#like im fundamentally Nothing and my only purpose is what other people give me

[lycankeyy]

Starting to think maybe I shoulddd. Have a mini break from socializing so much soon. Because my brain is doing the Scary Thing again

[hms-no-fun]

so, (SPOILERS FOR FIONNA AND CAKE but its relevant to the question but im gonna put a bunch of line breaks just in case lol)

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so fionna and cake ended with fionna basically being like, you know, youre RIGHT god, if magic came back my wish would simply be twisted and it would suck, there will be no rule breaking miracles! I will now work as a struggling minimum wage employee in seattle and Be Happy about it. i sure am glad the threat of losing everyone i know and love set me straight!! sorry to send u this really random thing the ending just felt like such a slap in the face and i wanted to ask someone who knows that exact Seattle Struggle. this is absolutely me appealing to the Writing Gods to back me up that the ending wasnt very good lmao but if i have a direct line to the craftsgoat i simply must use it for something stupid at least once

FULL SERIES SPOILERS FOR FIONNA & CAKE AFTER THE BREAK!!!

i really disagree with your read on the ending. it didn't feel like "just struggle with seattle minimum wage forever and be happy about it" at all to me! the whole instigating incident was that fionna wanted to transform reality into something that she personally thought would be better, without taking into account the fact that other people exist and have internal lives just as complex as hers. she comes back to her original world to find marshall and gary holding hands, explains to them the magical adventure she's been on and the fact that their world is about to transform into something unrecognizably magical, and they receive this with abject horror! fionna doesn't know whether simon becoming ice king again will erase marhsall & gary's burgeoning relationship, which makes her realize that in her quest to escape the boring, oppressive reality of working odd jobs to make ends meet, she's only ever focused that energy on how to make things better for her.

i really want to dig into this because it's a key theme of the show. there is a destructive selfishness innate to the "heroes" of this universe, who feel entitled to the joyous empowerment of being able to defeat anyone and everyone they see in open combat. cake has a whole musical number about this! simon's arc in the last two episodes was betty grabbing him and shaking him until he finally asked himself, how would my life have been different if i'd just once let the woman i loved steer the ship for a while? and then of course we see the lich in a reality where he succeeded in eradicating all life, only to find himself desiccated and without purpose, begging the god of chaos for an answer it cannot give. brian david gilbert's ice prince seems perfectly put together and successful, until the reveal that he's outsourced his madness to someone who didn't accept the terms of the crown's curse. this didn't solve the fundamental problem, it just inverted the roles of its expression by making princess bubblegum into the mad candy queen. nothing about the status quo has changed, simon has simply given himself a more dignified role in it.

this is a story about what happens when people in struggle behave as though they are the protagonist of reality. when fionna says "this is the world i want to fight for" she's not fighting for the right to get another shitty minimum wage job. i think you've really missed something by accepting that conclusion when cake the cat is right there saying that her magical self IS the version of herself she wants to live as. being a normal house cat for her was, arguably, a form of body dysmorphia, and the show lets her keep that magic at the end! the thing is, their world IS changed by the events of the show! the status quo is altered!

like, what do we actually see everyone DOING when the credits approach? we see this entire disconnected community banding together to rebuild the city together, and we see a huge crowd of protesters outside marshall's mom's place demanding that she lower rents. we see people connecting with other people, including three outcasts from other universes escaping to this more boring one for their own safety. i loved this ending honestly, because it felt to me like an attempted refutation of the very idea that you can magically transform reality into something better overnight. if fionna'd gotten her original wish and made her world into, like, candy world, then... what? let's say they play it as like, at last people are freed from the shackles of capitalism and everyone just gets to be weird funky critters going on adventures or whatever. what would that, as art, actually say? what would that mean to us in the real world? if we're going into this cartoon looking for some kind of revolutionary energy (which IS present in the text, much to its credit), what actionable or symbolically resonant message are we supposed to take from a story that resolves its problems with magic? at that point, it ceases to be relevant as anything more than pure fantasy, because it has abandoned any connection to the material reality WE are trapped in.

i don't want to magically transform the world overnight. this whole show goes out of its way to explore how trying to transform the world overnight, in a world where such a thing is possible, is a really fucking bad idea for a whole host of reasons. regardless, such things aren't possible in our world. so going into the finale, my worry was that they WOULD turn fionna's world into another candy world and just say, ah, the revolution is when you think the right things so hard that the material plane bends to your will.

that's neoliberal thinking. that's like the essence of the failed leftist project of the "end of history" era from the 90s onwards, when marxism was systematically rooted out of academic cultural analysis and replaced with the delusion that if you can just get people thinking the right things, you can affect change in the world. well here we are, it's 2023 and all that magical thinking has got us is a world on fire and a civilization of human beings so thoroughly disempowered that they would literally rather pretend to be a tortured anime protagonist than exist in this boring, shitty, violent reality. you can't think your way out of oppression. raising labor consciousness is, at best, step one. you want to know why unions are winning big right now when they've been completely useless in this country for decades? it's because they've stopped giving a shit about optics they can't control and remembered that the boss's value does not exist without labor. you do not necessarily need marxism for this, marxism is simply the most accurate articulation of the fact that workers who make the things a capitalist sells can kneecap the capitalist by refusing to make the things they want to sell. change doesn't happen with the publishing of a book or whatever, it happens when enough people in real life press their material demands hard enough that someone in charge is left no choice but to listen.

so for me, fionna & cake ending the way it did was a huge relief, because it wasn't espousing magical thinking. the solution to fionna's ennui and economic anxiety was not to just get another job and be happy to live in the world as it was-- it was to create a sense of shared community and struggle, uniting the not-seattleites in their survival of a near-apocalypse and using it as a jumping off point for fundamentally transforming the state of that world as it exists. fionna had to realize that her problems are everyone's problems, and that making her life personally better at the expense of everyone else's agency is just an act of kicking the can of responsibility down the road indefinitely. no one who gets their wish in this show is happy to have gotten it, or avoids punishing others who didn't ask to be involved.

the "canonization" of fionna & cake felt like a reaction to the idea that we in our world are permanently isolated from the fictional realities we create where change seems to come so easy, and the powerlessness that can engender. instead this show is saying, okay, let's say we are in continuity with these fantastical realities. what do we actually DO with that? how do we make this world more fun, more interesting, more fulfilling for everyone to live in? the answer is the same as it's always been, and no other answer would ever feel satisfying: you do it by organizing the workers against the current arrangement of the state with the explicit goal of transforming it for the better.

what does simon do at the end when he gives fionna her world to her? he says that no one person should have that responsibility, that it's been in one person's hands for too long. so he gives it to her in the form of a dandelion, whose blown seeds merge with and become part of everyone trying to survive the scarab's attack. the idea here is that while no single person ever possesses the power to transform the world on their own, the world itself belongs to all of us, and it is within our power to transform it together. those who hoard power want us to believe that this is not the case precisely because the basis of their power is fraudulent and maintained through the violence of the state.

as someone who does live in seattle for better and worse, as much as i do wish i could make literally anything better right the fuck now by whatever means necessary... the fact is i can't. and it does no one any good to labor under the assumption that i or any other individual has that kind of absolute transformative power. the solutions are all right there, and they are simple, materialist propositions whose only difficulty lies in how successfully we've been propagandized to think that the individual is God, or at least speaks on His behalf. there's no thinking our way out of this pickle, and no one's gonna do the hard work for us.

as to the question of how you actually get people in real life to get together and do all that hard work... well, personally i think it's unfair to ask a 10 episode cartoon show to give you any kind of actionable advice on that front. i might even go so far as to say that such an expectation is an expression of the very same magical thinking which the show tries to push back against! in any case i liked it quite a lot and i hope this rambling answer encourages you to revisit the show and reconsider some of your takeaways

[tonydaddingham]

Crowley refusing to build meaningful bonds with humans in the show while Aziraphale seems to have a lot of them just reminds me of how there's only one human I can remember Crowley explicitly having been close to? In both the book and the show he owns the original sketch of the Mona Lisa and it's signed with a handwritten note from Leonardo da Vinci referring to Crowley as his "dear friend Antonio". And Crowley helped with his design for the flying machine and told him about helicopters. Meanwhile fandom jokingly has a list going around of all the historical figures Aziraphale has been "close" with. Makes me think that S3 might explore Crowley's connection to humans in more depth, since we haven't really seen it like we have with Aziraphale, and he now insists on NOT getting to know them.

hi anon, sorry im only getting your ask now!!!✨ this has definitely made me ponder this element of crowley a little bit closer, because yeah - to my mind, you're absolutely right.

aziraphale is shown as having issues with sudden, unplanned, out-of-field change that throws him for a loop. crowley is more fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants, able to deal with making quick decisions and makes even quicker actions. and this is largely true, if you go by certain events given to us in the narrative (eg. aziraphale's reaction to the kiss, vs crowley coming up with the plan to go up to heaven).

however, i think it goes a little deeper, and is actually sometimes the other way around when it comes to things ending. aziraphale understands that some things are finite, that they have their time, and has made his peace with it. crowley however needs stability and consistency because seismic shift is scary, and disruption to the status quo means that what he has might be taken from him.

crowley didn't appear to give any thought what happened to dalrymple, but makes the offhand comment he does about not getting close to humans, when learning that dalrymple committed suicide. crowley reacted arguably way more emotionally to armageddon than aziraphale did, and was visibly panicking when confessing his feelings to aziraphale. the angel-who-crowley-was similarly was dismayed at - what felt to him ("that's nothing!") - the brief time in which his creations would be destroyed. and we can surmise pretty reliably his initial reaction to his sentence, and the immediate emotional aftermath, of when he fell. crowley cannot handle change, because each time a fundamental change has been threatened, he has lost something he holds close to his heart.

the double-edged sword in that is that crowley is - as you remarked - drawn to a handful (if even that many) of people that provide that stability and consistency. but he is lonely. going by the da vinci example, he forms relationships with humans because it feeds what i imagine is the hole left in him from the fall. da vinci was alive a fair while before - as i perceive it - he formed any truly deep connection with aziraphale (for me, 1601). is da vinci therefore an instance where crowley, in his loneliness, sought out a friendship (?) with someone who pondered the universe, who was fascinated and captivated by the stars, as much as crowley did and was?

but everything has its end; da vinci certainly did. so is it around this time that crowley realises that whilst he keeps going, is condemned to eternity, everything else withers and dies, and leaves him as lonely as he was before? is this when he looks to the only being that he knows also has that longevity, a being he has history with and actually may provide true constancy? a being that, for all intents and purposes, never seems to change?

that may well be the case, and to give his reach to aziraphale legitimacy, he comes up with the arrangement. continues through the next few centuries, but didn't bargain for actually falling in a completely different way? and all of it to be swept away as soon as he tries to reach out for the true consistency, an equilibrium, that would possibly allow him to heal that ache in his chest, the loneliness that he's jealously guarded because there was never anything or anyone else who could ever fill it? all swept away with a comment that meant something completely different, but to crowley only put him back exactly where he started?

"nothing lasts forever."

thank you for the unexpected meta prompt, anon!!!✨💕

[sm1l3b0t]

@alex-of-1000-dumbasseries ok well svsss can be somewhat. controversial. so i understand the curiosity. i dislike svsss for multiple reasons the main one being the romance is reaaaaallll fucking weird. when they first meet the protag (shen qingqiu) is in his 20s and the love interest (luo binghe) is arouunnddd 14 if im remembering correctly and also in the protags care. its a teacher/disciple dynamic where the love interest is literally entirely at the protag's mercy and relies on him pretty heavily. and this isn't for like two weeks this lasts a while. which is enough to turn me off of any novel regardless of the fact that nothing overtly romantic or sexual in nature happens until they're both adults for what i feel is very obvious reasons.

that being said i've seen people that that unequal power dynamic is done on purpose and we're meant to question it? specifically because apparently by the end of the novel it's been reversed with luo binghe having more power of shin qingqiu by virtue of being a warlord who could easily kill him. so apparently it's a purposeful aspect of svsss's status as a shitty erotica parody right it's commentary. we're meant to think about whether power dynamics like teacher/disciple or warlord/subject can be reversed, what does it mean to have power over someone like that, how do relationships change and grow over time, etc. frankly i think that is giving this book far too much credit

now keep in mind i only read 30 chapters or so before dropping it but frankly given the way the book seemed to categorize luo binghe's attachment to shen qingqiu as more comedic than anything else i am skeptical that the topic of an incredibly unequal romance would be handled with the proper amount of respect and care. i've read books that explored power dynamics like these before and enjoyed them because they were handled well and explored properly. i don't think svsss would be one of those books not just because from the snippets i've seen its primarily an adventure comedy but also because its bad.

its straight up not enjoyable to read even if you put aside the questionable romance. the action is dull, the dialogue makes me roll my eyes, the jokes aren't funny and the plot doesn't pull me in. the writing itself does not seem of high quality to me which makes sense because apparently mxtx was still a teenager when she wrote it. and i really like her other works i think they're fucking incredible stories and i think you can see some of the beginnings of the stuff i liked about those in svsss but absolutely none of it has come to fruition yet. it reads, to me, like a teenager's novel. it's immature and uninteresting, both in the writing itself and the things it explores.

it's status as a parody of shitty erotica webnovels was what initially drew me in because i thought that sounded interesting. but i think there are parodies out there that explore both svsss's comedic and serious aspects better. i think even if the weird fucking romance isn't enough to turn you off (which i would fundamentally disagree with you on i think its extremely unpleasant) there are just straight up better novels to read. i honestly wouldn't even really think about it if it weren't so popular in orv spaces.

sigh. but obviously a lot of people disagree with me on that one and it is still a very popular webnovel. so i guess its up to you. but that's why i get annoyed whenever i see it on my dash.

do NOT. put svsss on my dash.

