#wife self immolate

[blood-starved-beast]

If you don't mind me hijacking your post cause I also find the choice for Eris to give Mel a nectar fascinating.

The repeated motif with Eris is that she's the outcast. The problem child in the classroom everyone tolerates but really doesn't like cause they're disruptive. This makes people respond negatively towards them; they get used to it. But since it's the only attention they're getting - that's all they know - they keep doing it. Over and over. Cause hey, negative attention is better than no attention no?

Both in the real world and in Hades game no one likes Eris. Understandable, given what she embodies and what she done/does. All the attention she gets is negative - from a child she was ignored. Nyx had so many kids and so many problems, couldn't bother with her youngest. God or not, Eris was a kid so she did what any god kid would do in this case embrace - her incarnation of strife. She acted out - picking fights with Nemesis (that way at least Nemmie would pay attention to her, even if it's just limiting to ass whoopings). She became Worse as she grew up and became more and more Strife.

But in embracing Strife, she continues to isolate herself. She gets attention yes (and she craves it - hence why she's mad that Hecate silence warded her, admonished her in private), but it's not the good kind. People continue to not associate with her. She hangs out in her corner. Nemesis only shows up to tell her to get out. She picks a fight with Moros, who is at best exasperated. Hecate ignores her. They all do for the most part. All except Melinoe.

Melinoe keeps coming back to talk to her. Gives her nectar. Obviously drawn to her in a way that a simple trail of trash isn't bringing her over. She is polite, for the most part. But most important despite Strife Incarnate's repeated efforts to thwart her goal, Melinoe keeps giving her positive attention. Yes she sneers her behind Eris's back (but hey, it's not one-sided Eris admits to doing it to her too), but she talks to Eris. Wants to actually know her. And that's a perspective Eris has never experienced before.

So she gives Mel a nectar of her own. Made of the golden apples she collects/hoards. Cause that relationship is something precious for Eris, who never had anything to compare it to before. She acts like she doesn't care about her family, her mom, or anything but the truth is that she does. And she hates it. She hates being Strife cause the truth of the Matter is that Strife Incarnate craves affection. And regardless of whether or not she's a romance option, she isn't dumb enough to not realize that this dynamic with Little Miss Perfect, that isn't something she can afford to throw away.

the game's narrative choice for eris to give melinoe a Nectar if you rizz her hard enough is so clever and interesting to me

the golden apple associations. the anachronism of order. the way eris whispers her over to give it to her. good writing

plenty of characters give you support and items along a run but eris giving melinoe a Nectar specifically, the game's 'relationship maxing' item, stands out among all of that

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

“WIFE SLAYER BECOMES TORCH,” The Province (Vancouver). March 16, 1931. Page 5. --- Alberta Man Leaps Into Flaming Strawstack and Burns to Death. --- TOTS CARRY NOTE --- EDMONTON, March 16. - Sending his children into Vegreville with a note in which he signified his intentions, Steve Yknitski, farmer, killed his wife with an axe in his stable at Royal Park near Vegreville this morning and then leaped into a flaming straw stack where he was burned to death.

At noon Alberta provincial police officers and residents were busy battling the flames in an attempt to get the body from the straw pile. The body of the woman remained in the stable, and no examination had been made at that time. The children, aged 8 and 4 years, were instructed by the father to take the note to his brother-in-law. The latter read it, notified Corporal Heacock of the Alberta provincial police detachment, and then rushed out to the farm, where he found the body of the woman, and could see that of the man enveloped by the flames in the straw stack.

Corporal Heacock and residents were making desperate efforts to quench the flames to get the body of the man out before it was entirely consumed, but the intense heat beat them away.

[contemplatingoutlander]

How to save the Supreme Court from Alito’s ethical malfeasance

The justice’s unconscionable violations of ethics demand the court be reformed.

Jennifer Rubin clearly explains why Alito went too far in allowing a symbol of the insurrection to fly over his home, and why the Roberts Court needs to stop slow-walking the presidential immunity decision if the Court is to regain any credibility. This is a gift🎁link so anyone can read the full article, even if they don't subscribe to The Washington Post.

