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computerything · 7 months

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Opinions on The Adventure Zone [comic vers.]

I decided to, a while back, read up to book 3 of the comic version of TAZ along with skimming book 4 enough to get a good idea of it. And I've certainly got a few thoughts here in this noodle of mine.

Disclaimer: I have not listened to the original podcast the comic is based on. I've only read the books. So keep that in mind.

Also, spoiler warning.

Individual reviews:

Book 1: I rather enjoyed it! It was some silly guys going on silly adventures with a nice helping of drama and mystique, mainly from the flame glove thing and all the weird static talk. The characters were likeable in a doofus-y way, and I liked the implication that there was advanced tech in this universe in addition to magic. That's something I wished was in more fantasy.

I really liked Magic Bryan's over-the-top theatrics. I do find it odd that a supposedly high-level wizard lost to a bunch of random adventures, but okay, it's DnD. That stuff happens for the plot.

The magic fire glove was badass, and I like the concept of the guy using it being consumed by his own rage and going ham. Rather fitting.

Art wise, the style was very nice. I like the semi-sketchiness of it, it fits the narrative!

Book 2: I didn't like this one quite as much as book 1. We meet the Bureau of Balance, who immediately act suspicious. For heaven's sake, they have a damn otherworldly abomination that sucks the knowledge out of people's brains on a universal scale! Yet it's played off as "perfectly fine" and "nothing to worry about." Huh? Wha? It's... it's a giant brainwashing jellyfish thing... and that's not spooky? WHAT? And don't worry, I have more to say about these bureaucratic buffoons.

Garfield was great though. Very cool guy.

Anyway, the idea of a murder mystery on a train is absolutely awesome. Murder on the Oriental Express, anyone? But everyone clowning on the murderer [Jeeves, this butler-looking guy] made him feel like less than an actual threat, and his rather anticlimactic disposal felt contrived and forced.

I rather liked the concept of the Oculus, the idea of making an army out of illusions is kind of neat. A shame that not only was it never really used, the damn bureau destroys it.

This was when I began to realize that I hated the BoB. Rather than research the artifacts and try to find a way to safely use them, they just destroy them. Sure, they're dangerous, but perhaps there's a way to filter their power so that it is no longer corruptive? But no. Artifact bad, must destroy. Knowledge bad, must feed to big fish. Urgh.

Book 3: Kind of not super memorable to me. Uh... The car designs were pretty neat. I like the idea of underground racing, it's an old trope but it's a good one. The artifact was cool, though I wish it was more racing-based. Or the race was more plant-based, like in a giant tree or something. That would have rocked.

Overall, I really liked Hurley and Sloane's dynamic. They had nice chemistry and I actually felt for them! In fact, Sloane was definitely the star of this one. I always love a badass thief with a cool outfit, lol.

The one thing I didn't like was that it felt like Sloane being turned evil was just shoved in by the DM to go, "See? See? The BoB is good because the artifacts made this lady go all evil and kill her girlfriend! And she felt so much guilt she sacrificed herself too! The artifacts are totally evil guys! More evil than the BoB!"

And the random council guy turning all evil was kind of pointless. I felt nothing when he died.

Book 4: Oh boy do I have some words about this one.

Positive first... positive first...

Uh, the setting was nice. I like science facilities. The imminent demise of the world was a pretty good motivator, too.

The main guy trying to bring people back from the dead [cough cough his mom] in robot bodies was a little cliché but still a neat concept.

The art was pretty much at its peak here, I think. I love the robot designs!! I love guys with screens for faces so much. Especially Hodgepodge, he was such a silly smug bastard.

Hodgepodge...

Dear, sweet hodgepodge... he didn't deserve to perish. Him dying because of the jellyfish's meddling took my hatred for the BoB from mild annoyance to PURE UNBRIDLED LOATHING. Actually, this whole book kind of did, really.

As I implied before, TAZ has this weird underlying plot thread of "knowledge is evil" that has always bothered me, and it's on full display here, and even extends a bit into "scientists are evil" territory.

For starters, apparently none of the science guys' ideas are theirs, they're just stolen from other dimensions. Which is stupid as hell. If this is supposed to be "no idea is original" again, it does a poor job.

For another, the science guy's mom goes crazy from, you guessed it, knowledge, and would rather die than have said knowledge. Which really pissed me off because I'm the kind of freak who would read all the forbidden texts which drive people mad.

And for yet another, the BoB is portrayed as heroic all over again. The comic literally ends with them all agreeing to trust the director of the BoB and called stupid for having any doubts about the organization. So remember: don't think, don't seek to learn things, just blindly follow your superiors!

Overall:

TAZ has wonderful art and pretty neat characters, settings, and scenarios, but is deeply undermined by it's uncanny promotion of blind trust, discouragement of thinking, and hatred of knowledge. It's weird and creepy.

Also, I will not forgive them for killing hodgepodge. Look at this smug little feller:

Poor guy. Rest in pieces.

#taz #taz balance #taz comic #review #ramblings #sorry for how poorly structured this is I'm not a great reviwer

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the-nysh · 2 years

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Ahh, that pause.... Now whatever semblance of ‘Garou’ still exists within that swirling, faceless vortex of corrupted madness, of course he still couldn’t come out and admit what actually happened to him (especially to Bang of all people - whom Garou can’t show ‘weakness’ in front of the one mentor who personally enforced the lessons to be strong). That avoidance and denial of the truth instead speaks volumes to me of a different message: of a Garou who still refuses to accept, believe, or fully comprehend the actual act of violence that was cruelly and forcibly thrust upon him - as a victim to True Evil’s unfairness. “Yes really.”

We’re given two sets of contradictory information here from which to parse the clues. (Where only one is likely believable as the truth...)

This ‘Garou’ claims (or rather, is allowed to believe) to be fully in control of his free will and this new ‘power’.....but not right after ‘god’ deliberately expressed his intent & agenda to make him into his avatar (against Garou’s will).

Because the Real Garou’s will was already shown before this (so believe and trust in this one):

Where he explicitly refused and absolutely did not consent to that.

Meaning there’s no excuse to deny, defend, soften, or downplay the true act of violence that was cruelly inflicted upon him to suffer; you just have to tell it like it is: Garou involuntarily became a victim to forced cosmic mindrape.

...Whether or not he’s even able to comprehend that, and regardless of how his lingering consciousness still tries to rationalize the terrible experience after the fact, doing his damnedest to struggle thru it and assert what he wants to believe, while refusing to acknowledge -that ‘thing’s existence- or accept the reality, and gravity, of what actually happened to him. (So you know how often male survivors can’t simply just come out and admit their trauma? Whether it’s because it’s something deeply personal or shameful, or because they don’t even know, realize, or understand they were a victim in the first place - yeah, that’s what this incident reminds me of. Which is certainly A Message that’s still buried under there...especially when all of this is still curiously presented thru Garou’s limited, definitely not omniscient point of view of the story too.)

The manga also spent ages (over 100chs) establishing the basis & foundations for Garou’s character. Deliberately showing us the crux of his emotional grievances & motivations before this, and repeatedly hammering to us like a broken record even, the signs of his true (good/heroic) nature so we’d never forget, dismiss, or fail to discern how the real Garou should actually behave. (Cause even in his wildest power fantasies, Garou still only attacked monsters; he never wanted to actually kill anyone - as in the heroes or civilians, as some ‘indiscriminate mass murderer’ or ‘hero killer’ - which he didn’t want to become in both the wc & manga. His actual goal was to indirectly lead towards saving the world to fix and make it safer for all the outcast ‘Tareos’ who’ve suffered like him - not destroy it and all the people/life within it.)

So there should be some major red flags raised when this warped ‘Garou’ abomination starts coldly spouting hugely ooc things like ‘All Life Eradication’ thru literal nuclear overkill and whatnot - because no, that’s not even Garou believably talking at that point, that’s the corrupted influence of ‘god’s agenda - who’s against humanity, speaking thru him and literally warping his voice & mind as a conduit/avatar to enact ‘his’ power and conduct True Evil wrath upon the world. Which is all against the actual Garou’s wants or best interests in mind! (The tragic thing is when Garou’s essentially blocked from even realizing that - tricked and forced into doing this anyway without his consent, and misled into believing it’s still ‘all him’ in control when the choice to do things his way has been forcibly taken from him. So you can’t take this “Garou’s” word as truth after his core integrity has been so thoroughly...compromised. It’s truly evil for him to suffer from something like this he did not deserve.)

Also importantly: when Garou, who was previously lucidly aware in all his wildest, performative ‘absolute evil’ speeches before, couldn’t be taken literally at face value then (unfortunately it seems ‘god’ did and royally mistook Garou’s words to the other literal extreme...) Then certainly anything this thing says or does, warping the worst of his words & beliefs against him even, absolutely cannot be trusted as a genuine reflection of Garou’s true desires. :O No way. As that’s two layers far removed - both from his previous performatism and from the real Garou’s actual will to conduct his brand of ‘evil’ in the way he actually had in mind - to make the world a better place. Especially when the current residual ‘Garou’, who’s somewhere still in there, is in the process of losing his very mind or worse at this rate. (Now if this Garou could have successfully won in a mental battle of dominance, to endure/overcome ‘god’s influence, take back his control & agency, turn the ‘power’ into his own, and bitchslay this ‘god’ back into hell with a taste of his own medicine somehow, then that would be something entirely different. However the current situation doesn’t seem to be the case...yet?)