[shkspr]

hi. on your post where you may or may not have ended on 'moffat is either your angel or your devil' did you have maybe an elaboration on that somewhere that i could possibly hear about. i'm very much a capaldi era stan and i've never tried to defend the matt smith era even though it had delightful moments sometimes so i wonder where that puts me. i'd love to hear your perspective on moffat as a person with your political perspective. -nicole

hi ok sorry i took so long to respond to this but i dont think you know how LOADED this question is for me but i am so happy to elaborate on that for you. first a few grains of salt to flavor your understanding of the whole situation: a. im unfairly biased against moffat bc im a davies stan and a tennant stan; b. i still very much enjoy and appreciate moffat era who for many reasons; and c. i hate moffat on a personal level far more than i could ever hate his work.

the thing is that its all always gonna be a bit mixed up bc i have to say a bunch of seemingly contradictory things in a row. for instance, a few moffat episodes are some of my absolute favorites of the rtd era, AND the show went way downhill when moffat took over, AND the really good episodes he wrote during the rtd era contained the seeds of his destruction.

like i made that post about the empty child/the doctor dances and it holds true for blink and thats about it bc the girl in the fireplace and silence in the library/forest of the dead are good but not nearly on the same level, and despite the fact that i like them at least nominally, they are also great examples of everything i hate about moffat and how he approached dw as a whole.

basically. doctor who is about people. there are many things about moffats tenure as showrunner that i think are a step up from rtd era who! actual gay people, for one! but i think that can likely be attributed mostly to an evolving Society as opposed to something inherent to him and his work, seeing as rtd is literally gay, and the existence of queer characters in moffats work doesnt mean the existence of good queer characters (ill give him bill but thats it!)

i have a few Primary Grievances with moffat and how he ran dw. all of them are things that got better with capaldi, but didnt go away. they are as follows:

moffat projects his own god complex onto the doctor

rtd era who had a doctor with a god complex. you cant ever be the doctor and not have a god complex. the problem with moffats era specifically is that the god complex was constant and unrepentant and was seen as a fundamental personality trait of the doctor rather than a demon he has to fight. he has the Momence where you feel bad for him, the Momence where he shows his humility or whatever and youre reminded that he doesnt want to be the lonely god, but those are just. moments. in a story where the doctor thinks hes the main character. rtd era doctor was aware that he wasnt the main character. he had to be an authority sometimes and he had to be the loner and he had to be sad about it, but he ultimately understood that he was expendable in a narrative sense.

this is how you get lines like “were the thin fat gay married anglican marines, why would we need names as well?” from the same show that gave you the gut punch moment at the end of midnight when they realize that nobody asked the hostess for her name. and on the one hand, thats a small sticking point, but on the other hand, its just one small example of the simple disregard that moffat has for humanity.

incidentally, this is a huge part of why sherlock sucked so bad: moffats main characters are special bc theyre so much bigger and better than all the normal people, and thats his downfall as a showrunner. he thinks that his audience wants fucking sheldon cooper when what they want is people.

like, ok. think of how many fantastic rtd era eps are based in the scenario “what if the doctor wasnt there? what if he was just out of commission for a bit?” and how those eps are the heart of the show!! bc theyre about people being people!! the thing is that all of the rtd era companions would have died for the doctor but he understood and the story understood that it wasnt about him.

this is like. nine sending rose home to save her life and sacrifice his own vs clara literally metaphysically entwining her existence w the doctor. ten also sending rose with her family to save her life vs river being raised from infancy to be obsessed w the doctor and then falling in love w him. martha leaving bc she values herself enough to make that decision vs amy being treated like a piece of meat.

and this is simultaneously a great callback to when i said that moffats episodes during the rtd era sometimes had the same problems as his show running (bc girl in the fireplace reeks of this), and a great segue into the next grievance.

moffat hates women

he hates women so fucking much. g-d, does steven moffat ever hate women. holy shit, he hates women. especially normal human women who prioritize their normal human lives on an equal or higher level than the doctor. moffat hated rose bc she wasnt special by his standards. the empty child/the doctor dances is the nicest he ever treated her, and she really didnt do much in those eps beyond a fuck ton of flirting.

girl in the fireplace is another shining example of this. youve got rose (who once again has another man to keep her busy, bc moffat doesnt think shes good enough for the doctor) sidelined for no reason only to be saved by the doctor at the last second or whatever. and then youve got reinette, who is pretty and powerful and special!

its just. moffat thinks that the doctor is as shallow and selfish as he is. thats why he thinks the doctor would stay in one place with reinette and not with rose. bc moffat is shallow and sees himself in the doctor and doesnt think he should have to settle for someone boring and normal.

not to mention rose met the doctor as an adult and chose to stay with him whereas reinette is. hm. introduced to the doctor as a child and grows up obsessed with him.

does that sound familiar? it should! bc it is also true of amy and river. and all of them are treated as viable romantic pairings. bc the only women who deserve the doctor are the ones whose entire existence revolves around him. which includes clara as well.

genuinely i think that at least on some level, not even necessarily consciously, that bill was a lesbian in part bc capaldi was too old to appeal to mainstream shippers. like twelve/clara is still a thing but not as universally appealing as eleven/clara but i am just spitballing. but i think they weighed the pros and cons of appealing to the woke crowd over the het shippers and found that gay companion was more profitable. anyway the point is to segue into the next point, which is that moffat hates permanent consequences.

moffat hates permanent consequences

steven moffat does not know how to kill a character. honestly it feels like hes doing it on purpose after a certain point, like he knows he has this habit and hes trying to riff on it to meme his own shit, but it doesnt work. it isnt funny and it isnt harmless, its bad writing.

the end of the doctor dances is so poignant and so meaningful and so fucking good bc its just this once! everybody lives, just this once! and then he does p much the same thing in forest of the dead - this one i could forgive, bc i do think that preserving those peoples consciousnesses did something for the doctor as a character, it wasnt completely meaningless. but everything after that kinda was.

rory died so many times its like. get a hobby lol. amy died at least once iirc but it was all a dream or something. clara died and was erased from the doctors memory. river was in prison and also died. bill? died. all of them sugarcoated or undone or ignored by the narrative to the point of having effectively no impact on the story. the point of a major character death is that its supposed to have a point. and you could argue that a piece of art could be making a point with a pointless death, ie. to put perspective on it and remind you that bad shit just happens, but with moffat the underlying message is always “i can do whatever i want, nothing is permanent or has lasting impact ever.”

basically, with moffat, tragedy exists to be undone. and this was a really brilliant, really wonderful thing in the doctor dances specifically bc it was the doctor clearly having seen his fair share of tragedy that couldnt be helped, now looking on his One Win with pride and delight bc he doesnt get wins like this! and then moffat proceeded to give him the same win over and over and over and over. nobody is ever dead. nobody is ever unable to be saved. and if they are, really truly dead and/or gone, then thats okay bc moffat has decided that [insert mitigating factor here]*

*the mitigating factor is usually some sort of computerized database of souls.

i can hear the moffat stans falling over themselves to remind me that amy and rory definitely died, and they did - after a long and happy life together, they died of old age. i dont consider that a character death any more than any other character choosing to permanently leave the tardis.

and its not just character deaths either, its like, everything. the destruction of gallifrey? never mind lol! character development? scrapped! the same episode four times? lets give it a fifth try and hope nobody notices. bc he doesnt know how to not make the doctor either an omnipotent savior or a self-pitying failure.

it is in nature of doctor who, i believe, for the doctor to win most of the time. like, it wouldnt be a very good show if he didnt win most of the time. but it also wouldnt be a very good show if he won all of the time. my point is that moffats doctor wins too often, and when he doesnt win, it feels empty and hollow rather than genuinely humbling, and you know hes not gonna grow from it pretty much at all.

so like. again, i like all of doctor who i enjoy all of it very much. i just think that steven moffat is a bad show runner and a decent writer at times. and it is frustrating. and im not here to convince or convert anyone im just living my truth. thank you for listening.

[heavenaintaniceplace]

so i found my mother’s copy of the jw (new world translation) bible and i decided to yoink that shit for disposal but not before i realized there is a lot of lines highlighted in the book from when she was being manipulated by the jw lady that convinced her to do “bible study” for years. and what do you know if the lines the lady had my mother highlight weren’t the same lines that jws use to justify their cult beliefs! all the lines are cherry picked, no actual study, just the lady manipulating and priming her to accept their beliefs by presenting so called “biblical proof.” so here is some of the things that stand out before i finally rip this thing to shreds and through it away.

literally the whole book replaces every instance of the tetagrammaton with “jehovah” because they want people to believe its been “removed from the bible thousands of times because they don’t want you to know the true name of god”. the whole thing is translated with an agenda to make them look right and everyone else wrong and to make people believe they have some secret hidden knowledge (they don’t they’re liars). putting this under a read more because its very long.

heavy TW for everything related ro religious trauma, the jehovah’s witnesses, bible passages and christianity. incredibly long post. i plan on burning the jehovah’s witness copy of the bible, no joke.

the imago dei part of genesis to try and convince her that humans were super special to god

genesis chapter 3, the serpent convincing eve to eat the fruit of knowledge so that she would accept their version of the original sin doctrine and that women are cursed

chapter where cain kills abel to convince her that this was the first murder in human history (obviously incorrect)

highlighted the part where god kills everything on earth with a flood to groom her into expecting god to do it again later and seen as fair and just and part where god “gives” noah every living creature (because fuck other organisms apparently)

part of leviticus where (in their version) theyre like “no soul must eat blood” (what the fuck) to justify not allowing life saving blood transfusions

deuteronomy part about “jehovah being one” to justify being non trinitarian (they don’t believe jesus is god or that the holy spirit is god, this is meant to lure people who are already christians away from their denoms and into theirs)

“thou shall not kill” is highlighted for some reason and i don’t know why

highlighted job 1:12 to emphasize that they believe satan is in control of the world because god allows it and job 26:7 that has a note saying “the earth hangs there” when talking about sheol to convince her of where earth is relative to “heaven” and using a bunch of “face of the waters” creationist language to make it vague as possible. job 27:5 to make her believe that “no one is righteous” and that saying so is sinful

part in psalms that assures that “wicked people will be no more if you just wait a little while longer” (this is the apocalypse imminent narrative they use to groom people with fear of dying or leaving but also to get them warmed up to the idea of mass death). “the righteous will inherit the earth and live forever” narrative so they believe that jws will live on earth forever after being resurrected while everyone else (whos not a jw) is killed by god

psalms 91 to drive home the fact that these people think theyre invincible in every meaning of the word, to natural disasters and disease etc

proverbs 6 part about “false witnesses”. jws believe that three jehovah’s witnesses have to be present to verify that a crime (like domestic or sexual abuse) actually happened or the governing body and elders don’t care. literally. the “false witness” narrative is used against survivors and people they want to silence in their organization and emphasizes how much jehovah hates “false witnesses” aka people brave enough to talk and victims

proverbs 12:18 about “wise and unwise tongues”, basically anyone that speaks out against the jws are “unwise” and harmful

proverbs 22 about raising children (”train up a child”, if you don’t know it already this is a child abuser dog whistle) that implies that indoctrination will last until adulthood if done right. this is especially bad because this copy is from the early 2000s when i was in kindergarten. this woman had been lurking on us since i was an infant.

