#she's not the actual sin

[primordialchoice]

Sometimes I wonder if there's self hatred in her hate of humanity. She sees them as a plague spread by Adam, but at the same time adores children, has formed genuine friendships with humans, has demons in her legions who used to be humans that she harbors a certain affection towards, and yet she is resistant to feel sympathy towards humanity. I think her inability to have her own kids, her own mistakes that she was fully accountable for when she gave up her life giving purpose when she left Eden, her loss of Earth and the fact that she was doomed by the narrative upon creation has lead to an ugly self distaste that she projects upon those outside of herself. I'm trying to play on her Leviathan aspect since she's the female aspect of it. Leviathan is known as the sin of envy, so definitely something for me to keep in mind!

[s2pdoktopus]

The weird little Kiske Family <3

[interpolationz]

me staring at my phone trying to figure out if the homophobic sorority girl from my brothers youth group realizes that putting the song casual by chappell roan in the background of her best friend appreciation post is a little odd

[sexy-sapphic-sorcerer]

Adam raised a Cain

BBC Merlin, The Beginning of the End (1x08) /// Cut by Catherine Lacey /// BBC Merlin, To Kill the King (1x12) /// Comfort Me With Apples by Catherynne M. Valente /// BBC Merlin, The Crystal Cave (3x05) /// Someday I'll Love by Ocean Vuong /// BBC Merlin, The Witch's Quickening (2x11) /// Cassandra, Florence and the Machine /// BBC Merlin, The Coming of Arthur: Part 1 (3x12) /// The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde /// BBC Merlin, The Coming of Arthur: Part 2 (3x13) /// Adam Raised a Cain, Bruce Springsteen /// BBC Merlin, The Sword in the Stone: Part 2 (4x13)

[ptvstvrrr]

This is genuinely probably the craziest and dirtiest edit I've made

[gold-rhine]

you know that post thats like you need to understand the rules of something before you can meaningfully break them? you need to understand the rules of classic tragedy to understand how genshin is purposefully breaking them with furina.

i've seen ppl complaining that furina doesn't have agency and should've stayed an archon when like. first of all, thats the point, tragic heroes don't. doomed by the narrative, all that shit. this is why a lot of tragedies use prophecies, which genshin references as well. like not even getting into how furina is playing off little mermaid narrative, its hard to miss that she's opera themed.

but where it starts subverting the genre, is that furina KNOWS she is a tragic hero. she is given the choice at the very start, focalors told her that she will need to suffer and PERFORM in order to finally save fontaine from the prophecy. Furina is a tragic hero who is given knowledge that she IS IN TRAGEDY PLAY and also given AGENCY TO CHOOSE TO PERFORM. bc it's not a single choice at the start, she has to keep choosing it again and again every day, the game focuses heavily on her distress and she could break the role at any moment, but she doesn't. there are so many moments of game showing her conflict! her confrontation with neuvillette, her grief in Poisson, her wavering at the traveller's offer bc it can be a loophole, then the trial, where she went all the way, where she put her hand into primordial water, thinking it will dissolve her. like! she had so many moments where it would be understandable for her to break, but she didn't, she stayed true, and it was not easy for her at all. that was a choice, a dedication that she had to make again and again, and it only became harder and harder

but where genshin really gets into breaking tragedy rules, is that it lets its tragic hero cheat death using the rules of tragedy itself. this is why i referenced an essay on classic greek tragedy here, because in tragedy, gods have absolute power, but they are also immutable, unable to change, while humans are weak and fickle, but they CAN grow and change. as an essay says, tragic hero achieves something like divinity in a moment his face solidifies into an unchangeable mask, and that moment is death.

fontaine arc is breaking the tragedy rules without disrespecting them, because it does not diminishes the sacrifice and heavy price of death, but instead allows furina to escape bc in the moment when she should have died, focalors put herself into spotlight instead, and she already had an unchangeable death mask of divinity. and her death, her sacrifice allowed furina to achieve greater agency to choose to live how she wants. she escaped the tragedy! she was saved from the narrative! she's a little mermaid who didn't have to die to receive a human soul.

and tbh saying that furina should have stayed an archon is first, conflating power with agency, and second, disrespecting her own choice, because the game goes to excruciating length to show that she hates ruling and being a movie director makes her happy. furina wanting to self-actualize through art is not somehow lesser than her being a ruler.

[msmc-796-official]

I... have a confession to make, of sorts. There won't ever be a good time to admit this, unfortunately, so it's best I get this off my chest now, and ask for forgiveness rather than permission.

It has not been easy speaking with all of the flashclones who have made themselves known in the wake of Union's latest raids; both for myself, and the squadron at large. I must commend my squadmates for handling themselves with the utmost professionalism - while my own correspondences with these newest members of the Omninet have been what I would consider adequately polite, I've been biting my tongue the entire time, and I fear that my personal discomfort with the issue is starting to slip through the cracks.

