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rockofeye · 1 month

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What advice would you say to anyone about initiation into vodou? Asking because the loa told me I not only needed to initiate but marry (Agwe tawoyo) urgently and I have noticed an abundance of good changes since my readings but this all came with a lot of unexpected news and I would like advice about how to make sure I have the spoons to make it through the path to initiation without getting so upset.

Hi,

So, I regard having to do anything as huge as kanzo and maryaj lwa urgently as something that needs a lot of push back. There are very, very few reasons things with that much life change and spiritual significance need to hurried, and even then a solid houngan or manbo can help slow the process down. The only real reasons I would entertain hurrying for would be imminent death of the person asked to do those ceremonies or their child, or crippling, life-threatening illness...and there are still stopgaps that can be employed to prolong life and give enough time to plan and mount those ceremonies. There is a lot of time and effort that go in, nevermind money.

So, I would want to know why the need for urgency. Because the lwa want it that way is not a good reason; the lwa must respect their people and negotiate for what they want. If folks allow, the lwa will make immediate demands but it is a houngan/manbo's job to help negotiate that and help you stand your ground. I would also ask what they are seeing as urgent; is that with a year? Within five years? Time for spirits is different than time with us.

I also recommend a lot of slowness before initiation. Before someone even considers going into the djevo, they should be present and active in the community that will support the initiation for honestly years. Go to lots of ceremonies and observe, get your hands in the work, meet the members of the house and see if you vibe with them. Spend a lot of time with the person who would mount the initiation for you and learn who they are. Get to know the spirits. Without all of that, you are being dumped in the deep end without knowing how to swim. The work of initiation can never be undone, so choosing wisely and with a lot of discernment is necessary.

With maryaj, it is very often not just one spirit; it is multiple to hold us in balance, provide the optimal protection, and prevent destructive jealousy. Many houses do all those spirits in one ceremony to reduce the need for more and to conserve money. Marrying only one risks needing to do more ceremony in the future to appease unhappy lwa.

Additionally, you wouldn't marry a person you didn't know quite well so you shouldn't be marrying spirit who you don't have at least passing familiarity with. Forging relationships is important. And, maryaj comes with requirements that affect current or future intimate partners. Maryaj and kanzo also have lifelong obligations that need to be met over time.

Just because spirit lays something down as a need, urgent or otherwise, doesn't mean you should immediately pick it up. They cannot and should not demand immediate answers and need to respect your free will. An ask does not mean you have to do it and, quite honestly, does not mean you should. Spirits ask for lots of things, and sometimes the answer is yet but sometimes the answer is no.

I also would want to know why they want initiation. What do you gain from it? They gain a lot, but what's in it for you? How are they going to help you? How do you and your life benefit from this?

The lwa can definitely pave the way after giving big news but that also doesn't mean you should say yes or that it would be beneficial for what you want for yourself. Running fast into something like initiation or permanent bonds of marriage with spirit is a recipe for disaster. Too often people are in a hurry, and then things go poorly for them. Initiation should not be then first thing done in the religion or the first motion of participation in a community. It should be a natural development of growth.

You can't make sure you have the spoons to make it through these processes. Initiation is a difficult, grueling, uncomfortable process that takes you apart and puts you back together, and the process is longer than the actual ceremonies. There is lead up and there is what happens after and it can take awhile for your life to come back to center. If you don't think you have the spoons to do it without it wrecking you or making you upset, you should not do it or should wait until you feel you are more ready.

You additionally can't plan for preparation in any particular way that preserves you because you don't know what the process will require for you. My road to my kanzo required that I shed almost everything important to me; I gave up a job and career path, my home, my car, most of my belongings, and relationships that I had thought were lifelong. That's not the way for everyone but the path to get to kanzo has sacrifice involved. Maryaj is not dissimilar; it required permanent changes to intimate relationships that have consequences if not met.

So...no easy answers. Don't rush, and don't allow pressure from spirits or people make the decision for you. You need a solid foundation before going into either of these ceremonies, and you should not be asked to do things quickly without really specific reasons and after other interventions happen to measure the impact on the situation. You wouldn't jump into life changing processes in other areas without a lot of discernment, so do the same here.

If there is indeed a life threatening situation involved, ask for what can be done immediately to assist in slowing that down or resolving it in a way that does not involve rushing. There are always options.

I hope this helps! Happy to chat more if that feels helpful.

#vodou #haitian vodou #kanzo #initiation #maryaj lwa

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sp-by-april · 1 month

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Heyyyy if you have a South Park insert/oc… can I draw her with mine? 👀

~💌

YES! Her name is Martine and I love her. she is a little ball of trauma responses and perfect in every way.

She is half french, half black and descended from Gede Nibo, who is a lwa in voodoo, and the Patron of People Who Die From Unnatural Causes. Since she is part of the Guede family she is all about death and fertility. She is a psychopomp and can also do fun things like remember Kenny dying.

