#love the moral dichotomy of these two worlds

[turnuptheoldvictrola1183]

Another Essay Incoming: I love this post. I do feel like not enough people who've seen the movie understand the nuance in this scene. Neither Glinda nor Elphaba are absolute anything. The core of this fantastical story filled with political maneuvering, betrayal, and flying monkeys is really just two normal girls whose strengths and shortcomings complement one another and their very real love for each other. It's ordinary, it happens every day. These girls didn't wake up each morning expecting their destinies to be the stuff of a grand tragedy. They were essentially just kids who believed what they had been taught their whole lives, believed their authority figures who told them they had to prove themselves and perform and maintain power structures in order to be seen as worthy and good. The good/bad dichotomy is a lie. They were lied to, and these lies made them both incredibly isolated in their own ways except for their brief period of genuine love and friendship with one another at school. And then, even when the wool was removed from their eyes and the illusion was shattered, the people in power who they were supposed to trust continued to leverage the patterns of isolation these girls had always known to further their own political ambitions.

We cling to the things we know and that feel comfortable to us in times of crisis or disillusionment, and Elphaba and Glinda both exhibit this. Elphaba walked through life always expecting to be seen as ugly, evil, and undeserving of love because of her father's influence on her and her appearance. So, post-Wizard revelation, she leans in. She says "fine, I will no longer seek love. I will make everyone fear me." She's still choosing to perform for these people, to be what they expect her to be, even if she's doing it out of a sense of righteous indignation. And Glinda walked through life always being perceived as beautiful, good, and deserving of praise. She chose to be blissfully ignorant and perform delicate femininity, because she knew that society would accept her most that way. She was likely taught this growing up through her privileged lifestyle; social status was currency, protection, and performing was just what everyone did. So, when her world completely fell apart, she leaned in to the things that protected her. She says "fine, I'll be the ornament to society everyone always wanted me to be, and I'll never try to be more than that ever again. I will be safe that way. It's just a performance. It isn't real."

These girls are just doing what anyone else would do when faced with the kind of trauma and circumstances they were dealt. You cling to normalcy and comfort even when those things are horrific, even when those things actively harm you. That's not to diminish Elphaba's bravery when she decides to stop trying to be seen as worthy in the eyes of morally reprehensible people and take up a cause that's bigger than herself, but it is important to note that neither of these girls were capable of making any choice other than the ones they made. They weren't equipped or supported enough. Both of them want to love, to connect, to learn, to be better people, but the world around them exploited them, abused them, and manipulated them from the time they were conscious. The only time they didn't feel the boot of fascism or the shackles of their own negative social conditioning was that brief time they got to know and love each other. In so doing, they both defied the rules and norms of their society, the society that prioritized obedience over empathy, the society that I'd argue is not so different from our own. To love and be loved is a very brave and defiant thing, indeed.

"The good man scorns the wicked. Through their lives, our children learn what we miss when we misbehave."

"Are people born wicked? Or do they have wickedness thrust upon them?"

"Because I knew you, I have been changed for good."

Okay I want to talk about this moment between Morrible and Glinda for a sec because it adds such a wonderfully sinister layer to a scene that is otherwise a triumphant defining moment for Elphaba, and it sets up the dynamics for Part 2 so perfectly.

At this point, we are in the thick of “Defying Gravity.” Everyone’s attention is on Elphaba - and rightfully so, she’s up there declaring war on the Wizard, displaying incredible feats of magic, of course everyone’s attention is on her.

…Everyone, except Morrible.

Morrible has realized that Plan A was a bust, but rather than panicking, she’s already worked over Plans B through Z in her head and has realized that Glinda, not Elphaba, is actually the key figure here. Glinda is actually the best thing that could have happened to them.

Mind you, Morrible hates Glinda. She thinks Glinda is vapid and attention-seeking and completely without talent. It would be extremely easy for her to brand Glinda as an accomplice to Elphaba, have the guards drag her off, imprison her, never have to deal with her again, nice and neat.

Instead, while everyone else is focused on Elphaba, Morrible only has eyes for Glinda. She zeroes in on her, releases her, and comforts her, because she understands what no one else understands, which is that yes, that’s great that the Wizard now has an enemy to unify his people against, but they also need a symbol of hope, something that is the exact antithesis to Elphaba, something to keep everyone at extremes. 

The Wizard himself can’t really be a symbol of hope, because the key to his success is that he remains shrouded in mystery, and yes people think he’s wonderful, but there’s a level of uncertainty and intimidation to him. He is Oz the Great and Terrible, and everyone’s preeeeeetty sure he’s a good guy, but if you have someone like Elphaba out there - who Morrible knows from experience is very smart, very articulate, and has her own sort of magnetism - there’s a potential that she could turn at least enough people against the Wizard to make things very inconvenient.

So what they need, now that they have an enemy, is to have an equally magnetic figurehead representing the Wizard who embodies all these one-dimensional ideas of goodness, someone for the public to adore and fawn over so the association between Wizard and Goodness is crystal clear.

And by bringing Glinda along, Elphaba has unknowingly served that figurehead up on a platter.

Glinda is everything Elphaba isn’t, from personality, to appearance - Morrible has already set Elphaba up by calling her green skin an “outward manifestorium of her twisted nature,” which paves the way for Glinda, who is the perfect conventional beauty, to be an “outward manifestorium” of pure goodness. 

Morrible realizes they need these two lightning rods of Absolute Evil and Absolute Good in order to manipulate people - fear alone isn’t enough; the only way to effectively radicalize the populace is to make sure there is no gray area whatsoever, no room for question: you're either good, or you’re evil. And the Wizard alone isn’t a strong enough representation of “goodness” when by virtue of existing, he has to remain in the shadows. Glinda on the other hand? With her looks and her charm and her openness and her ability to expertly win over a crowd? Perfect for the role.

Now the tricky part for Morrible is taking into consideration that Glinda and Elphaba love each other. But we also know from earlier scenes that Morrible is a master at manipulating emotions. Right from the start when Elphaba is having trouble with her magic, Morrible casually brings up the “Animals should be seen and not heard” disturbance from class, spoon-feeding her just enough to get Elphaba upset, triggering her magic, after which Morrible makes sure to give her assurance and praise to keep Elphaba optimistic about her power.

She’s also aware that Glinda does have quite a bit of influence over Elphaba, because when Elphaba flees, Morrible immediately tasks her with winning her over, rather than simply relying on the guards or even going after Elphaba herself. She knows if anyone has a chance at roping Elphaba back in, it's Glinda.

Obviously, Glinda isn’t successful in getting her back, but while this puts a dent in Morrible’s plans to get control of Elphaba, it does give her an extra weak spot to exploit in Glinda.

So now, at the height of “Defying Gravity” when Elphaba has officially taken her stand against them, Morrible sees Glinda, and Glinda is at her most vulnerable, her most emotionally fragile. Not only is she heartbroken and in shock, she’s also just witnessed in real time exactly how easy it is to turn an entire nation against someone. She’s scared, she’s powerless. She’s just lost the love of her life her only friend, she has no one to turn to - Morrible has definitely picked up on the fact that even though Glinda has countless people who fawn over her, none of them can be considered a true friend except for Elphaba, which means Glinda is completely isolated. Glinda also has a very limited understanding of the bigger picture of what the Wizard is trying to accomplish, and because she’s never been a victim of the system the way Elphaba has, she is still desperately clinging to the idea that everything will be okay as long as she plays by the rules of the people in power.

She has been perfectly primed for Morrible to begin manipulating, not through violence or intimidation, but by offering her comfort when no one else would - when not even Glinda’s only friend would - when no one else is even paying attention to Glinda, because they have the very real and present threat of Elphaba quite literally hanging over them. In this moment, Morrible chooses Glinda, which Glinda has been striving for since the beginning. Elphaba has chosen her principles, the Wizard has chosen his enemy, but Morrible has chosen Glinda, and in this moment of being so alone and so afraid and so betrayed, that makes all the difference.

We also get kind of a parallel shot too - Elphaba really sealed her fate the second her hand closed around the broom. But here, Glinda seals her fate when she gives in and reciprocates Morrible’s hold on her.