Among the Supreme Court’s abominations — shredding precedent to obliterate reproductive freedom, financial impropriety, partisanship — none compares to the upside-down flag, identified with violent insurrectionists, that flew over the home of Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. Ethics experts and lawyers (including former judges) of all stripes expressed their outrage. “His statement — which says his wife displayed a symbol associated with a failed coup to subvert democracy because she was offended by an anti-Trump sign one of her neighbors displayed — is so incoherent it is insulting to our collective intelligence,” constitutional law professor Leah Litman emails me. “And a Justice who resides in a house that displays symbols glorifying a coup should not participate in cases that will determine whether people who participated in said coup will face any accountability.” [...] Alito (alongside Justice Clarence Thomas, whose wife encouraged coup plotters) has heard multiple insurrection-related cases, including the pending immunity case that could absolve Trump of criminal liability. In letting his home stand in solidarity with constitutional arsonists, Alito made a mockery of his oath to “faithfully and impartially discharge” his duties under the Constitution. Any other judge (especially one implicated in financial misconduct) would be compelled to resign and/or face the threat of impeachment. So what about Alito? Immediate Triage Unlike its speedy disposition of the 14th Amendment case (24 days after argument) and of many lesser matters, the court put the immunity case in deep freeze, making it near-impossible to try the ex-president before the next election....The Alito debacle only deepens the impression that the court has its thumb on the scale — or the brake — for Trump. [...] As constitutional scholar Laurence Tribe warns in an email to me, if Roberts “wants the Court to retain any credibility at all,” he must compel the court to “bite the bullet and issue its decision, ....” Then, Tribe explains, “Judge [Tanya S.] Chutkan either can hold whatever hearing the Court thinks necessary to decide exactly which charges against the former president may remain” or can begin the trial itself, which “should have been over by now.” Alito’s ethical self-immolation leaves Roberts no alternative if he wants to dispel the perception that two ethically compromised, partisan justices have thoroughly corrupted the court. (He also should implore Alito to recuse, but who believes that’ll happen?) [emphasis added]

[flee-from-fresno]

The thing that gets me about Bushnell's self-immolation is that he's an airman. He was a member of the Air Force. Historically, the group that is the most emotionally distant from the wars they partake in, and even he was unable to stomach the scale of death in Palestine.

In my personal experience with vets from the Iraq War, you can physically see the results of US conditioning against the perceived enemy in the average soldier. I've had vets from the Army and Navy call Iraqis "sand ni**ers" to my face. But a lot of the ex Air Force I've talked to didn't have that kind of vitriol because they didn't need that level of indoctrination.

There's a post going around right now, dramatizing a defence contractor getting done with their 9-5 of drone striking and getting to go home that night to their wife and kids after a full day of murder, and that's the Air Force experience too. If you have a combat role, you sit in a 30 million dollar chair, press a button and people die. You don't need to make the soldier hate the target, you make them see the target as a statistic, a number.

I know there's been an increase in IOF suicides since last October, which is to be expected when you realize you're an active participant in genocide, but when an active duty airman goes as far as to self-immolate in protest, it either needs to be the death-knell for the US military's support of Israel in Gaza or the death-knell for those politicians that continue to green light that support

[queercontrarian]

Ascension - A Beron Origin Story

@sjmvillainweek Prompt: Origin Story

In the middle of the First War with Hybern and Spring, Beron finally gets what he always wanted.

Read this story on AO3

The air was sweltering outside, only some flimsy spells keeping the inside of the tents cool and dry. In all his years, Beron had rarely known such weather within the borders of the Autumn Court. Now, with Summer encroaching on their territory and Spring breaking into their lands, the magic was out of balance and the weather followed. It was chaos. It was hell.

Athos had hoped that the fighting on the continent would distract Aldwig and his rabid hellish brood enough from the war they had started with their neighbors for Autumn to recover but Beron knew better. The High Lord of Spring would rather give up his colonies on the Continent and all his connections in the Human War than risk losing so close to home, especially to their perceived lesser neighbor, Autumn.

The attack on their borders and the southern provinces had been swift and brutal. Albéa, the once proud city which housed in equal parts Spring, Summer and Autumn fae reduced to nothing but bloody rubble and bones, many of the smaller villages along the way destroyed or abandoned, their inhabitants fleeing into the old woods.

It was from those very woods now that Beron had been launching his attacks, forced to watch as Spring and Summer made breach after breach deeper into his Court. Despite his General’s protests Athos had tried to meet the enemy in the field again and again, and each time Autumn’s army had suffered immense losses. Thousands upon thousands of soldiers thrown directly into the Beast’s maw with nothing to show for it but fewer mouths to feed. There was nothing to be done. Autumn’s forces were weakened by years of cuts to fund his father’s feasts and his brother’s expensive taste, the weapons lacking quality and the soldiers lacking training, ressources and grit. He could only hope that his wife’s campaign for support from the Day Court would be successful. To go begging at another High Lord’s court for help would have shamed him to the point of self-immolation only a few years ago, but the desperation of war had burned any such qualms out of him by this point. What mattered now was the survival of their people.

Of course his brother couldn’t know about the moves Beron had been making behind his back. Athos was already paranoid and irritable on a good day with the fire of the Phoenix running through his veins, seeing enemies in every corner, intrigues and plots to steal the throne from under him in every sideways glance, yet his brother was too apathetic and cowardly to act on what he thought he saw in any way other than to yell at Beron to somehow fix it. Beron did not have time to ”fix it” for his fool of a brother, and there was barely anything to distract the male with anymore either, especially since the camp had run out of the good wine and even the whores had abandoned the tents, instead fleeing north to hide in the shadow of the mountains along with a large part of the population.

