#saint meta

[saintbleeding]

[ID: Transcript excerpt from MAG 142: STATEMENT GIVER: "No! No, I’m not! Of course I’m not – It felt like – Like I was throwing up all those feelings again, and I wanted to, to scream, but instead I just sat and calmly told him my life story, and he just watched me. His eyes, like – His eyes were li-like drinking in every fragment of my misery. I can’t – It – (pause) And then it was over. And he looked – He looked at me like he���d just eaten, like, a perfectly cooked steak. You know what he said, he said “Thank you.” Thank you, just like that, like – like reliving the worst parts of my whole life were just a bit of a favor that I’d done him. And then he left, and, and I-I just sat there, and cried for a while. (sniff) That wasn’t the end." End ID.]

the argument can and has been made that maybe jon tells jess tyrell he works at the institute as a mechanism to maybe accidentally-on-purpose get caught or externally stopped. and that is tasty and i dig it. but also i cannot help but think that there is a distinct possibility that he says this, like this, as some sort of internal coping device: you don't have to face up to the full scope of the ramifications of your actions if you don't explicitly acknowledge that you think it's wrong what you're doing. (after all his grandmother likely a) never apologised and b) seemed to sleep just fine) like. this just feels like such an attempt at distancing and compartmentalising and turning it into a sterile little transaction.

augh babygirl you are so unwell

[thisisnotthenerd]

The Legendary Adventures of the Bad Kids: Entries in the Legend Lore Database*

Full Database HERE

Adaine Abernant:

Latest in the line of Elven Oracles

Current wielder of the Sword of Sight, Sword of the Elven Oracle

She who invoked the name of Ankarna and broke Obliviati Mori

Kristen Applebees:

The Chosen of Helio, God of Corn

The Creator of Yes!/Yes?

She who Resurrected Herself

The Blessed Saint of Cassandra, Deity of Mystery, Night and Magic

Figueroth Faeth:

Mortal daughter of Gorthalax the Insatiable, Prince of the Nine Hells and former ruler of the Bottomless Pit

Current Archdevil of Rebellion, Figueroth the Infaethable, the Dark Mistress of the Bottomless Pit

Paramour of Ayda Aguefort, the Mistress of the Compass Points Library

Riz Gukgak:

Fifth of the World of Spyre to summon the Night Yorb to the Material Plane

He who slayed the Dragon Kalvaxus, Emperor of the Red Waste

Fabian Aramais Seacaster:

Mortal son of William "Old Bill" Seacaster, Legendary Pirate and the Current Captain of the Infernal Wastes, Scourge of the Nine Hells

Grandson of Telemaine Lomenelda, swordsmith of the Elven Kings

He who killed William "Old Bill" Seacaster

Current wielder of Fandrangor, Sword of the North Star

Dance Champion of the Elven Oracle, the Oracle of Dance

Gorgug Thistlespring:

Creator of the Barbificer Specialty, the first in the World of Spyre to combine barbarian rage and artificer spellcasting

Currently has the Night Yorb sealed in his personal vehicle, the Hangvan

The Bad Kids (Adventuring Party):

Defeated Kalvaxus, Emperor of the Red Waste

Ended the Nightmare King's Curse on Sylvaire

Defeated the Nightmare King, the King of the Dark Dreaming

Defeated the Cult of the Night Yorb

Defeated the Night Yorb

The first adventuring party in living memory to survive the Last Stand-ard Exam with no party/proctor fatalities

*Updates with corrections as legendary statuses of individuals are verified

[foursaints]

ideal careers for barty crouch jr besides being a domestic terrorist:

line cook

heretic

slutty eurotrash dj

eccentric, dexterous 1890s safecracker enlisted in a high-stakes heist to steal the queen’s diamonds

the guy that people mean when they say “i know a guy” in mafia movies

STUNT MAN

2000s pop-punk emo band frontman with pictures of his crotch on myspace

manipulative high society victorian-era celebrity hypnotist famous for “causing” somnambulism at his “shows”

electrician (thanks lune)

engineer, but specifically the one behind the infrastructure used in risky motorcycle stunts

slutty eurotrash club promoter

the sound-effects foley guy for b-roll action movies who is always walking around w/ headphones and holding one of those skinny boom mics

house husband

ideal careers for regulus black besides being a failed domestic terrorist:

the sullen, withholding renaissance-era muse of a tortured artist, posing in place of the angels, his enigmatic yet eerily beautiful portrait immortalized forever on the ceiling of a cathedral

critic of any kind (professional hater)

surgeon at a hospital for stuffed animals

a broken man, unfixable. a fool, hated by all, exploited till death. only in this way will he be redeemed

cunty benedictine monk

[mewguca]

Something's missing.