THIS is the moment that sets us up for Part 2, with Elphaba and Glinda as our lightning rods for Absolute Evil and Absolute Good, but more to the point, it makes it clear that they’ve BOTH been used, they’ve BOTH played right into these respective roles Morrible and the Wizard need in order to be successful - even if it wasn’t how Morrible originally planned for things to go.

I just love it, because “Defying Gravity” is Elphaba’s song - it’s triumphant, and it’s heartbreaking, and it’s everything a defining moment should be for a character. But by injecting this little moment between Morrible and Glinda into the scene, we also get an underlying current of dread because we know we’re about to see the consequences of Elphaba’s defiance versus Glinda’s compliance and how both serve to benefit the Wizard/Morrible’s propaganda.

TL;DR - when I said "I want to talk about this scene between Morrible and Glinda for a sec" I clearly meant "I'm gonna write a whole essay. Like a nerd."

[prettypunkpurple]

fma: human transmutation is bad!! There is no equivalent exchange for human life >:(

dungeon meshi: how much meat ya got?

[hyog-blog]

Fangs of Fortune: The Game of Yin and Yang

I love how Zhao Yuanzhou is basically embodying the philosophy of Yin and Yang, which is much more flexible and practical than the old-fashioned Christianity-inspired good vs. evil dichotomy.

And because it is Chinese philosophy, we don't get too much of that black-and-white nonsense in the show, but instead, we get to explore 50,000 shades of black, white, and gray playing with each other beautifully. And what better way to convey the ambiguous nature of this world, which seems so bent on the Duality of literally everything, than to take the Evilest Force in the world and attach the most gentle, caring, and loving soul to it (to torment both that soul and everyone who gets to witness this torment).

I mean, the recipe is nearly perfect, it really is. And not only do we get to see this evil mixed with a hefty portion of good (like that drop of white inside the Yin-Yang symbol), but we also get to see the perfectly good and innocent characters mixed with a hefty drop of black (like Bai Jiu who got possessed by Li Lun).

Children are considered by society as the most innocent creatures (okay, Bai Jiu is a teenager, but he could still pass), that's why getting him taken over by someone so dark and broody and ill-intended like Li Lun hits even harder. Like all that innocence becomes tainted by something so bad. And at the same time, being a supposedly innocent child, we also see that Bai Jiu really isn't stainless himself (and he got to explore a bit of his darker side when he betrayed his friends).

And yet, it is also Li Lun, who is not someone abysmally bad (he's just lost, and wounded, and a bit more on the demonic spectrum when it comes to ethics and morality), who gets attracted to that light and purity to get a chance at redemption (which he does get in the end!). It's as if being in that body, chatting with those people, experiencing some friendliness before he got exposed actually mattered to the point that it changed him as well (and thus, that droplet of light in the blackness of Yin started doing its magic, slowly transforming the darkness, giving hope to someone who has seemingly lost it).

There's also Zhuo Yichen and his ability to see the good for what it is and his inability to see evil where there is none. Like, if it was someone else (even in real life probably) they would righteously hate Zhao Yuanzhou no matter what (maybe even knowing that he had no choice but to kill all those people). But this young man not only sees the good in Zhao Yuanzhou, that droplet of light that shines brighter than all that malicious energy, but he actually has enough goodness in him to forgive ZYZ.

Because Zhuo Yichen's beautiful soul, no matter how innocent and pure, has seen despair and lived through so much grief that it also changed him, making him more empathetic than most people (and that's yet another thing that Zhuo Yichen and Zhao Yuanazhou have in common - they both got transformed by the heaviness of their grief, two perfectly gentle creatures who just had to explore the depth of human and demon suffering, and that's why they meet on level ground).

And what makes their relationship especially beautiful, is that they both came to the same point, but moving from different directions of the spectrum - Zhao Yuanzhou was clinging onto his own light in the Ocean of Darkness, but that light was piercing enough for him to survive and remain himself. Zhuo Yichen was light that had lived through pain and grief of unimaginable proportions, and it changed him, but it didn't drag him down into that Ocean of Darkness.

It's a type of equilibrium, and they both, each in their own right, continue looking for ways to find balance in their lives (and then they meet each other and it changes them again). Zhuo Yichen sees that there's always light in the darkness (and Zhao Yuanzhou is a stark example of it), for Zhao Yuanzhou - Zhuo Yichen is that light shining brightly, reminding him that it actually exists, and it grants him absolution. And it also makes things especially painful for him because his darkness (that malicious force) tainted that light (but it didn't, really, it transformed ZYC into something more).

And when Li Lun gives his energy/life force to Zhuo Yichen, and then when ZYC gives all those powers, adding his own, to Zhao Yuanzhou for him to break the barrier and kill Wen Zongyu - this is the reflection of the same Yin and Yang principle, the all-pervasive energies penetrating into each other, becoming one another, ever-changing. Basically what they're saying with this is "I am you and you are me and there's no difference." And not even some magic barrier can stop those energies from becoming one.

Zhuo Yichen actually understood Zhao Yuanzhou even before he got turned into a demon himself (and once again we're shown that it's not that the demons are all bad, you can still choose what to be even if you turn into one, and if you have that droplet of light inside of you, like the Yin and Yang, there's always a chance it will overpower even the borderless Darkness, be it inside a human or a demon heart).

We also get to see how that droplet of light comes in the form of love into Zhao Yuanzhou's life (from Wen Xiao, Zhuo Yichen, and the rest of their little gang), and it slowly transforms him, a very depressed being, who's already suicidal, and in the end, he actually feels alive enough to not want to die. That transformative power of light is actually limitless.

In the show, we see people come out of the darkness of their souls and bad states and depressions to see the light of something more, but then there's also the main bad guy who turned full-on evil because his wife was killed, and we see how that droplet of darkness pushed that person to the brink of becoming a murderer and torturer of both humans and demons.

And there's also the notion of Li Lun with that one thing, one betrayal, one drop of darkness changing him and bringing him close to the brink of turning full-on evil himself (he pretty much is at some point, but he never loses the ability to feel, it's just that he can't process his own grief, pain, and all those emotions that are eating him up). And even for him, who has gone so far, there was still a chance to get back (which he does, having experienced the transformative power of Zhao Yuanzhou's love that has never disappeared). So Li Lun's life is spared and he transfers himself into that piece of root that Zhu Yan saved, for he never stopped caring about Li Lun, and the latter could finally see that in the end.

Even with Wen Xiao, we see how something 'bad' (the death of her father) leads to something 'good' - she is found by the Goddess and later becomes a Goddess herself and gets to meet Zhao Yuanzhou. It's all so relative and nuanced that we can't really say that something is actually good or bad, just like with the show's characters and their personal journeys.

And don't get me started on Ying Lei, the ultimate sunshine boy, who gets dragged into the dark world of human-demon relationships, vengeance, and doomed narrative to pave a path of his own. Sometimes a droplet of light does drown in the Ocean of Darkness, but it still makes a huge difference and transforms everyone's lives before it finally fades away (that, and other people's doomed narratives may also be contagious if you go deep into those relationships). Well, we can argue that his narrative was also doomed from the start but that's a topic for a different essay XD

I just love how the show is not only about good fighting evil, the whole fight is like a veil, a premise, a stage to tell a story about characters that are much more complex than that very familiar dichotomy. And just like in life, good things sometimes lead to bad consequences, and bad deeds can bloom into something wonderful against all odds.

[a-mythologynerd]

The thing about Darlington is at first glance he seems so much more tame and straight laced in comparison to Alex, and, like he is to an extent, but its all about the packaging. (And isn't that the thing between these two anyways from the very start?) I just always get reminded how many of his character traits aren't some dignified or morally superior dichotomy to Alex and her ruthlessness. The thing is, Darlington is just as ruthless and ambitious, he just didn't have to confront it until Hell. The desperate, starving, consumption motif is so clear from Alex's very first chapter but it's not til later that you realize Darlington is the exact same way, just about things other than the extreme level of survival Alex had to endure. Instead, Darlington was able to scrap by and keep the legacy going, serving something and keep the roof over his head. It makes it less obvious then that he is also a survivor and has that same drive.

