Avatar of Doom.
And what of the Muse and the Lord.
Muses are Inspirational. You have something that inspires you to create. Calliope is that inspiration. The Avatar of Space inspires its creation.
And the Lord? Well, heâs the Creator and the Director of the Piece. The Avatar of Time ensures Creation.
Worse though, is when Caliborn proves to be a malicious creator and director, and he literally takes Avatars as his own.
Gamzee, an Avatar of Rage, is now an Avatar of Calibornâs Rage. His Madness. Spread either via Murderous Intent or Juju.
Equius, an Avatar of Void, is now an Avatar of Calibornâs Void. His Physical Reality.
Dirk, an Avatar of Heart, fights so hard not to be Calibornâs Heart. And plenty of Dirkâs other selves Fail this Fight. Bro is merely a distilled version, and thatâs horrible enough. Hal fails outright, and his nature tends toward maliciousness toward all other players.
And Homestuck. The Alpha Timeline? -- Its Calibornâs Time.
And you Will Follow it. You have no other Choice.
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