Athos never should have been High Lord. He was a weak male, weaker even than their father, who had gone through all the effort of dethroning his own brother to be High Lord only to never do anything with the power at his disposal but throw lavish parties and spend every last coin in the Court’s treasury on food, alcohol, pretty trinkets and prettier females. Beron had shed no tears when the High Lord had been ambushed and killed near the Spring border by the younger prince and his savage war band. He’d been angry at the disrespect his family had suffered, his father’s cut-off head sent back to the Forest House in a box, his mangled body fed to Steffan’s beasts. He’d been worried for his family’s safety, devastated by what he knew war would mean for his Court, already worn out by their High Lord’s selfish whims. But he had not grieved. He’d only gone through the motions, smeared ash on his brow, taken off the jewelry, donned the black robes, spoken the prayers, and then returned to the battlefield, carrying in his heart only the burning rage he felt over the mantle of High Lord passing to Athos instead of him. Athos, who did not have any of the qualities a High Lord of Autumn should have, no claim but the blood running through his veins. Who worked only a fraction as hard as Beron did, who used his fire for parlor tricks, to amuse his tasteless companions, his circle of sycophantic noblemen who hadn’t held a sword since their hundredth birthday. Beron did not understand why, but he had no time to question it, and no one to complain to. War had come to their Court, and the Mother had chosen his brother to lead instead of him.

Twice the magic had spurned him, but not this time. He had not even bothered washing his brother’s blood off of his hands before going to see his nephew, only stopping by the tent Eris was staying in on the other side of the encampment, near the other officers. Beron did not think they would protect him if Nicholas chose to come for him, and he needed to be prepared. His nephew had fewer supporters than Beron did but was better liked than Eris, and he would not suffer any competition, even if there were no Heirs left but his younger cousins. Beron hadn’t been there when his brother had received the blessing, but it was custom for the High Lord to isolate himself immediately after the mantle passed. It was a sign of respect, both to the Goddess and to those who had come before them. To reflect. To pray. Nicholas had decided not to follow that tradition. He’d called Beron to his tent right away, to chastise him.

His nephew had been young, barely seventy, yet he’d spoken with the entitlement and false wisdom of a male ten times his age, about duty, about sacrifice and consequences. What did he know of those things? He was a child compared to Beron, even compared to half the males in this camp. He’d only lead Autumn into certain doom. He’d proven it at his first opportunity, blaming Beron for his father’s death like Athos wasn't grown, Beron’s senior by more than a century. He was a High Lord, he should have been able to hold his own without Beron having his back for five cauldron damned seconds, especially if he insisted on putting Eris and his soldiers near the front of the battle. Beron had only been distracted for a few seconds but it had been enough for some Spring Court mutt to taste royal Autumn blood. He’d killed it, of course, but not before the beast had shredded his brother’s breastplate into pieces and ripped out his throat. Even if he’d wanted to help him, there would have been nothing he could have done for Athos. He was gone before the beast hit the ground and the High Lord’s power with him.

Beron wiped his bloody dagger on one of the heavy drapes hanging by the plane of the tent. A waste, just like the rest of the finery his brother had insisted on bringing along instead of sending it into the mountains with their mother and their wives. Useless, the lot of them, but he’d set it right. He’d been preparing for this moment for years. He knew better than anyone how this Court functioned, what Autumn needed, how it fought and lived and died.

And yet the power had avoided him a second time, choosing Nicholas instead. Fortunately his nephew had never been a very quick study. It took time to get used to the powers the Mother granted them, time Beron had not given the boy. In the end, he’d looked so surprised despite everything, despite the accusations and the threats, the demands he’d made so bravely mere moments before. Kneel before your High Lord. Foolish boy. Foolish, foolish boy, so arrogant, so smug, so utterly unprepared. Beron sneered.

“Father?”

Beron turned to the opening of the tent, finding Eris standing in the fading light of the day. The sun set his hair aflame, a golden glow framing his silhouette. The markers of an Heir. A glint in the shadows broke the moment, light reflecting off the blade as Eris quickly sheathed his dagger, taking in the scene before him: Nicholas’s body on the carpet, his throat slit from one ear to the other, the blood soaking into the ground by Beron’s feet. Eris wasn’t stupid. He knew instantly what his father had done. He dropped to his knees without hesitation, his head bowed.

“Long live the High Lord, chosen by the Cauldron, blessed by the Mother,” Eris recited the ancient words, the confirmation each High Lord of this Court had received from his priestesses and subjects since Autumn was created.

For the first time, Beron allowed the power to run freely through his veins. It was unlike anything he’d ever felt before. Nothing came close, not using his natural-born powers nor his first victory on the battlefield. He’d never felt so connected to the land, feeling every tree, every river, every stone, the wind rustling the leaves over their heads, even the clouds high above. He felt the soldiers around them, their heartbeats, their breath, their blood rushing through their veins. He felt Eris, his eldest son, his Heir, closer than anyone else.

Eris had finally finished his prayer, still kneeling on the carpet, his cousin’s blood soaking into his pants. He hadn’t looked up yet, his deep red hair falling into his eyes. He was still so young. Barely older than his mother when they had been wed, Beron reminded himself.