So despite anything he claims and regardless of whatever he’s still able to think or believe to be true at this point, his thoughts, mind, and will are still tethered to that thing‘s forced influence (we all saw the ugly truth about what actually happened to him)....and yet, beyond the extreme words that spew out of that void, it’s rather those pauses and momentary reactions that still linger behind them, that show me something else far more important. To the Real Garou who’s still in there, please stay strong. ;o;

#opm #garou #manga spoilers #commentary #meta #long text post #when i can ironically gain more from the pauses and reactions 'garou' makes #over anything that spews from the void under the forced influence #only the Real Garou can be trusted here ;o;

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mwolf0epsilon · 2 years

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The Light is Unforgiving, Seek Shelter in the Shade

Summary: Since returning to their collective senses, the being known as Torrent has come to learn that monsters don't hide from sunlight. In reality they walk freely and prey on those who seek the light as salvation.

[Short drabble alert. Force Wound/Eldritch Abomination Jesse hours are now! It's been a hot minute since I actually did anything with this part of the AU and that's honestly a crime. If I'm bringing Jesse (and the 332nd Division) back into the fray I might as well showcase the set of rules I set up for them!]

[THIS STORY IS NOW ON AO3]

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There isn't a definite guide for what they are. That much Jesse has gathered as he slowly gets the hang of being the brain of the collective mass of bodies and souls that is "The Torrent". Not even the Jedi fully knew how Force Wounds worked (not that there were many of those anymore that could even begin to explain the basics to them), and honestly this was a phenomenon that even the most knowledged of the defunct Order would have preferred to remain buried under the proverbial sands of time.

Nothing good ever came from being around Force Wounds...

Did that make them, Torrent, something inherently bad? An evil that needed to be eradicated from the face of the galaxy, for the good of everyone that resided in it? Rex hadn't seemed to think so. Neither had Dove nor Echo, who'd done everything in their power to reawaken their humanity. Fought to unchain it from the primeval rage that had overtaken them in due time. Born of pain and fear.

Jesse wasn't sure how exactly to explain it. He could recall everything that had transpired after their deaths but, for some inexplicable reason, he couldn't quite grasp how he'd been feeling at the time. It's like a blanket had been laid over his emotions, suffocated them, and all that was left was a strange itch in his throat that felt like the ghost of a feeling.

Impersonal in a sense. But it shouldn't be so.

Maybe that was just how it was when you were sharing a body with hundreds of others. All feelings were yours but also not. And your one consciousness that you were more intimately aware of just had to accept that like the others did. Maybe that was just the chips in their brains adding to the baffling confusion.

Whatever the case, if he could grasp the concept of being a uniform shape, no extra limbs or eyes or teeth, then he should be able to figure out this whole hundreds of emotions thing as well. Make his own guide, so to speak.

Easier said than done really...

Torrent as a whole learned quickly. They were hundreds of minds, even if Jesse was the one in primary control. On an IQ standpoint they were a genius in their own right.

The first thing they learned was, of course, to look as human as they should. A skill they hadn't even realised they'd forgotten when they'd been so consumed with a lust for revenge, and that worsened when they'd begun luring and hunting clones to add to their immeasurable mass. The first time they'd seen their reflection they'd reeled back in horror at the twisted smoke, fire, armour and molten flesh. In due time (once Rex had eased them into a calmer state) they'd begun to look like Jesse again, but that first instance of seeing themselves as something so abominable had been jarring.

Sure, even now there were times where the number of irises and teeth they possessed were off. And sometimes they let one or two extra arms slip out for the convenience of having more hands to work with. Sometimes tattoos that belonged to the myriad of brothers of the 332nd snaked across their flesh unsupervised. But mostly they just looked like the ARC Trooper with the defunct Republic cog marking his face.

It felt fitting that since Jesse was in control, people should speak to him rather than... Whatever they all were now. Did a Force Wound even have a physical description they could adhere to that wasn't absolutely unfathomable?

Who really knew? Not them that's for sure!

The second thing they learned was that sunlight hurt. Actually they already knew this before they understood how to not look like a walking clusterfuck of limbs and eyeballs. But clarity had a way of messing with learned behaviours. As soon as they'd stepped foot outside to follow their rescue party, they'd all screamed and backed away in terror at the burning sensation.

It had been Dove's quick thinking that got them to throw a cloak over the writhing mass of limbs and agonised faces so that the light didn't hurt them anymore, but them damage had been done. Jesse, Torrent, all of them, had been disheartened at the prospect of being some kind of beast that belonged in the darkness.

A feeling Jesse still struggled with now, as none of his brothers really dared to consider such an idea out of fear that some kind of confirmation would be given to them. But the ARC couldn't ever let well enough alone, and he still thought about it. Still tried to deal with the guilt of what they'd all done in their moment of weakness. What he had done.

Chips or not. Clouded judgement or not. It was all on him. All of the terrible things they'd done when they'd been the thing in the storm.

At least Rex still looked at him like he deserved to be loved. Their ori'vod loved them still, despite nearly having died at their hands more than once.

The third thing that Torrent as a whole had learned, was that monsters (real monsters) didn't hide from sunlight. In reality they walk freely and prey on those who seek the light as salvation.

It puts a wrench in Jesse's pity-party and sends a soothing wave through all the conscious minds that comprise the amalgam Force Wound trooper(s).

On one hand that means that, even though they can't bare the feel of the light and that sometimes they don't look quite human, that doesn't mean they themselves are monsters. Merely a being of special requirements. On the other hand it also means that danger lurks everywhere that the light actually reaches, and that millions if not hundreds of people are in mortal peril without even knowing it.

And this is a much worse thought in Jesse's, all of Torrent's, opinion. They never did like dishonesty, the clones. And being hundreds of them made Torrent's thousands of hackles raise with the urge to do something about it.

And well it isn't hard to hunt monsters. They may hide in plain sight and operate under the light, but even someone with insidious intentions needed a refuge of sorts. A hidden lair to return to. And Torrent was nothing if not a specialist at hiding in deep dark corners to stalk their prey...

What was a rebellion without a skilled tracker and assassin?

No matter how unforgiving the light might be, Torrent will always seek out shelter in the dark. Their souls are luminous and all consuming among the cold shadows.

#Eps Writes #Fanfic #star wars #the clone wars #forceful intervention au #arc trooper jesse #force wound Jesse au #eldritch abomination

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farieshades · 1 year

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What do you think about Jack Kline?

I’ll be honest, I haven’t put much thought into most of the characters in SPN outside of the main brothers, Castiel, and I suppose, Lucifer. So, I’m probably not the best for this but let’s go ahead anyway.

Season Appearances

When he was still unborn, there was many beliefs before Season 13 hit that Jack would become the next BBEG and an embodiment of pure evil due to his blood father (... Do Angels have blood and DNA? Theoretically the Vessels do but they transfer a bit of grace to the Nephilim… Was Jesus a Nephilim and if so would this then be assumed Gabriel was his father? My head is going off topic hold up, rewind), I think in this way, there was a commentary of nature vs nurture of the character or a belief of ability vs actuality (so like Dumbledore thinking this 11 year old is evil cause of one ability… which isn’t a good example considering said 11 year old ended up evil anyway). Jack Kline, while still unborn, showed an intrinsic goodness, or what Kelly believed as such. As Castiel points out, this could have been done to prolong his life not really caring about his bearer, but Kelly nevertheless believes her son is not evil. In this scene area, Jack also chooses Castiel as his protector/father of choice, feeling potentially as his mother did, safe with Cas.

In Season 13 we as the audience get to see more of these gifts Jack has, specifically from the get-go in which he aged himself into a young man rather than a baby due to his mothers words that life is dangerous for a baby. We also see a pivitol moment in which Jack asks about his father and says Lucifer wasn't him but Castiel was since his mother told him that's who will protect him. This season also has him growing into his power and meeting Apocalypse-World Lucifer who steals Jack's grace.

This loss becomes prevalent in Season 14, but also acts as a parallel to Castiel and the other angels becoming human with the collapse of heaven (which isn't a collapse collapse. I just can't remember what it was, just, you know, every angel was on earth and there was a lot of death). Anyway, Jack grows into his humanity in a way, he learns hand-to-hand combat from AW Bobby, he saves people, acts as a sacrifice (through forms of guilt mostly), and eventually, dies from an illness and ascends to Heaven and while there escapes his ‘personal heaven’, gets chased down by ooze, and finds his mom. Sometime later, we recieve the conflicts end of AW Michael as Jack exorcises Rowena, killing Michael by incinerating him and absorbing his grace. Jack reveals Michael is dead to the brothers and tells them his powers have returned and proves it by showing his Nephilim wings.