proverbs 27 about how neighbors near is better than brothers far away. the implication here is that fundamentally family who aren’t jws don’t matter

ecclesiates 5. i genuinely think its warning people to not ask too much of god or risk his anger, thats the vibe im getting here because the wording is confusing as fuck

isiah 40:22 trying to hammer in the notion that god is greater than anything especially “worldly” governments (except the governing body ofc /s). isiah 43:10 the “you are my witnesses” to justify the name “jehovah’s witnesses” and shoehorn the idea in

daniel 2:40, the idea of an indescribable kingdom, the whole kingdoms in the “last days” conspiracy they use to convince people the “last days” are coming

matthew 4:8 where jesus is persuaded by satan by offering every kingdom on earth. the point in text is “don’t worship anyone except god” but the point of the jws is that nothing on earth actually matters

matthew 6:9 (nice), the our father, meant to make the reader to ask god to hasten the kingdom of god or as we ex-jws know hasten the apocalypse and the death of people they dont like

matthew 16:24, meant to convince people to leave everything behind and join the jws, “disown yourself” aka “die to yourself” toxic bullshit repackaged

matthew 19:9, to convince people that divorce even in instances of domestic abuse is wrong because the governing body won’t allow it and loves to control women

matthew 24:4-14, “anyone who doesnt speak for the jws is a false prophet” and warms people up to the notion that war is necessary; also that evidence of war is a sign of the “last days” and that this is supposed to be good news. ongoing war and the hope for global genocide is “good news” to them.

matthew 24:21. this one is meant to make people feel the apocalypse could happen at any time and to be afraid of it, a great war is coming and only the “chosen ones” (jehovah’s witnesses) will survive when everyone else dies. there’s a paper bookmark on this page. makes me wonder.

mark 8:34. the “die to yourself” bullshit, the idea that the cross was a “torture stake” because jws believe that wearing crosses is idolatry and they want other people to believe their quirky beliefs so they accept heavier things

matthew 10:28, “anyone who follows jehovah and jesus will literally live forever!” but also that “no one is prepared to leave their family for jesus and thats shameful because you should want to sacrifice your entire family!”

mark 11:24 “anything you pray for earnestly you get”. this is spiritual bypassing btw. and :25 “ask for forgiveness and be automatically forgiven no matter what you did” is also fucked

matthew 15-23: jesus (almost) gets wasted while being crucified etc, not sure why this one is highlighted unless im missing some jw bullshit here

luke 20:27. don’t understand this one but they’re threatening “heavier judgement” on people

john 5:28, promising resurrection through jesus after people die but only for the Good tm people (the jws)

john 6:15. how jesus is about to be arrested but goes to a mountain. dunno why this on is underlined

john 11:24. bringing home the same “jesus will save you from dying if youre a jw” bullshit. john 14:6 “jesus is the ONLY way ever! there can’t be anything else except jesus” indoctrination tailored to make you co-dependent. john 17:3, hook line and sinker of promising resurrection and “eternal life” again

john 17:15. here is the “we aren’t of the World tm” shit meant to make you feel outcast from everyone else who isnt a jw, setting up “the world” (everyone else) as other

acts 15:25. “follow the jw rules because the holy spirit you to”

romans 10:10, spread jw beliefs and witness as much as possible. romans 12:9 “hate everything jehovah hates so you’re not a hypocrite” basically means hate other people the jws don’t approve of

corinthians 6:9 (nice but not so nice this time) “anyone we don’t like won’t inherit the earth” translation: anyone we don’t like won’t survive the apocalypse thats definitely happening soon so always be afraid. “homosexuals” are changed to “men kept for unnatural purposes for this one.” still homophobic.

corinthians 7:6, the idea that everyone has a gift that needs to be exploited and used by the jws

corinthians 15:33. “don’t participate in any activities with any outsiders because it will lead you away from jehovah!! fun is ‘drunkenness’, you’ll loose your resurrection if you do!! non jw people are bad influences!!”

2 corinthians 7:1. your body and flesh is defiled, you need to be cleansed in order to be good

galatians 5:20. “having human emotions is sinful! struggling is sinful! being angry is sinful! having a bad day is sinful!” basically that being human is inherently wrong or something

ephesians  3:14. tries to make people believe everything is owed to god only and that obedience is good so they fall for cult power structures later. 4:28 here is just the top of the page being labeled “new personality” and thats all we need to know about indoctrination and cult personality vs actual personality. also “let not the sun set with you in a provoked state” being used against people still angry about being wronged and hurt by others and its been used against me a lot of times

ephesians 6:4. make sure the jw fathers provide the most discipline to children, literally uses the phrase “mental regulating of jehovah”. it couldn’t be more cult like at this point.

timothy 5:8 makes people believe that men alone are expected to provide and if they don’t they’re worse than “those without faith”. no pressure though!

timothy 6:19. wants people to neglect everything actually happening in favor of the “real life” (”eternal life”) instead and to constantly prepare for that instead of actually living life. dedicate your whole life to jw activities

titus 2. women need to be subjects to their husbands but also homemakers, live to glorify their husband, chaste and definitely not mentally ill or showing any symptoms. what the fuck is titus i never heard of this shit until today.

hebrews 1:7-14, trying to convince people that angels live to serve god but also has some superseccsionist/replacement theology (antisemitism) vibes going on

james 2:23, wants people to believe that god “putting people to the test” is actually a way to become “jehovah’s friend” and that being put to the test (read: suffering) is actually a good thing because it primes them to accept suffering as their fault later on. james 4:7 “everything evil will vanish if you rebuke it long enough!!”

peter 3:9 the “god’s timing is always right” gospel bs and encourages people not to do things themselves but to wait and also that jehovah will be on time when its time to start another global genocide. how encouraging! peter 3:13, the same “end of world near” scare tactic, “new heavens new earth” promise to eradicate everyone the jws dont like as that is jehvoah’s “promise” to the witnesses

1 john 3:8, their version of the original sin doctrine, the devil is the source of all evil scare tactic etc

short detour: every instance of “servant” is replaced with “slave” in this version. it makes me feel ill.

revelations 7:16, wants people to believe that god will take away all their pain and that they won’t need food or water to survive anymore (bullshit). also the jehovah’s witness 144,000 chosen people bullshit is here too but not highlighted

revelations 12:7-13, a depiction fo michael drop kicking satan and the implication that satan has always been in charge and not god because they want people to believe that. also that the devil will fall to earth and try to eat jws

revalations 14-4: virgins get dibs on heaven and god i guess. i dont know what the fuck is going on. 14:6 an angel yelling fear god from above, probably where the jws get most of their apocalyptic imagery from that they use to scare children into believing they could die at any minute

so now that we finally got to the end of that mess, their version of revalations ends with jesus saying “yes, i am coming quickly” and “may the undeserved kindness of jesus christ be with the holy ones.”

joking aside, everything highlighted in this copy of this book has been used against me and my mother for years and is a huge part of the reason i have religious trauma now. everything she was told or encouraged to highlight aided jehovah’s witness indoctrination and propaganda, her own indoctrination and eventually mine which apparently started even earlier than i thought.

[hisoknen]

how would you describe existentialism in your perspective? (Go as brief or deep as u want)

w: religion talks, spirituality and existentialism

whew okok r u ready kids!!! EYEYEYE CAPTIN,, i am not necessarily an existentialist but i think that a lot of the practices and ideas are very profound, interesting and applicable to day to day life without needing to agree with everything involved! also,, a lot of people confuse it with nihilism (the belief that nothing matters) and it gets misunderstood and interpreted because of that.

for me with a background of being raised catholic (obviously this isn't everyones experience i wanna say that quick cause mine was deff a bad time) and forced into a lot of the practices, i always struggled with the idea of religion in my life. thought like my purpose was to serve this unknowing entity because my mom said i'd suffer if i didn't?? thought i had to act in ways that i was told were morally sound because i would be punished otherwise, not just to be like... a decent person if that makes sense? 

there was always something outside of myself that would determine my impact on the world and the purpose i could have in my own life, so learning about existentialism was a breath of fresh air even if to just compare and contrast things and my take away from it in a really condensed way would be:

we are the only ones who give our lives intrinsic purpose and value. when we die we die. we can no longer make an impact on the world. no longer create meaning for our lives. we choose what our values are, they are not given to us by a “god” or by anything outside of ourselves. 

we are fully responsible for the things we do. with awareness, responsibility of self and free will we can essentially create our own meaning and purpose in life. our ability to utilize those things are ultimately what gives our lives fundamental value to an extent? we are autonomous humannnns responsible agents in our lives!

we do not innately possess any inherent values or morals. we're not programed and born with them it is up to us individually to give life meaning, and value is nothing but the meaning we choose and a lot of the time yeah society like impedes on that individualism and can also guide but that's a whole other thing. we exist and create our own meaning through our existence.  

i could go on for longer but like im also tired and probably just reworded the same thing like 5 times but lets go on a date and i’ll dust off old essays anon c:

[in-the-whisper]

I'm sorry if this is a common/stupid ask but I fundamentally don't understand religion and I couldn't imagine believing so strongly in anything, but it seems very nice(?) and possibly even optimistic to have a constant like that in your life. so in the sense I think I have an idea of what religion is, what makes you decide(?) to follow it or believe in it? genuine apologies if this comes across as patronizing or condescending, it's not my intention and sometimes I'm just bad with words ':]

dude you are always welcome here and i will never assume that you are being mean you are very sweet <3 i am very happy to talk to you!

ok so i come from a super different background so it’s hard for me to even imagine like not knowing a ton of people who are religious so i will try to explain and then if it doesn’t make sense feel free to poke me and i will try again. also it makes me happy so dont be scared i will say oh! someone asked me about God! yay! and then i will write a silly tumblr post while making this face -> c: 

okay so one of your confusions seems to be why i would believe in something so strongly. in a way everyone believes things strongly, some even more than me (i mean look at politics and thanksgiving dinner). i think the reason that my relationship with God in particular is something i feel strongly about is because i derived my faith from my natural understanding of the value of my friends and from my understanding of morality.

i love my friends very much (most people do) and the idea of them getting hurt or mistreated makes me very angry (i think people would agree). and you could make the argument that the reason that i care so deeply about people and justice is because of all the stuff ive been through but i did think this before anything bad happened to me really.

there is a difference between atheist (philosophical) morality and Christian morality. for someone who doesn’t believe in God, there isn’t anybody who is more important than humanity who can tell them what to do. if one person does something, and i don’t like it, all i can say is, “i don’t like that,” and not “you shouldn’t do that.” because im not in charge of them. i’m just another person, who am i to go around establishing moral laws for other people?

but what that /also/ means is that there isn’t any “grounding” or like /reason/ for morality or the value of life other than personal preference. this Really bothered me about my philosophy class, every atheist philosopher did this. they all wanted to say that you could make morality for yourself (looking at you nietzsche). But then what happens? What about when someone is killed? or raped? I want to be able to say, “Rape is horrible.” and not just “Rape is horrible in my opinion.” Anything that doesn’t allow for these like absolute, unquestionable, overarching standards of how people /should/ or /shouldn’t/ live just doesn’t add up imo.

Atheist professor of law at Yale, Dr. Arthur Leff, wrote an article on this exact topic called “Unspeakable ethics Unnatural Law.” The entire thing is amazing and I recommend it, but here is the conclusion:

All I can say is this: it looks as if we are all we have. Given what we know about ourselves and each other, this is an extraordinarily unappetizing prospect; looking around the world, it appears that if all men are brothers, the ruling model is Cain and Abel. Neither reason, nor love, nor even terror, seems to have worked to make us "good," and worse than that, there is no reason why anything should. Only if ethics were something unspeakable by us, could law be unnatural, and therefore unchallengeable. As things now stand, everything is up for grabs. 

Nevertheless:  Napalming babies is bad.  Starving the poor is wicked.  Buying and selling each other is depraved.  Those who stood up to and died resisting Hitler, Stalin, Amin, and Pol Pot-and General Custer too-have earned salvation.  Those who acquiesced deserve to be damned.  There is in the world such a thing as evil.  [All together now:] Sez who?  God help us.