He let the power sink back into his skin, into his blood, where it kept flowing, singing, burning in the most delightful way. He took two steps to cross the space between himself and Eris and reached out his hand, lifting his son’s chin up so he’d face him. Eris’s eyes were wide but there were no tears for his cousin to be found, no grief. If he was even surprised or shocked, he hid it well. When Beron let go, his fingers left bloody prints on his face, and he fought the instinct to wipe them away.

“Stand up,” he said instead, his voice low but clear. He took a step back as Eris slowly rose to his feet again.

“You are the Heir of the Autumn Court now,” Beron continued, watching cautiously as Eris once again took in the scene inside the tent, the blood, the gold, the glow of power that connected them both now and forever. “You will be High Lord after me, and High Lords don’t kneel.”

[jessaerys]

just watched kim and jimmy break up in 6x9. im going to go to LA and break into vince gilligan's house and self immolate in his bedroom to change the trajectory of his and his wife's life forever

[ziploc849]

ALSO what is up with the trend/theme of heat? The coffin in Do Not Open was warm like it had been in the sun, while the chain was cold, and there have been a handful of episodes (I’d need to check which ones) where people have strangely/unexplainably started feeling hot, like they were burning. Or even the one guy in Burnt Offerings who literally had his car overheat to failure, his house burn down, I assume his wife died either in that fire or in another incident, and iirc he killed himself by self immolation??? Fire and heat definitely seems like a theme in at least some of these episodes and I have No Clue what it means

[bestworstcase]

Yknow what makes me sad?? People always end up forgetting SOME character trait in favor for something else. Like, for example, Ozpin is arguably the FUNNIEST character in RWBY. Like yeah he has issues and he's immortal and the most divorced man alive(?) but he also purely drinks hot chocolate. He wears a turtleneck, vest and coat all the time in the summer. He wears goofy glasses. He has a silly sense of humor and he's sassy. His reaction to the portal closing in v8 is "Oh dear" as if he can't say 'shit'. Every other scene with him makes me laugh bc he's so unintentionally hilarious and it's even pointed out by other characters (coco says he has a mischievous, boyish charm). Also you can TELL he was a dad bc his immediate reaction to Oscar being like "please don't do anything embarrassing :(" is him immediately doing something embarrassing

He's so fucking funny and it's a serious shame literally NO ONE talks about it it's one of my favorite parts of his character and it's definitely one of his biggest character traits. Like without it it just doesn't feel like Oz, yknow? He's not an entirely serious character, though he definitely uses humor to cope (as a distraction, which Oscar clearly hates bc he's a p straightforward kid). I just fhchgj he's silly okay

one of your favorite character traits of his is that you… mock him for dressing in manner you think is strange? weird pull. oh he’s so sillygoofy, he doesn’t swear and he drinks hot cocoa, everybody point and laugh!—like ??

what is the joke.

also like. sorry but a grown man purposefully going out of his way to embarrass a fourteen-year-old boy who’s already mortified and uncomfortable as a "joke" isn’t dad behavior. it’s just mean. if you want to read ozpin as the type of person who thinks it’s funny to pick on teenagers that’s… your prerogative, i guess? but i think his poor treatment of oscar in v4-5 is a confluence of fear, resignation to his curse, and just being thoughtless. lol

anyway. ozpin uses humor to lower tension and ease people into big revelations (e.g. "would you believe me if i told you that one’s been around since i was a boy?" or delivering "i gave them the ability to turn into birds" like a self-deprecating joke) but his own sense of humor runs more to subtle ironic or irreverent whimsy and dry understatement. he doesn’t make jokes per se, he calls ironwood’s fleet "a bit of an eyesore."

the funniest thing that’s ever come out of his mouth is "fighting and dancing aren’t so different; two partners interlocked… hn. although, one wrong move on the ballroom merely leads to a swollen foot," which is a mirror image of and funny for the same reason as salem telling oscar "perhaps you and i can have a better working relationship"—in that they’re both, in these moments, thinking about that one time they immolated each other. this dance reminds me of when my wife and i murdered each other… we had a poor working relationship. he sets up the joke and she delivers the punchline, six volumes later. same sense of humor.

[etymology-of-the-emblem]

Shiva / シヴァ and Safy / サフィ

Shiva (JP: シヴァ; rōmaji: shiva) is a mercenary from the village of Sabang under the employ of the pirate Lifis in Fire Emblem: Thracia 776. He gets his name from Shiva, the Hindu god of destruction and member of the Trimurti—the three supreme deities personifying creation, preservation, and destruction. However, Shiva is also viewed as a wise and secluded sage and the one who educated the Yogis, the original practitioners of Yoga. Given this duality, Shiva has been portrayed in the culture as both a benevolent, compassionate god and a fierce, terrifying god. This may be the basis of the dichotomy between the character Shiva being a brooding sellsword under the enemy and a more understanding man seen in his interactions with Safy. However, their relationship is further influenced by her namesake.