[maximumqueer]

Chapter 1125 Spoilers

These panels of Saturn having "his" power ripped out of him are so SO good!

These panels of Saturn having "his" power ripped out of him are so SO good. It gives us more info on how Imu's power works, showing that it - along with granting a demonic form - also grants immortality. And, if the power is removed long after the persons life would have already ended, (which is show to be the case with Saturn, as he was alive during the previous Iron Giant attack, and probably long before) well,

they die. Or rather return to the age that they would be without the aid of Imu's power, which would then result in death in the case of Saturn, and the other elders (other than Garling) I would guess.

This also implies that Imu can only provide power to five individuals at a time, and that the powers he can bestow are specific - as in he can has five forms he can give out. Of course we'll have to wait and see if Garling has the same demonic form as Saturn to fully confirm this, but its the interpretation I'm going with until we get more info.

It also plays into the interconnectedness of freedom and power, and how true power in the world of One Piece is freedom and the pursuit of freedom. And that by willingly giving up freedom for "power" in a more literal sense (whether is be strength, rank, or both) one is giving up their actual power in the form of their freedom. Saturn, in choosing to work for Imu, not only is taking freedom (and therefore power) away from the people of the One Piece world, but also gave up his own for the promise of strength and dominance, with in turn betrayed him and killed him. Contrast that with Luffy, who is literally powered by freedom, who is brought back from the dead by said power, as he is free and his strength is linked to his freedom. We see that same with Bonney, who through freedom was able to become powerful.

Power in One Piece IS freedom, and when someone betrays there own and others freedom in the pursuit of false power, they eventually fall.

[cosmiclumalee]

Kirby has all the qualifications to be a mahou shoujo protagonist!

[cer-rata]

An incomplete but very angry diatribe about the missed potential of the Star Sapphires

So back in the day Geoff Johns and co decided to open up the Green Lantern mythos and add some more flavor and expand the concept of sci-fi tech powered by elemental emotion to more than just willpower. Which yes, is not an emotion, we ignore it and move on.

Anyway we got some really cool stuff! A rage tyrant fueled by experiencing incredible injustice on a personal and cosmic scale, whose vendetta twisted him into something terrible. An avatar of greed who was never allowed to have anything, not freedom, not family, not safety, who takes and takes and takes to fill a void that can never be satisfied. A priest who lost everything but presses on through his unshakable hope that the future can and will be better. It's a lot of fun stuff!

So in this great creative re-imagining, they had to do something clever and fun with the idea of an all female corps powered by love right? They took the opportunity to move past the purely romantic, sexual idea of love and the obsessed femme fatale archetype, because they had the chance to really explore different types of affection now that there were a bunch of different avatars with different stories to pull from right?

Right?

Nope! The only Sapphires we ever learn about are heartbroken over a cursed romance like Carol, grieving a dead fiance like Miri Riam, forcibly mind controlled to be one like Fatality, or just Miss Bloss who...kind of said she wanted to join up? No clue what her deal is, as far as I'm aware that's never really explained. And then we just never learn about anyone else, and still haven't. The hell is "The Lost Sapphire"? No idea, we'll likely never know.

It's frustrating because not only is this a glaring example of the depth of plotlines offered to women in comics compared to their male counterparts, but also a wild lack of imagination. Love is one of the most complicated emotions we experience. Fear, anger, hope, all pretty easy to quickly define. Love is multifaceted, cultural, incredibly contextual and a factor in so many different kinds of relationship. Just thinking logically it should be much easier to flesh out the motivations of a group pulling from such a nuanced source of power, versus something as clear-cut as rage. But no, the red lanterns got so many varied reasons for their rage, the male ones especially: Bleez being the woman was of course given the SA narrative, which I don't think is inappropriate on its own, that's an incredibly valid reason to be angry, but as the ONLY truly prominent female Red Lantern it's like...c'mon guys. But still, at least she and Atrocitus had different reasons for becoming what they are, and that variation was played for plot and drama.

But there's not a single Star Sapphire that personally champions something other than romantic love. And before you shoot me, it is explicitly mentioned that they DO protect other forms of love, so there's no reason for them to all be sexy and obsessed with kissing people. There are no Sapphires that are driven by:

The love of their children and families, even in a tragic sense, like Atrocitus and Saint Walker and Larfleez are...

Their love of their people, or their culture. It would have been interesting if Fatality was inducted BECAUSE of her pain at losing her world, but no, they just...replaced her anger with lovey vibes and called it a day.

Their love for nature. Not everyone is social, but social love isn't the only way to strongly experience the emotion.

