#there was almost another tangent about Micheal

[tilkikedi-blog]

(This is probably going to be all over the place, and for that I am sorry.)

I definitely agree with your point about morally grey characters/actions. My point in the original reblog was more of me trying to explore why they made this descion, because it just feels like such an odd plot twist. (The reason I keep thinking/talking about it is because it just feels so out of place.)

But I definitely agree that morally grey characters can work and be interesting.

(Tangent #1)

I would like to add that, while OM is no stranger to morally grey characters, I think has a changing relationship with those characters/actions. OM used to be more dark fantasy than it is now, and that dark fantasy is what originally fueled the moral grayness. I feel like Nightbringer has finally brought back some of that moral grayness, but didn't bring the dark fantasy like in previous seasons. Season 1 is a good example of "dark fantasy as a source of moral greyness." The setting and characters are actively hostile towards the MC (the demons act demonly). MC is in an unsafe enviorment, that's the dark fantasy component, and the morally grey behavior directly leads to that unsafe enviorment (specific examples include: literally anytime any of the brothers try to attack MC)

This compares to Nightrbinger examples of morally grey behavior. The best examples i can think of are Solomon's pact with Asmodeus as well as his "side with humanity" thing, Diavolo's reasoning for helping the brothers after their fall, and Rapheal's (i guess Micheal's) message from the Celestial Realm. All of these actions have a moral grayness to them without actively making the setting itself unsafe. (The message from the Celestial Realm definatly adds tension in a way that COULD make the setting unsafe, however this doesn't feed into a dark fantasy narrative or tone. Its not dark fantasy, it's just a war threat)

Basically the way Moral grey characters are used in OM has changed over the seasons.

(Taneget 1.5, because either can't figure out if this is the same topic) But OM also has the weirdest hesitantcey towards having antagonists, for some reason. Season 1: it like switches between Lucifer, Diavolo, and Belphegor, but they all end up as "good guys" in the end. Season 2: Its kinda sorta Solomon and Diavolo (maybe maybe MC's "ring" (the ring power thing, not the Ring of Light)), but once again, they are good guys by the end of the season. Seaosn 3: has like,,, no antagonist, except maybe the boogeyman for that one arc (I suppose you could argue that Mammon and Leviathan's combined stupidity is the antagonist). Season 4: once again, like no real antagonist. Some people might say Micheal, for making Simeon human. I personally would say God (or I guess Father) cause I think He's the one responsible. And then Nightringer: actually has an antagonist maybe in the form of Nightbringer (maybe). If in a season Nightringer is actually chill... I guess maybe not, but we will see. (There is not antagonist, and I must scream)

TLDR: OM has goofy relationship with morally grey characters and antagonists.

(Tanget #1 had no place in this conversation, but I had to shoe horn it in anyway)

But yeah, I definatly feel bad for anyone who was looking forward to more Rapheal content. This plotwist is kinda a slap in the face if you were really hoping to see more of his character. I guess it's a good plottwist if you are a Micheal Stan, of which this fandom has many (joke, I know most people in this fandom think Micheal is an evil little man. Those people are wrong, he is a pathetic small sad creature.)

(Tangent #2, which also has no place in this conversation)

I'm biased, but I was like really surprised how nice Thirteen is in Nightrbinger compared to the other two new characters. Mephisto and Rapheal drew the short sticks this season. Thirteen is so nice and helpful, and actually likes the MC. Meanwhile Mephisto is like "MC... Ew" and Rapheal(I guess Micheal) is like "How do you feel about... war?" I was concerned Thirteen wasn't going to fit in well considering the events during season 4 seemed to struggle to include her sometimes. Those older events seemed to have an easier time having Raoheal and Mephisto make appearances, but Thirteen would only show up for "special" events, so I was very relieved to see that she was featured in Nightrbinger.