Safy (JP: サフィ; rōmaji: safi) is a cleric in service to Linoan of Tarrah. Her name is a corruption of サティー(rōmaji: satī), the Hindu goddess of marital felicity Sati. She was the favorite child of her father Daksha, avatar of the Great Goddess Mahadevi, and first wife of Shiva. From an early age, Sati devoted herself to worship of the reclusive god, even rejecting the possibility of taking any husband other than Shiva, much to her father's chagrin. She left her life in a palace to live remotely in the forests like Shiva to garner his attention. Eventually he caved, and the two were wed. This only caused tensions to rise between Sati and Daksha. When the latter held a yajna, a sacrifice with sacred fire, he invited every god except for Shiva and Sati. Despite Shiva's warnings of her father's intention, Sati returned to her father's house, convincing herself that family need not receive formal invitation. Upon her arrival, Daksha became enraged; he belittled and insulted his daughter and her husband. Sati, out of a desire to defend Shiva's honor and distance herself from her father, threw herself into the sacred flames. Her self-immolation brought the wrath of Shiva, who slaughtered all present at the yajna. His benevolent aspect, however, revived all of the lives he stole and forgave their actions.

Safy being a priest and her devotion to serving Linoan are likely both based on Sati's ascetic lifestyle in devotion to her lord and god Shiva. Even Safy leaving her home of Tarrah to find aid could be derived from Sati leaving her home in search of Shiva's attention. By far the most important tie between Safy and Shiva's namesakes is their interaction in Chapter 7. Here, Safy stands before Shiva, willing to die to a mercenary's sword to give Leif a window to escape. Shiva gives in to the cleric's wishes and changes side, remarking that she needs to take better care of her life and his frustrations of people speaking lightly of death and rushing to meet it too soon. All of this seems to relate to Sati's self-immolation, from Safy's willingness to die to protect another, to Shiva's irritation from the reckless handling of her life and aversion to death.

[kendrixtermina]

I think I've figured out where the "human shields" thing really comes from

After seeing many responses from ppl posting IDF propaganda, one patterns stuck out to me in the responses. or even those gross mocking tiktoks I noticed is how they accuse the gazans of trying to use sympathy.

Either it's a sob story, or wanting sympathy or "making" them do it. It's "pallywood", it's "human shields"

Either way, it's construed as trying to get sympathy somehow.

It is a common fallacy of human thinking to assume that, if something makes you feel a certain way, it must be because the person wants you to. Someone feels insecure and thinks the other person is showing off. Someone is jealous and thinks the partner must be cheating.

It's a failure of theory of mind, not distinguishing your thinking from theirs.

I think this is what we're seeing here.

They feel sympathy, but that doesn't fir their worldview, so the sympathy must be explained away.

It's like the wifebeater or abusive parent who claims the wife or child "made him do it".

Empathy is often equated with morality, but that's not at all the case. There is that whole book, "against empathy" about how those things are different, and one of the points (besides the obvious "selective keyhole compassion" thing) is that empathy is just as likely to make you look away from suffering because it overwhelms you.

During the Nazi dictatorship there were people who complained that ppl were being killed next to their towns. Soldiers complained of having to shoot the victims.

This was even weaponized. KZ guards in Dachau were rewarded with a day off if they shot a prisoner, so people became more trigger-happy to not have to see the murder anymore.

But it still happened, just out of sight.

This is the same thing.

The Palestinians aren't trying to get sympathy. What sympathy? When have they ever gotten any? They keep being butchered. If it's a tactic, it's not working at all! Plus, they're hardly self-immolating. They are trying their darndest to survive!

No. The sympathy you are feeling was not put there by them - it's your sympathy, your conscience trying to get your attention, from wherever you've stuffed it down. It's your sympathy that you're crushing, deligitimizing, ignoring, explaining away.

Most ppl are not total psychos, not in this mass. Normally people have huge inhibitions against killing. Significant mental gymnastics are needed to justify it.

The sympathy you're feeling is your own silenced conscience. Maybe start listening to it.

[stephenjaymorrisblog]

The Very Last Resort

(Arron Bushnell self-immolates)

Stephen Jay Morris

3/2/2024

©Scientific Morality.

A normal person cannot comprehend someone walking up to the Israeli Consulate and pouring gasoline all over themselves, striking a match, and burning to death while screaming, “Free Palestine!” Was he insane? Back in the 60’s, Vietnamese Buddhists set themselves on fire to protest America’s occupation of their country. They believed in reincarnation and had faith that they would return to earth for their sacrificial good deed. But Arron? He was a member of the United States Air Force. It is alleged that he was a Gay Anarchist, which makes me very inquisitive about him. Why was he in the Air Force? Was he a weekend leftist? I wonder if this question will ever be answered.

Let’s talk about his political suicide. Or was it suicide? This is a very controversial point. This act was, indeed, an existential shock. As for me, I am afraid of death, even were it to occur in my sleep. But many brave souls are willing to die for a cause, or for a loved one. I would die for my wife. That is understandable. But for my country? People who send others to war would never die for the USA. So, why would I?