So if I think this is true, if I really believe that death is evil, that rape is horrible, that there are some universally binding and unchallengeable truths about how people ought to live, I have to believe in a God. or i can live in a state of constant existential dread hahahahaha, , I joke but I actually did do that for a while it was pretty miserable.

i think the next question was kind of what made me believe in it? and that is kind of a difficult question because i think in a way Christianity just encapsulates a bunch of things that i already believed, and i just found like a label for them i guess. i also grew up Christian, so for me my experience questioning my religious identity was more like, three people you love are dead why do you still believe in a loving God? Rather than which religion or philosophy do i like the best?

idk maybe they come out to be the same but it doesnt feel entirely the same. i’m still a christian because of sunsets and sunrises and because the world feels beautiful and intentional, and because i’ve been in a lot of pain and it was real. it really happened. it wasn’t in my head (looking at you stoicism). it wasn’t unimportant. there is not if buts ands ors it was just awful and that’s that. so what can explain it? what can explain meaning? only God can.

Christianity is specifically the religion im interested in because it’s the only one i’ve come across that is as internally consistent, historically accurate, scientifically accurate, coherent understandings of the universe.

No other philosophy allows you to grieve. That’s why I believe in God. No other philosophy validates grief that a belief in a loving God, a belief that death isn’t meant to happen, that people are violently ripped from you without purpose and that you are meant to live together forever. It allows for a belief in the value of humanity and grace while also allowing you to believe that things that happen to you that might last with you forever are wrong and not just in your opinion. They were violently wrong, they violated ancient laws of the universe, they were an act of aggression toward God himself.

Ok im rambling now but I will leave you with this, which is what i wrote after finally deciding to remain a christian:

“There are several questions I asked that stopped me from rejecting Christianity.

Where did the universe come from and why does it exist?

Why does our experience involve morality?

Why is there love? (deep love between brothers, self sacrificial love, to die for another love)

Why is there goodness?

There are, of course, answers to these questions under ideologies other than Christianity, but I found their answers to be unsatisfying because to me, the existence of these things screams that there is something more to the universe than an unfortunate accident in a vacuum of uncaring nothingness.

When I listened to music encouraging its audience to live, when I listened to people fight for the lives of those they love, when i watched the sun set, or cried at the end of a deeply touching movie, I would think, “In light of this how can you say there is no God?”

In Christianity I found answers that profoundly satisfied my deepest questions. 

There is a universe because God in his wisdom fashioned it to be a beautiful gift. There is morality because we stand in the midst of a cosmic battle between good and evil. There is love because God’s nature is perfectly loving and the fabric of the knowable universe was woven in his loving kindness. There is beauty and goodness because life wasn’t created to be a void and an unknowable miserable darkness.

The true issue with atheism is that while intellectually and technically feasible, it gives empty answers to facets of life that do not have empty realities.

It forced me to ask myself this question: How can such a beautiful, meaningful, tragic world exist from nothing and for nothing?”

[blu-eh]

ok its 12:30 am but i watched raya and the last dragon for the second time today and there are still some parts that like. i just Dont Understand so my Thoughts (tm) about the movie under the cut. spoilers, obviously

- firstly: sword lesbians. thats all

- disney is too much of a coward to make them actual lesbians so they went the queer baiting route instead. i see you disney. we all see you. 

- honestly, watching the movie, the dragon designs did not bother me as much as i thought they would. like, i very much think they could have been better but at the same time...they were not horrible. so that was cool. i rlly liked the scene where sisu was swimming. compared to moana though, some of the water animation was weird like characters should’ve appeared wet when they werent but...water is hard to animate so 

-animation was on point oh my god. it was a really visually beautiful movie. i thought the dragon designs clashed with the human design but it wasnt like, the worst. 

-it was a COOL world. i wouldve loved to learn more about it

-captain boun was my favorite character and i adore him. i would adopt him

-found family. nice

-the asian culture was SO cool. loved that. i love the things they incorporated 

-that scene with raya, boun, and sisu on the boat where they put the flowers in the water was SO good. i loved that

-also loved the scene where sisu reveals her dragon form, like, can we say...... iconic

-but there were plot holes/things i did not understand oh my god and i cant tell if this is a cultural thing or if the movie didnt explain it well or if i just missed things but:

-like what IS the plague (i forgot the name)???? WHY does it feed on humans?? where did it come from?? “born from human discord” is cool and all but that explains. nothing. is it feeding on them?? is it even alive?? like what is the purpose? the end goal? why is it there? why does it hate water??????? if its bred by human discord, then WHY did it not show up during the literal 500 years of Actual War that happened. did the gem keep it away??? if so, why did it return???? they have been fighting a Lot Longer than that single night

-literally why did the dragons not come back the first time. i dont understand. what made it any different the second time with weaker magic??

-does this magic ball have a two time limit like...why did the magic fade. because it was cracked??? why would it start fading at that exact moment and not like, over the six years that it was cracked before. why did it still work when simple put back together like a puzzle. how did it crack so perfectly??

-i have a feeling a lot of the answers to my questions will be “magic” and idk how to feel about that

-GOING BACK TO THE WATER THING.....does sisu have powers??? the movie obviously implied she was a water dragon but we saw maybe ONE scene where she used these powers and it was literally never explained. you couldve had a cool story arc about sisu coming into her powers or having an inferiority complex because her siblings have powers but she doesn’t (which could tie in to why it was such a big deal that they trusted her) but like....we dont see that at all and im still confused on that aspect 

- nine main characters (raya, boun, tong, noi, the three monkeys, sisu, and namaari) is a LOT to balance. i had to google everyones name just now besides boun & raya because i literally could not keep up with a cast that big. like, they were fine main characters but a couple of them just felt...flat (ie tong & noi & the monkey things. im not even sure why the monkeys were there). its a struggle too because a couple of them didnt even show up until more than half way through the movie so.

- the movie was very heavy handed on the theme of “trust” which like, yes, good theme but honestly if someone backstabbed me not once but TWICE.....i would not trust them. ALMOST THREE TIMES. plus, like trust almost got sisu killed in talon so.....idk what the purpose of that scene was??? it seemed very much the opposite of the theme.....but also there is such a huge differences between trusting your brothers and sisters (in sisu’s case) vs. trusting someone who (see: previous trust) had resulted in the “death” of your dad AND friend...like that is fundamentally different. i think the theme couldve explored “learning to trust AFTER FORGIVENESS” like there was a very weak redemption arc. idk

-what even was the fang’s leader’s plan??? “we wont give raya a choice but we will get sisu” like firstly, sisu is a dragon. she is not going anywhere unless she wants two. secondly: why?????????? and third: they literally never explain what this plan was. there is no way this woman knew that raya was just going to show up and offer her daughter a chance at redemption (which she fails. miserably. i literally dont think its raya’s fault at all for her reaction with the crossbow like......see: betrayal history and literally hunting raya down for a couple months (years?)

- WHY DID THE STONE PEOPLE FREEZE IN THAT SPECIFIC POSITION. we have LITERALLY everyone turn to stone in the same position with the cupped hands yet tong and noi and boun and namaari all just...didnt freeze in that position. i dont understand why some people were turned to stone in a specific position and some werent

-why did the water disappear after sisu “died”??? like did she truly die and the water just left because she died?? that would mean that dragons have the power to revive other dragons, but at the same time, don’t they only have a single magical power??? how does this work

-going back on the single magical power thing: HOW could all the dragons do the little flying thing??? i was under the impression that sisu could only do that AFTER she got the power from her rain brother but those other dragons were able to do it just fine. is this just a dragon thing??? can they all do this?? does this count as a single power??

-there was one point in the movie where all the dragons jumping down the cliff looked like worms on strings and i had to pause the movie because i was laughing so hard

- this wouldve been a really cool series instead of a two hour movie but i feel like they tried to fit too much into a short time frame

-i did not care for the soundtrack imo :( it was pretty disappointing 

-OVERALL i think its a FINE movie like its good and you should see it and support movies with asian casts and culture because the cultural aspect was REALLY COOL. i am just extra critical because its a disney movie but like.......i feel like disney had the funding and the team to make this movie great but didnt want to take the risk in case they lost money on it so there are a lot of things that just felt....incomplete

[lady-plantagenet]

What are your thoughts on Jaime x Cersei, Jaime x Brienne, Tyrion x Tysha, George x Isabel, and Henry VIII x Anne Boleyn? (Sorry for the long list!)

Glad to see someone else feeling charitable and letting me vent my unsolicited opinions 😂. Saved the George x Isabel for the last cause I’m sure it will be the longest lmao!

Asked Via: Send me a ship and I'll give you my (brutally) honest opinion on it: https://lady-plantagenet.tumblr.com/post/627331607624302592/send-me-a-ship-and-ill-give-you-my-brutally

Jaime x Cersei: Despite it’s fundamental flaws, it is... titillating to read. The idea of people falling in love with their own other-gender counterpart is twisted yet so intriguing. I must confess that I am not as disgusted by incest as most people, so bear that in mind. The thing is, Cersei is definitely a narcissist with a lot of internalised misogyny and this ship just feels so justified to her character.

The issue is, and as the books go on, it becomes quickly clear that Jaime’s love is not as deep and as his appearance changes, and they no longer look identical Cersei’s own mental image, Cersei’s love also wanes and then you’re hit with how shallow it was. So I ship these two... but I also don’t because they’re toxic? Honestly, book-wise I am intrigued to see what will happen, if they end up together... or they don’t... either way I’m sure it will be quite a ride. You see, I’m not emotionally invested.

Jaime x Brienne: Oh the Sapphires... Obviously anyone who cares for Jaime’s wellbeing would want him to end up with Brienne as opposed to Cersei. I read this interesting theory recently on how these two don’t actually love each other but confuse their strong platonic feelings of affection for romance. You see, that’s also an interesting take as both characters are quite bereft off opposite gender friendships.

However, I strongly ship them romantically as well, Book!Brienne (hey show as well!) is truly admirable because based on her choice in men e.g. Renly, you can see how she had still not given up on her maidenly fantasies and I just love her for that, because true love isn’t something to which only pretty women are entitled. She in many ways represents salvation for him as she being a true knight in spite of her gender, can veer him back into the path of chivalry. He is most chivalrous around her, I mean, not only because her good conduct influences but also because he performs some of the most knightly deeds by cause of her e.g. rescuing her from the bear pit. I like this ship, it’s a good trope subversion.

Tyrion x Tysha: I find this one of the more heartbreaking ships of ASOIAF, because to me it represents Tyrion’s loss of innocence.

She is a haunting figure because of how small remnants of her memory were enough to pull Tyrion into the toxic relationship he had with Shae e.g. she too hard dark hair and there was music around when he met her. Its one of those weird (as @omgellendean put it in her brutally honest ask tag answer - a character who consists of only a name), but unlike Ashara Dayne, she is not idealised and given this over-the-top tragic story. So this elusive Tysha is an entity by what she symbolises: foregone youth and a sweetness that has no place in the ASOIAF universe.

Henry VIII x Anne Boleyn: As I said in my last ask. I cannot tolerate the romanticisation of infidelity, and that is especially when the male’s spouse is a wonderful woman fit for him and has done nothing wrong. I don’t have strong feelings against Anne Boleyn herself, as I prefer to see her as ‘Anne the Educated and Sophisticated Reformer’ as opposed to ‘Anne the Seductress’. Ugh let me just say... rule of thumb for whether it’s a good pair: Do thousands have to die for your selfish desire to be together? Yes? Then probably not meant to be. Just a thought.

I think Anne knew her own mind and I like to think her strong beliefs influenced her decision to breach this marriage (no I didn’t think she was her father’s pawn gah I’m sick of that term), but they were ultimately unsuited in everything and it was a passion brought about by Henry’s caprice. My heart breaks when I think on how Anne could have been happily married to Henry Percy. I’m also tried of this whole ‘master manipulator of men’s hearts’ reputation Anne is getting. You do realise refusing to be a mistress was not being a tease as much as it was just being a conventionally virtuous woman..? The girl knew her worth.

George x Isabel: Oh god. I promise to not start writing an essay. As weird as it is to ship dead people, they are my OTP, the main characters of my main historyfanfic, and frankly the most unsung couple of TWOTR. The fact that there are no records of letters or any particularly over-the-top romantic gestures by either of them, just intrigues me more because it was very much a relationship defined in subtle deeds. If you peruse the more academic TWOTR literature you can see all the fine but conclusive evidences of a devoted relationship: He posthumously enrolled her in a guild when he stayed there with his children (months after she died), he was buried together with her and her ancestors not his, how during 1470 he sent her to Exeter for her safekeeping while her mother and sister remained at Warwick and when a siege broke out he (and his father-in-law) immediately rode south to lift it and the amount of expenses and care he put into her funeral. Not to mention, the hassle it took for them to get married: years of trying to get a dispensation underneath the king’s nose culminating in them having to cross the channel.