You can especially see it in the way he tries to prep himself (the exercises, the learning, the training) for the long awaited "grand adventure," the way he treats his study of the arcane (I mean seriously, you cannot paint that boy as the lawful good archetype if he decided to devote himself into brewing a mythic possibly fake archaic drink that might MIGHT let him see the great beyond just because he had to believe there was more to this life, he had nothing left to lose, and he just had to find out and couldn't be satisfied with only some instead of all), and even more clearly, the dream vision he is granted in Hell. Dawes gets a dream of academic success, Turner professional success, Darlington has a dream where his house is never empty and there is always more people, knowledge, and he finally knows the secrets of every mystery in the world. He just hides all this better. He has the polish, the East Coast rich vs LA rich, and the austere Puritanical upbringing that makes him seem as Alex puts it, "expensive." But the reason these two work (and the reason I am insane about it) is because of this shared character trait of never being satisfied and always wanting more (what's really interesting is Alex seems to want more comfort and security and Darlington wants more risk and adventure and that's what drives the conflict). I'm drawn to the parallel someone on here once said about how Darlington is a sword and Alex is a cannonball. Same effect just different methods. Different packaging. Add in the questions of who is the rabid dog, who is the soldier, the servant, the monarch, Dante, Virigil, Beatrice, Orpheus, and Eurydice? I just love how these two characters seem SO diametrically opposed at first glance but are actually so alike in childhood, character, and ambition.

[shinidamachu]

inukag was born to be shipped by me and I was born to ship inukag as well

For ages now I've been meaning to write about the reasons why I ship Inukag as fervently as I do and @inukag-week felt like the perfect opportunity to indulge myself, so here we go.

I want to start with how aesthetically pleasing they are. From their perfect size difference to the complimentary color scheme of their outfits plus contrasting hair and eye colors, Inuyasha and Kagome just look absolutely good together.

Their character design makes it clear from the get go that they're visually a great match. The association is so strong that the audience becomes unable to picture one without the other, as if they're two halves of the same item. Different, yet unequivocally a team, a pair.

Decades ago, they already had that classic quality to them and I bet they'd never get out of style even decades from now. And the rich lore that surrounds the pairing only adds to that aesthetic: the well, the tree, the beads, the robe, the sword, all of it enhances how iconic they are. Even something as ordinary as star gazing becomes uniquelly theirs.

Futhermore, I just absolutely love the entire concept of it. The subvertion of the fairy tale archetype, the idea of a love that transcends time, of soulmates who actually work on building their bond. Loving each other was both inevitable and a choice they made every single day.

Inuyasha and Kagome were just two teenagers from different worlds — literally and figurativelly — discovering together what love was. This made their relationship very compelling, because the excange between them is insanely substancial.

And their overall dynamic is so wholesome. There was a push and pull, a give and take, that made it fluid rather than static. Every single milestone felt organic and kept the audience thirsting for the next one.

Nothing felt forced or rushed. The slow burn was competently written to showcase their relationship being build on a very strong foundation, consistent in intimacy, mutual trust and acceptance — recurring themes for them and for the story — and so the stages of their bond had such a natural pace, it highlighted how genuine and healthy it was.

Consequently, there are so many aspects of their connection to explore. There's a never ending room for angst and for light hearted moments and you can adopt a more mature perspective or go for comical instead: they manage to be versatile without being generic and to embod the best clichés in fiction without becoming one themselves.

It's hard to think of a trope they couldn't pull off or an alternate universe that doesn't work for them. It gives the fandom plenty of freedom to be creative and to have the best time with it.

Plus, their chemistry was off charts. The romantic tension bleed through every single interaction. Their passion is so strong you could feel it even in scenes that had nothing to do with romance. And they didn't even need to kiss to achieve that level of synchrony.

They were also compatible. Inuyasha and Kagome balance each other quite nicely. Even in a relationship, they still keep their individualities and remain interesting both as characters and as a ship.

The very thing that dooms most pairings — opposite personalities — is precisely what keeps them together. Inuyasha and Kagome are completely different from each other, but they're actually extremely similar where it actually matters: their morals and goals.

And they longer they stay together, challenging one another, growing through trials and tribulations, inadvertently learning what each other's needs are and fulfilling them, easing each other's sorrows, covering each other's backs, saving each other's lives in every possible way, learning each other and learning with one another, the more their dichotomy turns into a duality, because they gain a more nuanced perspective of themselves, of each other and of the world.

It's a level of understanding, closeness and respect incredibly difficult to match. And for Inuyasha and Kagome, no one else even came close.

Another thing is that they're not just complementary to each other, but to the story itself. Their romance enhaces the overall plot. It has a structural placement in the wider narrative, strengthening its core themes and fulfilling the characters individual arcs, ultimately resulting in a more compelling journey.

So many romances are disposable to their own story, but Inukag was detrimental to theirs. Inuyasha and Kagome's interactions served as pivotal points of their respective arcs. Taking only the narrative into consideration, their relationship holds a lot of weight and greatly influenced everyone around it and it tied everything together.

That's why their happy ending felt so satisfying: it feels earned because everything went full cycle. All of that symbolism, all of those parallels paid off. Anything different from what we got would simply lack narrative and thematic cohesion.

And even if they didn't end up together, they could never be circumstancial. There was a real reason why they met, a reason why the fell in love and why they had ever lasting impacts on each other's lives regardless. It wasn't just love for love's sake.

This is what makes them, in my opinion, an epic ship.

BONUS: their soundtrack is lit and their quotes are simply legendary.

[ravelqueen]

One thing that is actually super interesting - character wise is how stark the difference between Angel and Angelus is when compared to Spike and be-souled Spike.

Angelus and Angel might as well be two completely different people - the way they act, react and conceptualise the world around them is honestly completely opposite.

Meanwhile, besouled Spike is a lot more aware of his past actions and isn't interested in killing humans for sport etc, but in the way he interacts with the world around him, he's actually still very similar - he's snarky and sarcastic, romantic yet cynical etc.

It's extra funny when you consider that probably this was never supposed to be a Deep Philosophical Ponderance Of The Nature Of A Soul

In my opinion this came out of happenstance: a writing choice forced on the Buffy team, based on when in the narrative it happened.

Angelus was always set up to be this enormous threat, this absolute monster tormenting Buffy, while Angel was supposed to be this fairytale first romance of a wonderful older boyfriend - the dichotomy was probably decided upon before /in season 1.

Spike on the other hand was never planned to get a soul - he wasn't even supposed to stick around longer than the 2nd season! However, the ensoulment made sense with the progression of the story/character if the writers wanted to adhere to the rules of the universe they set up namely:

Vampires are Evil Demons, inhabiting the body of the human before them, and most importantly they are irredeemable and incapable of true human affection. This is extremely important lore in that universe, because Buffy kills a lot of vampires - in the later seasons they aren't even really a major threat and more background ash. If you suddenly introduce the idea that Actually vampires can be fully redeemed, your main characters has been just murdering Possibly Good People willy-nilly for several seasons

Unfortunately, at this point in the narrative, Spike might as well have been ensouled already - he was acting altruistically, out of love (self-reported) and was mostly just helping our heroes, with motivations unrelated to villainous impulses

So really the writers had to give him a motivation to go and get his soul (the writing choices on how he gets there Being Bad notwithstanding).

HOWEVER, they really really couldn't pull the same move with Spike that they did with Angel re: his 180 degree personality switch simply because the audience liked non-soul Spike. They enjoyed the personality and character that had been crafted for the last 5 seasons, so changing him too much would have with almost complete certainty been met with negative reactions .

Which is why I assume they decided to simply soften parts of his personality, make him stop wanting to kill humans and called it a day on his other less-than-cuddly personality traits.

Which leads us to question on why two people in the same circumstances turned out so wildly different ESPECIALLY since William seemed Basically Alright when he's human.

Does that mean that Angel is fundamentally a worse person, only held back by the morality of his soul? Or that he was fundamentally a much more virtuous man and therefore the loss of his goodness had a larger impact, as removing those parts took away more of what he used to be?

That William was a lot more acerbic and mean deep down and therefore not too different? Or that actually William lost way less of his morality/capacity for empathy when he turned because Something and that led him to doing less awful things that would lead to a personality change??

