#whenever i think about her for too long

[cream-and-tea]

she’s a weapon. shes a liar. she’s a girl. she’s a saint. she’s a god. she’s frankensteins monster. shes a war machine. she’s a loyal daughter of the nation. she’s a liability. she has the power to warp reality. she’s filled with unfathomable kindness and empathy. she loves her mother. she hates her mother. she killed her mother hundreds of times over. she wants to make things better. there is no way to make things better. she’s dying. she’s already dead. she’s a murderer. she’s a monster. she wanted to be a ballerina. i didn’t say her name but it popped into your head did– [i am unable to finish the sentence as i collapse sobbing to the floor]

[bunnieswithknives]

sorry if idk this but what do you think about Wordgirl now in 2024 do you still like it do you still want to make art or talk about it or are you just done with all of it forever and plus i seen that you haven't made art of it since 2022 so you just done with all of it oh yeah and what about The Magnus Archives + Wordgirl ao3 fic too like is that just going to be and i know that your working on 2 au's now just wanting to know that's all

My interests tend to come in intense bursts and then fade. Unless something like, big happens like it gets a reboot its unlikely I'll be coming back to it anytime soon. As for the fic I don't have any current plans to finish it unfortunately.

[ferronickel]

Thinking bout the time someone yelled at me because they didn't understand butches.

[ciderjacks]

The JD vs Amber Heard stuff was actually insane. I didn't keep up with it because I disagreed with the sheer principle of publicizing something like *that* but the misogyny was MASK OFF...

NO LIKE FRL IT WAS SO INSANE

[aroace-poly-show]

perfecting the art of telling things to my mom that if i said it all plainly would get me in trouble so i rephrase the entire thing so i can still tell her about it and chat with her without getting in trouble

[cerealbishh]

"Maria and Rhett knew each other way back when, they went to high school together. (...)Yeah, I think the spark is immediate because I think they maybe, secretly, always wanted to be together."

"I think that it's one of those relationships that never happened and never was but it was almost. And, I think, spending so much time apart, one can tend to fantasize what could be. (...) All of that ease of them seeing each other again is right there and it's almost as if they never left each other's side." - Isa and Lew on Maria and Rhett in an interview with Down and Nerdy(x)

"I also love that I get to tell a story about love in this really crazy, scary world(...) and we really want to root for them!" - Isa in an interview with SciFi Vision(x)

[purpldawne]

that one arashi post about presenting her as overtly feminine in fan media but not in a "trans women are only valid if they conform to traditional femininity" kinda way and more in a "happyele are a bunch of pussies for having a trans woman imply/state she wants to be more feminine in every sense of the word and then never letting her do so beyond socially" kinda way

[museenkuss]

loving and moving my body this week (06.11.-12.11.)*

Monday. 20 MIN EVENING PILATES TO RELAX AND FEEL CALM - EASY AT HOME WORKOUT

Tuesday. Beginners Belly Dance Tutorial | Beautiful Hips & Arms!

Wednesday. Everyday Pilates Mobility and Stretch | Posture, Hips and Hamstrings

Thursday. Victoria's Secret Train Like An Angel Live: Martha Hunt + Ballet Beautiful

Friday. 20 MIN FULL BODY PILATES WORKOUT FOR BEGINNERS - AT HOME PILATES or Waistline Shimmy | Belly Dance Workout

Saturday. 30 MIN FULL BODY PILATES WORKOUT FOR EVERYBODY - AT HOME PILATES

Sunday. "Chocoholics" Valentine's Day Waist Winding Workout

__

* the idea here was to find fun little ways to stay active according to my schedule this week. This is completely 'no suffering, joy only'. :)

In case the suggestion doesn't feel right for that day, here are some alternatives (12 minutes or less, can also be used as add-ons). No shame in taking it slow! Let's move according to our needs! :) nightime flexibility stretches // bedtime yoga stretch to release stress & tension // 8 min beginner's ballet flexibility. // 10 min | Beginner Belly Dance Workout | Slow & Smooth Tutorial // 15 min Gentle Pilates Workout For Beginners

[sisterdivinium]

Finding "the meaning" to a show that could have had up to five or seven seasons but was cancelled after the second is somewhat like trying to understand a novel composed of seventy chapters by having read only twenty — there is a whole wealth of information which we do not possess that could alter our reading of any given element or of the entire thing in itself.

Still, there are always patterns that weave a story into a cohesive unit and they can help us to better grope in darkness towards comprehension. One such pattern in Warrior Nun appears to be how the consequences to mistakes, "sins" or evil deeds committed by characters manifest.

Basic storytelling usually requires characters to act on something so that complications or resolutions may arise from their choices and move the plot forwards. In Warrior Nun, many of these actions are quite tragic in nature: Suzanne's arrogance and pride lead to the death of her Mother Superion; Vincent's allegiance to the higher power he believed Adriel to be inspired him to kill Shannon; Ava's flight from the Cat's Cradle ends up damning Lilith as she is mortally wounded and taken away by a tarask... All of these events have negative outcomes and heavy repercussions on all characters directly or indirectly involved. Something changes permanently because of them, be it in the world around them or within the characters themselves.