Why would a 25-year-old man self-immolate? Was it because he was experiencing a moral panic? Maybe. If you are a moralist and hear continuous, daily death tallies of innocent men, women, and children, you feel helpless. He may have had fantasies of being a Rambo type and going into Gaza with an AR-15, shooting IDF soldiers, and freeing Palestinians. Or, perhaps, parachuting into Gaza with food and water to help. Maybe Navy Seals could complete such an unimaginable act, but without professional help, it is not really feasible. What Arron did was apparently self-determined and purposeful. It was his protest of the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Palestine, the genocide of the Palestinian people, and the U.S. support of the Israeli government in these actions.

The mainstream media played this down as suicide. The reactionary element of America has played it cool. Oh, there have and will be insensitive memes or hateful posts on X, but I would be very surprised if some conservative pundits pose analytical theories on Arron’s motives. Maybe some MAGA lunatic will set himself on fire to stop abortion. (Am I now a participant in stochastic terrorism? Sure, why not.) I doubt that it would ever happen. It would be fun, though.

What Arron Bushnell did was a humanitarian act of altruism; the highest form of altruism, which is putting someone else’s needs above your own. America is so indoctrinated with the Ayn Rand virus of, “Fuck you! Me first.” Sacrifice is more moral than self-interest. What Bushnell did was the highest form of morality: sacrifice.

If you are willing to die for a cause, die in the anarchist revolution. Bakunin once said, “A revolutionary is a doomed man!” There is nothing romantic about revolution. It is full of hardship, bloodshed, and death. If that scares you, then become a Democrat or Republican, and waste your vote.

Me? I’m almost 70 years old. Unlike President Biden, however, I know my limitations.

[psychotrenny]

And for what it's worth, self-immolation is an incredibly painful form of death but let's not act as though that makes it inherently meaningful. To be absolutely clear Palestinian Liberation is an intensely important and noble cause, and whatever you can say about that soldier you can't deny that his heart was in the right place for this one. But the nobility of the cause and the cost of the gesture are two things with no correlation, and it's irritating to see people express sentiments along the lines of "Of course this is important, he died painfully for it". Within the USA alone you have the examples of a man who self immolated in the name of Men's Rights Activism and another man was an active incel who apparently self-immolated over being unable to find a girlfriend. In 2006 a German Pastor once self immolated and his wife claimed it was over atheism and the spread of Islam in Europe, while the year before two Israelis set themselves on fire to protest the withdrawal of Zionist settlement from Gaza. It's a drastic action to take but you can't act as though that alone justifies or gives credibility to the movement; people pay the ultimate price to advance or support all kinds of reasons and not all of them are good. The liberation of Palestine is a worthy cause because the people of Palestine should be free from the cruelty and oppression of an apartheid settler state, not because you can find people who were willing to kill themselves painfully for it

[invisibleicewands]

The BBC’s new three-part drama The Way is Michael Sheen’s directorial debut. It has been nearly a decade in gestation, this story of civil unrest fermenting in Sheen’s Welsh home town of Port Talbot – cradle of militant unionism and symbol of working-class fury and pride. It has been created with writer James Graham (Brexit: The Uncivil War, Quiz, Sherwood) and – slightly more unusually, documentary auteur Adam Curtis.

The opening episode is something so different and fresh that even if you can’t say you’re actively enjoying it (though I was), the power and ambition of it all, the unashamed idiosyncrasy that permeates the direction, the allusiveness of the narrative and its slightly dreamlike (or nightmarish) off-kilter quality surely makes you sit up and take notice. It has a clear, accessible narrative at its heart, for sure, but the sensibility is rare and all its own.

It’s a tale of civil discontent, sparked by the death of a youngster in a vat of molten slag at the steelworks and his father’s self-immolation – in grief, in protest, in some unspeakable combination of the two – thereafter. The union blames management and decades of underinvestment. Management offers to reline a furnace, a sop to the emotion of the moment, rather than a recognition of needs. “We didn’t realise we were buying a mood,” says one of the new investors, with a combination of bafflement and frustration.

The unfurling of the unrest plays out for the viewer mostly through the long-established local Driscoll family. The late paterfamilias was a committed striker in the 80s, the failure of which terrible feat of suffering and endurance is largely blamed by the family for his death. His son Geoff (the stalwart Steffan Rhodri, last seen in the excellent Men Up at the end of last year) takes an approach to communicating with the bosses that is more pragmatic/conciliatory/weak/treacherous – delete according to political proclivities. He is separated from his wife and family for reasons that become clear over the succeeding episodes, as does the specific bad blood between his son, benzos addicts and petty dealer Owen (Callum Scott Howells), and his police officer daughter Thea (Sophie Melville).

As the internet is shut down within the town, tensions rise, curfews are imposed and riots between townsfolk and police start to break out. The Driscolls become the police – and the media – scapegoats for it all, and are eventually forced, along with Owen’s eastern European girlfriend, Anna (Maja Laskowska), to flee their home and their town.