The thing is, it had a lot of politics behind it and to be honest I don’t find that less romantic. It was one right for both of them: for the wealthiest heiress in England and the handsome younger brother and heir of King Edward - truly no one else would do for any of them. One of the things that grabs me is the medievalness of it all, how they were bound together by what was essentially a plan to reverse the country’s inevitable transition out of ‘bastard feudalism’. You also get a sense of how this marriage despite the ultimate failure of its purpose (to make George King) brought George the chance to establish himself as a major magnate through his wife’s lands which ultimately became his main source of power as opposed to his royal status. The relative peace that ensued after 1472 shows that his status as Warwick’s political heir (as Christine Carpenter put it) did something to placate the disapointment of not becoming king. So the way I see it, Isabel’s death took from him any of the satisfaction and peace she brought with her lands and persona as he once again reverted to his old (even more than before) reckless self. Not to mention the people he executed after her death in his grief believe in her to have been poisoned (most historians believe that’s unlikely).

Aside from that, in a society where pretty much everyone strayed (even Anthony Woodville had a bastard daughter), it is quite heart-warming how the man known for his treachery, happened to be one of the only ones loyal to his wife: no bastards or women were ever linked to his name not even in rumour. As for Isabel, she is quite a shadowy figure but you get the sense she was intelligent because of the care her father took in preparing her as his heir, because of her wealth you get this sense of majesty and significance about her. The two times we can deduce anything about her personality is a true supporter of her husband: once, when deciding to treat with the Yorks behind her father’s back to reconcile George to them, second, remaining steadfast to George when he tried to squirrel her sister Anne out of her inheritance. Based on the homage she paid to her ancestors, she seems proud of her ancestry so it’s quite intriguing to think why she made the aforementioned two choices, endangering her father and sister in favour of her husband. And oh god I’m rambling, I can say even more if you can believe it but I shall stop. Overall, one might think I’m wishful thinking but frankly Anne and Richard are touted as star-crossed lovers all the time and with even littler evidence to support it (not that I don’t ship them, I do). I might be subjective, but the story of George and Isabel’s life is just so compelling...

[millllennia]

I HAVE FINISHED ACOSF

thank you guys for dealing with my spam live blogging these last few days. the one friend of mine that reads didn’t get her copy until today so i had no one to scream at 

overall, I’m giving this book a 4/5 stars. I was surprised at how much I liked it. I do have some issues with it (and SJM, as per usual) but I am happy that I read it and I’m thrilled to see that she is improving on some things. slowly. not quick enough. 

detailed review below the cut

starting with the things I didn’t like about it because there aren’t very many:

i have my usual qualms with SJM. those haven’t changed. but there wasn’t a “killing calm” and the boob talk was limited to the first half (mostly) of the book which I appreciated. there was still no gays. every single one of the priestesses that got described was described at pale. her diversity isn’t any better and she needs to be aware and listen to her fans. 

I wish we’d gotten more of cassian’s perspective in the first little bit (like first hundred pages). it felt like that dragged a bit, which might have been a style choice because that’s where Nesta was at mentally, but I didn’t love it. 

There wasn’t enough Mor. making a character come out and then promptly sending her off to a foreign land is lazy and pandering. also one of Nesta and Mor’s only interactions being Nesta getting weirdly jealous for no reason was gross and uncalled for and no. if Nesta believed that she didn’t deserve cassian, she should be happy that he has another woman in his arms and punish herself with the image. that’s how that motivation base works. you don’t just get jealous weirdly one time and then never have it come up again. 

I fundamentally do not believe that SJM is going to kill any member of the court permanently, so the whole storyline about Feyre and Rhys and Nxy and everything fell flat. Rhys is SJM’s favourite and Feyre is her self insert and I just don’t think that she’s going to kill them. Not that I want them to die because I don’t (even though I don’t like Feyre, I think she does bring something to the story) but I just wish that I felt the stakes and that SJM would kill some people. 

NOW FOR THE THINGS I DID LIKE BECAUSE I AM SURPRISED THAT THERE ARE A LOT OF THESE

sjm needs to stay in new adult fantasy. her smut is SO MUCH BETTER when she doesn’t need to come up with creative ways to say dick. also she can have actual smut dialogue so it isn’t just hanging dialogue tags without the filthy talk attached that sound awkward and animalistic and it’s just all. so. much. better. I AM SO HAPPY ABOUT THIS DEVELOPMENT YOU HAVE NO IDEA

also the smut was good. just generally good. I didn’t feel like there was too much of it. consent was a thing without it being like ‘loOk fOlKs tHiS iS cOnSeNt’ which was better. have I read better fanfic smut? absolutely. but also this is a published book and there are different rules and I overall really liked it. 

the lack of feyre was wonderful (stans don’t come for me). she is a fine character but I don’t think she’s interesting and I don’t like her relationship with Rhys and I think they are kinda boring together (despite the fact that Rhys is fascinating. that’s how boring Feyre is. she sucks the life out of rhys) so I was happy that we had some space from her. also Nesta needed that space and Im happy she was given that. 

im very very happy that it was in third person and not first. that’s purely personal preference but I don’t enjoy first person. maybe that’s part of why I don’t like feyre? idk 

it didn’t feel like fake girl power. as much as i love the tog series, there were a lot of moments that felt like pandering. nothing in here felt like pandering and i really really liked that. the whole blood rite thing was well set up and well executed and it wasn’t just “hey girls are as good as boys!” 

nesta is super interesting. cassian is super interesting. i love a reverse slow burn. their relationship isn’t perfect but it’s good and I genuinely like it. I could have done without the mating bond but it actually had a purpose. it wasn’t just ‘ah they like each other so they are now mates’. like there was plot around it. which we love. that is definitely an improvement.

the little moments we get of azriels inner thoughts (like the thing about his scarred hands while holding the baby) made me HURT A LOT but it was really good and i’m hoping we get another book about him and elain? because the subtext is there. im annoyed that the subtext is there but it’s there. I don’t love the three brothers getting paired up with the three sisters because heteronormativity and i hate predictable relationships. but they do seem like they’d be relatively compatible. maybe. and i’d like to see a relationship that goes against the mating bond 

Emerie is a baby sunshine sweetheart that needs to be protected at all costs and I did not miss her queer subtext and maybe that’ll happen??? i just really hope it isn’t her x Gwyn because that would break up the sisterhood. maybe her x Mor? also GIRL GET YOUR WINGS FIXED YOU DONT HAVE TO HOLD ONTO THE SCARS 

speaking of GWYN IS THE LOVE OF MY LIFE AND I CANNOT SAY ENOUGH GOOD THINGS ABOUT HER

eris is everything????? he’s definitely one of the coolest antiheros i’ve read in a long long time. I really wanna know what the real story is with Mor. I hope we get more of him. 

I was very happy that this book didn’t end with another surprise army. she did it twice. twice was too much. she’d better not do that again. but this one was good and I was surprised (which rarely happens with her books) so that was nice. 

i’m glad nesta didn’t win the blood rite. it was so much better to have her stand in the pass. like yes that was such a good plot choice. 

I feel like her actual writing itself has improved. this feels like a stronger book and a stronger story and I am weirdly proud of SJM which I lowkey hate myself for saying but it’s true.

so there we have it, folks. 4/5. not bad.  

[villainever]

Touch Them, Talk to Them: Villaneve & Nuance in Villanelle's Psychopathy (2x07)

okay there is SO much to say about 2x07, but none of you want to read 10k words of analysis, so im going to pick one topic and stick to it (for now). in this post, im going to talk about how this episode is – I believe – a response to: a) villanelle’s season 1 claim that what she wants is, among other things, “someone to watch movies with”, b) eve’s question, “you really don’t feel anything?”, and c) martin’s assertion that to psychopaths, there are only “i / it” relationships. i think aaron is a fantastic opposite/parallel to villanelle, because i believe that a great antagonist doesn’t just provide practical obstacles in the plot-path of the protagonist, but removes obstacles in their character-path. an example of what i meant by this is that in season 1, villanelle killed bill, killed frank, ruined evidence, impeded the investigation, and messed eve around (obstructing her plot-path). but she also drove eve to confront the (sociopathic) personality traits that she’d been repressing, and helped eve find her sense of purpose, confidence and power (smoothing her character-path). in season 2, however, villanelle has been shifted from an ~antagonist~ (ostensibly, as she doesn’t fully conform to this reductive role) to a protagonist, and aaron replaces her as the mysterious Other. just as we had with eve/villanelle, he is both Like and Not-Like villanelle. it’s the likeness that makes him an interesting (and dangerous) opponent for her, but it’s the not-likeness that’s so significant.

in 2x06, villanelle has her iconic “boredom” speech, and monologues about how nothing makes her feel anything. so at the start of 2x07, eve asks her if that’s all true – although it seemed authentic, it’s fair enough of eve to ask, considering how often and easily villanelle lies while playing her characters, and that villanelle prompts her (“you’ll feel better if you talk about it”). villanelle’s reply is that she doesn’t actually KNOW if she’s telling the truth or not. i don’t think she’s deflecting here; she appears subtly, but genuinely, torn. she DOESN’T know. 

she wants to give eve a real answer, but she can’t. this is probably the result of a whole lot of mixed information: she’s obviously been told she’s a psychopath (by lawyers and therapists and fellow prisoners and konstantin, then eve), and she knows she enjoys killing people, controlling them, and she is often bored, too, like she said, but none of those things feels like enough. so she offers eve the most she can give: “i feel things when i’m with you.” and while she definitely means this – we could’ve guessed it, considering the lengths she’ll go to to even end up in the same country as eve – she’s still conflicted.

so then, in the last quarter of 2x07, we get this scene between villanelle and aaron:

he describes them as “voids”, and villanelle doesn’t hesitate before agreeing. she’s a psychopath, right? she must be a void. she’s not “nice and normal”. she doesn’t mind stabbing or suffocating or toying with other people. between her and aaron, there’s this heartbeat of dissonant kinship. she’s already joked that they might be “soulmates”, so here, she’s just chatting with him. she’s certain they’re fundamentally the same, and there’s not much to be learned from this, so she’s mostly humouring him. so she asks something out of mild interest, but she thinks she already knows the answer.

“do you ever get lonely?” villanelle does. she finds being cooped up by herself to be tedious, and uses the time to prepare her next interactions – elaborately faking her death for konstantin; planning new presents or tricks or reminders for eve. importantly, in defiance of the “incapable of ‘i / you’ relationships” idea, she is able to apply this notion of isolation to eve. in 2x06, she tells konstantin she’s texting eve “because [eve] might be lonely”. sure, villanelle primarily wants to know how much of an impact she had by killing someone right in front of eve, but she’s not really lying; she can follow and understand the emotional process of “niko left - today’s been a high-stakes day - eve is alone - eve might want somebody to decompress with”. and she feels compelled to offer eve that, to make things better for her. but:

like i said, villanelle has been trying to reach out on the common ground she percieves them as having. she expects to relate to aaron in every way, because he’s a psychopath, too. except aaron goes on about how he knows so much about people, how he observes them. villanelle often does this as well – stalking eve in clothing stores back in season 1, googling her, watching through her windows, etc. but that’s not even near to enough of eve for villanelle, so her reaction is one of confusion. “you don’t want to talk to them? touch them? sleep with them?" 

"god, no.” aaron’s inflection is almost one of disgust, and definitely one of superiority. it’s like she’s asked him if he’s interested in hanging out with rocks. he can’t imagine having any involvement behind mild amusement at the opportunity to manipulate people, like toys. “do you?” he asks.