Also like it's her birthright to kill him for good since immortality goes against the natural order. But they're too in love, and OH GOD ALSO SHE FUCKS KYLE ALL THE TIME (when her and Kenny aren't a thing, or non-exclusive, or break up) because they have this psychosexual thing going dating back to when they were 14. She is a hot mess and I'm obsessed with her. 😭😭😭😭

#💌#martine guede #kenny x martine #kyle x martine #ask april

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thesherrinfordfacility · 11 months

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LWA: I'm going to ruminate a bit more about the parallel between Maggie's & Nina's conversation with Crowley and the Metatron's conversation with Aziraphale--they refer to Aziraphale as Crowley's "partner," the Metatron talks about their "partnership"; both insist that Aziraphale and Crowley need to talk--because while I think it's easy enough to see that the Metatron deliberately manipulates Aziraphale (while not understanding him fully), Maggie and Nina accidentally do the same thing to Crowley (while also not understanding him fully). There's been ample discussion of the Metatron conversation, but not so much about Maggie's and Nina's messing about.

I think we have to begin from the position that Maggie and Nina are mostly misguided and, in Nina's case, explicitly hypocritical. Other people have already pointed out that Nina's barrage of questions about Crowley's and Aziraphale's relationship is ludicrous and inappropriate--this is not even bad fanfic outsider POV levels of behavior--but given her outrage when Muriel pokes into her own business later, the script sure seems to imply that, yes, her barrage of questions really /is/ ludicrous and inappropriate. (She's had, what? Two minutes of interaction with Crowley up to this point? What even is that conversation?) Given that Maggie and Nina are Crowley's and Aziraphale's primary mirrors in S2, although always bearing in mind that Gaiman likes his mirroring to be askew or warped, is it the case that Nina's behavior in particular just reflects our angel-demon duo's behavior straight back at them?

A lot of S2 struck me not as fan service so much as fan /corrective/, in particular about the fandom's tendency to read them as more human than angel and demon. Even in S1, we were shown repeatedly that no matter how much they might like humans and aspects of human affect/existence, they don't move through the world like humans, they don't have a human relationship to time (and not just because Crowley can alter it), they do things the "human way" explicitly for /fun/, and they demonstrate over and over again that they have at best a limited grasp of human psychology. Crowley's "godfather" plot doesn't work not only because of free will, but also because even in the GO comic universe, it represents near-total incomprehension about how messily nurture /operates/; neither of them understands Anathema's fear about accepting a lift home from what appears to be two men; etc. It genuinely does not occur to Crowley (and therefore to most of the audience) that turning paintguns into real guns for fun might be an issue, nor to Aziraphale that wiping Mary Hodges' memory after the interrogation might be suboptimal. This kind of mayhem is bog-standard comic character behavior,* but the trick that GO plays is to ask you to think about the ethics involved when the bog-standard comic character is super-powered. The thing is--and you will have noticed this is a running theme in my asks, I suspect!--is that while it's very easy to identify with these characters as /oppressed/ trauma victims, the novel explicitly and the series implicitly keep warning us that in relation to the humans, they are still the /oppressors./ In the novel, this is Aziraphale's insight at the end, and if S2's more pointed emphasis on how both characters unthinkingly treat human beings is any indication, it's also where the series appears to be tending. (This is why I get a little antsy about reading Crowley's brand of temptation as promoting "choice" or something else positive: it's great that Crowley dislikes killing people, but he's still mucking about with them to make his souls quota. Satan /likes/ what Crowley did with the M25.)

To circle around to Maggie and Crowley again: a) they understand Crowley and Aziraphale about as well as Crowley and Aziraphale understand them, which is to say, they don't, and b) Crowley still does not understand how to apply human frames of reference to his own relationship with Aziraphale. Besides the warning about treating humans like toys--which Crowley, in typically on-brand behavior, excuses rather than apologizes for--the most important thing Nina says is not the "romantic" advice. It's the point she makes about her readiness to be in a relationship after being dumped by an abusive ex, which is to say, her non-readiness. Because it would be cruel to the other person. /This/ is what Crowley needs to hear and understand, and he...doesn't. (Aziraphale also needs to hear this, but he's off having his relationship with Crowley rewritten by the Metatron.) S2 spends a lot of time demonstrating that Crowley and Aziraphale haven't even been dumped by their respective allegorical "exes," let alone that they've recovered sufficiently to actually "go off" together or have a full-blown romantic relationship. Crowley's panic at the end of S2 leads him to accelerate straight into marriage proposal mode, when it is exactly the thing that he has just been warned that he /should not do/. That is, he would have been warned if he grasped the analogy between his situation and Nina's, but he genuinely can't see it, much as neither he nor Aziraphale understands fictional marriage plots. It's an analogy that exists for us, the human audience, but not for him.