To this end, I wish to share my thoughts publicly, that I might better express my own emotions towards this complicated, frustrating, and highly nuanced issue. I only ask that you hear me out in full before you render judgement, and pronounce your sentence carefully.

First: an observation.

MSMC policy requires that all pilots dictate an end-of-life plan at the time of their recruitment, that their final wishes may be carried out by the company in the event of their death under MSMC's employ. The options provided for this are effectively unlimited, allowing the pilot a great deal of choice and freedom in planning their postmortem arrangements. These plans may also be altered in the future should circumstances change, provided the pilot is of sound body and mind.

Under MSMC policy, in compliance with the policies set forth by Union, one of the available postmortem options is flashcloning.

In my fifteen-odd years serving under MSMC, I have only heard of three pilots who have willingly chosen to be flashcloned after death (thus prolonging not only their life, but their term of service under MSMC as well). Of these, I have only personally met one, affiliated with MSMC-808 "5Q8R3 L00P3RZ" - I believe their current iteration goes by callsign Lemniscate. While I do not know how many times they have been cloned during their term of service, their current iteration seems happy enough, and their squadmates reassure me that they've maintained a consistent identity (plus or minus the odd quirk, as is typical of flashclones) throughout their life (lives?).

Second: a digression.

I purchased my Dusk Wing, And The Voice of Apollo Spoke From On High (Apollo for short), from an SSC showroom on a planet whose name I no longer recall. The curated atmosphere called to mind the high marble pillars and lush green-blue waters of some distant Cradle mythology where gods roamed the earth and mortals strove to emulate them, punished and rewarded for their folly in equal measure with gifts and curses beyond name. Each frame was posed as the statues of old on Cradle, too-human limbs arrayed in too-human poses, each a machine of war turned living art piece.

Apollo, true to its future name, was arrayed in flight; hover-jets draped with sunlight-yellow gossamer, veil rifle aimed in its middle tier of manipulators with the same care and precision as an archer would take with their bow. To see it lowered to the floor after its purchase was to see Icarus fall; to climb inside its cockpit for the first time, to don wax-and-feather wings of my own and fly.

The old tales caution that divinity has a cost, and I too paid the price. A vial of blood, drawn with silver needle and spirited away into an unseen cooler before my pen ever touched paper. Apollo was mine, but SSC had received a far greater gift in its place: a sample of my DNA, unwillingly donated as the price for my divine armament.

Even now, this price weighs heavy on my head like the sword which hung above Damocles, poised to drop without a moment's notice with each new Union raid on yet another forgotten cloning facility. Who can say on what distant planet the children I did not birth sleep in stasis - children with my eyes, my hair, my nose, my smile; sons and daughters who will never be called as such because, to their creators, they are slaves, weapons, property - anything but human.

Third: an explanation.

I believe that flashcloning, in its current state as of 5016u, as approved by Union's Third Committee (and exploited by the likes of SSC, HA, and several countless others across the stars) is an inherently unethical practice; both for those who donate their DNA (willingly or otherwise), as well as for those persons produced by it.

To see countless lives created, manipulated, slaughtered, and recycled in the name of so-called "progress"; to see inherently human beings stripped of every vestige of humanity but the body in which they reside and then forcibly brainwashed and molded into soldiers, medics, mechanics, weapons, machines, slaves, property - it is an abominable and inhumane practice that should have died a slow and painful death in the darkness from whence it was birthed.

This being said: I cannot stand idly by as the products of this inhumane practice continue to suffer. No matter whether it is beneath the apathetic gaze of Union, the dehumanizing bootheel of HA, or the eugenicist scalpel of SSC, I will not allow my fellow persons to endure another day of abuse at the hands of those who would abandon their own creations as little more than imperfect failures for daring to remind their creators of their sentience.

Alone, I can do nothing. I too am but a cog in this great uncaring machine humanity has built, one which prospers on suffering and bloodshed and the work of hands which have forgotten the body to which they are attached. Even if I were to risk life and limb and reputation to make my position known, it is a battle which lies dead in the water - it is impossible to halt the wheels of progress without irreparably damaging the future which relies on their turning.

And so I fight. I fight for those who have forgotten their humanity, both willingly and unwillingly, that they might find something of their own - identity, purpose, desires, connection, life - that reminds them of what they were and are and always have been: human.

-- Angel

[lord-squiggletits]

One of my favorite parts of phase 2 (and indeed one of the few moments I resonated with IDW Prowl) was when the neutrals were coming back to Cybertron and Prowl said that he refused to let Autobots be pushed aside and overruled after they were the ones who fought for freedom for 4 million years (the exact wording escapes me atm).

