#striving for freedom

[filmloversociety]

I've been on a quest to find films with stories about Native Americans but sadly, the selection is very limited. I did come across this German tv film, "In Einem Wilden Land" and while I didn't watch it, I am absolutely obsessed with Wesley French. I don't think anyone has ever looked so good in a film

[nicollekidman]

buffy knows spike loves her during season five. buffy knows spike loves her when she comes back and seeks comfort/silence in his presence. and as she comes back to herself and tries to make peace with the fact that she’s Here Again, she still knows he loves her. and i think part of the Big Bad Grabbing The Slayer For The Darkness routine they both cling to is that it allows them to pretend this huge thing isn’t between them so they can get what they both want (someone to stay).

and like obviously buffy cannot allow herself to believe that he loves her for many reasons, but she DOES believe it, she can’t make herself unknow it even though she tries so hard. which is partially where the breakdown with tara in 6.13 comes from because the cognitive dissonance of soulless spike loving her as if he has a soul while she is so lost within herself that the only way she can reach for him is to use him (which would be fine if he was the big bad grabbing the slayer for the darkness) which is hurting him! unfathomably! but he’s supposed to be the corruption! how can he??? any of it???

meanwhile spike has watched the woman he loves be brought back as a shell and he wants to see the light in her eyes and he can touch her now and sometimes that’s enough to make her laugh but he can’t linger in those moments or she’ll go away again! so he can play the role he needs to play so she’ll stay, as if he could keep her anywhere she didn’t want to be. as if he wants her to be in the dark instead of bringing him into the light. but how could he ask for anything more when he already got her back and he didn’t even need to kill her afterwards.

and so they hurt each other and he forgets himself and asks her if she even likes him and it’s too honest and he’s asking too much (he asks for nothing) so before she can throw her life away like it’s nothing, he puts the game face on, makes himself a target, and swallows it all. and she can’t unknow. and it would all be fine except he’s a vampire and she’s the slayer and how can he just say it like it’s nothing when she needs to beat his face in just to keep from screaming.

[short-wooloo]

Why I Love the Jedi

Its something that i only recognize in hindsight

When I was a kid, I struggled at times with my self control, I'm on the spectrum, I had trouble at times in school, I got overwhelmed, I had meltdowns and breakdowns, I would get angry and upset I behaved in a way that was not ok, and afterwards I always remember feeling embarrassed and ashamed of how I acted

And the Jedi...

The Jedi were what I wanted to be

They had great self control, they had mastered themselves, they were not ruled by their emotions, they were what I wanted, they represented the ideal of what I wanted to be and to work towards

[seraphdreams]

ran and corruption kink……..thinking about how he slowly gets you used to fucking anywhere and anytime….and about getting shy, little you used to his advances…..about how all he has to do is kiss you so sweetly on the face, whispering silk and candy and all things soft and sweet to you. nuzzling himself in your neck. sweet, sweet, and soft lips caught in a charming but dangerous smile against your skin because you’re so cute. shrinking and shriveling up into yourself like a tiny little turtle retreating back into its shell. but this time, this time, you try to accept him and his sweet words and his silky voice that makes you so ticklish and squeamish, and hot all the way down to your neck. this time, you don’t try to run from him to a safe distance away until you cool down. this time, you stay there and take it. take it until he can finally cradle you. take it until his tongue is finally down your throat and you’re clutching his nice expensive dress shirt till it wrinkles. take it until you breathe in his cologne and it makes your head dizzy with him. take it until you’re all wet and hot between your legs and ran is cupping his big hand over your mound, lithe, slender fingers surprisingly sturdy and firm on your cunt. he can feel you pulse and throb and he knows you’ll take his fingers like a good girl.

……….wow sorry for the horny word vomit, i miss him too.

(also hello, happy new years! wishing you health, safety, happiness, and success and growth. as well as a free palestine, sudan, yemen, congo, tigray, and many other countries suffering from occupation or interference from the western world.)

dior… you have me grasping for air… because why is this so?

it’s almost as if ran trains you that way. he uses those weaknesses you have for him as a weapon to get you right where he wants . . specifically speaking, giving into ran in situations you’d never even think of — the elevator ride from the top floor of his abode to the very bottom . . it gives him an ample opportunity to whisper those silky sweet nothings in your ear, kiss n bite at the flesh of your neck , and allow you to grind greedily over his palm . . had it been early into the pining stage of your relationship, you would’ve gotten all hot n bothered at the thought but now it’s your reality.