Characteristics

If there is one thing the last 3 seasons showed was that Jack Kline was selfless to an extreme degre. He never showed a need to be important or a need to be seen as the New God, that just… kinda happened to him. This selflessness had been there from his very beginning, even in the womb, when he empowers Castiel giving him the ability to kill Dagon. Although, this selflessnes, isn’t always the most useful, he is trusting and in that he almost got himself killed trying to end God and The Darkness trying to do something intrinsically good for the world and the Winchesters, while not displaying fear or hesitancy in his actions. He also tried to avoid conflict and solve conflicts.

Jack’s character is also wrapped with a bit of guilt, especially when he learns he is the son of Lucifer and supposedly an abomination. He feels like everything is his fault, he takes cruel words at face value convincing himself that every problem he (and the brothers) come across is his fault. Jack didn’t really understand that it wasn’t his job to solve every problem there was, but he was a people-pleaser, a fatal flaw in some ways as this would lead to himself to blame himself when things didn’t go the way he expected them to; Season 15 takes that to an extreme extent in the whol “Kill God as a bomb” idea that Jack seemed to believe would, while sacrificing himself, please the Winchester Brothers because he was making amends… As if the brothers ever really did something to that extreme when accidentally killing someone the other liked. I mean really… What's the creepy barney song,,, “we’re a dysfunctional family” really suits them here.

Annnyway, death and non-death Season 15 occurs, and Jack is shown to be quite forgiving in nature, never bringing up really past things that occurred between him and Dean in particular. He is also shown to be considering forgiving Lucifer in the hope that the master manipulator of the entire biblical universe has changed his ways. And likewise, after regaining his soul (because of course we need every main character to be soulless at some point I guess), he forgives/overlooks the Ma’lak box from the season previous [From the Biblical/Ancient Hebrew mal’akh (מַלְאָךְ‎), the standard word for "messenger" in which Angels were the 'messengers of g*d', likewise in modern Hebrew, mal’akh is the general word for "angel"; it is also related to the words for "angel" in Arabic (malak ملاك), Aramaic and Ethiopic. - Very similar in idea to the Dybbuk box, or Dibbuk box (קופסת דיבוק, from dybbuk (/ˈdɪbək/; Yiddish: דיבוק, from the Hebrew verb דָּבַק‎)), which a cabinet that is haunted by/holding a malicious possessing spirit, possibly the soul of a deceased person - though I’m unsure if this is a common thing or it’s just something that Zak Bagan’s has in his museum at this point.] Anyway I had a point,,, Jack doesn’t hold what happened to him when he was soulless against those who he considers family.

See, Jack saw the Winchesters and Castiel as his fathers/family and vice versa. Despite rocky beginnings, Dean and Jack became quite close, with Dean teaching Jack to drive the Impala, going fishing because Jack knew Dean liked to do so, and even later, when Jack dies, God considered Dean killing Jack to be a father killing his son, showing the depth of the relationship Jack and Dean had developed.

On a different note, Jack also had the ability, or the tendency, to bring out the best in those around him, possibly with a mixture of his optimism and childlike/adorable nature that he held (which, to be fair, he’s what, two years old really? Despite his impressive ability to understand the world around him, one can’t absorb everything in just a few short years no matter how much they are able to retain knowledge that they learn). Anyway, it this caring nature, this optimism shows in those who he cared about. Castiel became more selfless, and Sam grew as a parent, as does Dean, but more so, when Jack changes Heaven into a paradise that it [theoretically] should be, Dean (and to a lesser extent, Sam) has hope to finding his family in the afterlife. One of the things that I think made accepting death in the finale more easy for him surely.

But moreso, Jack remained an approachable person who didn’t think ill of anyone as he tried to fit into the chaotic world he was trying to understand. Sure there is a learning process that he had to adapt to to acting, ‘normal’ (something we see most angels struggling with in some way), but his friendly nature remained.

New God

So, Jack, with the Winchester Brothers, Michael, and a resurrected Lucifer defeat Chuck and Jack absorbs the power, becoming New God, in which Jack resurrects those that Chuck had wiped from existence, but leaves the world for Heaven. But something important happens before he does, when questioned if he is “God” now, he simply states that “I’m me.”

Jack, no matter the power level, retains his normal personality that he has shown, but with the extreme power change, he has a policy of being hands-off on Earth, which probably makes a lot of sense when you also have absolutely no idea what your new powers can even do considering how much divine energy/grace he had just theoretically absorbed.

Anyway, Jack reshapes Heaven for the better with Castiel’s help and we can theoretically believe that a form of peace has arisen with this. Not a complete one, monsters and demons are still plenty I’d imagine, but, with Jack, rather than Mr. Ego-who-left-heaven, Heaven is probably in safe hands.

"I'm around. I'll be in every drop of falling rain, every speck of dust that the wind blows, and in the sand, in the rocks, and the sea. (...) And those answers will be in each of them. Maybe not today but... someday. People don't need to pray to me or to sacrifice to me. They just need to know that I'm already a part of them and to trust in that. I won't be hands on. Chuck put himself in the story. That was his mistake. But I learned from you and my mother and Castiel that... when people have to be their best... they can be. And that's what to believe in. Well... I'm really as close as this. Goodbye." - Inherit the Earth

#supernatural #spn spoilers #jack kline #castiel #dean winchester #sam winchester #character study

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princeofgod-2021 · 2 years

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LIGHT OF LIFE 257

John 1:4

CULTURE & TRADITION 23: WHOM SHALL WE SEND 4?

1Pe 1:18 Forasmuch as ye know that YE WERE NOT REDEEMED WITH CORRUPTIBLE THINGS, as silver and gold, FROM YOUR VAIN CONVERSATION RECEIVED BY TRADITION FROM YOUR FATHERS; KJV

Stay focused: We are still talking about the Impeccability of the Character that God sends to deal with Abominable Traditions.

We must now look into understanding Specifics of our various Ministries.

So, we asked a few questions last Friday and we should answer them now.

ELIJAH is a delicate topic and though we’ve said so much before, it is inexhaustible, as you would see new lessons now.

Rev 1:8 “I AM THE ALPHA AND THE OMEGA,” says the Lord God – the one who is, and who was, and who is still to come – THE ALL-POWERFUL! NET

First, God’s does not start what He would not finish.

His assignments mean everything to Him and to the existence and sustenance of Humanity.

He simply must do what is needed and then, finish it all.

Rev 1:11 saying, I AM THE ALPHA AND OMEGA, THE FIRST AND THE LAST. ALSO, WHAT YOU SEE, WRITE IN A BOOK AND SEND IT TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES which are in Asia: to Ephesus, and to Smyrna, and to Pergamos, and to Thyatira, and to Sardis, and to Philadelphia, and to Laodicea. MKJV

Why did God repeat: “Alpha & Omega” before telling John to SEE, WRITE and SEND?

Every believer must be infused with the sense of His “completion” of Purpose.

Jesus showed this to us all, right?

Joh 9:4-5 WHILE I AM WITH YOU, IT IS DAYTIME AND WE MUST DO THE WORKS OF GOD WHO SENT ME WHILE THE LIGHT SHINES. FOR THERE IS COMING A DARK NIGHT WHEN NO ONE WILL BE ABLE TO WORK. As long as I am with you my life is the light that pierces the world’s darkness.” TPT

When you have acknowledged that God’s work for you must be finished by you [and no one else], the wisest thing to do is to make that Job the passion of your life, till it is done.

Jesus yet showed us this.

Joh 4:34 Jesus told them, "MY FOOD IS TO DO WHAT THE ONE WHO SENT ME WANTS ME TO DO AND TO FINISH THE WORK HE HAS GIVEN ME. GW

We all are frequently “challenged” to do no less that our Lord and saviour. You know that, right?

2Ti 4:5 So BE ALERT to all these things and overcome every form of evil. CARRY IN YOUR HEART THE PASSION OF YOUR CALLING AS A CHURCH PLANTER AND EVANGELIST, AND FULFILL YOUR MINISTRY CALLING. TPT

Passion for God and His work will overrule FEAR and all inhibitions to completing our roles in life.

1Jn 4:18 There is no fear in love, but PERFECT LOVE DRIVES OUT FEAR, because fear has to do with punishment. THE ONE WHO FEARS PUNISHMENT HAS NOT BEEN PERFECTED IN LOVE. NET

It goes without saying, that if Elijah had loved the people of Israel dearly, he won’t have accused them before God and implicating them, rather than declare his own cowardice.

Did you notice that?

1Ki 19:14 And he said, I HAVE BEEN BURNING FOR THE HONOUR OF THE LORD, the God of armies; for THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL HAVE NOT KEPT YOUR AGREEMENT; they have had your altars broken down, and have put your prophets to death with the sword: till I, even I, am the only one living; and NOW THEY ARE ATTEMPTING TO TAKE AWAY MY LIFE. BBE

So, beloved, do you love God’s work and people enough not to overlook your assignment and ensure that you complete it?

Please start work on your personal and positive readjustments in Ministry now!

Second, as is generally and commonly known, Elijah’s “exit” was to portray the “Rapture” experience.