I do think fans sometimes forget that Aziraphale and Crowley /are/ comic characters who think and act like comic characters, and that this has ramifications for how S3 will resolve their relationship?

hello again LWA!!!✨ im so sorry this has been burning away in my inbox for a fair while!!!

i gotta be honest, the mirroring of aziraphale and crowley in the general sense to maggie and nina is something that ive had a pin in for a while, just because of the sheer amount of information the parallel in all its skewed glory contains (and then that got me to thinking about the other mirror couples too, and its taken me a while - and pages of notes - to climb out of that particular rabbit hole). ie: dear LWA, once again you're going to get ramblings you didn't ask for.

on face value, maggie = aziraphale, and nina = crowley, right? maggie is soft and gentle, more readily/outwardly compassionate and innocent, even dresses in a typically lighter palette, and runs a shop that was literally carved out of aziraphale's own one. nina is acerbic and dry, outspoken and unapologetic, dresses likewise in darker clothing, and runs a coffeeshop that not only has a name that offers its patrons a choice, but feeds people with their fix - a material desire, if you like. it's far from a direct copy-and-paste of aziraphale and crowley, but they're instantly recognisable.

but you then have their situations (and im not breaking new ground here; this is just so i exorcise the thought-demons rattling around to make way for new ones) and their behaviours, that then reflect the opposite main character. maggie is shown fairly neatly to the audience, by virtue of her interaction with shax, to follow a similar pattern to crowley's circumstances as shown to us in s2 - linking a silly gifset demonstrating where im coming from on this, bc it saves the typing. she brings what is essentially a courting gift to nina, and then helps her out in the shop after the demon raid (reminiscent of the 1800 chocolates specifically, and then just... every favour/demonstration crowley has ever performed for aziraphale, frankly). nina is shown as being in an abusive relationship that she seems fully aware is abusive, full of gaslighting and possessiveness, but that she can't, for whatever reason, bring herself to leave - especially telling given her line that she thinks lindsay actually "never liked her very much", which aptly seems to reflect a good portion of how heaven views aziraphale. she's understandably hesitant and standoffish, and despite how unhealthy her relationship is, she is faithful and loyal to it despite the (unintentional, circumstantial) temptation being offered.

what i find interesting is that aziraphale interacts more with maggie, and crowley with nina. couple of thoughts on this, and all (and more besides) could be equally true:

aziraphale and crowley are drawn to the circumstances that their mirror is in; aziraphale is drawn to showing kindness to someone who is lonely and trepidatious, crowley is drawn to showing a wider perspective to someone who is inhibited and wary. the eden scene, in this context, feels all the more recognisable... plus, the anathema/newt mirroring!

aziraphale and crowley are drawn to the person that reflects their personality, possibly because it feels comforting and familiar. they feel kinship to the human that behaves more outwardly like themselves. again, im struck by how this feels a lot like their respective interactions with tracy and shadwell in s1

the fact that aziraphale and crowley interact more frequently and comfortably with maggie and nina respectively is used to draw attention to the moments where they don't interact with the other.

this last one is something i want to parse out a little bit. it is almost certain that aziraphale has had previous interactions with nina; he's possibly been in the coffeeshop before given how easily he addresses her, and nina remarks that aziraphale never goes to the monthly meetings, etc. she doesn't know him as well as maggie does, but by virtue of being neighbours, it stands to reason that they have had previous encounters that build up an acquaintance. crowley, on the other hand, does not appear to have met either of them before.

where aziraphale appears to interact with nina, however, in a one-on-one context, is the following conversation (im blithely ignoring the end of ep4 that's not even a conversation):

specifically, the culmination of where aziraphale has not only presumed that he has license to mess about with her personal life in general, but now with her and the other shopkeepers' autonomies and agencies. he's playing god in this, weaving his power (imo, to varying degrees of consciousness) to set up the perfect romantic scenario for maggie and nina, but also for him and crowley.

the fact that nina doesn't conform, pushes back on that magic, has broken away from the collective mentality of just accepting the situation and instead is questioning it all, directly and without hesitation, is a crucial part of this for me; because aziraphale backs away, leaves the line of questioning, very quickly. he doesn't want to confront it, doesn't want to be shown where this is a reflection on his actions. he's being shown the same way of thinking that scared him with crowley, and aziraphale is still scared of it upending careful order and blissful ignorance.

he brushes it off, and carries on with what he's doing, because it's what he's able to control; aziraphale has to make order of things, cannot conceive of the chaos that asking questions would bring. translate this directly to how he ignores crowley's concerns in ep5, and then basically the fact that a good deal of crowley's characterisation is built on the premise of asking questions, and you can see where this - asking questions - is something that aziraphale still fears; it poses danger (it had direct consequences in the fall, after all!) so, of course asking questions is something to fear.