“yeah! i do. all the time.” it’s an immediate knee-jerk response, and though it’s soft, it’s emphatic. villanelle doesn’t doubt her answer. as the shot pans out, she gives a slight gasp, and almost smiles (mirroring that slight smile through her sobs in amsterdam). aaron remains impassive.

i believe that this exchange is maybe the MOST important of the episode, second only to eve/villanelle’s semi-sex scene. i also believe that it’s this conversation with aaron that leads villanelle to breaching that last unspoken barrier between her and eve. to be clear, i’m not trying to say villanelle isn’t a psychopath. one revelation does not fifty people un-kill. just a handful of hours before this moment, she murdered gemma with a plastic bag. so i’m not suggesting villanelle is just like any of us. she’s not, eve’s not, and we don’t want them to be. my point is that this moment clarifies a lot for villanelle. she’s been trying to figure out her own capacity for emotion and connection. one thing that she’s considered a fact about herself since before the pilot is that she “wants someone to watch movies with”. she expresses this desire to eve and konstantin with no hesitation; she’s sure, and this becomes a tacit premise in a lot of her reasoning over the whole show. i suspect villanelle doesn’t have any long-term understanding of what that really means, but she wants it anyway. she also plans most of her life around being able to get closer to eve, whether by teasing her or helping her or steering those in eve’s life to create the required conditions for a confrontation.

which is why aaron telling her he has NO need for human contact is such a big deal. because villanelle obviously DOES. she needs it, she wants it, she always has. anna, eve; villanelle develops romances that run deep – even though she’s no longer obsessed with anna by season 1, she still clearly feels a connection to her, and i don’t think she’d have killed her if anna hadn’t killed herself. then there’s konstantin, and she’s a little shit to him, but she definitely missed him, if the way she ran into his arms in 2x03 after being forced to put up with raymond for ten minutes is any indication. villanelle and konstantin have a rapport, and they trust each other (in that they both know each other well enough to guess when they might betray each other, and can account for it accordingly). essentially, until now, villanelle has been running with the equation “aaron = psychopath; me = psychopath; thus, aaron = me”. she’d assumed that part of psychopathy was just the level of human interest she has – which is why she doesn’t have an issue telling eve “like us, you mean”, even though eve has a long-term relationship and friends: that amount of involvement is still realistic for them, right? but aaron doesn’t have this need for people. so now, “aaron =/= me” for villanelle.

crucially, this interaction gives villanelle CONTEXT. rather than dealing in absolutes, she now has a spectrum of psychopathy: “aaron –> me –> eve –> carolyn –> konstantin –> etc.” aaron has inadvertently told her that what she feels is real. maybe she’d almost believed that, seeing as psychopaths can’t feel anything, can only have the “i / it”, that what she experienced was an infatuation or illusion (although this was shaken by eve stabbing her and by crying in amsterdam); but here’s aaron confirming that the idea of fascination with/caring for people has never even occurred to him. and it does NOTHING BUT occur to villanelle. eve runs circles around her head.

let’s look at that in practice. aaron’s most significant relationship is with his sister, who he treats like crap. he’s got her babysat, won’t listen to her opinions (“the grownups are talking, amber”), disrespects a friend she likes, calls her a “thickie”. then villanelle, the closest thing he has to a friend – he watches her without her consent, plays dress-up and stay-still like she’s a doll, tells her what she’s going to do (“spit it out”) and instructs her on how she should feel (“you’ll be bored”). but villanelle? her most important relationship is with eve. and sure, she makes really fucked up choices, but she also makes an effort to consider how eve might feel, what eve might want, what might appeal to her. AND, she’s IMPROVED at that. for example, in 1x03, she kills bill to get eve’s attention, but it’s at the price of hurting her. by 2x07, though, villanelle won’t kill niko. it’s mostly selfish – she doesn’t want eve to be mad at her – but if it were aaron, he’d try and force eve to be un-mad somehow, with money or threats, etc. (not that aaron would bother; he wouldn’t mind if she hated him) villanelle, though, she wants eve to ACTUALLY love her, not to HAVE to love her. villanelle is manipulative, obviously (e.g. telling niko that eve stabbed her to cause a rift between them), but she sees these indirect manipulations as a way to arrange things how she wants (it doesn’t really occur that there might be an alternative), and attempts to course-correct when eve sometimes gets upset. this is huge for villanelle. aaron gives her something NOBODY else can, by being like her, but less like her than she’d believed. the distinction between them might seem minute to viewers who have the full range of emotions/empathy, but for villanelle, that small difference means the world. it means her and eve are REAL, or real enough. martin said, “don’t add, take away”. but aaron proves that that can be true by degrees; villanelle is dotted with minuses, but fewer minuses than aaron. this is set up throughout the episode, kicked off thematically by eve’s question, but compounded by aaron’s consistent use of villanelle like a thing. THIS is an “i / it” dynamic. “stay there, exactly like that”. “wear this”. “these are your clothes now”. “we’re leaving”. “you’ll get ice-cream, and i’ll watch you eat it”. to him, villanelle is a totally disposable puppet. but over and over and over we’ve been shown that this ISN’T how villanelle perceives eve, and that’s definitely cemented in amsterdam, when villanelle breaks down over eve “forgetting” her. 

aaron, like villanelle, has up until this point mistaken them for exactly alike, but they’ve been miscommunicating all along. at lunch, villanelle said, “i dont like rich men” – meaning, i like women, specifically eve, and i have my own resources. aaron counters, “but you like money”. he’s misinterpreted, and thinks villanelle means, like him, that she never wants to have sex or talk with other humans. instead, he concludes that she likes the material object of money, and the subsequent ability to aquire items which might spark some kind of response – and this lines up with villanelle’s later remark about liking to buy and own things, which aaron recognises in himself. they’re replying to each other, but really, they’re having slightly different conversations. so what does this mean, overall? we’ve known forever that villanelle wants eve to be the person she “watches movies with”, but this conversation tells villanelle she could maybe be that person to eve, too. villanelle can “love” in her own unique way, can be present. and because eve’s stepping off the ledge and meeting her in the middle, neither of them will have to be anything other than who they actually are. and they can be who they actually are, together. this analysis got a lot more muddled than i wanted it to, because im a lil wine drunk after haning out with some friends, but i had Thoughts. i have many more Thoughts about the villaneve hookup, hugo, gemma’s death, why aaron is such a creepy villain, carolyn’s plans, etc. but i’ll leave it here for now. i hope this made some sense lmfao.

[trevanent]

i thought it was cool and fun to be amorphous and adaptable but as it turns out all my passion investment personality joy relationships values trust love and innocence has vaporized dissolved diluted dissipated liquified with no mantained documentaion. i never had a reason to exist ofc but now that my will to believe the contrary has eroded im left with a primordial soup of residual components of what i sortof was. maybe somethign can be born out of it again, accidentally giving myself hope there, but im overwhelmed by the belief that ill get worse and worse and more self loathing as adulthood seems to prove itself to manifest in many people. especially worthless sludge like myself, but it doesnt matter. ive already forgot what i was talking about, so that why i say that. i remember now, something about getting better, yeah, i might need to believe it could happen in order for the chance it will happen, but the hard part is my brain tricks itself into believing it isnt convinced nothing will get better, when this is the case. i have an incredible talent for bypassing my own fundamental opinions and judgements, my hopelessness is deeply entrenched, and yet, as is stadnard of a hopeful positive attitude i desparately want to embrace and i try to practice by not totally giving up on life, i ignore the fact that my hearts sunk to just not seeing how i hav eany future in any thing, how i cna possibly be worth nything to anyone. because im extremely unproductive without direct relationships or dependency on others, and have barely anything pertaining to myself i care about. and somehow when i thought i couldnt have been more hollow of a person i find ways to gut myself even more without thinking twice. so basically, once my veneer of cheerfulness and my will to neglect myself to manufacture positive energy i give to others in order to give myself the bare minimum redemption i need to keep myself from being overwhelmed by a sense of obsolescence, i will become exactly that. and ive become so concerned because my energy to interact with anyone or deal with the external world has worn scarce. i dont know what will become of me then. i dont know how to stop this. i really feel like im wilting in the only part of me ive long fundamentally thought was the only part of me that mattered, and now feels like the only part of me that exists. i dont know what to retreat to once that part of me dies, as it seems more bent on doing every day. some people have hobbies they take solace in, but none of anything i could think of doing excites me at all anymore. i feel inept and unsatisfied by everything i do. so so much for whoever or whatever i was. i somehow can see this somehow taking me to a different personhood than i am in now, but i dont quite care right now. ill try my best to survive until maybe i somehow rise from the ashes. anyways sorry to anyone who bothered to read this. i doubt more than 2 people do so, the main purpose of this was for myself anyways. my mind was choking on internal thought processes and only is able to forgive itself for how flawed it is when its on something external which takes actual effort and planning to sort out, so good for me

[pyropsychiccollector]

Fate Zero: Part Two

            To say Erza Scarlet’s time in the modern had been “interesting” would be… a giant understatement. Her short time at the Einzbern castle in Europe, while short, was at least a location and setting she was familiar with; she’d been to a few castles, in her lifetime. It all boiled down to little things, really – the modern ways of preserving and serving food, modern appliances and utilities, and especially modern technology…

            None of it was powered by Magic.

            Now granted, there was nothing wrong with that. It was a sign that times had moved on, and people had managed to find ways of surviving and living without Magic as an everyday commodity. It was like Edolas in a way… only Erza had never expected her world to go the same route that Edolas most likely did. Certainly, without Magic powering weapons, it could be argued that they grew “weaker” in some aspects… But it could be argued that weapons without Magic could be just as effective, if not more dangerous. If one was attuned with Magic, they could detect Magic-powered weapons with some training; it was harder to see them coming from the shadows without Magic.

            … And she supposed that was what most concerned her about Kiritsugu. He was an assassin. A fighter. He wasn’t going to play the typical “support” role that most Masters adopted in Grail Wars. As much as she would like to believe that she could and would receive help from his quarter, it wasn’t going to be in the way that she would have preferred… He was having Irisveil play as a figurehead for that role, to fool the other Masters. That meant she would need to devote all her energy to protecting Irisveil… and not Kiritsugu, who would mark her end in this war if he acted too rashly and got himself killed.

            That wasn’t even getting into what he would be trying to get into with the other Masters and Servants… Erza could only hope that, somewhere in the deepest vestiges of Kiritsugu’s seemingly empty heart, he would show mercy to the opponents that deserved it. Though Grail Wars were inevitably bloody and merciless… Erza really was holding out hope, even for enemy Masters who may not deserve her sympathy. The Grail could have chosen anyone, and they may have an equally noble wish for the Grail; there was no need to slaughter such people, at least in her mind.

            … It really made her think of and yearn for the “simpler” days she had in life… When everyday was just going to be another adventure, and not one that would possibly lead to cruelty and bloodshed.

            ~*~

            “Tokiomi.”

            The aforementioned mage looked up from the report he was writing and bowed respectfully.

            “Ah… Master Hades. Is there something I can do for you?”

            Archer crossed his arms as he stared at Tokiomi critically.

            “I have heard many reports about the Masters and Servants by now, from both you and Assassin… I have heard your assessments, the key locations where the Grail may be formed, and I have even heard your understanding of what the other Masters desire of the Grail. What I have not yet heard is your own wish – what you would ask of the Grail, should I allow you to touch it after claiming victory over the other Servants… Tell me. What is your goal?”

            Tokiomi rose up from his bow and returned Archer’s gaze, meeting his eye.

            “It’s simple in concept… For generations, the Tohsaka family has attempted to reach what is called the Root. It does not exist in this world, but outside of it – that is why, if I can claim the Grail, I can say with certainty that I have no “wish” to ask of it because what I truly desire… is the portal that it will create, once the Grail is completely formed.”

            Archer stroked his beard curiously.

            “The Root…? And what, pray tell, is that?”

            Tokiomi’s eyebrows rose in surprise as he rose up from his bow.

     ��      “I am surprised you haven’t heard of it. In your legend, it is said that you once sought what you called the ‘primordial Magic’. To put it simply, the Root is a very similar concept; it holds all knowledge, and should one be able to reach the Root and understand it, will be essentially granted the power of a god! It has been the Tohsaka family’s noble goal to reach the Root and understand everything… This once held true for the other families the Tohsakas once aligned themselves with, but unfortunately, they have fallen from grace and chosen to pursue their dreams in this world, instead.”

            While Tokiomi provided his explanation of both the Grail War and the Root, Hades listened attentively and curiously. Considering his own goals, the former leader of the Balam Alliance had to admit – being partnered with Tokiomi was quite the fortuitous occurrence. With any other Master, he might’ve contemplated what to do in the event that his Master was either incompetent or had an atrociously shortsighted goal… But Tokiomi was neither. He gathered intelligence. Made plans. And his dream was something that Hades found he could truly appreciate – regardless of the fact if the Grand Magic World and this “Root” were different entities, the fact remained they were fundamentally the same dream. Both of them sought for ancient Magic beyond the material world, unparalleled power that was just waiting to be wielded…

            In a word: Tokiomi Tohsaka was the perfect Master. His ideal partner in this game of “heroes” battling for their sole wish to be granted.