2Ki 2:11 Elijah and Elisha were walking and talking together. SUDDENLY, SOME HORSES AND A CHARIOT CAME AND SEPARATED ELIJAH FROM ELISHA. The horses and the chariot were like fire. THEN ELIJAH WAS CARRIED UP INTO HEAVEN IN A WHIRLWIND. ERV

That Rapture experience, along with Elijah’s Ministry, is meant to be “tied” to Christ’s person & Purpose.

Act 1:9-11 AFTER SAYING THIS, JESUS WAS TAKEN UP WHILE THOSE WHO HAD GATHERED TOGETHER WERE WATCHING, AND A CLOUD TOOK HIM OUT OF THEIR SIGHT. While he was going and they were gazing up toward heaven, two men in white robes stood right beside them. They asked, "Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven? THIS SAME JESUS, WHO HAS BEEN TAKEN UP FROM YOU INTO HEAVEN, WILL COME BACK IN THE SAME WAY YOU SAW HIM GO UP INTO HEAVEN." ISV

Christ’s ascension and return was indicated [as Typology] with promise of the return of “Elijah”.

Mal 4:5-6 I, THE LORD, PROMISE TO SEND THE PROPHET ELIJAH BEFORE THAT GREAT AND TERRIBLE DAY COMES. He will lead children and parents to love each other more, so that when I come, I won't bring doom to the land. CEV

Third, Elijah’s ascension BRIDGED the Old and New Testament in objective and divine delegation.

He ascended in the Old Testament and landed in the New, indicating Jesus’ presence/Ministry for all times.

Heb 13:8 For JESUS DOESN’T CHANGE – yesterday, today and tomorrow, HE’S ALWAYS TOTALLY HIMSELF. MSG

Elijah never prophesied about Jesus’ coming but Moses did. So did Isaiah and Zechariah.

So why was it Elijah and Moses meeting Jesus on the mount of transfiguration?

Simply because of this “Rapture thing” and because of the sensitivity and importance of Elijah’s Ministry.

{We are getting close, friends}

Mat 17:2-3 While these followers watched him, Jesus was changed. His face became bright like the sun, and his clothes became white as light. THEN TWO MEN WERE THERE, TALKING WITH HIM. THEY WERE MOSES AND ELIJAH. ERV

From the Old Testament, it is important to start “making waves” about the Rapture and great “change” we will all experience in Christ Jesus.

That’s why God “made noise” about it by telling all the prophets.

1Co 15:51 See, I am giving you THE REVELATION OF A SECRET: WE WILL NOT ALL COME TO THE SLEEP OF DEATH, BUT WE WILL ALL BE CHANGED. BBE

As we continue, I pray that the full meaning of your calling will be declared to you, in Jesus name.

Come back on Wednesday for more digging into this intriguing subtopic.

Keep Shinning!

Brother Prince

Monday, October 3, 2022

08055125517; 08023904307

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caffeinatedseri · 3 years

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Dead Apple Light Novel

Recently, I decided to buy LN 5, Dead Apple, purely because I’m a sucker for all of BSD’s light novels, so this post will revolve around what I took away from this novel.

Dead Apple is Canon

Since the story jumps around in the timeline a lot, I had originally thought that Dead Apple took place outside of canon (especially with Atsushi’s flashback).

However, a particular part of Asagiri’s afterword stuck out to me:

Now, allow me a moment to discuss some of the particulars of Dead Apple. Chronologically, the story takes place after the second season of the anime — in other words, after the war with the Guild, which puts Dead Apple somewhere between the ninth and tenth volumes of the manga.

The novel also ended up affecting the main story in numerous ways, and I’m sure this new experience will continue to influence my future work as well.

It’s not unusual for a light novel to insert itself into the main timeline (see 55 Minutes which takes place in the 10th volume), but it’s nice to have confirmation that the same applies to Dead Apple.

Of course, just because a work isn’t canon compliant (see BEAST), doesn’t mean that it has no potential for further analysis or it doesn’t bring any added complexity to the main plot. Regardless, this post serves as somewhat of a precursor to my other posts concerning Dead Apple since I have a tendency to talk about it a lot, and I’d like to establish a basis for a lot of my posts.

Differences between the Movie and Light Novel

In the afterword of the light novel, Hiro Iwahata (the author of this LN) said:

“Furthermore, I worked on this book under Asagiri’s supervision, meaning there are several lines in certain scenes that differ from the movie. It might even be fun comparing the two! Nothing would make me happier than the fans enjoying this novel alongside the movie.”

As per Iwahata’s request, I went into the light novel, looking for differences between it and the movie. However, the novel is surprisingly, almost identical to the movie (maybe not surprising considering it is a “movie novelization”).

Because the differences are so miniscule, I believe they hold an even greater significance, since Asagiri must have wanted to change these specific details for a certain reason.

Some of the differences I talk about might be unimportant, but I did my best to catch everything that was changed from the movie.

1. The movie doesn’t mention SKK as a part of the Dragon’s Head Conflict, but the novel says, “Some fought under the alias Twin Dark.”

This probably means that SKK became a pair either before the Dragon’s Head Conflict or during (although I’m pretty sure that the “organization” they destroyed over night was Shibusawa’s organization).

2. When Dazai says that he would’ve continued killing people in the mafia if it weren’t for Oda, Atsushi has little to no reaction in the movie; I would describe it as maybe a hesitant or concerned feeling.

In the novel, Atsushi has a more outward reaction.

““Huh...?!” Atsushi was baffled. He had no idea whether that was true. What did Dazai mean by that? (...) The melancholy Atsushi felt from Dazai had disappeared, and Dazai continued to speak in his usual lighthearted manner.”

Not only does he react verbally, but the novel also adds an inner monologue (mainly for Atsushi) that can’t be portrayed as well in movie format.

To me, this change highlights how Atsushi sees Dazai purely as a good person; he reacts in such a startled manner because he believes that Dazai is too good of a person to be in the mafia killing people (which we know Atsushi hates). This trend reoccurs throughout the story, of Atsushi turning a blind eye to Dazai’s “bad side.”

3. This one isn’t at all the movie’s fault, but the novel gives a lot more clues as to what the “dead apple” and the dagger in the apple motif represents.

The first time it appears is when Kunikida and Tanizaki meet the Special Division’s agent, but they find out that he’s already dead.

“It [the apple] was, without a doubt, a simple fruit... save for the fact that there was a knife sticking out of it as if to condemn the taste of sin. A blade had been driven into the symbol of original sin. A dreary, ominous aura, oozed from the ripe fruit like venom.

Throughout the novel, it seems to associate the “dead apple” motif with Fyodor pretty strongly, especially since this paragraph ties in Fyodor’s ideals nicely with the symbolism of the apple and dagger.

The apple represents sin, the very first sin — which you could interpret as sin at its purest — while the dagger represents the condemning of such sin. However, the apple can also potentially symbolize life, while the dagger stabbing into life can mean death.

Fyodor’s ideals revolve around “removing the sin” of ability users (represented by an apple in this case) but he does so through manipulation. The dagger is associated with stealth and deception, which is fitting with what Fyodor does to “remove the sin” of ability users.

However, he’s also taking the lives of ability users in this process, hence stabbing the apple, coincidentally committing another sin in his attempt to relinquish all sin.

4. In the “Snow White” Oda and Dazai flashback, everything is identical to the movie (word for word), but there is some additional narration.

“It was an alarming sight — Dazai sounded like he was in a trance. It was as if he was ignoring all this world had to offer while in pursuit of something else.”

I’ve talked about this particular scene before here, but the gist is that Dazai was discreetly talking about himself while referring to Snow White.

Dazai joined the mafia because he believed that the violence (or true human nature) would give him a reason to live, but we already know that this kind of thinking was flawed. Thus, this line most likely means that Dazai was ignoring all of the “good” qualities of the world while pursuing a reason to live, which inevitably wouldn’t work.

5. Right after the flashback, when Dazai takes the pill, the novel really sells the act of “Dazai walking towards his death and going to the evil side.”

Personally, this scene in the movie felt more open to interpretation after you’ve seen the ending. You could say that Dazai took the antidote and said “Being on the side that saves people is more beautiful,” because his plan is to continue living to save more people.

However, the novel throws away any possible double meaning with this paragraph:

“Dazai then reached for the pill with his bandaged hand, neatly picked it up, and slowly brought it to his lips — just like Snow White and the sweet, poisoned apple. The venomous red-and-pure-white-pill disappeared inside his mouth.”

After Dazai’s tangent on how Snow White could’ve committed suicide out of despair, the narration compares him directly to Snow White. With the added venomous pill stated outright, it only further cements the idea that Dazai’s actually committing suicide here.

I don’t particularly like this change, because it feels like this moment was set up entirely just to divert the audience’s expectations, rather than it be a standalone scene that makes sense when considering the rest of the story. (It might not necessarily be a change, possibly just a rough translation from movie to novel).

6. When Atsushi wakes up from his nightmare, there’s some additional inner monologue:

Everything’s okay. I’m not the same person I was when I lived at the orphanage. I have friends. I have a place where I belong — the Armed Detective Agency. Things are different now.

The anime (and in turn the movie) tends to downplay the effects of Atsushi’s trauma — probably due to the limitations of anime — but regardless the novel portrays it much better with how Atsushi’s trauma affects practically every aspect of his life.