but then again, is it because nina is a mirror of crowley? if circumstantially nina is actually aziraphale, is aziraphale actually reacting in a way that shows he's scared of himself? he who is starting to ask his own questions? starting to reexamine the status quo? i think this possibly rings more true than the simple nina = crowley thought, because whilst aziraphale may still not be completely comfortable with crowley's questions, and what they mean, i do think that it's a part of crowley's... crowleyness that aziraphale likes and loves. something that he has accepted... but only when it comes from crowley. the aziraphale that baulked at questions in the pre-fall scene/in eden is not, arguably, the aziraphale we see in 2023; he's in love with crowley, as he currently is (or at least, how aziraphale perceives him).

so wouldn't it make sense that aziraphale is actually afraid of how much nina is reflecting his own innermost thoughts back at him? the thoughts that begin to question why it is that an angel and a demon can't be together, what the point of heaven actually is, why heaven is the way it is, and why - if god has set things out the way they're meant to be - does that feel wrong? if aziraphale is questioning all of this, what does that say about him? how close is he to losing being an angel altogether? he's previously defied god and heaven's orders, but is this a step too far?

moving on to the maggie and crowley dynamic; this to me is equally as interest because they... do not interact, as far as i can remember, in a one-on-one context, at all - with the exception of this one scene:

im not quite sure what to read into this. my initial thought however, if we take the conclusion that maggie's circumstances and subsequent insecurities are a reflection of crowley, i do wonder if it's the absence of interaction that is key; that crowley is avoiding his reflection. that could be for any number of reasons, and no one reason feels quite right to me - arrogance, shame, embarrassment, fear of being seen, vulnerability... it's probably a mix. but it would nonetheless correlate with crowley's portrayal as not only an unreliable narrator at times, but also, as we've discussed previously, that he hasn't quite yet reached the development point of wanting to fully confront a good handful of his decisions and actions, nor want to acknowledge his circumstances that leave him open and vulnerable.

so what seems to be a rather purposeful tepid and... uninteresting? conversation suddenly has weight in everything that is missing. add to this, the way that crowley remains outside the bookshop as maggie, blissfully unaware, strolls into the bookshop, and he leaps in to stop the demons in their tracks before they can get to her, speaks even louder. he's most comfortable in being a protector, a fixer, a hero - even if it goes unnoticed and thankless, because that is his method of control:

but anyway, to actually head back to what your ask is actually saying! i find the assessment of nina as acting somewhat hypocritical really interesting - because yeah, she definitely appears as a very private person when questioned by just anybody (if we take into her responses to mrs sandwich and muriel into account)... but she does open up slightly to maggie.

she doesn't outright state the true problem with her relationship - again, im fairly certain she's aware of the abusive nature of it - to maggie, but she definitely aludes to its true nature more than we see her do otherwise. when maggie makes the assumption that being bombarded with texts automatically means that the sender must care about the recipient - said with some good measure of naivety - nina puts that to bed with her thinly veiled response that it's not out of care, but out of possessiveness. she reveals a bit more of herself to maggie; it goes from "doesn't like when im late", to the more vulnerable, "...likes it if i text that im gonna be more than ten minutes late..."

so when it comes to how she comes across as hypocritical in how she questions crowley about his and aziraphale's relationship - yeah, it's odd. it's funny as hell, and the comedy of it has its own merit, but it is invasive and uncomfortable at the same time. whilst it doesn't make it right (she ultimately needs to mind her own business, same as she impressed on others to do with her), it's not difficult to see where her line of, "other people's love lives always seem so much more straightforward than our own" would suggest that this is her brand of her escapism from her unhappy one. she's just witnessed gentle/fond ribbing between aziraphale and crowley, otherwise sees them together frequently, and they probably come across to her as an incredibly happy couple, that out of a place of perhaps envy and wistfulness, she becomes inappropriately nosy about it. for me, the saddest line about her relationship, repeating it from earlier, is that she doesn't think lindsay even liked her, which is the abject opposite of aziraphale and crowley.

poking her nose into their relationship, such as it is, is absolutely a mirror to their behaviour in messing about with hers with maggie, but it is understandable why she uses this as her own outlet, same as crowley and aziraphale seem to use hers as theirs. not justifiable, but understandable. but, like you say, it's not at all on the same level playing field - aziraphale and crowley have actual power that can influence the world and people around them, including magically creating scenarios according to what they think constitutes a romantic story, full of violins-swelling, world-stops-around-them moments, whereas nina - as far as we're aware - doesn't have any of that. this very imbalance highlights that they are not the same, and that the two situations cannot be directly compared.