And I mean, that resentment still holds true even once the colonists come on bc like. As much as it's true that Cybertron's culture is fucked up, and as funny as it can be to paint Cybertronians as a bunch of weirdos who consider trying to kill someone as a common greeting not important enough to hold a grudge over.... The colonists POV kind of pissed me off a lot of times, as did the narrative tone/implications that Cybertronians are forever warlike and doomed to die by their own hands bc it just strikes me as an extremely judgemental and unsympathetic way to deal with a huge group of people with massive war PTSD and political/social tensions that were rampant even before the war?

Like, imagine living in a society rife with bigotry and discrimination where you get locked into certain occupations and social strata based on how you were born. The political tension is so bad there's a string of assassinations of politicians and leaders. The whole planet erupts into an outright war that leads (even unintentionally) to famine and chemical/biological warfare that destroys your planet. Both sides of the war are so entrenched in their pre-war sides and resentment for each other that this war lasts 4 million years and you don't even have a home planet any more. Then your home planet gets restored and a bunch of sheltered fucks come home and go "ewww why are you so violent?? You're a bunch of freaks just go live in the wilderness so that our home can belong to The Pure People Who Weren't Stupid And Evil Enough To Be Trapped In War" and then a bunch of colonists from places that know nothing about your history go "lol you people are so weird?? 🤣🤣 I don't get why y'all are fighting can't you just like, stop??? Oh okay you people are just fucked up and evil and stupid then" ((their planets are based on colonialism where their Primes wiped out the native populations btw whereas the Autobots and OP in particular fought to save organics. But that never gets brought up as a point in their favor)) as if the damage of a lifetime of war and a society that was broken even before the war can just magically go away now that the war is over.

Prowl fucking sucks but he was basically the only person that pointed out the injustice of that.

And then from then on out most of the characters from other colonies like Caminus and wherever else are going "i fucking hate you and your conflicts" w/ people like literal-nobody Slide and various Camiens getting to just sit there lecturing Optimus about how Cybertronians are too violent for their own good and how their conflicts are stupid, with only brief sympathetic moments where the Cybertronians get to be recognized as their own ppl who deserve sympathy before going right back to being lambasted.

Like I literally struggled to enjoy the story at multiple points because there was only so much I could take of the characters I knew and loved being raked over coals constantly while barely getting to defend themselves or be defended by the narrative so like. It was just fucking depressing and a little infuriating to read exRID/OP

[bonnie-toyour-clyde]

later seasons Sam slamming Dean against the wall and his back cracks and he moans so loud and obscene Sam’s all cocky like “damn, already?” and Dean’s just like “no man my backs been killing me all week and you just popped it, fuck, don’t stop”

[fictionadventurer]

I have a germ of a theory that good Christian fiction has stories that are less about shaving down your personality to meet some specific mold of what a good Christian looks like, and more about "how gloriously different are all the saints."

Not that the Christian life doesn't involve fighting against our own sinful nature and conforming ourselves to Christ-like behavior, but I think it makes for better, more realistic, and more universal stories when you also recognize that people have different gifts and flaws and they're going to be called to use their unique personalities to serve the kingdom of God in their own unique way, instead of assuming everyone has to conform themselves to a very specific (often secular-culturally based) image of good behavior. It makes for a much more vibrant story.

[dhufflebee]

so long london is such a vile song?? how shitty do you have to be to villainize a man you're supposed to be in love with because he has depression and then blast him for the whole world to hear because you're "pissed" he had "the blues"??? shut the fuck up oh my god

[emeraldspiral]

Girls don’t want to see another attempt at rebuilding the Jedi Order. Girls want Ben Solo back.

[dyslexic-mess]

I buy that Alistor is on Liliths leash. How he got there, no idea, but I'd believe the real reosen he's hanging around Charlie is under orders considering how vaugh he's been about his motivation.

BUT. What I don't buy is Lilith being the big villen. I've seen a lot of people theorise that she's been missing because she's screwing around with heaven or she left because she saw Lucifer as weak or something, but I'm sorry. I just don't see it. Like.

This Lilith???

Your gonna argue THIS woman just up and left her family??? No. Just- no. I don't believe it for a second.

So where IS Lilith, then? If she's not the big bad, pulling strings from behind the sceans, then where is hells queen? Well, this is where I get into speculation territory:

I think she's been kidnapped by Roo.

[thatsmybook]

I wonder if Nicholas Scratch has a reputation in the witch world as being one that leads witches to their deaths. This could be why he is associated with the Darkhold or being an agent of Mephisto. "Old Scratch" or "Mr Scratch" is traditionally another word for the devil. This is Nicky's lasting known legacy in the world.