7. I thought Fukuzawa’s ability only gave his subordinates control over their abilities, but the novel says:

“Yukichi Fukuzawa and his skill, All Men are Equal, a peculiar ability that allowed him to suppress and control his subordinates’ skills.”

Does this mean that Fukuzawa could control and suppress all of the agency’s abilities? It could be a weird translation, but it seems oddly specific.

8. This detail isn’t actually a novel exclusive, but it is an extremely small detail that I missed while watching the movie, so I figured I would add it here too.

“the phantom’s notebook had the word Compromise written on the cover. A copy of himself that didn’t follow ideals but made compromises was an abomination to Kunikida.”

Considering how abilities act as the shadow to every character in this story, this is a nice detail that shows how Kunikida’s inner desire is to compromise, because carrying such heavy ideals is undoubtedly a burden. However, because he holds onto his ideals so strongly, it becomes his biggest weakness AND his biggest strength.

9. There’s a super small detail added to this scene with Dazai, Fyodor, and Shibusawa. When Dazai suggests that Shibusawa could be saved by an angel or a demon, the following exchange occurs:

“Hmm... Maybe an angel?” Dazai picked up the skull on the table. “Or maybe a demon?” “It’s obvious what both of your true intentions are, if you ask me.” The third man mirthfully cackled and took the skull from Dazai’s hand.

In the movie, Dazai doesn’t pick up anything, so as a result Fyodor doesn’t take anything from Dazai either.

Because Fyodor walked into the scene after Dazai suggested that an angel or demon would save Shibusawa, I strongly suspect that this was foreshadowing future events in which Fyodor does “save” Shibusawa by giving him his memories back.

The novel adds more to this foreshadowing by having Dazai pick up the skull before it’s taken by Fyodor — essentially having Fyodor take the cards out of Dazai’s hands and put them in his favor.

It’s also worth pointing out that the skull is also the object that Fyodor uses to revive Shibusawa into a supernatural ghost of some sorts at the end of the story.

10. This may be just a difference in translations but in the movie, Shibusawa refers to Fyodor as “Demon Fyodor-kun”, whereas in the novel Fyodor is called “Fyodor the Conjurer.” (Ango uses the Conjurer title as well).

In western esotericism, a conjurer is a person who summons supernatural beings, like spirits, demons, or God.

This slightly changes the connotation of Fyodor’s title from a inhuman being of pure malicious intent to just a human who summons these otherworldly beings. This idea also aligns with Shibusawa’s revival, since he’s some sort of supernatural ghost that was “summoned” by Fyodor.

11. Skipping past the parts where Kyouka and Akutagawa regain their abilities, and Chuuya talks to Ango in the government facility, (since they have little to no changes between the movie and the novel) there is a somewhat significant detail changed in Draconia once again with Dazai and Fyodor.

In the novel, this glowing ball of energy from the movie is actually described as an apple:

The two lights melted into one and spun until they formed a juicy sphere. They had produced a single apple — a juicy, poisoned apple red as blood.

It birthed a skill — and an extremely powerful one at that — the ability to absorb. Every last crystal adorning Draconia’s walls was sucked into the apple with intense force. Ten — a hundred — a thousand — two thousand — every last one was greedily devoured by the apple...

The apple swelled as it absorbed the numerous crystals until the red light became hotter than the surface of hell.

Since the “dead apple” motif aligns with Fyodor’s character, we can assume that the apple is representative of sin, and sin is associated with abilities, as Fyodor believes.

This strange poisoned apple is made of abilities and has an ability (the ability to absorb), and it commits a sin (greed) in its devouring of other abilities; it’s also hotter than “hell”, which is a very specific connection that leads me to this idea:

My theory is that a normal apple represents life, while a poisoned apple (or dead apple), indicative of a stained, impure life, represents sin. Fyodor believes abilities are akin to sin (what a clever rhyme), therefore all of their lives are sinful.

12. This is arguably the most insignificant change of this entire post, but I feel obligated to put it here regardless since it was different from the movie. When the Special Division detects the singularity of Shibusawa’s dragon form in the novel, it says:

“Abnormal values for singularity are increasing! They’re twice — no, 2.5 times higher than they were six years ago.”

In the movie, the number is five times higher instead.

Why did this number change? Is it significant? I honestly have no idea (I’m surprised I even caught this), but it’s there and I had to document it anyways.

13. The novel adds this narration for Shibusawa when he gets his memories back and he’s in the orphanage’s room with Atsushi:

“Shibusawa clearly recalled the events from six years ago. Fyodor had enticed him to go to the orphanage where he tortured a young Atsushi... until Atsushi fought back and killed him.”

There’s two things to take away from this: Fyodor had known Shibusawa for at least six years, and Fyodor had been planning the events of Dead Apple since at least six years ago.

I find it hard to believe that Fyodor’s plan was thwarted by Dazai, because of how Fyodor demonstrated his ability to plan ahead in the main series, but I’m not sure what the long term effects of this plan could be. If Shibusawa succeeded, then it could’ve aligned with the DOA’s goals, but once again I don’t think Fyodor’s plan was actually foiled.

14. Super minor once again, but right after Shibusawa gets revived, the last sentence of chapter 5 is,

“Nobody would ever see the smile on Fyodor’s face.”

Honestly, I think this was just added to create an ominous tone, but it’s a nice detail regardless.

15. As the red fog spreads across Yokohama, there’s a good part of exposition that connects the “dead apple” motif to Fyodor once again:

“After the red fog devoured the earth, the planet would undoubtedly look like a floating red apple from space. There would be no humans left on its surface, nor any signs they ever existed. It would be a true paradise, and with that, the Dead Apple would finally be complete. A dead planet covered in red fog — that was what Fyodor had planned and sought out.

Nothing other than death could wash away the original sin of man, so it was only fitting for the sin, which started with a fruit, to end with one as well.

It’s pretty long, but I like the way this passage is written, more specifically the last part since it fits well with the sinful poisoned apple idea.

It also aligns with Fyodor’s ideals of creating a true paradise, free of ability users. However, if Fyodor had planned to have the Earth covered in fog, that could mean that his plan was actually stopped by Dazai and Atsushi in the end.

16. Shibusawa has a few additional lines of dialogue when he talks to Atsushi in their final fight.

“The dragon and tiger... I see now why they are called rivals.”

The dragon and tiger have their roots in Chinese Buddhism, but to go further into that topic would make this already lengthy post even longer.

“Don’t get the wrong idea, though. I’m not blaming you for what happened.”

This line is a brief moment of weakness for Shibusawa, which is interesting in contrast to his strong will to kill Atsushi. Just as Atsushi learned to accept the past and the tiger’s ferocity, Shibusawa shares the same attitude by separating the blame from himself to just simply accepting the past for what happened.

17. In the aftermath of the last fight against Shibusawa, Atsushi and Kyouka meet up with Dazai.

Kyouka asks, “Are you sure this is what you wanted?” which prompts two different responses in the movie and novel respectively.

In the movie, Atsushi says, “Just as Shibusawa was able to forget that he’d been killed before, I think Dazai can put his past behind him again. But this is fine.”

In the novel, Atsushi says:

“... I could probably seal away this memory just like how I’d forgotten I’d killed him before. But... I’m okay with this.”

I interpreted Kyouka’s question in the movie to be questioning Dazai’s loyalties, as he did betray everyone, and Atsushi responded in Dazai’s defense because he trusts him.

However, the novel does change Atsushi’s response to focus on himself rather than Dazai, which in turn changes the implications of Kyouka’s question.

Kyouka seems to be asking Atsushi whether he was okay with killing Shibusawa, and Atsushi responds by acknowledging that he did kill Shibusawa, and that’s okay. (a very clear development from the beginning of the story when he believed it was unnecessary to kill anyone, and he didn’t want to kill anyone)

18. In the epilogue, Ango talks about the underlying motivations behind the “Dead Apple” case. This change could be attributed to translation differences (like many others in this post), but the connotation does slightly differ from movie to novel.

In the movie, Ango says, “How is a man like Shibusawa, so intelligent that others look like alien creatures to him, to act, to be destroyed, or to be saved?”

In the novel, Ango says:

“Perhaps the two of them [Dazai and Fyodor] just wanted to get a glimpse of someone like them... Perhaps they wanted to see what he would do and how he would meet his demise... or perhaps how he would be saved.”

The movie simply poses a broad question of what would happen to Shibusawa, a person alienated from the rest of society.

The novel changes this to focus on Dazai and Fyodor’s perspective — two irredeemable aliens from society just like Shibusawa — executing this grand scheme out of curiosity to see what would happen to someone of the likes of them, and if there’s a possibility for redemption.

19. This is the final difference on this list, and it’s quite a large change. In Fyodor’s monologue at the very end of the story, he has a completely different tone from the movie to novel.

In the movie, Fyodor says, “But in order to end this world, rife with crime and punishment, I do need that book.”

The novel says:

Glittering high-rises and stately brick buildings stood side by side in this port city with its countless citizens who struggled against crime and punishment. “I think I’ve taken a liking to this city myself..” Fyodor took a bite of the apple in his hand, and the juicy nectar ran down his delicate fingers. “You’d all better be on your best behavior until next time.”