like maggie remarks, she and nina are not a game, and shouldn't be played with just because it amuses them. for all of aziraphale and crowley's preachings about free will (including that they don't have it themselves as an angel and a demon, but that humans absolutely do and should have it, "that's the whole point"), the show expressively indicates that they don't appear to respect it or consider it more important than themselves, going so far as to remove it entirely and render it conditional on their own terms. whilst they may stray into very human behaviours (or maybe more accurately - human situations), they are manifestly not-human, they don't understand (or... care?) how the world in the general sense works, and arguably them being on earth in the first place contradicts that free will... blessings and temptations are all well and good, depending on how you look at them, but they shouldn't be happening to begin with.

the systematic presence of heaven and hell altogether arguably contradicts the foundation of free will, which seems to be something that neither of them fully see - they don't acknowledge that very problem... actually, no! i lie - crowley dances briefly and gingerly on this very point:

it's interesting how much the condition of humanity fades into the background when the narrative focus is on two supernatural characters and their personal storyline. and it's equally interesting how those same characters prop up their own irony as being the very thing that contradicts humanity from operating as it should, and - arguably - how it may have originally been designed.

everyone accepts that free will came to humanity from knowledge, and that knowledge was tempted to humanity by crowley... but he only says that he was sent up to eden to 'make some trouble'; who's to say that humanity wouldn't have come around to eating the apple anyway, which as crowley remarks was placed very pointedly within the garden, within literal arm's reach? did free will even need crowley to kickstart it? from the very first scene, we know that crowley evidently has free will by choosing to tempt eve to the apple, but we know that aziraphale has free will too, by choosing to give away the sword... so why wouldn't god have made humanity by the same design in the first place?

getting slightly off topic now, but it all seems to feed into the point that heaven and hell are superfluous to humanity's existence, and have only proven to treat humanity as a sandbox for their own ends. unfortunately, aziraphale and crowley don't quite seem to treat them much different in the grand scheme of things, even if their story, their 'version', is very much a 'lesser-stakes' microcosm of the wider narrative. nurture - ie. their unique experiences - may well have changed aziraphale and crowley in many ways, and separated them out from their contemporaries, but they equally still haven't fully shaken off their respective natures, either.

#👏 ONCE 👏 AGAIN #👏 I CANNOT 👏 STAY 👏 ON TOPIC #good omens #ask #crowley meta #aziraphale meta #s2 meta #s1 meta #i think? fuck it it is now #do i need a tag for nina/maggie meta?#look i do my best with these asks but what can i even add to half of them? theyre perfect

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taehyungfirst · 7 months

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ok maybe this is the only way I can cope right now but I feel, although he is so good looking, he looks kinda awkward next to women? in the lwa mv and in the pics today he looks like their gay bff? I will understand if you tell me that it is probably because we have never actually seen him like this before and we have only seen him doing this with men until now and put me in my place so I can stop this deluluness. sigh

I’m gonna first agree with you because I’ve been thinking about this picture since it dropped and it was too funny to me… like okay mr cunt 😭

Then yes, it’s probably because we are not used to seeing them like that, probably because of the industry they’re in. I would say that Iu and Tae actually prepared me to anything because that was insane chemistry, so I’m immune.

#ask #taehyung #fri(end)s

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cartoonbabbles · 1 year

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Was rewatching some LWA today.

Yes I ship SuAkko. And I’m gonna talk about them

“Adventures in Sucyworld” oh my god these two are gay and have no idea, poor souls

- Episode starts with Sucy referring to Akko as “her” Guinea pig, which I don’t really need to go into how we’ve all taken that to mean. Like. “I need *a* Guinea pig” no Akko is *hers*

- Sucy doesn’t want Akko to leave her behind as evidenced by her noting she doesn’t want Akko to become “talented and powerful” and while this might be a reach I feel like Sucy felt it would be better for her to leave instead of watching Akko leave bc at least that’s something she *can* control, and if Akko never has the chance to reject her, it wouldn’t feel as painful if she’s the one who never gives her that chance

- Akko doing everything in her power to wake Sucy up <3

- The angel and Devil Sucys my beloveds

- Something kinda stuck out to me regarding Angel Sucy’s terms of helping Akko. “Do my laundry for a month” is one thing but “carry my books” and “do my shopping” sounds an awful lot like “I’d have loved to do laundry and taxes with you,” “I want you to carry my books like people who are crushing on others do” and “I want to hang out and do fun things together”

- Small Sucy being a manifeststion of Sucy wanting to show affection to others (not just romantic but in general)

- Sucy not allowing herself to feel anything else or pursue anything else and Akko barging in to say she should do what she wants was just <\3 my heart

- The sceneeee the movie sceneeeee Sucy sees her best moments with Akko being a gorgeously rendered anime whereas she sees most of everything else as a slapstick cartoon, as if she’s above all that. But for Akko? She slows down and wants to appreciate the moment, Fashionable moviegoer sucy said as much when she said that particular film was her favorite

- Llama Sucy just makes me smile

- grandma Sucy (?) was funny

- THE ENTIRE DRAGON SEQUENCE HELLO

- Sucy being like “no don’t kiss me this isn’t right I want this to be perfect” (yes I’m interpreting this with a bit of a stretch) in both the real and sucyworld

- my conclusion? Sucy wants someone to pine for her like in a cheesy high school rom com and she sees herself as the tough on the outside soft on the inside bad girl

- also holy fuck Lotte really went through it this episode

#LWA #LWA spoilers #little witch academia #little witch academia spoilers #sucy #sucy manbaravan #Akko #akko kagari #atsuko kagari #suakko #sucy x akko #akko x sucy #adventures in sucyworld

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moonyinpisces · 11 months

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LWA: So, GOOD OMENS is a comedy!