[oprarepairweek]

i need to be real and share that my fav rarepair and sabo ship (tbh, i can get into almost any sabo ship!!) is sabosan... i dont remember what even made me latch onto them but they are both pretty, i somehow like blonds, and they have a lot of similarities with each other that they can bond over <<3

@ beanghostprincess did make a long post about them though and i think about it a lot. such as despite their striking similarities, they have difference in personalities and outlook of the world. sabo is always fighting against those who hurt him and have hurt others while sanji's kind nature doesnt make him revengeful. of course, both have means to protect but as bean perfectly put it: "So while Sabo shows Sanji how to be free and feels hatred for the both of them, Sanji is the kindness in the world Sabo is looking for and gives him something to put his mind at ease when it’s filled with demons." (can be read here: https://beanghostprincess.tumblr.com/post/740421921423884288/ive-been-thinking-for-a-while-about-why-i-like)

There's just something about ships that have never met in canon that's super enticing...and Sabosan has SUCH good potential, especially considering two of the more popular ships with Sanji involve the other brothers of the ASL trio :"D I think Sabo deserves a turn to flirt with the cute cook of the Strawhats honestly

Thank you for the post recommendation too!! Love hearing about ships in depth especially ones that are so underappreciated like Sabosan <3

[an-unanonymous-messenger]

Drinking alcoholic drinks is not necessarily a sin, but it can lead to the sin of drunkenness. The devil can use alcohol as a bait to lure us into the habit of alcoholism, hence enslaving us into an addiction. Jesus didn't die on the cross so that we would go back to being slaves to this world, but to liberate us from every form of bondage the devil is trying to pull on us! As much as alcoholic drinks can be useful for health issues, too much of it can lead you away from soberness, especially spiritual soberness. So if you cannot contain yoursef with drinking, stay away from the bait.

[imgonnagetyoubacktv]

i think growing up is just life repeatedly sucker punching you and saying bitch you thought things were gonna better lmao no you're so naive and stupid for having hope in 20 years the world will be flaming bag of garbage and no matter how hard you work you'll get eliminated at some point

[eli-vanto-stan]

“There will be times when the struggle seems impossible. I know this already. Alone, unsure, dwarfed by the scale of the enemy.

Remember this, Freedom is a pure idea. It occurs spontaneously and without instruction…

Tyranny requires constant effort. It breaks, it leaks. Authority is brittle. Oppression is the mask of fear. Remember that.

And know this, the day will come when all these skirmishes and battles, these moments of defiance will have flooded the banks of the Empires’s authority and then there will be one too many. One single thing will break the siege.

Remember this: Try.”

[druidposting]

Not to get sociopolitical in the cr maintag, but I think a lot of people arent understanding something VERY critical to the "gods good or bad" argument, so I'm gonna try and lay out these points as best I can.

(This ended up being very long, but if you enjoy analyzing CR through a sociological lens, it's all under the cut.)

To start, you have to understand that the Exandrian gods are immortal beings with immense power and influence compared to the mortals of the material plane. Yes, obviously gods have died/sustained wounds in the past, but comparing the power required to do any of those things to a god is like comparing the wattage of the Sun to that of a lightbulb. Its just incomparable.

In spite of this, however, I keep seeing posts about how its fucked up to kill someone just because they didn't give you what you wanted. For starters, the gods aren't just "someone" - as I said before, they're unfathomably powerful and immortal beings, and while they no longer have the ability to walk the earth and shape it to their whims, they absolutely have the ability to influence the ideas and ethics of the mortals that do walk the earth in very material ways (see the Angle of Irons cult, Tevan Klask the champion of Asmodeus we just met, and Pelor vs the Valley Coalition for examples). To put it in maybe more understandable terms, you can make a decent allegory between the gods and real-world political pundits, in the sense that while a president cant literally shape the world how they want, they have an overwhelmingly disproportionate ability to influence and shape how the people they rule over think and feel, and what should and shouldn't be morally permissible in their society. In a vacuum, the fundamental role of politicians in current neoliberal societies is to try and ensure their ideas and ethics are the dominant ones, so that the people they rule over can do the shaping of the world for them. This is why I find it much more permissible, and often necessary, even, to pass judgement over and rise up against (and wish death upon (in minecraft)) political pundits whos morals don't align with mine - their ideas have material influence on society, in ways that normal individuals don't, and I happen to agree with Marx when he said "the ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas".

So all that said, I totally see why some Exandrian mortals would be very very upset with some of the gods for various reasons! And I fully support their desires and rights to protest and fight back against any proponents and arbiters of bad ideas and prescriptions.

HOWEVER. This does NOT mean I am pro destroying the Exandrian pantheon. I think that based on everything we know so far (especially with the new info from the latest episode), that would be a net bad for Exandrian mortals.

To understand why I feel this way even in spite of my above arguments, I think it will be helpful to outline what I think are the worst of the likely outcomes if Predathos is released;

A power vacuum opens with the gods eradicated, and Ludinus (or some other dictator, but likely Ludinus as I think this is his actual goal) promptly fills the position of god emperor of Exandria, With no external forces to restrict their actions, and free reign over how they choose to rule the people. The consequences of this are even less freedom for Exandrian mortals than they had under the oversight of the gods, which is in my opinion, very bad.

The swaths of demon armies who have been chomping at the bit for literal millennia to find any minute perceived weakness in the divinely appointed (whether by Prime or Betrayer god) defenders of the Material Plane from the Abyssal armies, are finally able to overcome these defenses and wage devastating war and eradicate all life on Exandria. This is something we're already starting to see happen in the Grey Valley in the current arc, and I have to say, this also seems like it would be really bad for mortals.