The reference to the book may have been removed for consistency with the main series, as the book is a part of the DOA’s plan (or more specifically Fukuchi).

It also seems like Fyodor has grown fond of the city, and no longer wants Yokohama to be destroyed, so it’s still possible that his plan deterred from what he had originally intended.

Beyond that, I’m not entirely sure why crime and punishment was mentioned, or why there’s such an ominous tone to his ending statement, but that’s up to personal interpretation.

That concludes the long list of extremely specific and minor differences between the Dead Apple movie and light novel!

Overall, I would say it’s worth checking out the light novel if you don’t have a strong grasp of the Dead Apple story, because it definitely presents the small intricacies of the plot in a more comprehensible way.

On a side note, the manga adaptation has a lot of noticeable differences from the movie and light novel, mostly with the addition of entirely new scenes (which you can read @buraihatranslations — what a shameless self plug). I would highly recommend reading it as those extra scenes are very amusing, to say the least without giving any spoilers.

Honestly, this post was a lot longer than I intended, but I hope you enjoyed it regardless. Thank you for reading!

#bsd #bsd dead apple #bsd meta #bungou stray dogs

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drnotreallystrange · 3 years

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Masters of the CW

I did not care much about the original “Masters of the Universe”, which I found kinda cheesy even back then (yes I’m that old). But several people I admire gave a rather negative opinion on the new “Masters of the Universe” animated show, and the now well known accusation game of “review bombing”, “toxic fanboys who don’t like strong girls” etc etc is in full swing. So I took a look...

I don’t care much about the marketing and the very obvious fact that the show-runner Kevin Smith straight out lied and tried to start a shitstorm against some fans who passed on some information which turned out to be very much spot on.

So, the main character is Teela. Do I have a problem with that the main character is a woman and not He-Man? Nope. I like women. But, that said, how they wrote Teela and the rest of the characters is everything that is wrong with many shows and movies these days.

Spoilers below, don’t read on if you don’t want to read about some major plot points.

In the first episode, she’s about to get a promotion to “man-at-arms” and everyone she meets tells her how incredibly amazing she is (the queen, her dad, ...) Then the rest of the plot gets going, Adam/He-Man dies saving the fcking Universe and the infamous scene in the Throne room happens: in front of the queen and king whose son JUST DIED, she throws a tantrum, because she did not know that Adam was He-Man:

“everyone lied to me”

“you knew and did not tell me”

“whine whine whine I quit!!!”

and she quits her new man-at-arms job, like an angry toddler, abandons her duty, her friends, everyone and everything, because she hAs bEeN LiEd tO. Cry me a river.

Are we supposed to like this character? YES, because it’s the main character of the series, she’s a “strong independent woman”, who just threw a tantrum because she was not in on a secret. Do I like her? NO, I don’t.

Because basically, she’s the same type of selfish, entitled bitch we see on the CW shows so often, like Iris WxstAllen, Lena Luthor and (to a lesser degree) Felicity Smoak.

Later in the show, there are a few more great quotes from her, my favorite: Adam: “I DIED!” - Teela: “And the rest of us had to live with it”

Throughout the series there are many more well-known tropes:

Adam / He-Man sucks up to Teela (”I go where you go, Teela”), and is of course worse at everything (except dying, which he does again(!) in the fifth episode). But luckily he does not appear all that much in the main story.

They trust and work with Evil-Lyn, who predictably switches allegiance back to the bad guy Skeletor at the end, and Andra (Teela’s girlfriend, because of course) says the famous CW line which appears whenever a villain needs to be stopped: “YOU DON’T HAVE TO DO THIS!” I really laughed out loud at that.

Teela’s greatest fear is to be ... too perfect :-D

There’s much much more, but I’m lazy.

Anyway, the “toxic fanboys” are right. The writing of the characters is just garbage, which is a shame, because the basic story is interesting and good. And the animation, voice acting, etc is great. But it seems the men(!) who wrote this forgot that you can have great female AND great male characters at the same time. Any real strong woman should be angry at this abomination of a main character, and many female fans ARE as horrified their male counterparts.

#rant #motu #masters of the universe

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onewingedxngel · 2 years

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Get me out of doubt once and for all, Sephiroth is a villain or an antagonist?

I think he’s both.

He’s irrefutably an antagonist, since he stands as the main obstacle to the protagonist (Cloud). This is simply a fact of the story.

A villain? Absolutely! He kills innocents without mercy and wishes to destroy every life form on the planet, as well as the planet itself; which is a goal borne from his own rage and pain. He is not acting out of concern for a greater good (which could be argued if his only goal was to destroy humanity alone, or a large portion of it), but rather, to further his own wants. He destroys for himself, and not some greater reason.

BUT. At the same time, he is very much a victim. He isn’t just evil for the sake of being evil, and he doesn’t go around killing others ‘for the LOLZ’.

He was created by humans to be used by them, initially to find the promised land, and when it turned out this was not possible, he was then manipulated and trained to become the personal weapon of the mega-corporation that created him. This was all out of his control. From a young age, he was raised to kill (as shown in how he, going off the timeline, began to fight against Wutai around 11/12 years old, and was very successful in doing so). He was genetically enhanced with strength and power beyond anything that lived on Gaia, and made to use it to further the interests of Shinra. Judging from how he was raised, his violent actions are in no way a surprise, because it’s all he’s ever really known.

Also, the fact that he was so suddenly faced with the truth behind his existence. That he only exists because humans wanted to use him. He is not the miracle he was raised to believe, he is a genetically engineered abomination that should have never existed at all– and the only reason he does is because of human greed. This realisation that everything he ever was, and ever will be, only occured because some scientists wished to exploit him. Even one of the few people he ever trusted in his life, Professor Gast, had been a leader and avid supporter of the project that created him, only backing out when he realised JENOVA was not a Cetra– and, by extension, Sephiroth was a failed result of the experiment.

You also need to consider that, when he realised the truth... he was completely alone. Not only did he realise that he should not exist, that everything he’d known was a lie... he also had no one to turn to. Professor Gast, who is implied to have been like a father to him... even he was a part of the lies. And Zack, arguably his closest friend in the OG game... he barely bothered to check up on him during the days he’d locked himself in the library, tormented by his revelation.

His hatred for humanity, for all living things, for the planet itself, his lack of remorse, the joy he takes in the pain of others... it is all born from his agony. And, although this is my interpretation, I think his wish to ascend into a God is born from his will to defy not just the humans, but the very world that created him.

So. Sephiroth is an antagonist. And I’d certainly say he is a villain. But he is a tragic and sympathetic one, to the point where I wouldn’t call him evil. His actions, sure, but him? No. He is a victim of his circumstances, of human greed; and his tragedy is that he simply cannot exist out of said circumstances. I’ve said this before, but Sephiroth would not be Sephiroth without the horrific experiments that lead to his existence.

Also I totally want him to win regardless

#anonymous #ask #mun #(ooc)#headcanon #Ramblings #jesus... what a surprise THIS GOT WAYYYYYYY LONGER THAN INTENDED #one of y'all: *asks a simple one-sentence question*#Me: *pulls this shit*#I swear one day I'm gonna write a literal novel out of my analysis

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darkpoisonouslove · 3 years

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Witch x Witch Hunter AU

You’d be correct in guessing this is a new AU that I have come up with and I have zero idea what to title it yet! I just have to talk about it and that is why we’re doing a different WIP Wednesday this week.

To give a little history on this, I watched a review of a book that I haven’t read (Serpent & Dove) about 3 weeks ago. And it wasn’t until a week later (on my birthday actually) that I went to bed and randomly thought of a way to fix up the driving event of the book. From there my AU quickly spiraled into a novel-length story that I’m piecing together relatively quickly. This has been on my mind ever since I came up with it and I am obsessed with how it’s actually turning out. I am less obsessed with the fact that it will most certainly be 40+ chapters but what can you do about it? The story demands what it demands. I have written down half a notebook for this already and I have managed to get to the outline of chapter 18. I have solid ideas up to chapter 20 and a general sense of how the rest is going to go plus more emotional development of the characters as well as of their relationship.

To summarize briefly - Griffin is a witch who is looking to access Eraklyon’s top secret library/spell reserve. That leaves her having to face Valtor who is a witch hunter. Griffin is in for a nasty surprise when Valtor turns out to have much more powerful magic than she could have anticipated and Valtor is in for a nasty surprise when Griffin manages to stab him with his own blade. In the end of their fight, Valtor captures her and saves her life from the crowd gathering that would have torn her apart. Griffin is a prisoner to the Eraklyon crown and gets sentenced to death at the stake. However, she is offered a deal - marry Valtor to act as his cover for infiltrating the largest and most notorious witch coven and get to live another day. No one’s giving her any guarantees about her safety during the mission or her fate after her job is done and she has a secret she must protect at all costs. To top it all off, the royal family of Domino approaches her with the true agenda behind the mission and she is forced to reevaluate her own priorities and feelings on the public’s general attitude towards witches as well as her interactions with Valtor, who is struggling with the demons of his own past and present.