Those are such interesting questions that somehow the show never addresses (as far as I know? comics people?) aside from Angel Being Mad that Spike got over his angst so quickly and it's just hilarious to me that if I'm right this basically was never meant to be that deep and simply just a byproduct of What The Fuck To Do With Spike

[cowboylane24]

has anybody said this yet

crowley & aziraphale's relationship is queer not as in they are both men (neither of them are, in fact) but as in their love threatens oppressive systems of power that have been in place for a very long time!!!

i've always seen their relationship as queer, although i think in the beginning it was because they were two masc-presenting figures on tv and i was glad to have another gay ship to root for, but it's just hitting me that their queerness actually goes much deeper.

in the good omens universe, as we've seen, outward queerness is never questioned. there's no coming out, no homophobia, no questions or stumbling over pronoun usage & gender-neutral language. so, of course, it's no problem for crowley & aziraphale to be together on earth, because they don't face the hardships that queer people in the real world face today.

rather, they face these hardships from heaven and hell (but mostly heaven).

queerness of the earthly kind is so hated by conservatives who want so desperately to cling to the structure of the nuclear, anti-social family (oppressive in its own way, that's for another essay) because it poses a threat to this structure. queerness allows for so many more possibilities, not only romantically but interpersonally in general. it inherently goes against the idea of a romantic couple as a necessarily biologically reproductive unit and expands the definition of family to include a much wider community than the strict blood lineation that has traditionally been defined as "family." this also, of course, has all kinds of consequences for capitalism and the labor force that i won't go into here.

we see that crowley & aziraphale's relationship threatens heaven & hell in the miracle they perform together, barely trying, which sends alarm bells in heaven screaming because a power like that should not be possible. the system that has been in place for millennia is a strict dichotomy: heaven vs. hell, angels vs. demons, "good" vs. "evil." but when the two mix, when morality turns gray and the two sides work together, that whole system is naturally upended.

so naturally the metatron is going to try to pull crowley & aziraphale apart. their power combined is dangerous enough to rival both heaven and hell, but even more than that, they threaten the way things have always been. and metatron, geniusly cast as an old white man, cannot stand to see it.

[ladymacbeths]

macbeth related posts/articles/essays masterlist

hi! here's a list of almost every single anaysis Thing I've come across in like two months of being insane about the scottish play. Most are about lady macbeth/the gender theme btw.

‘He has no children’: The centring of grief in The Show Must Go Online’s Macbeth - Gemma Allred: on the misogyny that frequently surrounds conversations around Lady Macbeth

this post by @amillionmillionvoices: Same topic as the previous one, but goes more in depth, explains ladymac’s motivations as mostly coming from love not self-serving ambition.

this post by @dukeofbookingham: also explains the prior point very prettily— that ladymac is (mostly) motivated by love, but also makes the case that many of it is guilt born from not fulfilling societal expectations

On the character of Lady Macbeth - Dr. Emil Pfundheler: paper that explains the same point made in the previous post, using the text to explain. Written in 1873 so explains gender as a dichotomy, but once you take that out, its points are very good.

Characteristics of women: moral, political, and historical - Anna Jameson: aka Why Lady Macbeth is not inherently evil— same topic and the other two, but focuses a bit on the fact that she is A Woman. Not my favorite, but worth reading I suppose. Also includes analyses of many female Shakespeare characters. It does include some very bad history in the beginning— Gruoch did not orchestrate Duncan’s murder. That’s something Hector Boece made up.

Lady Macbeth: “Infirm of purpose” (from The Woman’s Part: Feminist Criticism of Shakespeare) - Joan Larsen Klein: on how she both fits and doesn’t fit the idea of a reinassance wife— doesn’t fit because she isn’t aligned to god (this read more like a Christian analysis than a feminist one if I’m being honest), but fits them because she behaves like one, only subverts them because she’s like, the evil murder girl version of the Wife. The essay right after this one is also very good.

The Hysteria of Lady Macbeth: required reading if you wanna play her Btw not kidding. Analyzes her character thru the lens of freudian psychology. Screws up the text of the play a bit but provides an actual in-depth explanation of how sonnambulism works. Note that "hysteria" is not a current psychological diagnosis, but a symptom of other conditions. Still extremely interesting.

The Macbeths - G. K. Chesterton: analysis of their relationship, makes some interesting point on the differences of the nature of their ambition and desire to kill the king

Shakespeare’s tragic frontier; the world of his final tragedies - Willard Farnham: this one is long but oh boy does it go deep. Talks about the lore of the witches, explains historical context to find out how the real events were so screwed up, makes an interesting point about Macbeth’s conscience against Lady Macbeth’s, and lastly talks about the tragic world of Macbeth compared to other tragedies.

Women’s fantasy of manhood: a Shakespearean theme - D. W. Harding: exactly what it says on the tin, using ladymac and her skewed (and I’d call romanticized) idea of what a man is that she pushes on Macbeth. So yeah, talks about the gender theme. Also talks about Goneril from Lear, Cleopatra, and Volumnia from Coriolanus and how they fit the theme— although ladymac is the only one who goes downhill from it.

Unnatural women in William Shakespeare’s Macbeth - Elizabeth Klett: I’ll be honest I didn’t love this one a lot. Basically talks about how every woman in Macbeth defies gender roles. Doesn’t go too deep however. But the book has a ton of essays analyzing female characters in classic lit.

[soupthatistohot]

BSD: An Absurdist Analysis - Chapter 1

Absurdism is a philosophy that contends that life is inherently meaningless and that the only way to create meaning is through the act of revolt against life’s absurdities. 

(For a more in-depth explanation: What is absurdism/the philosophy of the absurd?)

Right off the bat, Atsushi assumes the role of our absurdist protagonist by refusing to die despite his seemingly hopeless situation.

Atsushi is an orphan who has just been kicked out of his orphanage, he’s starving, and yet refuses to steal and cannot get a job. Even so, he has this steadfast determination to keep on living, if only to spite those who spurned and abused him. He’s already got that spirit of rebellion in him!

And so he does ultimately resolve to steal from the next person he sees… but then he finds Dazai floating in the river.

It’s a funny contrast we get here. We’ve just had Atsushi declare his intention to keep on living, and then he saves Dazai, who is salty that his suicide attempt has just been interfered with. Immediately, there’s a dichotomy here between a person who wants to live and one who wants to die. 

I won’t get too into it here because it's bound to come up again, but absurdists view suicide as a cop-out, basically. If the whole point of absurdism is to rebel and revolt, choosing to take your own life is the opposite of that, it’s giving up. In this moment, Dazai represents a different response to absurdity, suicide. I will also mention here that there is a third response to the absurd, and this is what the average civilian in BSD likely does: accept absurdity and just live with it. Rather than rebelling, they do nothing, and simply let meaninglessness control them. 

Anyway, after Dazai’s rescue, we are introduced to Kunikida and his ideals. His ideals are a form of absurdist revolt, in a way, and while I’ll explore this more deeply in future chapters where it's more relevant, I did want to bring it up as we establish characters during their introductions. Essentially, Kunikida’s ideals are the guide to how he navigates the absurd world and lives his life, and contrary to popular belief, he is not some goody-two-shoes who constantly panders to rules and authority, he has an acute sense of justice that he’ll adhere to no matter what. That is his way of fighting against the absurdity of the modern world. 

The ADA is neither government nor criminal, they kind of live in their own gray area and their job is basically to handle the most absurd situations (i.e. a man-eating tiger on the loose). I think the ADA being the “dusk” is a really important concept not only for BSD’s ongoing theme of moral grayness but also for this idea of absurdity. The BSD universe is so insane that the government and police, who are supposed to be society’s ultimate protectors, cannot handle it alone — there has to be a specialized group of individuals to do so. 

After this, Atsushi agrees to become bait for the tiger, still unaware of his own special ability, he wallows in self-pity while he waits with Dazai, and then Dazai nullifies his ability once he transforms. Kunikida and some other ADA members show up, and when asked what they’ll do with him, Dazai decides to hire Atsushi.

Note: I love how Ranpo is grinning here while the others are like "wtf?"