Their love for themselves. Where is the fun narcissistic ass who loves their own self image to the point of getting powers? It would have been a fun twist and a cool way to get another villainous Sapphire if you wanted to.

Their platonic love of ANYTHING really. Are ace/aro people just...not capable of love then? It doesn't mean anything to be willing to drive cross country to help a friend move just because they needed it and you care? No? You need to be fucking for it to count?

It's like...fascinating if you really think about it. In this vast fantasy universe full of alien races with wildly different perceptions and life cycles, and where the other corps have plenty of non-human, truly alien looking members, that the women's only love corps is full of only hot hot scantily clad baddies. Most love that people experience in their lives isn't even romantic! You will have far more experiences with friends and family members and even loving strangers than you will have with romantic partners.

Like the reason is clearly sexism, duh, but we know sexism is bad, that's obvious, what I really want to make clear is how much this blatant, unexplored sexism just completely desecrated the potential of the worldbuilding here.

From another angle even: Let's say this this WAS the sex and romance all the time corps. Let's say that you wanted to keep it all women. I hate the idea that women are capable of love in a way that men aren't, that's such a bad take and just regressive and unhelpful, but let's just play ball for a moment. They're not even hot? Their designs are such ridiculously narrow versions of feminine attractiveness that they're not even successful at really being mass appeal sexy. I haven't even reached the point of complaining about the fatphobia and criminal lack of different body types yet, I'm still just saying that from the standpoint of fantasy sexy it's not even good at being stereotypical offensive fantasy sexy. It's just boring! They're all so visually boring! You can be scantily clad and still have an interesting and coherent character design! But that is not what they gave these women! They actually redesigned the classic Star Sapphire costume and made it MORE sexist and boring:

Yeah it was cheesy but it was also cute and fun? The design is playful classic sci-fi girl and this is when she was still a dangerous unhinged villain. Its fun to look at and feels tonally coherent next to Green Lantern.

And then they just...

No actually, I will not explain this one, you have eyes.

And yeah they fixed her costume finally,

But! She's still stuck as Hal Jordan's romantic punching bag, and has not gotten to have any new adventures on her own.

So.

What I'm saying is it's a flop all around. 2/10, and only because despite everything Fatality STILL managed to serve. I actually think that all of the corps have been poorly used since blackest night, even the greens actually, but they never even gave the Sapphires a chance. They last showed up in...a WW annual I think? During the whole dark gods event, they needed Diana to help them fight the evil god of love, and there was a guy in the corp finally, and they talked about sisterhood and then we haven't heard a peep from them since. I think Carol might be due to get her ring back in the GL ongoing but she's not really been treated well so far, so I'm not hopeful for anything fresh and well reasoned.

So my lovely ladies (and that one unnamed guy), until they let you get it together it may be time to

[dadrielle]

I can't stop thinking about just how emblematic everything in those conversations of Ashton being "a child" are of how, even at her most beaten down, triggered and traumatized, Laudna is not and will not be what Delilah wants her to be.

For Delilah, "they're still a child" is dismissive, a bit derisive, but doesn't even merit being truly hateful. She doesn't find Ashton worth the attention Laudna is giving them, not when there are such more interesting, important things to pull the attention of an adult. Children are only important when they are useful. She will indulge Laudna on the subject, because Laudna is useful, is her vehicle for action in the world, but she only cares about it in the context of getting Laudna to do what she wants. Calling someone a child is calling them unimportant. (Laudna is a child to her)

But for Laudna, who loves children and who understands intimately what it's like to have the helplessness of child, to be trapped under the authority of someone who will never treat you as a full person, even when they are being ostensibly kind, to be so confused and lost and powerless...a child deserves attention more than anyone else. Of course children lash out. Being a child IS in many ways quite awful because the world is so big around you and you don't know yet how to react to any of it, how to soothe yourself - and if you aren't given the attention, you never learn how. Ashton never learned how. Her instincts - instincts trained into her by manipulation and abuse from inside and the world around her - may say kill him, but she fights them the whole way because her heart is stronger and her heart says that the angriest, most volatile child needs care as much as any other. More, even.

Laudna hears Delilah call Ashton a child and agrees on the word, but they have diametrically opposed understandings of what that means, and diametrically opposed instincts on how to treat a child. Laudna doesn't want to hurt anyone, especially children. She loves children. She loves so much and so selflessly. And Delilah is so very very good at manipulating her but she has tried for 30 years to change the bedrock of Laudna's psyche, the truer thing that drives her beyond the base animal instincts of survival, and it hasn't worked.

[olenvasynyt]

In ACOWAR during the meeting with Kier when he asks for his people to be free of the mountain, Feyre says “You have every comfort, and it’s still not enough?”