That was not entirely brief but I have only made it up to chapter 6-7 there. Here is a little sneak peak from chapter 8. Valtor has just informed of all the atrocities the Coven has committed and Griffin is being forced to acknowledge his disgust of witches. Or rather she’s looking for a way to avoid acknowledging it.

“Why would they do that and make everyone hate witches?” As if the general public needed more excuses to murder innocents. Covens were becoming a rarity when the most common safety precaution witches chose to take was solitude. To have the luxury of community and throw it away to make life harder for your own kind, for those witches out there who were on their own... Griffin herself was still worlds away for becoming so jaded by witches’ constant mistreatment that she’d stop caring for the people like herself.

“Because they don’t care about others. Including their own.” Valtor’s eyes had strayed from the memory of her retching over a poor’s girl agonizing death at the stake that should have been hers but there was a certain smugness to his gaze as it challenged her to prove him wrong.

“What if they’re being framed?” That was unlikely but she couldn’t lead a dialogue about nuanced moralities with his refusal to acknowledge the existence of morality in witches. She was having a hard time proving the loyalty between witches as a lone witch and he took her silence as support of his ludicrous notions.

“Why would anyone try to frame them?” Valtor was rather pushing to make her stumble than from honest interest in a continuing debate.

“To get rid of them.” Out of all people she would’ve thought he’d grasp the objective. “I told you - royals fear dark magic because it’s powerful.” Without the shackles that had been on her wrists or the chip in her neck that could blow up her magic Erendor and Samara’s crowns would have been nothing more but clay in her hands. She could have fashioned their demise with the snap of her fingers and the only person that could have stopped her was also forced to obey their will.

“It’s dangerous,” Valtor sounded like they’d put a whole new brain in him instead of just chipping him.

“You have it.” And he was a rare case of voluntary possession of magic. So many witches she’d met would have traded their magic for some peace and safety but he’d chosen to have it instead. He didn’t have the moral high ground to stand on.

“Which is how I know it. Negative emotions are a hazard to society in and of themselves. Add magic that is powered by them and we’re witnessing catastrophe after catastrophe caused by the coven you’re defending.” He wasn’t going to use her own points against her. He’d already stolen her life and her magic.

“If they weren’t necessary, they wouldn’t exist.” Dark magic wouldn’t exist either without purpose but his delusion was far too grand for that to reach through it.

“Are you telling me that I had to go through the...” Valtor swallowed, and then again - all the words he was discarding from fear, “pain I was put through?” He balled his fists and Griffin’s muscles tensed. He needed her alive, not necessarily untouched.

“That’s not what I meant.” How could she tell him he’d deserved to have his body defiled and his heart poisoned with hate? He’d brought on so much pain under the reign of his own. How could she stand to watch that cycle repeat over and over again? “I mean negative emotions in general, not in specific instances. In certain situations it is more appropriate to feel negative emotions. It wouldn’t be right not to feel sad over the loss of someone you care about.”

Valtor looked away again, his hands clasped together in his lap. Whatever he was holding in his white-knuckled grip on himself wasn’t good.

“You would want to be angry at something wrong,” Griffin licked her lips. Finding the similarities between the two of them wasn’t easier for her than it was for him. The song from their car ride was echoing in her head. Their favorite. “Without loneliness you’ll never know you want another’s presence. Fear tells you what you need to reshape to have a better life. Without any of that how can you be human?”

Valtor pounced off the bed, shoulders shaking as he turned his back on her like a wall he raised between them. “There was nothing humanly about Belladonna. She was a monster,” his voice was so low it dove below what she could hear every time he lost a grip on the trembling of it.

“Yes, a monster who happened to be a witch.” He hadn’t shown Griffin much humanity either. It only made him more human as he struggled with the weakness he’d forced her to endure as well. “Not all witches are like that. Haven’t you seen positive emotions in me, anything good at all?” Granted, she hadn’t had any reason to smile since she’d met him but that just made her more human, too, as she pushed through to find some sliver of happiness or at least something to hold on to.

Valtor whipped around, the motion so abrupt that Griffin’s stomach curled in a ball as she held her breath. He was going to crumble in pieces right there in the middle of their hotel room.

“That’s different,” Valtor croaked out, the words coming out as if he was chewing glass while he spoke just to shred them. His eyes were so wide his face had to have changed proportions permanently to accommodate his bewilderment.

“It is because you’ve never spent enough time with a witch to see anything but terror and aggression.” Griffin had to swallow tears. If not for him, then at least for the witches he’d tortured and killed just because of the evil he’d been raised with. “I am capable of all the same emotions that you feel and so are other witches. Maybe not all of them, but we’re not all evil either.” She’d caught him before he’d frozen in his own space of mind again. She had to keep him on that thin edge where she’d gotten him to meet her world. “Anyone who knows you’re a demon would think you’re an abomination, too. But you’re not, are you? You can feel something good.” Whatever sick pleasure or relief he got from murdering was not something she’d count even if it were the first thing coming to mind. But she’d seen him relax as he’d sat in the driver’s seat, had seen him tap his fingers on the steering wheel in tact with the music, had seen him radiate joy when he’d been in his element.

Valtor’s voice was hardly a whisper as his gaze burned into her eyes. “I don’t know. What does your book say?”

Griffin clutched at the pages to keep the book in her lap as she staggered. She’d pushed against the world telling her she was a monster but Valtor had only had the strength to free himself from his abuser, not from the darkness instilled in him as well. “What does your heart say?”

He gave her a soulless chuckle. “Which one? The one I ate or the one that was eaten?” His fingers twitched and closed into his shirt. He had to pry it out of his grip with his other hand to avoid tearing it off to reopen the scar on his chest. “I don’t think either one of them has felt anything good, ever.”

“There’s always a first time, right?” She was a first for him no matter what he said. Their marriage was just a cover but the blade in his hand had been real, and his murderous intent had been as tangible as the shackles on her wrists suppressing her magic. And he’d dropped it before she’d been any use for his mission.

Valtor didn’t say anything but his peace of mind was restored to let him sit back on the bed next to a witch he had to share it with.

#winx club #winx griffin #winx valtor #griffin x valtor #covenshipping #witch x witch hunter au #my wips #my fanfic #wip wednesday #excerpt #snippet #fanfic snippet

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thecrimsonjaguar · 3 years

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A Short List of Adventure Time AUs

So I got a google doc of adventure time aus I’ve made over the past two or three years. Here are some of my favorites (and also the ones I came back to and edited)

If you’ve got ideas for an au or ideas to add onto the preexisting ones I’ve got here, please tell me! I’m always up for some au discussion.

1.) Jermaine AU: Jermaine comes to live at the treehouse after his house blows up. This, unlike canon, happens rather early in season 3. The rest of the series mainly stays the same, except this time there's three brothers instead of two. He's a kinda anxious dude with demon hunting expertise and a painting hobby. He sometimes wonders if he made Dad disappointed by letting all his work explode. Finn and Jake help him out, and he helps them. Despite this, Jermaine is the only one with a brain, and Finn and Jake share exactly one (1) braincell that they trade every so often. Jermaine is tired. (Jermaine is the only one who tries to clean regularly, and he's also the one to keep Neptr, Ancient Psychic Tandem War Elephant, and a few others company. He's a bit of real wisdom the early series Finn and Jake needed.

2.) Melted Ice AU: Mid season two, IK is hit with something that de-ages him. He turns six. Maybe this mystery de-aging thing blows up the top of the ice mountain, who knows. Maybe he wakes up in the snow, with no memory of how he got there or why. No memory of the last one thousand years. Finn and Jake don't know about his backstory since that happens in season three. Simon is carried by a snowman out of the ice kingdom where he breaks down in the plains. Finn, of course, finds him and is ecstatic to meet another human. Completely missing the fact that this small child is, in fact, the Ice King, Finn declares to help this boy no matter what. That promise soon becomes difficult when people hear about the second human in Ooo, and whatever effect that's keeping him young starts to wear off. (Marceline comes to visit and has a heart attack)

3.) Adventure Falls AU: AT x GF baybee!! Seventeen year old Stanley Pines hops on the Stan O' War and sets sail when he's kicked out. Unfortunately, that boat is nowhere near sea worthy, and all it takes for him to go overboard is one sudden (magical) storm. But, miraculously, Stan doesn't die. He washes up on Ooo, the island of misfits. Where there's daddy issues galore and punching things and getting gold is a legitimate career. He's found on the shore by none other than Finn, who asks if he's okay and if a dungeon adventure would soothe his worries. Stan accepts, because that sounds awesome, and they maybe date. For the next ten years, Stanley is a professional hero. He travels with Finn, he lives in a tower with tons of gold, he's respected, adored, and has made a family for himself. Ooo has a habit of forcing traumatic therapy onto to people, so Stan gets (read: is forced) to work his issues out. And then, somehow, he gets a postcard from his brother.