You catch an insecure orphan kid with an extremely dangerous ability he has no control over, and decide to hire him? It seems to make no sense, especially since the ADA is introduced as this super-specialized unit of incredibly powerful individuals who do serious and important work.

But, as we know, this works out amazingly for both Atsushi and the agency.

Dazai’s decision to hire Atsushi was his way of embracing the absurd, which is a common theme within stories with absurdist themes. Because what are the other options here? They turn Atsushi over to the police and he’s imprisoned for the rest of his life on account of his dangerous ability? They just kill Atsushi because of said danger? Both of those options have little bearing on Dazai or the agency in the end, and we’re well aware that Dazai isn’t exactly an empath, and yet he chooses the seemingly worst option for the agency, which is to take on this clueless kid. 

We’re treading into Dark Era territory here, but I do want to talk about it because it’s not included in the manga. So, I think it’s also really worth noting that this decision directly ties in with Dazai’s goal to live up to his promise to Oda. At this point in the story, we wouldn’t know this, but Oda explicitly told him to “help out some orphans” when advising him to do good. Overall, what Oda tells him to do is to become an absurdist and search for the beauty in life by fighting against its meaninglessness, rather than giving in through suicide or perpetuating violence in the Port Mafia.

Anyway, that’s the end of chapter 1 of BSD! It sets up a lot in terms of absurdist storytelling, from the characters to the world they inhabit. Future chapter analyses might not take up an entire post on their own like this depending on the chapter’s content, but for the first one, I felt it was important to establish the characters and setting within the absurdist context. 

I also have absolutely no plan or schedule for posting these, I’m mostly doing it for my own enrichment because I genuinely get a lot of fulfillment from merging two of my interests together like this. I will continue to read manga like this in my free time and make these posts until I catch up with the present, and that might take a while since there are currently 110 chapters to get through. Additionally, I will absolutely still continue to do my absurdist analyses when chapters come out, especially since it’s so prudent to the plot of the current arc, so look out for those, too!

Thanks for reading and please feel free to reply and/or send asks about these posts, I love engaging in discussions about this stuff and I’m sure there will be things I miss along the way!

[Next] [Masterpost]

[cer-rata]

If I could rework Ra's al Ghul conceptually, I think I'd make him occupy a similar place as Doctor Doom, an entertaining and difficult to deal with fact of life that represents a valid if flawed worldview. This is the direction I'd shift him in:

-Incredibly intelligent and prepared as a rule

-Wildly well resourced

-Still an antagonist but with a moral framework that sometimes leans kind of blue/orange

-Has things and people that he truly cares about in ways that are deeply understandable and even admirable

-Honestly? Kind of has a point ideologically, the problem lying in how he goes about achieving it

-Big ego that he sort of deserves

-Has a master goal that makes sense for an immortal with lots of perspective, even if the drawn conclusion is wrong. This is a big one. You have to be able to believe that he truly could be so smart and experienced and decide to die on the hill he does, without just hand waving him as being crazy. The incoherent ecoterrorism based genocide plot works for hot mess era Poison Ivy, not an immortal, well read mastermind who has had hundreds of years to actually come up with real solutions. (And even Ivy has moved on from that, like--)

-Maybe lean away from the Lazarus corruption angle because it's wildly inconsistent and unclear as to what effect it actually has and kind of provides an easy way out instead of forcing Batman and the reader to actually contend with his ideas.

And this is not to say he can't be an unfortunate influence in Damian and Talia's life. But I think it's all much more interesting if the Bruce/Ra's dichotomy doesn't have a wildly obvious moral high ground that positions Bruce as the white savior, swooping in with his evolved western ideals. I think Talia is more rewarding as an idealist who is truly forced to make a hard decision between two men she loves dearly, both as people and for the values they represent, and maybe ends up somewhere in between, coming up with a philosophy that works for her. For that to work their frameworks actually have to be comparable. Parents can mess you up even when they're trying their absolute best and love you dearly, he doesn't have to be cartoonishly cruel to their bodies and minds to get to the point of familial dysfunction.

I'm just going to say it, I think It's time we move on from the evil mystical Arab terrorist that doesn't value human life or women or the wishes of his own family and has no real constructive goal or politics--like I've only been implying it so far, but the inherent racism in the construction of Ra's al Ghul is A LOT to deal with and makes it very difficult to actually enjoy him as a character. Conceptually he's got too much potential to just be a caricature. We live in a world where the Joker is positioned as some kind of ideological foil to Batman, instead of a character with ACTUAL IDEALS.

And enough with the biological determinism stuff! Stop that! Stop that right now! I'm putting "nature vs nurture" on a high shelf until you can behave and not use it to be racist. It might not be coming back people! A thousand years in the dungeon! A thousand years of pain!

[hyba]

Happy STS! What are some trends you've noticed you like to write in your themes or characters? Do you keep coming back to certain subjects? Do you reuse characters from WIP to WIP?

Thank you for sending this ask 💙

Common themes, oooo. 🧐 I do a lot of 'naive or unpreprared character is thrown in the deep end' and I think that's just a reflection of how much I feel like life is just hard as an adult lol. I truly feel like I wasn't prepared adequately for "real life" and I can't believe I'm so far into my twenties and still struggling with that, and so this is a way of exploring that in my own writing.

Mila (The Fall of the Black Masks) and Noctora (The City of Light) are great examples of this as a growth/great-world-beyond situation, and Ragnar (The Fall of the Black Masks), Villus (Return of the Exiled), and Adrian (Marie/Elise) are examples of a very dark life-beats-you-down version of this. In The Fall of the Black Masks, I use the dichotomy between Mila and Ragnar to create a dialogue between those two sides of the same coin.

I also love a good revenge theme, where a character sets out to get revenge for a terrible wrongdoing, usually for someone they love, and usually with very bittersweet results that leave you conflicted. 😈 (Just wait until I reveal the Ragnar/Villus plot twist 🔥🔥🔥 delicious stuff)

And then there's the (perhaps insufferable) moral and noble character, the one who will take matters into their own hands and ensure the right thing is done and that justice is served as it should be, even if that means operating outside of the law. Marie (Marie/Elise) fits the bill there, along with Laith (Murder in Heliopolis) and a few others.

I think I do re-use characters for sure. I mean, apart from series with recurring characters, or some stories where the character is later on revealed to be someone from another book/series I'm writing (love the plot twist of that for readers who are familiar with the other book in question 🔥), I also feel like I do re-use templates of characters?

Like Ragnar (The Fall of the Black Masks) and Adrian (Marie/Elise) are both very similar templates at their roots, despite how much they differ. Both very injured, jaded, melancholy characters who have a surprisingly similar outlook on life. I would even add Sahra and Vadra (The Pirates of Sissa) to that list.

I've been trying to differentiate my characters more, however, so that I do feel like each character is an entity in their own right, and not just a variant of a template, so to speak.

This was a wonderful ask, thank you!! 😊💙

[raayllum]

Whenever you talk about Callum and Claudia and moral ambiguity, I always think of this quote

"A hero would sacrifice you to save the world, but a villain would sacrifice the world to save you."

I love your metas, and I thought you might find this interesting (unless you already had this one in the back of your head lol)

Now, part of this may be because I grew up with PJO - a series with a very heroic, brave, and loving main character whose in-universe fatal flaw is "To save a friend you would sacrifice the world" - but I tend to err away from this dichotomy of villain-hero and subsequent selfish-selfishness in general.

The hero "saving a loved one vs the the world" is an age old conflict and also an inherently fantastical scenario, as it's a literal trolley problem on a level no real life person will ever experience (there can certainly be similar things in IRL war when a lot of hard, otherwise unfathomable choices have to be made). And, traditionally, most villains cover up their schemes with notions of doing things for the Greater Good (hi Viren!) even if their actions are also things that are conveniently benefitting themselves. And typically, the hero is the Hero precisely because they understand that recognizing the personhood of the individual and that it's important to always value the individual (of which the many are made of) is a crucial cornerstone of well, valuing life at all.

This sort of trolley problem is something that TDP comes back to over and over again and most of the time, the 'right' choice is defending the life of the (innocent) individual under attack no matter the otherwise personal consequence.

Runaan: You let him live, but you killed us all!

Sol Regem: No, you have two choices. You all die, or just the wretched evil human dies.