And yet, it would seem that all of these dark deeds not only move the story forwards but might also have overall positive results. We would have had no protagonist without Ava — and she would arguably never have received the halo to begin with had she not been murdered. What's more, on a personal scale, the horrifying crime she suffers is, in the end, the very thing that allows her a second chance in life, a new life.

An act of outside evil permits Ava to grow and develop, shows her a path she would not otherwise have found. Without her own season in some sort of hell, Lilith would not have been able to advance towards other ways of being and understanding beyond her very strict limitations. Vincent and Suzanne would not have embarked on their own journeys of enlightenment without having caused the pain they are responsible for.

Beatrice might have been paying for someone else's mistakes, but she, too, is given the chance to grow into herself through it. The afflictions that torment these characters advance the overall plot, but they also advance them, as individuals, as long as they are willing to learn and keep going despite the calamities large and small that they are faced with. Beatrice keeps going after parental rejection, Mary keeps going after losing Shannon, Jillian keeps going after losing her son (in part through her own actions, adding insult to injury)... Trouble and the adaptation that follows it, if one is open enough to learn from the experience, motivates the characters, propels them forward, teaches them.

The problem of evil has occupied the minds of many a thinker throughout the ages, given how the very existence of it, evil, might call into question that of God (a good, omniscient, omnipotent one, anyway). A common way of justifying suffering (and also God), then, is by claiming, as Saint Augustine, that "God judged it better to bring good out of evil than not to permit any evil to exist".

Now, it would be rather ridiculous to say of Warrior Nun that it follows in Leibniz's footsteps, also because this philosopher, expanding on the augustinian concept, attempted to defend the goodness of a real God with his "best of all possible worlds" while all we have is... Well, whatever/whoever Reya is.

But there seems to be an inclination towards some sort of optimism as a worldview nonetheless.

Betrayals reveal truth and grant knowledge (Vincent's culminates with the coming of Adriel, which allows us to know of the threat of a "Holy War" and thus prepare for it; Kristian's gives Jillian much needed insight, William's lights up the fuse for the fight to be taken more seriously...), crimes committed willingly or not open the way for Ava (Suzanne's killing of her Mother Superion causes the loss of the halo, which is transferred to Shannon, whose death opens the gates for Ava to walk through after being herself murdered by sister Frances)... The magnitude of these positive outcomes is perhaps not "balanced" when compared to the evil that brings them about, but there is still something to take out of the catastrophe.

However tragic the tones of a given event, the show itself appears to shun the predetermination that makes tragedy as a genre; if everything is connected, here it at least appears to not necessarily drag everyone into their horrible dooms.

What's more is that this lurking "optimism" matches really well with our own protagonist's personality.

And it makes perfect sense that Ava would do the best she could with whatever she is given.

Life for her, in the conditions she experienced after the accident, would have been unbearable without some sort of positive outlook on life. However deadpan, the joking and the "obscene gestures" and whatever other forms of goofing around beside Diego are a way of turning a portion of the situation in her own favour. Proverbial eggs have, after all, already been broken right and left — might as well make an omelette of whatever remains.

Humour is just another way of looking at the bright side of something, or, at the every least, of mitigating the utter horror it might bring. If the show allows for moments of lightness, if it lets us laugh, if it takes us through a perilous voyage which still bears ripe, succulent fruit instead of the rot of pessimism and its necessary contempt for humanity, it is because Ava herself sees things in this way. It isn't gratuitous or naïve in this case, but a true survival strategy, especially as it is confronted with the morbidity of Catholicism.

Here is a religion that soothes its faithful with the promise of reward in the afterlife — how else does one charge into battle against the unknown, risking one's own death along with that of one's sisters, without the balm of believing that we shall all meet again eventually, "in this life or the next"? How else does one come to terms with the ugliness and the pain of this existence if not by looking forward to a paradise perfect enough to make all trials and tribulations here worth it?

True nihilism would have annihilated Ava. Her present perspective is what avoided the abyss.

And there is nothing Panglossian to her attitude or what the show might imply by giving us her view on things. This isn't about "the best of all possible worlds", but of making the best of whatever situation we're in, of taking what we have and doing something with it, something good, something of ourselves. It isn't God making good out of evil, but our choices.

Killing innocent people and feeling no remorse will never be the best someone can aspire to do. Sister Frances, cardinal William, Adriel all learn this the hard way.

Those who do their best find that, somehow, they can move on from whatever it was that paralysed them. Ava, most of all, knows what it is to be stuck, frozen in place; she can never be the character who refuses to grow, even through pain, lest she condemns her spirit to the same fate her body is all too familiarised with. Those around her wise enough to let themselves be touched by her, by the dynamic power she carries, walk forth with her and live.