The truth is even worse. Yes, a child from birth was used to lure witches to their deaths when they gave in to their empathy for him and let their guard down. He was made to do this by his mother, even before he knew what he was doing. Nicky is the cause of and surrounded by death all of his life, and when he is able to understand what he is doing, he does it to make his mother happy.

Then, once he is dead, his mother uses the song he made with her out of love to lure even more vulnerable women to their deaths.

Nothing about Nicholas's life or legacy is good. Agatha made it that way. She did not do it maliciously to taint who Nicky was because she didn't care about the opinions of others. (Although she lets them believe a different story because her real story is too awful, so she must care a little). She knew he was a good soul, and that is all that matters to her. But she does know that when he was old enough to understand, he did not like that they were murdering witches together. His opinion is the only one she cares about. So she can not face him. Tellingly, she does nothing to change her ways in order to potentially be redeemed by him were she ever to meet him. Instead, she doubles down and carries on.

When Death calls her a coward, it makes me think she means this: she is too cowardly to do the work to change. To come to terms with the trauma she experienced with the first witches, she called family. To move beyond them and not treat all witches like they are her original coven. All witch-kind get punished for her original coven's actions. She tells Nicky witches will kill them so they have to kill them first. She's had 70 years before his birth and hundreds of years after to know that that is not true and to find a coven that will help her with her unique type of power and not judge her. To make her own found family of people who will understand and guide her to learn control of her succubus powers. To find witches like Billy who will trust her and willingly give her power. To then find witches who will feed, heal, protect her and her son and divine their future. She is over 70 years old when she gives birth to Nicky. She's had time. What does she choose to do with the time she's had at that point? Kill so many witches that she attracts Death and Death's love. What does she choose to do with the time Death gives her with Nicky? Make the beauty of his life and creativity about death and destruction.

As Death said during her trial with the spirits: she is scared. She was not scared of her mother as much as she was scared of Nicky showing up to punish her. When he does show up, he implores her to stop.

Her grieving stage is stagnant at anger and at times, shame. She occasionally shows signs of the acceptance stage when she whispers "sometimes boys die", and when she draws in Death's power during their kiss of death. Unlike every other person who walked the witches road (all who went there willingly knowing it was dangerous and deadly (apart from Sharon) but willing to face their trails and do the work to gain acceptance), Agatha walked the road knowing she would not be making any changes.

Her journey continues on in ghost form. And this is the dissatisfaction one feels with her at the end of the show. She has moved the needle ever so slightly by deciding to guide and love a boy who knows her yet accepts her. But she sees the road as a con the same way that she saw tarot as a con, and she won't use them as tools to finally complete her arc. The reason the other witches aren't ghosts is because they don't have unfinished business. Agatha knew she had unfinished business and that becoming a ghost was her likely future. She made a calculated move.

I prefer Billy as the witch that Agatha is going to coven up with more than Wanda. Wanda is a very traumatised witch and the two of them together would not have helped each other. Billy has come from a loving family with a therapist mum. He has a stable relationship with someone who fully accepts him. He has a strong moral compass and is interested in Agatha's ability to feel over her reputation as an evil person. So the road ahead for Agatha could be one where she works for and gets the solace she needs.

[bardbreakfast]

they have such a fucked up relationship (jealous)

[spop-romanticizes-abuse]

what bothers me about horde prime, more than his lazy characterization or his lack of impact on the narrative, is the fact that he is such a bad representation of a cult leader. like,, this is not how cults work. they don’t just insert a chip into you and make you follow their every directive like a robot. real life cults are a lot more terrifying because they use manipulation as a tactic to convince people to join them. it’s not a digital chip that you can remove from your system and suddenly you’re in complete control of yourself. cult survivors have talked about how hard it is to actually unlearn that mindset and start thinking for themselves, how many years it takes to stop feeling guilty for leaving their cult or seeing the toxicity in the leaders they so religiously followed.

sure, hordak and catra have some trauma tied to their experience with horde prime, but most of that is because of the physical torture they went through, rather than their experience of being brainwashed. and it’s fine if horde prime was just some villain and not a genocidal cult leader. but it’s clear that he was written to be a religious authority figure, the execution is just so off.

i know he’s a character in a fantasy world, so he had to use his powers for something. but instead of turning people into robots, he could have shown them a “better world” through his tech, talked them into joining him and forgetting about all their current worries, and then used them as weapons against etheria.

it would have been a lot more impactful and angsty if catra had willingly joined horde prime’s cult so that she could repress her guilt. in fact, it would have been really interesting if horde prime had convinced catra that he would help her repend for all that she did, if she joined his cult. this would have been a lot more comparable to religious guilt and trauma in real life, and it would show that catra actually felt bad for what she did, instead of just looking sad for a while and then continuing to be a shitty person anyway.