To do otherwise leads to Sarai's death as a narrative punishment. (ATLA explores this too, with Aang being literally Killed the second he successfully, albeit reluctantly, gives up his attachment to Katara. Which is harsh but very indicative, I think, as far as narrative punishments go, and reaffirmed in the finale with Aang being given a third path precisely because he refuses to surrender his attachments a second time.)

That's not to say heroes never prioritize the greater good. Rayla is very world focused ("This could end the war and change the world!" / not taking Claudia's deal in 4x09) and Ezran exchanges his freedom/safety for the chance for his soldiers to be able to lay down their arms and it's a primary concern for him in S4 ("But the kingdom needs me" "The world needs you"). Callum smashes the primal stone to hatch Zym. But, most importantly, the Heroic thing to do is to choose to lay down your life, not solely offer up others', for those causes or choices. And Viren's hesitation and later inflated self importance (among other emotions) is his Original Sin, series wise. (Even the fact he refuses to give up the egg and offer it as a possible plea for Harrow's life; he'd rather sacrifice his own because of his own paranoia than risk giving Xadia a 'weapon'.)

In many ways, TDP says "The villain will sacrifice you for their notion of the world (who counts as a person, etc), and the hero will save you even at the potential cost of the their world, re: themselves".

However, because this is TDP, even this dichotomy isn't Simple or clear cut. Runaan and his troupe all willfully give their lives for an ultimately lost cause that will only create more suffering and was, per the words of the story and reaction of the other characters, completely Unnecessary; Claudia is certainly prioritizing the life of the individual, but with a complete lack of regard for any other life forms as a dark mage (and isn't thinking through the long term consequences, but more on that here).

TDP also calls into question the nobility or necessity of self or self imposed sacrifice, particularly in Rayla's character and where and how it can be taken to a dangerous level. For example, her walking away from the drake is a character regression, not a progression, precisely because it throws away the life of the individual (something she largely never did before) while also reaffirming that she's far too prone to throwing her own life away unnecessarily/unfairly.

So. Where does this leave us? And what does this mean for Callum and Claudia?

Well, I think there's a few consistencies:

1) Are you sacrificing yourself because you feel like you have to (obligation and guilt) or are you sacrificing yourself because it is the right thing to do (harm mitigation)?

This is probably where Rayla and Harrow fall the most. That's also not to say this dichotomy is solid, as it can definitely be flexible / bleed into each other (Harrow's surrender of his life in 1x03 is, I believe, both). But it is useful in differentiating when Rayla is being noble (saving Zym, 2x07, 3x09, possibly 4x09) vs when she's being self-punishing (1x02, 3x08, Through the Moon, definitely 4x09).

2) Are you sacrificing others in ways you would not sacrifice yourself? Are you sacrificing yourself in ways you would not sacrifice others?

This is where I think Runaan, Viren, Rayla, and Callum primarily fall into. Viren is the only one who really hardcore engages with the first question (yes, he'll sacrifice himself, but it's almost always with an edge of disregard to others and/or a sense of ego), with Runaan, Rayla, Callum, and Claudia all leaning towards the second one. "You're going to be better now, that's all that matters" "It doesn't matter what happens to me, live or die this dragon goes home" "If me dying is the only way for you and Zym to get across safely, then it's time for me to meet the end" and "I am already dead".

3) Are you actively chasing a self destructive/sacrificial pattern or is it something you are pushed into and then have to react to?

This is the key difference (most of the time) I think between Claudia and Rayla (first option) and Callum (second option). For me, I perpetually come back to the way Callum is willing to risk his life, most often, only when he has hope of survival (i.e. he lays down his life for Ez but also immediately argues that he should get to live; Rayla talks him down in 3x01 with two words and Callum immediately starts looking for another plan; he jumps off the Pinnacle with the hope of wings). This is in direct contrast to Claudia and to Rayla. Where Ezran argues in 3x02 that children shouldn't pay for their parents' mistakes, Rayla argues the exact opposite and that she should die in 3x08. The "pushed into a corner" Callum vs Claudia "seeking it out" seems pretty consistent, but I could see Callum seeking it out a bit more in S5, particularly in relation to the coins (but we'll have to see).

Closing Thoughts

To be clear, I don't think TDP is interested in giving a Definite answer about self sacrifice and selfishness vs selflessness (sacrificing yourself can be selfish; saving yourself can be selfless; selfishness is not always a vice and sacrifice is not always a virtue). I think it's a theme, as a subset of grief and relationships, that the story has chosen to Explore in a variety of different ways.

One of the main reasons I've always leaned towards Callum and Claudia paralleling each other more directly is 1) they always have (Claudia comes up with the switching spell in 1x01 because of Callum, and that's precisely what Callum executes when he says he's Ezran, for ex), 2) Aaravos' pawns ("a song of love and loss" "Aaravos chose as his instruments" "those who fail tests of love," etc.) and 3) Claudia is primed to be the one pushing for Aaravos to be freed.

This is somewhat sympathetic because it's for her dad, but Viren-Claudia have a complicated to unhealthy kind of dynamic, and Viren isn't really a character most of the audience cares about being saved (nor does he himself, and he's already been Saved once), so the sympathy can only go so far. However, it's still pretty clear that they're both set up to get atonement/redemption arcs to a degree. The easiest way to not have Claudia be incredibly demonized is for another, good guy character, to make the same/a similar choice for a similar reason. I've gone on record saying I think Callum will either make a conscious choice where he knows he could be risking Aaravos' freedom if it snowballs, or an active choice directly freeing Aaravos, simply because who else would have the incentive, who else has the foreshadowing, and it ties together the thematic overhaul of S4 pretty well, as well as Callum's associations with Freedom thematically.

Because valuing the individual over the world isn't Wrong, just like valuing the world over the individual isn't necessarily Right. It depends on bond, sympathy, circumstance, the attitude and role of the character you're saving and who's doing the saving and how. I've said it before that every character in TDP typically wants the same thing - to protect their loved ones - and so their methods - what they're willing to do or not do, and how they do it - is what creates the moral and ethical spectrum of the show.

TLDR; sometimes we sacrifice the right things for the wrong reasons, or the wrong things for the right reasons. Claudia still doesn't think/know that Aaravos is evil (because she is a Legend at ignoring red flags and her own prejudice); Callum does. Claudia doing all this to save her father out of her own desperation would offer up a nice parallel of Callum also doing something out of desperation to protect/save the people he loves. I think they both have a great capacity to be Wrong, while (in Callum's case) also somewhat doing the Right Thing. That's why it's Moral Dubiousness, after all.

And also why his Tales of Xadia bio spells it out for us 3 different times:

Liberty: I'm beholden to my inner circle, not some silly kingdom.

Devotion: I value those close to me more than anyone or anything.

Has the lowest Justice (the defined desire to do What's Right) score of any of the main heroic characters in the trio or in the show, other than Lujanne

[elisabethbabarci]

SOLIDARITY

In a world of interconnectivity, one must always remain loyal and true to their ethics and principles. One of the greatest measure of truth and honourability within character is our ability to form trusted allegiances with those who stand by our side in our moments of greatness and the pivotal periods within our life where our endurance is tested to its limits. When we as a collective engage and stand strong in unity, faithfulness, truth, and renounce a mercenary stance to desert, betray, or undermine another, our unwavering devotion, allegiance, and solidarity is demonstrated and outlined in our dedication to protect and serve those that we cherish, love, respect, and admire. This form of allegiance can be placed in the form of family such as a guardian or parent, friendship that has spanned ebbs and flows of challenges over time, mentorships, colleagues, a beloved pet, teachers, partnerships, or a mere moment of demonstration of making the conscious choice to do what is needed within a critical period of juncture of time. When one demonstrates a character of reliability, dependability, honourability, honesty, consistency, keeps their word, discrete on sensitive matters, and will always remain true, that is the true litmus test for a strong foundation for not only friendship but also represents a spiritual alliance that is for one’s highest and greatest good of all.