Threaded through this growing but none-too-incredible – especially to a post-lockdown audience also being assailed with headlines about coming redundancies at Port Talbot’s Tata Steel (though business secretary Kemi Badenoch has extensive explanations about how government investment is actually saving the works) – dystopian landscape are, presumably thanks mostly to the Curtis influence, potent illustrative clips of real-life news and CCTV footage. Through them the sense of dislocation increases, while the themes of the drama only become more closely knit. From Graham – and, I’d posit, Sheen’s powerful sense of Welshness and all that means historically as well as currently – come the more mystical, ancient touches. The importance the town places on the works’ pilot light never going out; the sword made of the first steel forged in the town, long before modern industry got there; the red-hooded figure appearing and disappearing; Sheen as Geoff’s father’s ghost and/or manifestation of his conscience, pursuing him as they make their escape. And then, as the Cambrian borders become increasingly policed, there is (garbed in a costume somewhere between pastor, Clint Eastwood nemesis and Matthew Hopkins’ finest) the Welshfinder.

It is a bravura opening episode – powerful, confident, ambitious, confrontational and unexpected. It conjures precisely the feeling of a town on the edge, a tinderbox for the powder keg that is an increasingly divided Britain as a whole. Then it pushes things a little further and if you squint just a tiny bit, you could be looking at the future. Maybe even a blueprint, if you were so minded. It feels like a drama fully in the tradition of Bleasdale, Loach, Alan Clarke and Jimmy McGovern, and if it occasionally falls victim to the latter’s tendency to agitprop, that still leaves it head and shoulders above the usual fare.

It doesn’t quite meet the high bar it has set for itself over the remaining episodes. Although they gesture towards the issue of displaced persons and what is to be done with waves of desperate people, they become too much about the internal dynamics of the Driscolls and their family history to feel as innovative or thrilling as that which has gone before. But you can live off the first hour for quite some time to come.

[dyed-red]

hi! do you have any weirdcest headcanon but about dean x john? i love those posts about sam and dean being very weird and kinda creepy and lacking all boundaries with each other and with each other's stuff (like recently that one about sam's baby teeth lmao) and i was wondering if you have any headcanon of that kind about father and son(s)

this is such a fun and sexy ask i've been savouring it for a few days since you sent it.

i think @augustonly refers to this as 'daddyweird' for john-related weirdcest so it's definitely something i've thought about before in the context of deanjohn. tbh i'm far more of a dean x john gencest and weirdcest enjoyer than outright dean x john wincest, so you have come to the right place.

because i read them as engaged in covert incest, or symbolic incest, in this sort of self-immolating mobius coil, which dean doesn't really acknowledge or realize that john is also in (until it's too late) and which john refuses to look right at because he needs dean and hates himself for needing dean and hates dean for needing him too while also wanting to give dean everything. it's very messy. i'm a fan.

in terms of articulate headcanons, it's hard to give you too many concrete things here. most of what i have is nebulous vibes lol. but okay.

dean's canon anger and jealousy over john's various hookups i think would manifest in interesting ways, both during the years sam is there (more covertly) and when he is gone (more overtly). dean understands that a wife -- the role he symbolically fills, not that he acknowledges it as such and instead buries deep into elemental understanding alone -- is entitled to certain things, including fidelity. as a teen and young adult, blocking john's attempts to go out, biting his lip and reminding him of the budget, of the fact that they have booze here, going to the bar to bring him home if he stays out too late, especially hanging around if there's a woman on his arm. and rationalizing it to himself as making sure his father doesn't spend too much of their very limited money, that he won't be tired and surly the next morning and snap at an already cantankerous sam, that any hunter needs someone to watch his back and make sure a succubus doesn't take him home.

and in the stanford years, that sort of entitlement over john's sex life becoming more overt, insisting (in a toothy grin sort of way, never demanding directly, of course) on sharing a room when they're on the same job even though john's become a bit more accustomed to privacy as he's worked more and more jobs away as the boys aged.

and that entitlement over his father's things, like cologne and aftershave and clothing omg. the jacket in the pilot episode, dean doesn't even think twice, grabbing it is as natural as breathing. (don't we see the same jacket in After School Special? the clothing entitlement started young). dean borrowing his father's razor, his father's skin mags, his father's toothbrush. running it over his teeth and tongue and making himself gag, just a little, with it at the back of his throat before the sensation shocks him out of it, spits the frothy toothpaste in the sink, tries not to think about the fact that he's hard or why.