            “Tokiomi Tohsaka.” Hades began authoritatively, once the magus had completed his explanation in full. His respect for Tokiomi grew as the man only mildly tensed under the heavy, imposing atmosphere that came with his presence. “Up until now, I had no plans to guarantee my loyalty towards you. We ‘Servants’ are often seen as disposable pawns used for the sole purpose of acquiring a cup that grants wishes… But you alone have exceeded my expectations from what to expect of the mages in this modern era. You shall have the chance to attain your family’s long-held dream – no one else shall lay a finger on the Holy Grail.”

            In response, Tokiomi could only bow deeply once more.

            “Many thanks, Master Hades…”

            ~*~

            Kariya had to admit, he felt a little strange, sitting in the park in the middle of the day. Around this time had things gone to “plan”, he probably should have been skulking about in back alleys, getting what rest he could for the eventful nighttime to come. Zouken would be watching him from the shadows, and he would be puking his guts out because of the worms inside of him.

            … But it had all been derailed. Derailed by the same wild, raggedy man that was currently pushing Sakura on the swing set like a caring father, a carefree grin on his face as she laughed in enjoyment for what must have been the first time in a long while. Just by looking at him, you would think the man wasn’t capable of wanton destruction and violence; that he wasn’t summoned with the intention of lacking a soul.

            Yet Kariya knew different. And it wasn’t just the fact that Berserker had burned down the Matou manor and wiped out Zouken and the Crest Worms in his and Sakura’s bodies… He’d gotten confirmation from Natsu himself, back on that first night after putting Sakura to bed.

            “I definitely have that ‘insanity’ enchantment placed on me. It felt so right to burn it all down… But the fact you’re my Master, and she’s an innocent kid, that’s the only thing stopping me from going on a rampage right now.”

            Natsu would be fighting. It was an inescapable fact. Kariya felt guilt over it, of course; he’d cooperated with that slimy bastard Zouken to make it happen. But Natsu told him not to worry about it – that he was used to fighting to get what he wanted, to protect those close to him. And if you believed the legends surrounding him, Kariya knew this to be very true. Natsu was not a calm, peaceful individual.

            … And yet he was great with kids, apparently. Kariya was grateful that Natsu and Sakura got along so well. Sakura deserved this reprieve, after all the hellish ordeals she had gone through because of that stuck-up bastard Tokiomi giving her away to the Matous…

            Kariya clenched his hands into fists on his lap, staring down at them. It was true that Sakura was now safe, and so he didn’t have much of a ‘reason to fight’ in the Grail War… He was perfectly capable of “wasting” the Command Seals and letting Berserker fade away, getting as far away from this Grail War as much as possible…

            “Oh yeah! I don’t mind helpin’ ya get revenge on a rotten father like that! We’ll get ‘im.”

            He’d be lying, though, if he said he wasn’t looking forward to the night’s ‘festivities’…

            ~*~

            Slowly, Kirei began to pace the small room he was in, hands clasped behind his back.

            “So, Assassin… I am sure you have had ample time to observe a few Masters and Servants by now. Tell me, what were you able to find out?”

            Over by the wall, in a dark corner of the room, Cobra cracked his one good eye open.

            “The Tokiomi guy and Archer piss me off… But, you’re probably tired of hearing me harp on about that, so… I know Rider has a kid Master. The way I understood it, the kid stole the artifact that summoned him from one of the other Masters coming, that El-Melloi guy… The kid’s a novice, no serious threat. Though Rider, who I know is Gajeel Redfox, is definitely going to be troublesome; I don’t know what it is, but he’s got his hands on something really powerful, and we’re going to need to uncover what that is.

            Cobra turned his head up towards the ceiling.

            “Then you’ve got Caster, who I was finally able to track down… I didn’t know him personally in life, but he’s a guy called Neinhart. Ditto on needing to find out what he can do, though… I don’t know if he can still do it, but I heard he was able to summon up the memories of dead people while he was still alive. That could be troublesome for us.”

            “Anything on Caster’s Master?” Kirei stopped him there.

            “Total whackjob. Serial killer, from what I gather. Nothing you or Tokiomi can’t handle, though.” Cobra grimaced upon remembering the third Servant he’d dug up information on. “… And then you got Berserker.”

            Kirei hummed thoughtfully as he remembered Tokiomi’s intelligence reports.

            “Would Berserker’s Master be Kiritsugu Emiya, or would he be Kariya Matou?”

            “Matou.” Cobra replied dully. “And before you ask – no, he’s not going to be a pushover anymore. Berserker cured his Master of those… worms… and burned down Matou manor. We’re going to need to be careful when going up against them.”

            “How so?” Kirei asked curiously.

            “Bererker’s identity is Natsu Dragneel. I don’t know who thought to summon and assign that guy the Berserker Class…But he just might give Archer a run for his money. Biggest reserves of Mana that I’ve seen yet, and he’s clearly hiding secrets. If I had to choose any of the Servants that we know about and treat them with utmost caution, it’d be him. Rider and Caster don’t give me nearly as many bad vibes as Berserker does… And Archer, he’s powerful, but I can’t even begin to imagine what Dragneel’s Noble Phantasm is going to end up being. It just might be enough to take Archer down, depending on what it is.”

            Kirei hummed thoughtfully again.

            “How very… informative. Natsu Dragneel…” Kirei trailed off, recalling the legends surrounding the Dragon Slayer – they were very well-known. The priest cleared his throat after spending time lost in thought. “Obviously, we have yet to deduce the identities of Lancer and Saber, but we have a firm grasp on all the Masters now. Good work.”

            Cobra rolled his eye.

            “Yeah, sure, two expert mages, a priest, a kid, a serial killer, a guy that used to be on the verge of keeling over, and a Magus Killer. Just one big happy family…” Cobra grumbled as Kirei dismissed him for the time being. He still wasn’t happy about being in an alliance with Archer, but it was out of his hands.

            “Kiritsugu Emiya… when shall you arrive…?” Kirei pondered to himself, once he was left alone.

            Emiya really was the one Master that he was curious about most of all. Kirei believed if he could understand the Magus Killer… he could understand what it was that he himself was seeking in this war.

            ~*~

            That night…

            “RIIIDERRR!!!” Waver yelled at the top of his lungs as he clung to one of the metal arches on the bridge they were on top of. “Get me down from here…! Right now! Take me down!!!”

            Gajeel simply rolled his eyes as he calmly sat cross-legged, looking out across the water and at the city of Fuyuki.

            “You kiddin’ me? This is a perfect vantage point to survey the land!” He made a wide sweeping gesture at the city skyline.

            “I’m leaving!” Waver continued to whine pitifully. “N-No way! T-Take me down! I can’t handle this!”

            Gajeel scoffed, unimpressed.

            “Calm down already… Waiting is a huge part of war!”

            “I wanna go… I wanna go back to England!”

            “I told ya not to be in such a damn rush…” Rider grinned and looked over toward the docks. “Ya see? Things are finally startin’ to heat up around here!”

            Rider belted out a laugh and widened his grin, turning his full attention to the battle that would soon be unfolding. Waver just looked on in bewilderment.

            “Gihihi… This is gonna be a lotta fun…!”

            ~*~

            Erza had immediately picked up on the Servant who was sending out a challenge for the others… He was doing it obnoxiously, making his pulses of Mana almost impossible to ignore. But even so, Erza responded to the challenge with gusto – Irisveil by her side. If it was a fight that this Servant wanted, he was going to get a war. She did not intend to let him escape.

            “Well, damn…” The masculine voice muttered as the man stepped out from out of the shadows, once Erza and Irisveil had arrived. He carried a single long spear along with him as he watched Erza with shrewd eyes. “Of all the Servants that could’ve been summoned, it had to be you… I knew this wasn’t gonna be a cakewalk.”

            Despite the circumstances, Erza found herself smirking.

            “You’re Lancer? I suppose that kind of fits you. I take it that’s the ‘spear of Gungnir’?”

            Lancer clicked his tongue and twirled the spear casually, holding it out horizontally.

            “I can make a bigger ice version of this easily… but I guess that’d break too often. At least this one’s got some tricks…” He did a more stylish twirl of the spear as he performed a light spin on his feet, ending his movement by pointing the spear at Erza. “I take it you got your armory of swords to back you up?”

            In response, Erza Requipped into her Heaven’s Wheel Armor, never once dropping her smirk. Lancer rolled his eyes.

            “Of course… Taking ‘Master of the Sword’ to a whole new level… I just can’t catch a break.”

            Erza quirked an eyebrow good-naturedly.

            “Surely you’re not going to just give up? What would Natsu say?”

            Lancer scoffed.

            “He’d call me ‘Popsicle’, kick my ass, and then probably screw you seven ways to Sunday… And don’t pretend he wouldn’t do the last one. You two were never subtle.” He dryly remarked, smirking as he got Erza’s cheeks to light up. “If my first enemy’s gotta be you, so be it! I got a new Master, and I’m not gonna fail him. I’m stakin’ my honor on this… whatever honor I got left, anyway.”

            Erza’s face fell at that.

            “Gray…”

            Lancer just pointed at her forcefully.

            “None o’ that. You’re gonna come at me with everything you got, or you’re gonna have to tell Natsu you took it easy on me! Which is it gonna be?”

            Erza quietly brandished a sword, pointing it at Lancer.

            “… Fine. From one proud Fairy Tail mage to another, I will take this fight seriously.”

            “That’s the only way to be.” Lancer grunted in acknowledgement, and they began their duel in earnest.

            “Be careful, Saber…!” Iri warned the redhead. “If you get wounded, I shall heal you!”

            “Much appreciated, Irisveil…” Erza smirked again, clashing blade against spear. “… But I doubt this little boy will do more than prick me on his icepick…”

            Lancer narrowed his eyes at the jab, reminded of the moniker Natsu had bestowed on him.

         ��  “I’m not standin’ for that… I will gut you…” He growled as the scarlet knight chuckled and danced around his attacks with ease.

            On the sidelines, skulking in the darkness, Kiritsugu and his accomplice, Maiya, were surveying the battlefield.

            “Maiya… have you pinpointed Lancer’s Master yet?”

            His radio crackled back in response.

            “No… Not yet.”

            Kiritsugu peered through his sniper’s scope as he looked around. It was easy to distinguish the Servants and Irisveil, out in the open. Looking upward, at the roof of a warehouse, he spotted another figure looking down at the duel with scorn.

            “… I’ve got a visual. Roof of the warehouse on the north end.”

            The radio crackled again when Maiya managed to respond.

            “I don’t see him…? Should I get closer and take the shot?”

            Kiritsugu panned his vision before coming to stop on another figure, perched on a nearby crane.

            “No. It looks like Assassin is here, too. If you make a move, he’s going to know.”

            “What should we do?” The radio crackled yet again.

            Kiritsugu paused and thought for a good long while. They would need to execute this very cautiously… especially since Assassin’s Master could be here, too. Up on the crane, Cobra scoffed, having been listening to everything on the battlefield.

            “Stinkin’ rats… Saber and Lancer are gonna be pissed about their tactics.” He rolled his eye as he kept it trained on the duel between Servants. At least Kirei didn’t have him doing something mundane like taking out that ‘Magus Killer’… yet.

            Eventually, everyone was pulled from their musings and observations when Rider made his descent on the battlefield – Waver slung under his arm, and Panther Lily flying them both into the fray.

            “Alright…! I can’t just sit back and watch this anymore! I’m gonna fight both you knuckleheads!!!”

            “Gajeel…?” Erza and Gray echoed together, pausing in their clash as they perceived Rider landing in a crouch.

            Their attention shifted once more as yet another Servant materialized on top of a light pole, his arms crossed.

            “I never would have imagined running into so many familiar faces… But, if Fate guides us all in this grizzly war… Then I shall take great pleasure… in treading over your corpses!”

            “Hades?!” Gray exclaimed, eyes wide in shock. Erza’s mouth was agape, too.

            “I can’t believe you were summoned…”

            Gajeel, still in his crouched position, narrowed his eyes at the fourth Servant to appear. He knew others were watching, but he figured he himself was going to be the only other one to stick his nose in this…

            From the shadows, leaning against a wall with his hood up, Kariya Matou gave a mischievous smirk.

            “Kill them all…”

            The next thing everybody knew, there was a sea of flames that erupted on the battlefield before a new figure emerged from them, giving a monstrous roar as he brushed his cloak aside, revealing two heavily bandaged arms.