Sorry to all the Mephisto and RaphealMicheal, they were kinda dicks this season

TLDR: I'm gay

(Tangent #2 concluded. Rapheal literally does not have screen time. RIP)

I'm excited to see where the next season goes. This possible war plotline is interesting, and whether the messenger isn't as important as the outcome. Still don't like the plot twist though. I will factor in this plottwist into Micheal's character though. We now know 2 more things 1) he is able to disguise himself (now whether it's a spell or his own ability is up for debate, unless I missed something from a previous season) and 2) he is willing to disguise himself as someone else (where does that put us on the "angels can't lie" debate).

(Tangent #3, but its actually related)

What is the role of the Hard lessons or the additional unlockable lessons? (This question is more pondering how these additional story bits should add to the overall than any specific stance. I'm just curious if you had any thoughts on what makes a "bad" hard lesson/unloackable) Obviously they add to the story, but they often come later than the original plot. So what type of information should be for the hard lessons/unlockables, and what information should stay in the normal lessons.

I have already stated that I believe this instance should have been in the normal lessons. It feels like too big of a plottwist to "hide" in the hard lessons, since it actively changes how I am supposed to view every interaction with Rpaheal in it. But I can't think of any other hard lesson/unlockable which I feel strongly for/against changing into a normal lesson.

It's worth considering that the hard lessons are often unlocked after the normal lesson, and depending on how "on the grind" a player is the may not see the new plottwist for months after playing the normal lesson. (Speaking from personal exspierence, I'm only midway through the hard lessons on Nightbringer, and literally would not know about this plotwist without you're post (also thank you for posting the hard lesson). And I likely won't catch up for another couple of months as I level up my cards.)

TLDR: What should the hard lessons be used for?

(Tangent #3 concluded)

I think.... I need to stop talking. I still feel weird about this plottwist, but it gave some more tidbits about Micheal. Is that worth sacrificing the tiny development Rpaheal would have gotten without this plotwist.... Probably not, but like.... the writers already did it.

No but fr fuck that Hard lesson, Raphael stans keep losing I guess 👎👎👎

[casspurrjoybell-30]

Cry Me A River - Chapter 19- Part 1

*Warning Adult Content*

"When your past calls don't answer. It has nothing new to say."

Out of Control

"The moron just wouldn't stop fucking me," Michael complains angrily while stuffing his face with a vanilla, whipped cake.

Lying upon a silver tray lay many kinds of assorted, expensive cakes.

The maids had originally brought them for Alastair and I to eat for breakfast.

However, about ten minutes into our breakfast time Michael has burst through the door spewing on and on about Keith and Alastair had so much as made a beeline out the door.

Disappearing and leaving me alone with Michael and his muffled complaints as he ate Alastair's cake.

The moment Alastair had left, Michael had stuffed his face with Alastair's cake through declarations of Alastair's undeserving of such a sweetened good when he was anything but sweet after leaving his brother-in-law in his time of 'need'.

What his serving of cake had to do with his patience to listen to Michael's complaints was beneath me.

Alastair was sweet.

He has been nothing but a gentleman the entire time I've known him.

"Someone needs to rope him to a pole somewhere and just leave him there. Stupid, moronic, dog," he mumbled through loud chewing.

"Was what he did so..."

"He doesn't know when to stop," he exclaimed, lifting his fork up in exasperation.

"Why don't you tell him how you feel?" I asked, cutting a piece of strawberry shortcake.

My favorite.

"I did," he sighed.

"But he went off on a whole tangent on how his penis would fall off if he didn't get his daily dose of Michael, idiot."

"Well, at least he's affectionate?"

I tried as I took a piece of the strawberry goodness and took a bite.

My eyes almost rolled back as the creamy, sweet taste engulfed my taste buds in a utopia-like feeling.

"Too affectionate," he groaned as he took another bite of his cake.

I tried to come up with a solution to his problem but I wasn't quite sure what I would do in his situation.

Alastair and I still hadn't had sex yet so the idea of having sex every day was but a foreign concept to me.

"Talking about affectionate," he smirked.

"How are you and Alastair coming along?"

"Good..?"

"Hmm?"

I took another bite of my cake.