john has a huge degree of entitlement over dean and dean's body as well. different, though. not jealousy but a too-close sense of pride in his hookups. didn't think too much about it and kept a distance when dean was younger but when he's of an age to sit comfortably with his fake id in the bar, to be of an actual age to be in that bar, and watching all the attention float around him, the heady desire that coalesces in the eyes of people who want to devour a young and beautiful thing like dean. protective, john would tell himself, that's all it is when he's observing. protective and amused, sure, when dean's kissing that beautiful blonde right at the bar itself, kiss drunk red lips. and pride, normal pride, when dean makes sure to find john in the crowd, over his pool game or across the bar, locks eyes and dean's face relaxes into an easy smile, reassured. dean's being smart, knowing his surroundings, and the flare in john's chest is just love for his boy, joy at his joy, and if there's a sense of affirmation that dean belongs to him, it's fatherly. it's fatherly.

it's not attraction between them, not really. it's triangulated and complex. they don't want to fuck each other but are disturbingly entitled to each other. john doesn't respect dean, not properly, but he loves him fiercely. dean admires his father and resents him but can't let himself acknowledge the second part of that, and the one thing he doesn't feel entitled to (not yet) is that resentment and anger. it comes out as a desire to be close beyond reason, to force his father to see him, to look at him, to acknowledge him and to give him what he is due.

they have no boundaries. sometimes the motel has only a room with one bed and they fall asleep to each other's snores and wake up with scents that are mingled and similar, bodies that are too similar, faces that look the same in sleepy waking and they recognize themselves in the other. sometimes dean jerks off to john's skin mags while john's in the shower and the door isn't closed the whole way. sometimes john goes to check on dean and finds him getting a blowjob in the impala or behind the bar and sometimes john keeps his distance and watches and tells himself it's just his job to have his kid's back and make sure he didn't take home a succubus.

(and the entitlement stretches to what john will ask dean to do for the job, but that is straight up canon. go make yourself monster bait, let that vampire suck on your neck, trick that monster into trying to bed you so it lets its guard down. john watching his son get molested while dean grits his teeth and plays his part and waits to be saved. john comforting himself with how he's never let it go too far, never asked dean to get on his knees or his back for a case, ignoring the gut-deep understanding that dean has most certainly done both when a situation -- financial or hunting -- has demanded it. john hasn't asked it of him, not directly, so it doesn't count. and dean's reciprocal entitlement then to john's space and time and comfort, his relative sobriety and words of affirmation and partnership. he's earned his keep.)

[clearlyivy]

Day one of Navratri .

9 days , 9 Godesses

Day One: Shailaputri | शैलपुत्री

Shailaputri is said to be the goddess of the moon. After Sati’s self-immolation at the Daksha Yagna, she is reborn as Goddess Parvathi or Shailputri Devi and becomes the wife of Lord Shiva.

Shailaputri Devi resides in the root chakra and upon awakening, begins her journey to Shiv. She is the starting point of spiritual discipline.

Mantra:

“Aum Devi Shailaputryai Namaha!”

ॐ देवी शैलपुत्र्यै नमः॥

Jai Maa Durga 🔱

[grimowled]

@sidestriker continued from x.

"HM, HOW VERY AGREEABLE of you."

the owl prince replied in a goading drawl as he stepped through and closed the portal behind his billowing cloak with a whoosh, idly contemplating his glossy talons, grimoire hovering by his shoulder like a familiar and echoing with the pulse of his infernal magic; the limits of the true power of a goetic demon were nigh unknown, however stolas was wise enough to use it sparingly - and, in this case, to make a point, as striker had also stalked and caught him by surprise without warning.

(how delightfully rude ! he was lucky the dark prince had a soft spot for rebels.)

"oh-- is it really fair of you to talk about trusting me, considering it is I who was in bound in pretty ropes and on the other side of the barrel of your gun, the last time we were in the same room?"

the demon prince tittered in graceful hoots behind his taloned hand, sauntering in slow circles around the other, as if he found the irony of the situation terribly amusing; still, he was not there to antagonise, not necessarily. his prowling finally came to a halt when he swept his regal star-studded cape to the side, as the heat of the hideout was starting to get to him, and splayed a taloned hand across his buttoned chest, his other placed on the sinuous dell of his slender waist, as if to dramatically declare his intents in an earnest speech.

"--you know, I never meant any harm to you, and yet you have gone to great lengths and taken a large sum to assassinate me."

he paused for effect, pouting and heaving a purposely forlorn sigh as he cast his four-eyed gaze on the cowboy imp, glossing over the other's overt hostility and, of course, the gun permanently levelled at him; the expression on his strigine features an exquisite study in affable self-immolation, whilst his eyes scanned every detail with predatory precision.

(as a precaution, of course !)

"it still hurts, you know. I feel like we've gotten off on the wrong foot. I would beg you to consider this as you hear me out: as far as moral compass goes, we are more alike than you might think."

his tone was low and honeyed, dangerous yet alluring - the flash of a blade beneath a sheath of silk; the darker the scowl on striker's face, the wider the smile that pulled the avian's beak.

"you are ... exceptionally skilled, I'm sure you know. nobody has ever managed to do to me what you did - your talent is shockingly wasted. so I will cut to the chase - wouldn't you rather take my money and my generous patronage, than my ex-wife's ? I could help you unlock your full potential, if you will allow me. "