She had every comfort at Tamlin’s manor, and it still wasn’t enough for her…

#freethecourtofnightmares2024

One thing that really pisses me off about the Court of Nightmares is how SJM writes it so black and white. The entire court, not just Keir, is evil and conniving. There was a part in ACOWAR where he says he is going to let the CoN go to Velaris but he told all of the vendors and business owners to refuse service to not just Keir, but all of the CoN. And this paints the entire court in this black and white lense.

Not a single person in that court is a dreamer like Mor? She was the only fucking one?

I think there can be a little bit of nuance to the situation where a significant portion of the court is just bad because they have been festering in the dark for so long, but guess who's fault is that?? It's the leader's fault, the one who keeps the court up and running, aka the High Lord, aka Rhys.

Rhys says he wants change. That he wants to show the world that he's good. But he continues to keep the Court of Nightmares up and running, he keeps Keir as herald.

"Oh this court is so awful and sadistic," Feyre thinks as she sits on the throne with a crown on her head and with Rhys holding her hand.

And Rhys says "the Court of Nightmares just rules itself" and sure, I guess that's true, but as High Lord, you have the ability to put a stop to that and pull out the bad weeds. But instead, you keep it running to further your agenda and to keep your evil mask on.

Getting mad at Keir for slutshaming your lover and breaking his arm is not enough. Restricting access to Velaris is not enough. Even telling the Court "you guys are bad >:C " is not fucking enough.

Rhys the most powerful High Lord who killed all of the Illyrian war bands who sided with Amarantha after UTM, yet he can't do the same to the CoN?

Rhys and Feyre and the IC label the entire CoN as evil without trying to find the forgotten dreamers, and they continue to keep the court up and running and making the excuse that "it's too hard" despite their power and influence. It means they don't care. Or that Rhys maybe fucking enjoys it.

It also means that SJM (so far) has no idea what she's doing and can't understand the situation she wrote in her own series.

And this brings me to comparing Nesta being locked up, the CoN and its dreamers being locked up, and Feyre being locked up. Is SJM intending this irony and hypocrisy of the IC? I sure hope so because I swear it's the most obvious comparision ever, but it confuses me because a large majority of the ACOTAR fanbase doesn't get it. "Oh well the CoN is evil! They have to keep them contained and Rhys can't do a whole lot as High Lord because the Court rules itself." And the most frustrating argument: "Nesta was addicted to sex and alcohol, she needed to be rehabilitated! It's for her own good!"

They don't see the irony of how the IC treats Nesta because Tamlin also did what he did for Feyre's own good. It was to protect her, keep her safe. Not saying it was 100% good and right, but why are we not understanding that what the IC did to Nesta was not 100% good and right either?

[thecruellestmonth]

Remembering stuff like Alfred having Bruce and cutting his hair and and dressing him. Which could mean anything but really reinforce the upstairs/downstairs servile relationship. The lack of modesty or shame a rich person has around their staff is something else. And it’s just a like. Almost a Caste system where Alfred is second class and can never BE on Bruce’s level as an equal let alone authority figure. And Alfred is happy with that! Because that’s the story and he is, after all, the butler

[laufire's cool post on Alfred & Bruce]

Yeah, Alfred is not Bruce's father. Bruce is the pater familias of his household like his father before him, and Alfred is his very cherished manservant. Alfred can be a caretaker and a confidant, he can even be parental (-ish), but he's not a parent. (Note to self: rant about the awkward and aggressively enforced line between "parental" and "parent" in Batman mythos.)

IMO one of the most compact arguments on Alfred's role is in Batman: Year One (IIRC the very comic that established Alfred as an old servant of the Wayne family, instead of his original story of being hired by Bruce). Grant Morrison was on some podcast (I think either Kevin Smith's podcast or "Hypertime to Podcast"?) talking about the significance of how Bruce's first act as Batman is to ring a bell to ask for Alfred to help him. We see Morrison emphasize this moment in The Return of Bruce Wayne, where The Bell is a relic on the same level as The Pearls and The Gun.

I can agree it's a defining moment. To some extent I'm willing to accept Morrison's suggestion that Bruce ringing the bell symbolizes the value of asking for help, teamwork, comradery, family, humility, etc—and most fans would be happy to sprint with that interpretation. But I can also juggle a separate interpretation that branches off and veers to the left...

You do not ring a bell to ask for help from your parent or friends or family—you ring a bell to summon a servant.