I'm tempted to say that that's the sum total of the ask, but...folks, it's a comedy. It's a comedy with occasional moments of drama to manage the viewer's affect, raise the narrative stakes, and accentuate the humor, just as tragedy normally has occasional moments of comedy to relax the audience and accentuate the horror (the Porter from MACBETH staggers in, waves, staggers back out again). Not only does it behave like a comedy, all of its characters act and, within the narrative, are interpreted according to comic conventions. One of the reasons I've bounced so hard off GO fanfic is that so many writers transfer the characters to dramatic (or even tragic) narratives without changing anything about how they interact with their fictional world, and as a result Aziraphale & Crowley mutate into the gods from AMERICAN GODS, who, even when "nice," are still all selfish SOBs.[1]. (That's what happens whenever you try to play a comic character "straight" without radically revising it: most comic characters would turn into villains if you put them into non-comic plots.) The reason I can talk about the child murder subplot from s1 as just a matter of Crowley having to learn that, no, sweetie, just because you've hired a hitman doesn't let you off the hook for the death (also, you know your friend trusts you, maybe quit taking advantage of that, hmmm?), and not as an urgent call to Aziraphale to DTMFA, is because that subplot still operates according to the rules of gallows humor.

The many legit complaints about S2's structure and pacing aside--this was a miniseries that could have been a movie--the reason that Gaiman could undo S1 so easily was because /as a comedy/, S1 works just fine. Most of the conflicts--Crowley attempting to get Aziraphale to kill a kid for him and what that reveals about his unwillingness to take responsibility for, well, anything; Aziraphale vacillating in his loyalties to Crowley and Heaven and what that reveals about his struggle to develop an independent moral framework--are worked out through minimal dialogue, symbolic action, and a fair amount of mood whiplash. Madame Tracy stops them from killing a kid? OK, that's sorted. Yo, Crowley, if you don't do something, something you think is legitimately bad will happen! OK, Crowley has suddenly discovered that taking responsibility exists. Yes, we tried murdering you a couple of minutes ago, but let's give you a pep talk! OK, fixed that subplot. Oh, I am going to give Crowley a meaningful look after my pep talk about the superiority of being "human incarnate"! OK, clearly Aziraphale has got that part of his problem mostly sorted. Hey, we're having a gentle conversation on the park bench! OK, Aziraphale doesn't actually accept Crowley's invitation (to the place or the side) in words, but there's symbolic lighting! And he sits next to him on the bus! And he clearly went to the apartment! So /that's/ fixed too. Right? Now we're risking our lives to save each other! OK, we've finally gotten past the damsel-in-distress game, and score another point for Crowley taking responsibility for his actions and Aziraphale choosing Crowley over Heaven. Then, in good comic fashion, everyone pairs up at the end, and Aziraphale and Crowley dine at the Ritz to romantic music.[2] Comic reconciliation, everyone! All of this is completely appropriate for the medium; trying to put the original dialogue for Aziraphale's and Crowley's moral epiphanies at the airfield on the screen, for example, would be both awkward and too much of a tension killer for the moment. But it does mean that all Gaiman and Finnemore had to do in S2 was to say that everything "resolved" through action and, at best, minimal dialogue had not been resolved at all, because virtually nothing was ever /named/.

I have no predictions for S3, because who knows, but...these are comic characters. Most of the angstier demands for the conditions under which Crowley will accept Aziraphale back or, quite frankly, vice-versa, don't seem to fit their established characterization or the comic narrative structure in which they exist.[3] It's highly unlikely that said established characterization will change very much, because, again, they are comic characters, and comic characters by virtue of their function tend to be both resilient (a character from a serious TV drama could never plausibly survive a sitcom unscathed) and limited in their ability to develop. Will Crowley learn about moral responsibility? Sure. Will he ever learn that actions have consequences? Almost certainly not, because that's one of the key drivers of the series' humor. Will Aziraphale fully shake off his allegiance to Heaven? Sure. Will he ever stop getting into trouble because he is INT 20, WIS 0? Amost certainly not, because ditto. Has anyone looked back at PRIDE & PREJUDICE recently? Within 3 very short chapters, Lizzie Bennet's fury at Darcy after the botched proposal is almost entirely DOA, thanks to her honest reading of the eye-opening letter he writes her; a couple of chapters later, she still has no regrets about turning him down (because his behavior truly wasn't "gentleman-like"), but she has otherwise admitted his sterling character and come to grips with the fact that his criticism of her family was, alas, on the nose. That's much more aligned with GO's narrative economy and characterization than C&A being enraged at each other for six episodes straight.