            Needless to say, each one of the Servants recognized the new arrival.

            “N… Natsu…!?” Erza whispered, taken the most aback by the Dragon Slayer’s participation in the Grail War. Close by, Gray gritted his teeth and clutched his spear tighter.

            “Of all the friggin’ Classes… they had to give that guy the Berserker Class…!?”

            Gajeel wrinkled his nose at how acrid the flames smelt.

            “This is gonna be a pain in the ass…”

            Hades snorted in contempt, from atop the light pole.

            “Natsu Dragneel… Even with your participation, this will be but a…” Hades trailed off as all of the Servants and Masters stared at the collection of fireballs that Natsu willed into existence behind him; for now, it was a handful, but Natsu was currently aiming his snarl at Hades. “You dare bare you fangs at me, boy? You will not live through tonight, should you go through with this.”

            In response, a single fireball was shot at Hades… one that was easily dodged by leaping high into the air, but still ended up smashing through the light pole and melting it into nothingness. Hades landed on the ground gracefully with his cowl flapping. He was unintimidated by the warning shot.

            “Very well! Nothing shall remain of your corpse!” Hades declared boldly, holding up two fingers in the form of a gun, charging Mana into his fingertips. Berserker just stood there, equally unmoved, and still willing a number of hovering fireballs behind him to stay in place.

            Gajeel, Gray, and Erza looked on, still frozen in place. Erza couldn’t take her eyes off of the Dragon Slayer that was radiating so much madness and bloodlust… it didn’t suit him. Not at all.

            Up on the crane, away from the other Servants Cobra sighed as he prepared to get comfortable.

            “Here we go…”

            Six Servants, present at the very first battlefield. It was one hell of a way to kickstart the Fourth Holy Grail War…

[aphrodicted]

Helloo :) could I please get a reading on messages my spirit guides might be trying to communicate to me? Also maybe on how I can better communicate with them? Im a cap sun, pisces moon and libra rising btw :) -Em

Hello, baby. How are you? Yay! I’m a cap sun too! I used Rider White and Oracle of Gaia for you!!

A message from your guides: Seven of Cups, Princess of Cups, Six of Pentacles, The Emperor (reversed), The Death, Seven of Wands.

There are several messages that your guides want to share with you. Everyone has a relationship with love and opportunities, but I think I should explain them to you from the different perspectives that are presented to me.

First, your guides ask you to accept the offers of love that are appearing in your life. Both in your nearest present and in the future, love offers will begin to come into your life and you must be willing to accept them. At least, ask your guides, listen to what people want to share with you. It doesn’t have to be just offers of romantic love, but any offer of love made by a friend, a family member, a co-worker or studies… The guides ask you to be generous with those around you. Generosity is not only giving to others, but also being generous to receive and let people surprise us. Open yourself up to opportunities and don’t let yourself close or that negativity absorbs you completely. Let yourself be pampered by those around you: listen to what they have to tell you and how they declare your love for you. Finally, your guides warn you that there may be someone very interested in you. That’s why your guides ask you to be generous and listen to what all those around you want to communicate to you.

On the other hand, your guides tell you to launch everything you want in your love life. If you’re interested in someone, your guides encourage you to try to approach them. Don’t be afraid, since your reading is full of feelings. Therefore, if you have someone in mind: your guides tell you that it’s time to express your feelings.

Also, a tip from your guides: you must work your self-esteem. There’s a great disharmony in some aspect of your life that must be solved. Seeing your reading, I understand that it can be related to relationships and love. It’s essential to solve this unstable situation, as it could start to cause problems for your future. I feel you a little closed in yourself or, at least, that may begin to happen in the near future. You must stop any negative thoughts that fill your mind or control your attitudes and actions. Negativity doesn’t have to dictate which path you should choose in your life. Things are more positive than you think, so I ask you to do a reset and start taking care of yourself as you should. It may be hard for you to believe that opportunities to meet people will come to your life, but opportunities are waiting for you to let them in to surprise you.

Your guides warn you that there will be unstable situations that you must face. These situations will be caused by you or external factors that are in your life. Generosity, as I mentioned before, will play a fundamental role in preventing this instability. Therefore, don’t forget the word generosity! It’s something that your guides repeat a lot during your reading. You must be generous with those around you and, especially, with yourself: let others take care of you and, most importantly, allow yourself to take care of yourself. Take a moment every day and do what you enjoy, meditate, walk through the park… This way you can get to know yourself more deeply and start loving yourself in the right way.

How can you improve your communication with them? Knight of Swords, Nine of Pentacles (reversed), The Chariot, The Empress. 

Abundance will not always be on your side, and right now it isn’t when you communicate with your guides. You might not be doing it correctly. If you’re trying a specific method, your guides ask you to try other ways to talk to them. However, I think it’s your way of addressing them what you’re doing incorrectly. You shouldn’t speak from negativity or necessity, but from humility and practice detachment. The need, the feeling of emptiness or insecurity aren’t good drivers to get in touch with them.

On the other hand, your guides ask you to communicate more clearly with them. They aren’t able to fully understand you: clear and direct communication will be the best. Don’t be afraid to talk to them, but do so simply and directly. Also, your guides ask for action. They cannot manifest what you ask if you don’t act in sync with them. Things don’t appear out of nowhere if we don’t act in line with them. Do you want to get your wishes? Ask for light to get them, but keep fighting for them actively. Your guides need you to take an active position and move towards everything you want. Don’t stagnate, but act cautiously and on firm ground. Don’t expect others to make the necessary changes, or wait uselessly for the changes to happen on their own: do something to get them going.

Pay attention and identify your selfish, dominant, controlling or possessive behaviors. When you exercise your roles in an extremist way: either you think too much about your interests and neglect those who depend on you. The means of avoiding it’s the practice of respecting the other and contacting unconditional love in you.

An advice for you: Yin-Yang: Creating harmony through balance.

At this moment there’s disharmony in some area of ​​your life because you don’t accept certain aspects of your personality. Nothing is wrong with you. Every feature or quality you have serves a very valuable purpose. In addition, whatever trait or quality you create you really need it. Make a list of everything you don’t like about yourself; then think about how each of these traits serves you and others in some way. Then, make another list of everything you like about yourself. It’s natural that you think that your positive qualities undoubtedly serve you and others; however, for every positive quality you perceive there’s a negative. Now think about the negative aspects of the positive qualities they perceive. This process takes a little time, and requires you to open your mind and your heart. It’s an exercise that is definitely worth it, since in the end you will see that nothing is really good or bad. Everything serves you and others. Having, accepting and loving what is there, without wanting to change it, you’ll experience a happier, healthier and more harmonious life.

I love and accept everything that I am. There is nothing to change, there is only love. Every feature I possess serves me and others in some way. Loving what I have, I create health, wealth and harmony. Everything I accept and love becomes a greater love.

Good luck, Em!

[fox-steward]

@illinoisbeau didn’t respond when i said it was up to him about tagging, so i’ll give him the chance to respond, but please let me know if i should remove the tag.

where to even start with this? it’s wildly illogical but i am waiting for my wife to get off a 9hr plane ride so i’ll bite.

image 1: i’m sorry if you think i just came up with everything on this blog like some inspired fount of radical feminism, but these ideas are here to help make sense of my experience. they do not come out of my experience. what i’m saying is, my experience with dysphoria is likely indistinguishable from most other female trans people, and you said it best yourself, “transition [is] not the right treatment.”

i try to make this point with exhaustive examples, drawing on the indisputable conditions of being female in this society.

image 2: acknowledges misogynistic society? check. everything you said after that and before your own experience? word salad. how am i missing how “misogyny permeates each person in society in all areas of life?” that is exactly what i’m saying. and extrapolating from there, im suggesting that even sex dysphoria is informed by the all-permeating misogyny. why do i have to repeat this? it would seem we agree here?

you’re right we never stop learning from society, but as you experience the socialization of manhood, you do so with a history of girlhood. guess who fundamentally does not do that: natal males. which means even now, your experience of manhood is going to be fundamentally different from theirs. just as mine was. just as all transmen’s are. we never stop learning from society,“ but we also cannot just erase what we already learned. i’m suggesting it is possible (probable) that for female people like us, who experienced girlhood with dysphoria, it is precisely the experience of misogyny that gives rise to desires to become the opposite sex.

image 3: my man, there is no reliable difference between “cis and trans dysphoric people.” it’s not helpful (except insofar as to construct and substantiate some kind of innate trans narrative) to distinguish between types of dysphoric people, especially when the overlap of our experiences is so huge–nearly a circle!

i’m not sure what exactly you’re arguing, but the notion that therapists aren’t helpful to dysphoric people is…dubious. from one side of the coin, i agree, from the other, i don’t. i agree that right now, therapists are not doing dysphoric people right and helping us investigate the deeper meaning of dysphoria and helping us work on ways to deal with it outside of steering us toward medical transition. i don’t agree that therapists are seeking out reasons to “make us normal.” this is…a wild claim. so intangible as to be useless to this discussion.

again, there is just no use in trying to draw a line between “cis” dysphoric people and “trans” dysphoric people unless that purpose is to bolster the idea that transness is an innate state of being. practically, there’s no difference between your life experience (what you’d call trans) and mine (what you’re calling cis). any difference exists in your mind in order to justify why we can have different outcomes of the same experience: transition.

image 4: not sure what the point in bringing up the difference between society and nature is. sure, they’re different, but each one is real in that we have to live with both and with the ways they interact. those interactions being something like: all females (nature) are oppressed by misogyny (society).

no one is asking you to obsess over your biological sex? all i’m suggesting is, it’s better for mental health when we acknowledge our reality, that we are female, rather than believing we are or could become male.

look, you’re 18 and an adult, so i’m not trying to belittle you when i say this: at 18, the human brain isn’t done forming. in my late 20s, mine is. i guarantee i have life experiences behind me that you just don’t. i say from experience and observation of others, feelings change a lot between 18 and 30. i say from experience, it’s no good for mental health to feverishly pursue something you can never attain (becoming male). whether you believe me or not is up to you, but you in particular is not who i write this for. i write for any dysphoric female, myself included.

image 5: no, what jeopardizes your healthcare is a medical industry that suggests transition without the appropriate investment of time and resources in figuring out how to physically and emotionally care for trans people. what jeopardizes your healthcare is a lack of research into long term testosterone use and how that changes a female body. but make no mistake, changed by medication or not, it’s still a female body. what jeopardizes your healthcare are transphobic doctors and nurses who turn away trans patients because they don’t understand or are disgusted by our bodies. and that is a flaw with society, not nature.

i get that you don’t want the experience of womanhood and transition will functionally fix that for you, but your body will not enter some mystical space between male and female. it will be a female body on testosterone. and that’s fine! like you said, functionally, it does the job! no one “gives a shit” that transition is an aesthetic approximation? this discussion is not about feeling a certain way about transitioning, that is literally just the honest description of what it is. claiming to somehow slide into a biologically male body? that has a lot more to do with feelings–namely, appeasing your own internal sense of being. and as my personal experience informs me, insisting doesn’t make it so.

no one said or implied that transness or transsexuality is unnatural and thus wrong. nothing about this discussion or any of my writing is about transness being wrong. it’s almost all about how females suffer misogyny, how that influences dysphoria, and wondering if medically transitioning is the best treatment for it. that’s it. and you can agree or disagree, but trying to make it seem like i am anti-trans isn’t true or fair.

image 6: you are the only one distinguishing our dysphorias, though. you insist they’re fundamentally different, while i suggest that maybe they aren’t? your evidence that they’re different? i acknowledge the role of misogyny, while you deny it. at 18 i would have denied it, too. functionally, though, experientially, i’ll bet your story and mine have a near perfect overlap. our experiences likely mirror one another’s. and that is my point from above: there's no practical difference in distinguishing between you and me unless we’re trying to support the idea that transness is innate. and that distinction relies not on our actual, concrete, lived experiences, but on how we choose to describe them.

if i had to guess why you want to create this gulf between our experiences, it would be to rationalize why it is two very similar people with exceptionally similar experiences of functionally the same thing can reach different outcomes.

image 7: i just wanted to include this to publicly acknowledge that i had permission to post these screenshots.

but as i said in our chat message, LMAO @ the notion that my experience with transitioning doesn’t necessitate an opinion on transness!!!! what a wild stance to take! “your experience doesn’t necessitate an opinion on that experience.” lmao 😂

good luck out there, this world is a trip. i wish you well.