"How far have you two gone?" he asked.

I felt as my air supply got cut off as a rush of sugary sweetness went down my air pipe.

I coughed through fits of gasping as Michael pat my back.

"Are you okay..."

"Michael," I exclaimed.

"What?" he asked with a puzzled look.

"What kind of question is that?" I squeaked as I managed to regain my normal breathing.

"A question your brother-in-law is allowed to ask," he declared determinately.

"Since when?"

"Since so-called brother-in-law has been talking to you about his sex life for the past few weeks."

"Because you wanted to. I never asked a thing."

I crossed my arms.

"Why are you getting so defensive?"

He gasped.

"You guys didn't have sex yet?"

"Michael," I squeaked as I covered my face.

"Aww, little, innocent River's virginity is still intact," he cooed.

"Michael," I squeaked as I swiped at his face, missing as he dodged my attacks in a fit of laughter.

"Aww, wittle River is embarrassed," he cooed with pursed lips.

"Micheal."

"Sugar."

We both turned as Keith skidded into the room with wide, nervous eyes.

His composer immediately relaxed as his eyes met Michael's startled form on top my bed with a plate of cake by his side.

He swept Michael into his arms as if he weighed as much as a feather, kissing him gently on the lips.

"Put me down, moron," Michael pounded at Keith's chest as Keith smiled at him with a goofy smile, seemingly unaffected by Michael's attacks.

Alastair appeared from behind the door, ushering Keith out the door with an annoyed look on his face.

"See ya, cutie," Keith smirked as he hurried out with Michael pounding away at him while screaming profanities.

Wow, good luck Keith.

Alastair sighed, slamming the door before approaching the bed.

"Thank God, they're gone," he said exasperatedly.

His brows knitted together as he looked at his now empty plate.

"My cake.."

"Michael ate it," I explained.

"Something about you being undeserving of it."

I shrugged.

"Hmm," he looked up at me with a quirked smile.

'Oh no. '

He jumped onto the bed, pulling me into his arms as he nipped at my neck.

"Guess I'll just have to eat you instead," he teased, nipping down my neck as I giggled away and attempted to push him away.

He could have been made of steel with the amount of progress I was gaining.

"Alastair," I squealed.

"Aah and even sweeter than cake," he sighed as he continued to kiss up my neck before brushing my hair from my face and bringing his lips gently to mine.

He nipped at my bottom lip with a groan as I whimpered into his mouth.

"A-Alastair," I whimpered as his tongue breached my mouth like a desperate thief.

He licked and sucked like a pro leaving me a whimpering, moaning mess beneath his muscular frame as he pushed me down onto the soft bed.

His arms encircled my head like a protective encasing as he robbed me of my sanity and left me a puddle of goop under his passionate lips.

I lifted my hands, brushing them through his silky, raven-like hair, pulling as his kiss deepened.

"Aah.."

A loud crashing startled us from our heated moment.

Alastair lifted from on top of me and peered behind him at a fallen redheaded maid.

"S-sorry, Your Highness."

She stumbled her way back up with a nervous smile.

Alastair was silent as he watched her through narrowed eyes.

"May I help you?"

"Oh," she gasped,

"I was sent here to give you this."

She reached into her pocket and pulled out a small square of parchment paper.

He stood up from the bed as she handed it to his outstretched hand, her hand lingering too long.

My eyes narrowed.

Alastair pulled away from her lingering hand, opening the folded paper.

The air in the room seemed to tighten as Alastair read the paper and peered up at the maid with a crossed expression.

"You may leave."

She nodded and hurried out.

Alastair stared at her retreating figure before crumpling the paper and stuffing it into his pocket.

"What was that?" I asked softly, placing my hand on his stiff shoulder.

He turned around looking down before peering up at my small form upon our bed.

His eyes shone with an expression I couldn't quite decipher.

A mixture of regret, worry and something else I couldn't quite read.