[1] I should note that I'm excluding cases where the author is, in fact, experimenting with different story-telling modes to see what happens. Ironically, Dark!AUs for both protagonists are arguably by far the most honest accounts of what happens when you strip the comedy out.

[2] I read the novel for professional rather than recreational reasons, and didn't see anything posted on Tumblr or AO3 until months after the TV series came out, so I'm afraid that my reaction to the end of the novel was not "ah, a cosmic romance, unlike the ill-sorted and screwed-up human couples," but "however you read this, Aziraphale and Crowley are just as ill-sorted and screwed-up as the human couples; it's just that that's what love /looks like/ in this universe."

[3] I guess I have to explain that I don't relate to or identify with the characters, and when it comes to analysis it doesn't matter if I like or dislike them. The TV characters are not people, but the collaborative product of the script, the actors, the production crew, and indeed the audience's interpretations, and they are inseparable from their narrative function. (E.g., the child murder subplot in S1 interests me because, besides telling us something about both the protagonists' failings, it is also part of the series' bigger arguments about free will and moral deliberation.)

#can someone please help me out here #i didn’t want to delete because clearly a lot of work was put into this #but my god what is going on

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melissa-titanium · 3 days

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can i just ask abt trout in general also i like her a lot if u couldnt tell

I M GOING TO FUCKIGN CRY YES YSYEYESYES YES ABSOLUTELY ALWAYS OF COURSE. SHE ISMY EVERYTHING FOREVER . ineed to draw her more often AND TALK ABOUT HER MORE OFTEN HONESTLY she has a lot of lore that i just. havent written down. YOU CAN A LWA YS TALK TO ME ABOUT MY OCS iWILL go on a rant

AL SO TH SI FUC KING IMAG E I M SHAKING SO HAR;D HER BULBOUS FUCKIG EYES I NED TO P O P T HE M R I GH TNO W

#asks

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robertsonskywa1 · 5 months

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Who is Diana Cavendish, and why is she looks like Sunset Shimmer or... Vapor Trail?

First appeared in Little Witch Academia kinda look like My Little Pony: Equestria Girls mixed with Harry Potter, is all about high school girls went into wizarding world of magic. But I realized the character development of Akko Kagari is similarity to Twilight Sparkle.

But there is a British-woman (but in English dub she speaks English) who looks like, imagine... Harry Potter fans saw and it was like "That's Luna Lovegood" no, you're wrong, as such. Equestria Girls fans went spit out of the tea and surprisingly shocked seeing that we've found a Sunset Shimmer-esque character:

DIANA CAVENDISH

EG Fans be like: "Who the heck is this? She looks like Sunset but... too white than Vapor Trail" Of course you already know about Vapor Trail! Vapor Trail and Sunset Shimmer were like magic potions combining into a character development. I thought the LWA Manga artist went on a field-trip to America to research MLP EG and Harry Potter. Manga artist saying that: "Hey, This could be a better British-woman I ever discovered!" was actually Sunset Shimmer!

LWA Manga artist wanted her but they say that: "I don't like it, paint it white" (Rise of the Guardians reference) Yes, her red hair but the original concept of Suns-- I mean, Diana Cavendish was used for her hair color is White and Yellow:

But the other designers criticized that "too yellow" until they changed something into, bluish-greenish color. But Equestria Girls fans wanted a manga comic of LWA so they were fandoms united together.

Also, you've seen that fusion... er, descendant error of Amanda O'Neill and Diana Cavendish (No, that could be Stellar Flare, her mother or something!)

#Little Witch Academia #Equestria Girls #Sunset Shimmer #Diana Cavendish #Manga #My Commentary #Brony #MLP #LWA

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conjuremanj · 2 years

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Erzulie/ Family Of Loa

Erzulie (sometimes spelled Erzili or Èzili) is a family of loa, or spirits, in Voodoo. She is a great sport for any one to work with. And yes any religion can work with her.

She's the Vodou Lwa (spirit) who represent the essence of love and women. She has many forms, from fierce warrior mother to red-eyed weeping crone, and can be counted among either the Rada or Petwo lwa (spirits or gods).

During the times of slavery, and Petwo lwa were dark and powerful. (Not evil) Erzulie manifests with deep passion, and Her mood can range from the height of joy to the depths of misery.