Predathos doesn't stop after eating the gods, and in the end, devours all of Exandria. That would probably also be pretty bad.

Even if none of those things ended up happening, the overwhelming threat level of any of those outcomes, and the fair likelihood of any of them happening, far outweighs the potential benefits Ludinus proposes. I'll liken it again to real-world politics in the US, because I think some useful parallels can be made here; Think of the Exandrian gods as the Democrats, and Predathos as the Republicans. No one likes the Democrats. They're cowardly, their polices are luke-warm at best and detrimental to human happiness at worst, they continue to bolster capitalism even though their constituents hate it, all of their politicians are way too old, and god damn do they ever come off as condescending. But compared to the Republicans? They are the bastion of freedom. The Democrats are far from perfect. The Exandrian gods are far from perfect. But when your other option for who gets to govern you and your society is a fascist, you must do anything to preserve the freedoms you currently have, even if they're limited. Under the Exandrian Gods, the limited freedoms mortals have are infinitely more favorable to the zero freedom they would have under a dictatorship or as a dead person. With the Exandrian Gods, individuals have the chance to rise up against oppressions they face from their disciples, and to make more and more gains over time that solidify and bolster their freedoms. This is just objectively not an option under any of the above scenarios if Predathos is unleashed. If you're facing down the existential threat of fascism in a neoliberal establishment, you do not toss the current establishment aside in favor of a better one - you buy time by bolstering the current establishment, and when the threat is lower, then you can look at revolutionary action and work towards better forms of governance again. I believe that similarly, Exandrians will have the best opportunity for the greatest freedom in the future if they're able to stave off Predathos and Ludinus.

Now with all this context, I can talk about something that Ludinus either fails to understand - or deliberately doesn't care about and misconstrues for the sake of enacting his end goal - that is key to this debate, that being the difference between positive and negative freedoms.

Very briefly, negative freedoms are characterized as freedom from external constraints on any actions they may wish to take. For example, freedom of speech allows an individual the freedom to speak whatever they wish without the imposition of government. Positive freedoms are characterized by the freedom to do something, the ability to enact your future goals and desires. Positive and negative freedoms are often at odds with each other. A good real-world example of this would be murder. I think everyone would agree with saying murder being a punishable crime is a good thing - but is it not an imposition on an individual's freedom to legislate against them acting on their free will, if murder was what they wanted to do? Technically, its a removal of their negative freedom to act without constraint, but outlawing murder is itself a positive freedom, as it allows people the ability to live without fear of death (and obviously grants positive freedom to the hypothetical victim in that they now have the freedom to live instead of having died to the murderer).

With Ludinus, the freedom he talks about, freedom from the meddling and imposition of the gods on the free will of mortals, is a negative freedom. But if the potential consequences of releasing Predathos could be as dire as the complete destruction of all mortals on Exandria, or the subjugation of all mortals to the dictatorship of whoever fills the resulting power vacuum, then I feel pretty safe in saying that Exandrians deserve the positive freedom to continue living without the fear of certain death or subjugation under a post-Predathos world, even if there's the possibility that the current gods continue to meddle with ideas as they have. A dead Exandrian can't rise up and resist the will of the gods and their disciples, after all.

[xenk64]

"Close To Calm..."

Made this one a while ago, but here's an upload for Nagoriyuki's birthday. This one was one of my really popular ones that I uploaded to the Museum in GGST. Appreciate the ❤️.

[nururu]

I could go on a 5hr rant on how sanjis strength is not an important part of his character at all and how y'all focusing on this makes you unable to see the character Sanji actually is.

[juodojimirtis]

I don't like when fandom treats Lilith as though she was a victim of Adriel's manipulations. It takes away her agency. It takes away her power, when her whole story is about power, and her quest for it. Yes, Adriel told her what she wanted to hear. It doesn't mean she didn't genuinely identify with his actions or philosophies, in spite of changing her mind later. It doesn't mean she didn't sincerely bask in the might he helped her unleash within herself.

In the end, the power remained hers. She remained the same divine being she had morphed into. Only in the end, she left Adriel behind.

[deltarose]

It feels like I’ve been left behind.

Or replaced.

I couldn’t tell you exactly where or how or when.

But I can tell you that I don’t feel valued. I don’t feel cared for. Nothing I do matters.

I write these words out that’ll echo in the vacuum of the internet. Maybe I need therapy. Maybe I need a vacation. Probably both. Instead I just keep burying shit hoping it’ll go away.

[marinehero]

when th freaking uquiz real

[fulgursmediaanalysisdrama]

Nihilism is a positive, life affirming philosophy. Something my christian mother couldn't, or didn't want to, understand

And Schoppenhauer is interesting but only worth anything when you conclude he is wrong

Berserk as a Nietzschean Tragedy — Art, Morality, Affirmation by Jonas Čeika

[juergenklopp]

The Sequel Trilogy is so inexcusable now that we’ve been given a glimpse into the vast potential the universe has with Andor