It says very little about "God" that Warrior Nun should adopt its heroine's views and seem "optimistic" as it progresses — but it speaks volumes about the values it presents for pondering, of the inspiration its protagonists provide, and of the multiple reasons why this is a story unlike most others.

[notonlymice]

rumbelle + twilight au moodboard

[kate-m-art]

I get it now, I get the hype, sassy vampire man beloved andjfkmsm

[rosemaze-reveries]

it took me 4hrs just to complete weepy’s 9th deduction but i finally unlocked this mf chart 🏌️ i feel like my souls been gutted out goodbye tumblr im quitting idv

[moiraineology]

Sorry I'm on the pain train today, but I really think that Moiraine blames herself for what happened to her at the Eye all throughout season 2. This is a woman who has a plan within a plan within a plan, and even though she is fully aware of how dangerous the mission is, and how she is almost certainly going to die because of it, she still had some very specific expectations for how things were going to go at the (not-so-final) battle. She brought the sa'angreal for Rand to use, and she was ready to channel and fight for him while he woke up/gathered his strength/found a way to touch the Source. The thing she never expected to happen was for Ishamael to be able to cut her off even as she threw her whole body into channeling to protect Rand. We know how powerful she is. We know that this was her final mission. A suicide mission. Her entire being was devoted to that final channel and when Ishamael shields her, the sound she makes--total disbelief, panic--betrays the fact that she never imagined that he would be able to do what he did. She thought he might kill her for sure, and that she'd go out in a blaze of glory, but this? Left behind as a Forsaken's plaything? It was never something that crossed her mind.

The first shot of her we see in season 2 is her lugging those buckets of water across this massive canyon at Tifan's Well. There are cicadas buzzing, the brush is scrubby and everything (barely) grows in sand. It's hot as balls. And she is out there bringing bucket after bucket home so she can be in this tepid bath, reliving what happened to her and wishing, wishing, wishing she hadn't channeled in that moment. I think Verin is right to point out that this could be seen as an indicator of her strength in many ways, and Moiraine herself would probably appreciate hearing that ("Moiraine didn't know the meaning of the words 'give up'"), but I personally see it as a form of self-harm. She is punishing herself every day for what she believes she "let" happen to her. We also see her lash out at Lan later on, when he tells her that even multiple Aes Sedai couldn't still a person. She completely loses it and yells at him in an attempt to communicate how powerful the Forsaken actually are. I really read that as a manifestation of her anger toward herself. For not realizing how powerful Ishamael could be. For not making the "right" choice in that moment. Again, for "letting" him do what he did to her. We know that stilling is seen as a direct parallel to a violation (an assault) and it is a really common response to relive the situation in that way and blame oneself for something that isn't even close to being the survivor's fault. It makes sense that Moiraine's trauma response would be to blame herself. It also makes it about twenty million times more heartbreaking to watch relevant scenes later on, like when she talks to Rand about what a shield feels like (she is so angry in that scene, and again, I read it not just as anger directed toward Ishamael, but a very profound, overwhelming anger toward herself), or when she seems ashamed to let Rand look at her with the One Power at Lan's request. She can't even look at Rand (or Lan, for that matter) in that moment. She casts her eyes down. She doesn't want anyone to see her in that state, and it speaks to the enormous weight of the humiliation and shame that she's been carrying all season long.

Basically, I just want someone to cradle her tightly in their arms and just tell her over and over that it wasn't her fault. That what happened to her was Ishamael's choice and his alone. That it was his cruelty, and not anything she did or didn't do, that resulted in her condition.

[bigothteddies]

I feel so trapped that I can’t celebrate my favorite time of year with the people I care about

[milflewis]

.

[comixandco]

i think something people forget about pink diamond is that she had compassion for life long before she went to earth

the pebbles assume steven is pink not because of his gem or aura but just because he says ‘hello’ and ‘thank you’ to them, a basic common courtesy that nobody else has given them in thousands of years

in steven’s pink visions, blue is yelling at pink about the little bugs she let loose on homeworld. when one of them is found in her cell, she is quick to check it’s okay before helping it out of the room. even before encountering humans she valued organic life.

even the garden, the setting of pink’s cruellest moment, is proof of her care for organic life. Unlike every other part of homeworld, the garden is teeming with plant-life, which was kept healthy enough that it continued to grow even after pink abandoned it. the only other homeworld structure that tends to organic life is the human zoo. who’s to say the garden wasn’t another attempt by the other diamonds to placate pink after she expressed concern for the life on one of their colonies? or maybe pink picked the plants herself from the many different colonies she visited and grew them there.

pink wasn’t perfect. she had a bad habit of acting on her emotions and impulses without considering the consequences of her actions, and she hurt a lot of people because of it. but she considered all life precious and worth protecting, it just wasn’t until she had a colony of her own that she fully understood that the expansion of homeworld was intrinsically linked to the destruction of life, and the moment she realised that is the moment she stood against it.