There are a number of sister forms of Erzulie, and She is sometimes is considered by some to be a triple Goddess.(but is not) (As such She has three husbands–Damballah (is the original force of creation, believed to be the inner voice of God), Agwe (the spirit of the sea), and Ogoun (warrior spirit and iron) Like the Triple Goddess in other religions.

Erzulie Dantor: 👇is a spirit the essence of love not the Voodoo Goddess of love, romance, art, jealousy, passion, & sex. Erzulie Dantor is not the patron loa of lesbian women, nor domestic violence. But is the patron loa of New Orleans. She is deeply caring and dedicated to her children and will stop at nothing to protect them. She is also a guardian and protector of orphans, sick children, and those who have been abused. Erzulie Dantor is a mulatto woman who is often portrayed as the Black Madonna, or the Roman Catholic “Saint Virgin Mary, sometimes Barbara Africana”. She loves knives and is considered the protector of newly consecrated Voodoo priests and priestesses. A common syncretic depiction of Erzulie Dantor is St. Jeanne D’Arc, who is displayed carrying or supporting a sword. Which is pretty cool.

You can see that she holds a baby the baby's name is Anais. Anais is her daughter she is the translator for Ezulie Dantor because she cannot speak only can say one syllable, the sound of her tongue clicking on the roof of her mouth, “ke-ke-ke-ke!”. Story goes during the revolution Manbo Mayinet Priestess call on her and her husband to help against the slave owners. During possession a priestess her tongue was cut out by Haitian Revolutionaries who feared she would betray them. just in case she is captured she won't speak their secrets. She is now a Lwa in the Petwo Nation. But their other stores too about her that you can read.

Rada:

Erzulie Fréda Dahomey: ☝️ the Rada aspect of Erzulie, is the spirit of love, beauty, jewelry, dancing, luxury, and flowers. She wears three wedding rings, one for each husbands. Her symbol is a heart, Her colors are pink, blue, white and gold, and Her favorite is jewelry, perfume, sweet cakes and liqueurs. She is femininity and compassionate. But has a darker side. She is seen as jealous and spoiled and within some vodoun circles is considered to be lazy. When She mounts a person (possessed) She flirts with all the men, and can treats all the women as rivals. In Christian she is the Virgin and Child, because She is the mother of Ti. Common syncretizations include Our Lady of Lourdes because She is usually depicted as light-skinned.

I took this pic of the Ezili altar form a voodoo society in New Orleans.

Erzulie Freda: is the sister of Ezili Dantor, and Her opposite in every way. Where Dantor is a hard working single mother, Freda is a glamor girl. 🙂. She is said to be the most powerful sorceress in the pantheon. Her colors are pink and pale blue, she like pink champagne and roses, frosted cakes, jewelry . Make Shure to keep Her things clean or she will not arrive in the temple.” She is a powerful spirit. To receive her as a guest during rituals, practitioners must treat her with honors due to her status as a fine lady. She loves heady perfumes, jewels, and anything related to beauty and coquetry.

Erzulie Mansur: (Erzulie the Blessed) - Represents maternal love and protects children from harm.

Granne Erzulie (Grandma Erzulie) - Represents the wisdom granted by experience and maturity and grandmotherly kindness and love. She is syncretized with St. Anne, the mother of the Virgin Mary.

Petro:

Erzulie D'en Tort: / Erzulie Dantor (Erzulie of the Wrongs) Protects women and children and deals revenge against those who wrong them.

Erzulie Balianne: (Erzulie the Gagged) - "Silences" (heals or calms) hearts. Keeps secrets or ensures that secrets will not be revealed. Helps people to forget past loves and overcome passionate emotions. Her "horses" tend to speak as if they have a gag in their mouth. She is syncretized with The Immaculate Heart.

Erzulie Mapiangue: (Erzulie the Suckler) Deals with the pain of childbirth and the protection of unborn and newborn babies. Her "horses" tend to get in a fetal position or birthing position and cry tears of pain. Common syncretization is as the Virgin and Infant of Prague, which wear matching red velvet robes and gold crowns.

Erzulie Yeux Rouge or Erzulie Ge-Rouge (Red-Eyed Erzulie) Takes revenge on unfaithful lovers. Her "horses" cry tears of bitter sadness.

Erzulie Toho Aids: the jealous or slighted in love. Her "horses" cry tears of anger.

Others:

EditErzulie La Flambeau (Erzulie of the Torch)

Erzulie Wangol (Erzulie of the Sacred Banner)

Erzulie Shango Pye Nago loa that is a feminine aspect of Shango.

So you see she is represented in different ways not just as a loa in Haitian Vodou and a Orisha but in different forms of voodoo.

#Voodoo #Vodou #Erzulie #Goddess of love #Erzulie family #Vodou loa #Goddess #Spirit #Spiritual #Family of load #Vodou spirits of love #follow my blog #like or reblog #google search #update post #haitian vodou #haitian revolution #vodou lwa #lwa spirits

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