Bruce becoming Batman in Year One is the story of a prince reclaiming his kingdom. (The Return of Bruce Wayne is a renewal of that story.) Summoning the family manservant is the act of Bruce finally accepting his royal inheritance, after his foolish attempt to slum it with the rabble. A good king is kind and attentive to his subjects, and considers the opinions of his advisors—but they're never his equals or his superiors, no matter how much he cherishes them. They're his subordinates. Nobody is on Bruce's level as an equal, nobody can win a case against his authority, in Gotham. Bruce is the rightful heir of his kingdom. The king and queen are dead, long live the king.

—I know some vocal fans are very critical of Miller, but there's no disputing that Miller's Batman: Year One is the definitive Post-Crisis story of Bruce's invention of Batman, and pretty much every modern comic writer and fan recognizes it. It's likely no comic writer or story has had as much enduring influence on the Batman mythos since Miller wrote Year One and The Dark Knight Returns. Case in point: Alfred.

So yeah. Alfred isn't Bruce's dad. The Gotham TV series probably makes the strongest case for Alfred as Bruce's dad, and even then I personally think there is wiggle room to say eh they're family and they love each other but they're not quite parent & child. Everything else—Batman '66, BTAS, the Nolan movies, Lego Batman, Battinson—ultimately doesn't Alfred cast as Bruce's dad, for the best. Recent comics and the later Arkhamverse games try to force the father-son thing, but it's cheap and unearned.

[saintbleeding]

so i’ve been having some thoughts about the magnus protocol. because my thought is it’s probably unlikely that the taxonomy of the entities themselves is exactly the same in a new universe, so i started thinking about what some alternative conceptions of how they work could be and i stumbled on one that -- though it’s obviously not going to be what happens in the show -- i kinda liked and wanted to write down.

so the idea is, what if instead of 14/15 distinct entities, it was seven spectrums, each of which contained a full presence of something and its full absence, both of which result in the manifestation of one of the tma-universe fears. like this:

scale: the concept of hugeness and its absence (the vast and the buried)

obscurity: your perceptions becoming strange, or, conversely, reality itself morphing into something unrecognisable (the spiral and the stranger)

permanence: the ending of your own life, or the ending of everything you have ever known (the end and the extinction)

isolation: being truly and completely alone, or never being alone again, being a home for what loves you (the lonely and the corruption)

insight: complete acute awareness, or a complete lack of the ability to perceive that which surrounds you (the eye and the dark)

pulse: the pulse of the roiling violence around you, your pulse in your electrified meat prison, the pulse of the thing that is chasing you (the slaughter, the flesh, and the hunt)

control: the idea that you are being controlled, or the idea that things around you can be randomly, indiscriminately destroyed, and you cannot exert any control to stop it (the web and the desolation)

anyway i think the concept of reimagining the same fears in a different way is neat.

[rosebridal]

narrative foil antagonism at its best

[lyss-butterscotch]

Elden Rain 1 • 2 • 3 • VOID

Okay i think the hyperfixation is over but i also think Saint would fit best as an Elden Ring MC because they both become god at the end. No I didn't make an anthro Saint design solely for this idk what youre talking about

Process and image without text under cut!

Process!

Image without text!

[foursaints]

barty characterization is so troublesome because he is at his most canonical (and most compelling) when treated with utter seriousness & placed squarely in context of an austere, repressed upper class childhood leading to patricide… he is not goofy! his prevailing theme in canon is the violent denial of his bodily autonomy - the living body horror and tragedy of his stint under imperius!

so the fanon version of barty as a sleazy trash-talking fuckboy with a tongue piercing is…. uncanonical. there’s literally zero basis for his fandom treatment as hogwarts’s resident dirtbag and in fact it makes no sense… but it’s such an entertaining direction to take him that i would argue fanon’s reshaping made him more interesting? or has given us more opportunities?

like the fan decision to shove hp canon’s most tortured martyr-machiavel into a thrasher hoodie is objectively hilarious and ripe for exploration. basically my point is that true barty enjoyers can juggle both interpretations at once, explore the inherent contradictions, and decide which better suits their purposes for different scenarios. also i would like to see canon!barty and fanon!barty making out

[raining-its-pouring]

Commiseration.

[youryurigoddess]

Friendly reminder that since a bag of popcorn was the only food we saw Crowley actually get for himself on screen through both seasons of Good Omens, it’s perfectly safe to imagine this disaster of a demon living exclusively off junk food*, kids menu**, and alcohol***.

*Including the slice of angel cake he shared with Aziraphale during one of their dates debriefs right before Warlock’s eleventh birthday. A book scene we were robbed of in lieu of its mere shadow, by the way.

**Like the crêpes they had back in 1793 after sorting out all of that discorporation nonsense.

***Completely self-explanatory.