A connection, bond, union, or alliance is usually based on an association between two parties who have a shared interest, or one that is based on unconditional love or unity where two souls are supportive, mutually respectful, and the bond proves to be based on a knowledge and understanding that they are safe and secure within the connection. Enabling and engaging in these deep connections fosters our heart, mind, and spirit to open as we open ourselves to become vulnerable and place our trust and comfort in another. In my opinion, our connections are based on more than a reason, season, or lifetime, they represent an opportunity for our souls to expand, to foster growth within our groups, and to enable us to see another’s perspective through their lens of kaleidoscopic trajectories beyond our experience. When we open our soul to the possibility of becoming vulnerable, it enables the heart to feel, respond, heal, and even radiate profound love for another beyond our own construct. As we embark on new trajectories, journeys, experiences, circumstances we then collaborate with others based on a common purpose, a profound awakening, or a powerful lesson, or eternal connections. No connection is by accident, we all serve a major purpose within the lives of others. Coalitions and partnerships are the moral backbone which enhances society. When we work together as one, we are united. To have a society which fosters an amalgamation of histories, stories, experiences, and wisdom, enhances the structure from within, as we can all learn from one another. We are much stronger together than we can ever be apart. When we are closely linked, our collaborative efforts enhance the existence of life itself.

The one common misconception that many experience in their human existence is the illusion that they are alone within this world. Feeling lonely does not mean you are alone — they are two completely different dichotomies. One might argue that within a relationship due to mistreatment, misalignment, miscommunication, no mutual respect, or having the experience of love with ingrained restrictive conditions can make you feel silenced, unseen, alone, more than not engaging in a partnership itself. When we are faced with the choice to choose what is for our highest good, our greatest alignment, our purpose, our path, we must take into account the actions of another rather than the spoken word. Be aware to not partake in illusions of a fake future, always look for concrete examples if the individual is there for you in your time of need, when you feel the world is closing in, when you experience despair, misfortune, or cruelty because it is easy to be present in times of greatness as many will form alliances as it will serve their self interest but to stand with another during turbulence reveals the soul that understands solidarity. Our unity is our greatest strength, and defines our character. Our actions and our unique individual signature frequency echoes beyond our experiences and will be mirrored back within time, as karma is the greatest educator in our existence. If one does not stand loyal, true, or demonstrates a character that can be easily swayed due to a temptation of a moment, it signifies dissent, dishonesty, disloyalty, and will only amount to destruction and treachery in the worst form. You will always know another’s true intention by how they react in your time of need, our presence and time is the most sacred gift we can provide to another and when that is not present, that is the truth, and our truth is what we stand by. Never reconstruct a circumstance or romanticize disloyalty. Rejection is redirection, and is infinite universal protection from above, as it reveals what we may have been blind to see or refuse to acknowledge. Our awakening can only occur when we dissolve illusions and disengage with imagination of what we want for acceptance of what is. Do not get entangled in cycles of lies, always remain in your truth, and give yourself the permission to see beyond the veneer. When you encounter a true partnership, your actions will be synchronized and will form symbiosis, it will not matter the time or distance between you or another, you will always be closely linked and attached as your bond is a unified front and is a true unbreakable sacred bond. If you have not encountered such a friendship or partnership like this, please know, it will come when it is needed or when it is divinely timed for we are meant to nurture, love, and cherish one another as we are collectively linked throughout time and space.

A true mentor, friend, partner, or guardian will give you the freedom to decide your own path without infringement. The power to allow another to pursue their greatest goals, desires, or accomplishments is undeniably unconditional love. When you release the reigns of control, allow the other to feel true sovereignty, emancipation, the purest freedom for the first time, to truly express or to be who they are at their core without restraint, you reach an elevated status where you have unwavering faith in their abilities to succeed, no matter what challenges or obstacles they encounter. A union that stands the test of time will never compare, keep tally, or keep tabs, the union has a silent understanding based on compassion, respect, and loyalty that no matter what the other will encounter they will be there for them in their time of need and be present in all that they encounter and experience. When we sequester ourselves, become divided, are not open to new forms of companionships, and resist change, we deny ourselves the privilege of understanding what it means to be united, a collective, as one. Beyond age, beyond our sexual orientation, our physical form, we can connect on different levels based on our experiences. For example, one that honours and respects their elders wisdom will learn from past generational mistakes, one that might have experienced abandonment may have the opportunity to experience profound love with another that represents the true version of the divine masculine or divine feminine, and one that has always encountered destruction and war, might be given the privilege of meeting another who has immense innocence when it comes to the world, who encompasses inner peace, a genuine forgiving nature, purity of heart, and honours the value of peace within all realms of life. The disturbances we encounter within can be healed by another demonstrating to us another way of being and life. If we deny the opportunity to change, we will remain stagnated within this lifetime deprived of experiences which are essential for our evolutionary growth. Only through experience do we obtain profound wisdom. Human connection should not be based on the here and now, or disposable mindset, because when we nurture and value another, it enhances the lifespan and existence for all. When we consciously plant the seeds that develop new paths to flourish, we envision, create, and construct, a greater future for all. When we feel love at a deep level, it enables us to feel secure, safe, and free to express ourselves at a delicate vulnerable level. To share a life with another is a precious gift that we must cherish.

To encompass peace in the presence of conflict, enables us to all remain anchored in our light, and through our interactions we learn how to be honourable, respectful, united, the power of time and our presence in another’s life, and most importantly equality. When we forgive one another, open our hearts, we then enable our soul to redefine love not from a misguided perspective but from a place of acceptance, tolerance, inclusiveness, and balance within. Our presence, our time, our words, our actions, can heal generational traumas, internal pain, to reach an elevated state of forgiveness for ourselves and others. Our actions create impact and impart vast wisdom on those whose lives we touch at an intricate level. When we offer our support, compassion, empathy, understanding without judgement we build fortified societies that can withstand the test of time.

When you experience a moment of indifference, displacement, loss, injury, or internal pain, or where you feel you need to create walls to enable stronger boundaries, ask yourself, when you were an infant, did you have current knowledge of your existence being bad or good? Was the illusion that the world was not safe to co-exist in ingrained into your conscious state of mind or a learned patterned behaviour? Did you believe in endless opportunities? Did you believe in your ability to set your mind to any task at hand without fear that something could go in the opposite direction? If you were within the arms of a dear loved one, what words of encouragement would they have for you in this present time? Be mindful of what you accept, tolerate, or blindly accept as universal truth. You set your own moral and ethical precedence, standards, and practices. You have an internal obligation and duty to fulfill your divine purpose. Only through experience, do you recognize what is in alignment within your life. Our past generational ancestors built their lives on the foundation of hope, with a strong persevering will to excel despite what was thrown at them. You owe it to yourself and those within your soul tribe or previous generational lines to become courageous. To encompass faith and hope, to be open to challenges for your evolutionary growth, to change and alter your perception and perspective to enable enhanced wisdom, and to choose to represent strength and resilience as you proceed forward despite difficulties, opposition, or discouragement, is true solidarity to yourself, for you have faith in your own wings. Believe in yourself, give yourself the time, presence, and trust to form connections, your heart is built to experience unprecedented and unconditional love. Beyond yourself, always keep in mind, you ignite the change in another to see their worth, value, and their purpose. Maintain determination, and consciously choose to encompass a continued effort to enhance the lives of others around you. Stay anchored in your light, be true to yourself, foster genuine authentic connections, and radiate your inner light from within.