[lookwhatilost]

woke up this morning thinking “god, it’s almost november and I’m going to have to endure christmas music soon” which led me down a mental tangent that got me thinking, why is last christmas by wham! so ubiquitous?

like, to start with christmas songs in general – i could ask you to think of “jingle bells” and we’d probably both be thinking of different versions. not to get pretentious about it, but it exists in the world of forms. we have an überjinglebells in our minds. yadda da. most Christmas carols are, additionally, old folk songs & this collective. you don’t ever hear the word “i” in a folk song, and they’re melodically simple. “joy to the world” is quite literally a major scale.

contrast this against modern Christmas songs that began popping up around the time of commercial recording, which have more individualized focus and modulation in their melodies, “all I want for christmas is you” being the perfect example of this. the melody is sort of hard to pin down and it’s incredibly vocally difficult. (this is also functionally an odd meta-commentary on Christmas x capitalism but I’ve been banging on long enough with the expository part of this post, so I’ll just leave it at that and let you connect the dots on your own lulz)

which brings us to last christmas

for one thing, it’s not a christmas song, not really. it’s a breakup song set during the holiday. something that could also be said about “same old lang syne” – another Not About Christmas Christmas Song, but with nostalgia at its core focus. however it’s definitely nowhere near as saturated. has any ever heard a cover of that song if they didn’t go seeking it out? it also has a really odd structure. it doesn’t exactly have verses, more like loose meandering melodies that are constructed around the lyrics. similar to how rap verses or recitatives in an opera. it’s very, very distinctively george micheal’s and imo inextricable from him as an auteur

what makes it even weirder is that most of the modern christmas songs aren’t covered frequently or at all in some cases. but everyone and their aunt has covered last christmas. and I really don’t know… why. in spite of it being a very non traditional song and being distinct to george Michael, both in its subject matter and execution.

well, I don’t have an answer to that. have a nice day, everyone

[mrpatrouiousachatz1993]

Why Bill Maher is wrong and he needs to wake up.

TW; Some things in this post maybe seen as a offensive when it comes to terminology. This post is designed to call out people who use offensive terminology and bigoted language.  Bill Maher once again goes on a racist tangent and blames "political correctness". Let me say something I have confronted my grandparents for supporting his show and constantly said by them watching Real Time with Bill Maher is giving into his racist, homophobic and transphobic ideas. The man even supported the discrimination of transgender people and here I am the transgender grandson. I have to constantly YELL at my family for misgendering me.  Now wonder why they do it Bill Maher probably thinks it is okay to misgender transgender people. I mean Bill Maher says it is okay to call COVID-19 the "Chinese Virus" all because it came from China. So we should blame the Chinese? We should be judgmental of Chinese people? You know what that is? RACISM!  But Bill Maher claims "It's not racist". Bill Maher then went on attacking liberals for supporting Middle Eastern Cultures and called Muslims evil. I mean he has been doing that since the 9/11 attacks. Yet he supported Obama whose middle name is Hussein, and Obama was a Christian. Hussein is Arabic for good, handsome, and beautiful. Obama wasn’t even Arabic.  

Bill Maher has been publicly racist and bigoted for decades and takes no accountability except that one time when he said the N word. But this is a man who defended calling COVID-19 "The Chinese Virus"   He has defended Megyn Kelly on her comments about how she thought black face was okay to wear on Halloween.  Not to mention he called the #Metoo Movement as  "McCarthyite" and he also defended Chris Matthews when Chris Matthews was accused of Sexual Harassment.   Not to mention he got booed for defending Micheal Bloomberg's Stop and Frisk policy and his response was "Keep booing that is how you lost the last election." 

Look if you are a moderate fine that is your belief and I am not going to argue with you. I will agree to disagree with you. But when you endorse the racist, homophobic, transphobic, and bigoted things Maher has said.  You are endorsing a culture that Donald Trump wanted. You are endorsing going backwards into the 1950s or further back.  