[noisytenant]

"hot allostatic load" is very much a work worth reading and discussing, and it's shameful how the harrowing experiences described can be found unchanged these 9 years later. it highlights so many intersecting dynamics and consequences of the transmisogyny, ableism, and racism that are perpetuated within ostensibly "inclusive" spaces.

that being said, i feel like it still kind of reifies the victim/aggressor dichotomy and maintains "abuser" as a meaningful ontological class of malicious actors, and i'm skeptical of that part of the argument.

mostly i feel like messaging is mixed; between nominal challenges to the moral hierarchy and innocence/guilt paradigm, there are a number of lines that assert the innocence and good intent of victims, while taking as fact the malice and wanton destruction of aggressors.

lines like "abusers don't spend years disabled by those thoughts [of being sociopathic, crazy, or abusive] because they don't care if they hurt other people" have me raising my eyebrows. i feel that this line of thinking leaps over all of the little social and mental tricks that enable abuse--the minimization of consequences, the willful and selective ignorance of power dynamics, the magical thinking of intent trumping impact.

it has been my experience that a great deal of abusive individuals think they care deeply about hurting others, and do at times ruminate about the morality of their actions, but inevitably fall back on various justifications to maintain their behavior. i worry that the reassurance, essentially, "an abusive person wouldn't worry about being abusive" can terminate necessary reflection and growth.

it is an important part of the healing process to first realize that it wasn't all your fault, and that you are not uniquely evil or irredeemable. but i think it's an important part of being a political actor to challenge framing issues in terms of blame and ontological badness entirely. sometimes you are the one who fucked up, badly, and the question of handling that situation is fundamental to anticarceral politics.

the essay seems to believe in a type of genuinely "bad person", but it offers little in the way of how to identify them and what to do about them. how does one distinguish confused and righteous people from "pathological liars"? how does one distinguish the airing of personal grievances privately and without a major callout from the weaponization of whisper networks and silent ostracization? what punishments would be appropriate for the "bad people" who avoid them through privilege? if someone fucks up, what does it look like for them to actually atone and change things for the better?

i agree with the concluding sentiment that "there is no kind of justice that resembles hundreds of people ganging up on one person, or tangible lifelong damage being inflicted on someone for failing the rituals of purification that have no connection to real life". we should carefully consider what tools and methods we use in a quest for a more just world, because some of them have grave consequences. but this alone feels imprecise when paired with the whole of the article's wobbly stance on victimhood and abuse, and general lack of suggestions for how marginalized people can be heard and believed.

i guess my feeling is that i'd like to view the piece as a snapshot of this kind of abuse and its effects on all levels, but i personally think many of the core arguments are better discussed elsewhere. it just isn't very precise and honed, and i think a sharp argument is required to cut through the muck of cognitive dissonance and self-justification that perpetuate the abuses we're trying to stop.

anyways, that's just my two cents. hope it resonates with others; if you see the article differently, i'd love to hear a different perspective on it too. i worry if i'm misreading somehow, or overly critical due to unexamined bias. but i can't really know if that's the case if i don't share my thoughts with anyone else. so, here i am with my thoughts. Heart

[ultimateplaylistmaker]

Wait, what are the four ideölogies?

Thank you for asking!

I'll divide them by Hate/Love

Hate Despair and Love Despair are the two main factions of despair. The biggest face of Hate Despair is Tsumugi and Love Despair is Mikan.

Hate Despair is totally outwards, it's not about you in any real way, it's about making everyone ELSE feel BAD just because its profitable or its kinda entertaining. It lacks as much soul but it's much more likely to get to some really questionable weird places like a fucking killing game tv show, effective, but soulless. You don't get much out of it other then the satisfaction of a job well done. Brutally effective, but much harder to sell people on acting on, thus usually falling to a handful of people who take advantage of no one else feeling they can change the system. It's pure voyeur of others suffering without much care about why they're suffering just that they are, theres no actual personal investment in it and that makes it impossible to reason with it.

Love Despair is much more inward, its not so much about other people is its about getting the believer their own catharsis. Love Despair takes thoughts like "god, why is the line so long I wish everyone here would die" and then acts on them. It's complete selfishness and a disregard for anyone else as long as you get yours. Who cares if millions die, you got that compliment from Junko! So all is okay! It's all about you! and what you want! and what you want is everyone who has ever been mean to you to die horribly! Despair brings satisfaction, pleasure, and when the high wears off and you go "oh my god what have i done" you just go do it again to get your mind off it, creating a circle of almost addiction. It's more viral, but more easy to get talked out of. It's mob mentality after all, if the mob starts to slow, so will you.

Meanwhile with Hate Hope and Love Hope the faces are Juzo and Makoto, this is a much more visible then the Despair dichotomy.

Hate Hope is all about the greater good, its again very not personal, it's about doing what will logically do the most good with the least risk. It's killing those who stand in the way because its just more efficient, it's very much a turn on your neighbor kind of hope where you report things wrong or at risk to try and maintain peace and keep people happy, its a lot less real personal moral choice about whats right and more following rules and handling things quickly. Much less room for change or progression but in a dangerous place like the tragedy, brutal efficiency very much gets the job done and protects a lot of people more effectively. Its punching a teenager in the face because even if it sends them to the hospital, if you just let them keep going they might get killed. Sometimes you have to do the wrong or cruel thing to get the best results.

Love Hope is being unable to sit still in the face of any perceived wrong doing even if its for the "best" and is thus much more volatile then Hate Hope and easily used for good and bad but when used makes much bigger splashes and can make the most changes in peoples views of the world. It's becoming a war criminal just on the chance it might be able to reform the world's most dangerous people because goddammit theyre still PEOPLE. No matter how much easier it makes things! It's passion, and moving before you think because you can't just sit idly by. Rules don't matter, hell, sometimes what the majority wants doesn't matter, what matters is doing the right goddamn thing, even if it may be more dangerous or chaotic. Its a firm belief people arent chips you can bet and exchange for something even if that something is peace! they're people! Even if its riskier if it could maybe save one more person its worth it! It's got a lot of potential for things to go wrong, it's more of a gamble, but it will alter the world forever in a way Hate Hope fucking WISHES it could.

It's all very Mind vs Heart, Logic vs Passion, Order vs Chaos, neither one is inherently better or less dangerous then the other, and for best results you want to get both to work together to balance out more, but they're also very inherently at odds in ways that constantly cause conflict throughout the series.

[graham--folger]

okay i’m probably going to attract a bit of um. bad will for saying this but. all the people complaining about this season not having a plot or not a well-developed plot. i feel like they’re missing the point a little bit

s1 and, i imagine, s3 are where the real plot is. like the seriously important plot, the whole heaven and hell business, armageddon, the second coming, general good omens insanity. but neil said himself s2 was kind of a break from that (quiet, gentle, romantic, etc) and here’s why i think it’s a good thing.

this season was soooo character driven. and mainly exploring crowley and aziraphale’s relationship yes. but to make a serious thematic commentary, okay? the conflict between these two characters and by extension the central treatise of good omens would be nothing without this season or the attention given to the character arcs.

all of the minisodes were there to yes 1) build up the relationship and shared history between crowley and aziraphale but also 2) to demonstrate their differing world views if you will

you see aziraphale's continued black-and-white thinking and how he is still unable to shake heaven's hold over his concept of morality at literally every turn. he struggles to reckon with his own betrayal of heaven in the job minisode even when on some level he knows he did the right thing and then the whole resurrectionist business illuminates that rigid sense of morality again. and you see crowley repeatedly doing what he personally knows is right—completely free of heaven or hell's influence. he is operating as a free agent for the entirety of s2 just as he was in s1. aziraphale is sort of on the same page as him but hasn't quite gotten all the way there. yet.

and then you have the final argument and we really see this come to a head.

aziraphale thinks he can fix the system that he recognizes is not working as it should and wants crowley by his side. crowley knows that the system is too broken to repair and wants to get as far away from it as possible. neither of them is completely right as i know people have been talking about. regardless, this is the conflict, this is the commentary, this is the thematic basis of the show: the struggle against polarized thinking and the breaking from systems of abuse and moral absolutism—finding the shades of gray by working together. crowley and aziraphale's relationship makes it so they can actually take steps to wrestle with this fact. and i think it was important we got to see their relationship with humanity (and also human love) a lot more closely this season to further support that since humanity represents the shades of gray in question.

so, going back to my main point, this season was so necessary to really illuminate the stakes going into s3 and for the audience to understand on a much deeper, more intimate level the struggle these two characters are facing. we needed s2 to really ground the huge concept of the dichotomy of heaven and hell in the everyday and possibly even mundane (or as mundane as you can get with two celestial beings as the mcs) situations.

i don't think it would be possible to go directly from s1 to whatever s3 is going to be without s2 there to bridge the gap. it would cheapen the character arcs so much. maybe it could achieve the same level of commentary, maybe it couldn't, but i don't think it would have the same impact on the audience as all of the little moments in s2 gave us. it was incredibly character driven as a season because in order for the story to make this commentary it needed a moment to breathe and ground itself. season 2 was that moment.