Now my grandfather before he died from a heart attack a month ago, he was willing to read articles on how Maher is bad and he agreed what Maher said was wrong. Then he sent me some things on how Bill Maher is good.  There are some things I do agree with Maher about. He supports Medicare for All, I agree CEOS of corporations should be paying higher taxes, I also agree that if religion (more specifically extreme Christian Nationalism) wants to interfere with our laws and want the laws to allow to discriminate on the bases of religion then churches should be taxed. But when Bill Maher opens his mouth about minorities groups, he needs to shut the fuck up. I also disagree with the dictatorship in China in regard to a 1 child rule. However, when he talks about social justice in the US  he needs to shut the fuck up because he doesn't know jack shit. I would not be surprised if he thinks it is okay to call people the R word when even the professionals stopped using the terms Mental Retardation  or Mentally Retarded and changed the terminology to intellectually disabled and developmentally disabled because of the R word and terms like MR have been used to bully and harass kids in school. It also has been used to call people when they do something foolish which then stigmatizes a minority group.  Listen calling COVID-19 the "Chinese Virus" is wrong and bigoted for many reasons.  It stigmatizes a group of people. When the AIDs and HIV Pandemic first happened it was referred to in the US as the "Gay disease".  But yet AIDs and HIV are not necessarily always transmitted from gay sex. It can be transmitted from dirty needles. It can be transmitted from blood transfusions. My grandmother is a retired nurse and she once had a patient with AIDs and when the doctor's came in and she told them that that the patients had AIDs the doctors did not want to treat the patient because they thought the patient was gay but how the patient got it was from a blood transfusion. Also AIDs  Not to mention we already have discriminated against Asians way before WWII. Bill Maher needs to educate himself and look at why the things he says when talking about marginalized groups is WRONG. This has nothing to do with what he calls as "PC Culture" or "PC Policing".  

Maybe Bill Maher should be calling out the FDA for their long ban on MSM (men who have sex with men) from donating blood, then rule changed to 1 year of no sex, now changed the rule to 3 months of no sex for men who have sex with men because America is short on blood donations, but yet lesbians, bisexual women, pansexual women, and straight people can have all the sex they want. Transgender people can donate blood just as long as they select either male or female. If you do not identify in the gender binary the FDA pretty much also gives you the middle finger according to the Red Cross. 

Majority of the history textbooks in today's K-12 schools come from Texas. We know that Texas is in the south and the south tends to be all pro confederate. A lot of text books in K-12 public schools cater to White, Cisgender, Heterosexual Men. In Kindergarten you learn that the Native Americans and the Pilgrims all loved each other and played Ring Around the Rosie when really the Pilgrims brought diseases, committed murder, and stole the land from the Natives. In high schools they are more focused about teaching what is based on a Standardized test rather than teaching that Christopher Columbus didn’t discover shit and did not know how to use a god damn map because the jag off got lost. The man did not even land in the U.S. Even my late grandfather who taught High School English knew that. Also do not get me started when it comes to history lessons about the Civil War. 

I did not learn the truth until I got into college. I also read literature from authors during and after the civil war era that were banned from high school curriculum that honestly should be read in high school. I had to take a class in college called Literature During and After  the Civil to learn that a lot of the the K-12 curriculum is catered to white people. In High School the only thing I learned about the Holocaust was about political propaganda. We would only focus one day about the actual Holocaust and it was never on the tests we took. Instead what was on the test was Pearl Harbor, Internment Camps in the US and Propaganda. We did not even discuss that Adolf Hitler killed 6 million Jews and 11 million other people persecuted by the Nazi Germany during the holocaust. 

The thing is Bill Maher is just another one of those Baby Boomers whose mind is stuck in the past where bigotry towards minority groups was acceptable, back when you if you broke the  heteronormativity in society  you could have gotten jail time, back when LGBTQ+ people could not be themselves. Back when magazines said a woman’s place was in the kitchen and to be a homemaker. Back when almost everyone was against marriage equality. Back when Vaccines were being blamed for Autism. Bill Maher not taking accountability for his actions and blaming the “PC Police” and overall “Political Correctness” is what he gets wrong on his show.