4.) Young Pups AU: Jake's kids grow up fast- but not that fast. He stays with lady for a few episodes being Dad and when the Pups are old enough, go visit Finn and Jermaine. Also Jermaine is there when the pups are born that always bothered me in canon like what the fuck. This whole AU results in Jake the Dad being a better father than in canon, because he actually has time to make mistakes and learn from them. He sometimes shapeshifts into one of those baby carriers but suited for five kids instead of one. Finn and Jermaine fight for best uncle privileges. Finn is considerably more awesome but Jermaine's got magic junk and juicy stories about Jake. So far the votes are: FINN: Jake Jr, T.V. JERMAINE: Kim Kil Whan, Charlie. Viola remains undecided.

4.) Evilgreen AU: Evergreen was evil. His idea to make the crown to stop the comet was actually a cover story to take control of all the elements and freeze everything. Of course the same thing happens here as it did in canon, Gunther gets the crown and wishes to *be* evergreen. This is bad. Very bad, so bad in fact, that things get FUnKy. A couple eons later, Simon gets the crown as per canon, and then things start to slide downhill. Since the crown is significantly worse, Simon tries to get rid of it. No amount of magic pull is going to get him to put on the eldritch hat. It teleports back. When things go to shit, the crown tells him he's got two options: He can either live, or he can live unwillingly. This all coalesces in super angst and mild horror as Simon has to fight off evil urges and somehow keep both he and Marceline safe. Things start looking up, though, when he summons Hunson Abadeer.

5.) Nightmare Therapy AU: Simon, now himself post canon, has some funky nightmares. Problem is: he's due for a visit from the cosmic owl due to some mystical bureaucratic bs. If that were to happen, Simon's dreams of Golb and Orgalorg and the world ending and everyone dying and maze would come true, without the veil of metaphoric junk dreams are known for (also due to bureaucratic bs). So, Simon gets a dream therapist. An OC, probably, that would fight off his nightmares when they came and talk to him about his issues.

6.) High School AU: Except they're all still magic and crap. Finn's a jock that's part of the LDnD club(Literally Dungeons and Dragons), Jake's got a job at a pancake place and hosts the Card Wars clubs on Wednesdays, Jermaine's in college and their parents were still detectives/demon hunters. PB is preppy/nerdy girl with weird fucking family and is absolutely a mad scientist. Marceline is still a demon/vamp (vampire biker gang, they all died, deaths pending) and her uncle is Simon. Simon is a history teacher whose ex wife might be an eldritch abomination (the students wonder, but there are no answers)((simon says cryptic things every so often that are the subject of much ridicule, but he's a nice guy)). Ooo High has all of the AT characters in some shape or form. Tree trunks is the lunchlady, Mr Pig is a janitor. Lemongrab is just there. LSP(Q?) is a teacher because that's hilarious. Hunson is dead along with Marceline's mom because fuck hunson. Magic Man is a hobo that snuck onto campus and can't be chased off (his brother is the superintendent, Glob). there's a lot more but that's for a different word doc.

7.) Back to the Future AU: So PB fucks around with time travel, right? For science. She gets sent back in time a thousand years, before the war. Now, she's a pink lady who can shoot jelly beans from her hands, of course needs to lay low. And of course she needs to get home, but she's in a Futurama situation where she only has one type of time machine; the one that can go into the past. Not to mention her own time machine got busted on her way there, so she's double screwed. But, she remembers something. There is an individual (two, actually) that knows about time travel in this time period. She knows him, and he's likely to help her if she plays her card right. She needs to find Simon and get back to her own time, preferably without dooming herself in the process. (perhaps she tries to steal the notes Simon has, and Simon's completely oblivious, except Betty can smell trouble from a mile away and immediately notices some pink woman trying to steal books and she goes ham. Perhaps she goes ham in such a way that Simon doesn't notice. Perhaps this goes on for seven acts.)

8.) Bread and Butter AU: Bella Noche during the episode Betty creates a huge black cube that engulfs all of Wizard City. This box acts as a cage and prevents Wizards from escaping the magic purge. Simon is unable to bring Betty back from the past, and he's fading fast. In a desperate attempt to stop things from escalating, Simon chugs a bottle of anti-magic like a fucking god. He gets through the cube that surrounds Bella Noche and knocks their lights out. He passes out, and when he comes to, the anti-magic he consumed as merged with him. This is because of a simple rule: Magic sticks to magic, anti-magic sticks to anti-magic. And since humans have always had just a little bit of anti -magic present within them, humans and anti-magic go together like bread and butter (badumtish) ((I have actually written a fanfic about this, you can find it here))

9.) Swapped AU: Through various shenanigans Ice King's and Magic Man's powers gets swapped. These shenanigans somehow land them in space as well. This happens before Magic Man's trial. The swapping of their powers results in Simon getting his memory back. It also gives Magic Man the Ice Crown, unfortunately for him though, it seems to hate him. Simon's glad to back, but quickly realizes one issue: He's still crazy. So the pair try to make it back to Ooo. MM needs his powers to swap himself with some other shmuck so he doesn't croak when his trial comes, but Simon's made it clear he isn't giving his powers up without a fight. The pair starts off rocky, neither trusting the other, but space trouble forces them to work together. Simon's a nice enough guy he wouldn't leave someone to die and MM really needs Simon alive so it works out. A weird friendship forms, and they learn get along. Just a couple of crazy space wizards. Then the crown is destroyed. MM is freed from the crown's control, and he's freed from magic. He gets his sanity back, just in time for his trial.

that’s all I’ve got for now!

#at #adventure time #adventure time au #adventure time aus #Finn the Human #finn #jake the dog #jake #marceline #princess bubblegum #pb #simon petrikov #betty grof #ice king #magic man #au #aus

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salamoonder · 3 years

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a thought regarding the motives of the tomb takers and the mighty nein’s attitude towards them, very generalized and again just a thought so don’t @ me for my imprecision:

i think the m9 hilariously assume both the worst and the best of most of the people they meet; they’re both quick to trust and quick to suspect. they were extremely suspicious of yussa upon initial meeting and have since entrusted him with some of the most powerful and dangerous artifacts they’ve found. they thought the gentleman was extremely suspicious, but they indulged in his hospitality, accepted employment from him and traded important information with him.

i want to highlight obann in their interactions because he was someone that they could pretty easily deem “bad”. when his arc was over, matt mentioned that he was expecting that they either take the path that they did--battle and destruction--or talk to him and convince him of the evil of the angel of irons cult and its connection to tharizdun.

not once did the m9 discuss even the possibility that obann--not even might not be pure evil--but might not want the total destruction of creation, which is presumably what would happen if the angel of irons succeeded in their goals. i’m not at all saying that obann wasn’t absolutely despicable, but i am saying that they didn’t take a moment to consider that he had anything but the motives of a cartoon villain--evil for the sake of evil. they were all surprised when matt revealed that obann had no idea that obann was working for tharizdun. but it makes sense...obann wanted power. you can’t have power if everything you want to have power over had been destroyed. no one in their right mind would further tharizdun’s goals.

anyway. the tombtakers: whenever npcs have asked the mighty nein why on earth anyone would bring back this nightmare abomination eldritch horror of a city, the response has always been that the city has somehow driven them insane. because why would anyone want to bring back the city in their right mind?

here’s the thing: i don’t think the tombtakers are insane. i really don’t think “insanity” is their motive. they don’t act like insane people. and honestly i think the m9 are so convinced of their insanity that they haven’t really dug deeply into the reason why the tombtakers want to bring the city back. like okay i’m not saying the city is good, i’m not saying that they shouldn’t try and stop it, but i do think there’s definitely something deeper going on. maybe lucien’s been promised that he’ll be ruler of the city. maybe there are spells that have been lost to history but are somehow trapped in the city and the tombtakers want to bring back that old magic.

maybe--and i don’t think this is particularly likely but it is my favorite theory that i’ve come up with--the tombtakers are trying to free and restore the souls trapped in the city to their former selves, bring back all the people trapped in bubbles of time, and they see the mighty nein as an arrogant, sinister group of assassins who for some reason are doing their utmost to ensure that the city is never restored...perhaps because they would rather loot the ruins and steal the artifacts, especially the threshold crests, to sell or to use for their own purposes in their own magic.

maybe the m9 are the insane ones and the tombtakers are the liberators.

#the tombtakers #thane watches critical role #the mighty nein #critical role

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aliciadelaplaya · 3 years

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So what should TRF do, exactly?

Yet again there have been almost defeaning calls on SM for TRF to DO SOMETHING about the Sussexes. So, I’d like to address this question, maybe throw in something of a reality check.

Most people should know by now that it is not in HMTQ’s power to remove the Sussex titles. This can only be done by an Act of Parliament, and primary legislation at that.

This means that the “motion” has to be debated by both the House of Commons and House of Lords.

Now, just think for a minute, a debate, in the house of commons, with all those Black Female Labour MPs banging on about removing the titles from the, supposedly, first bi-racial member of TRF. Goodness, if people thought that the Sussexes incoherent and contradictory mud slinging about “conversations” about the colour of Archie’s skin was damaging to TRF, how much worse would it be to hear elected representatives of the British people (however ignorant, biased and downright stupid) accuse TRF of racism in The Mother of Parliaments. Now that would be seriously damaging.

And of course The British Government has far more important things it needs to Parliamentary time for.

Also, there is some sort of notion floating around Social Media that if HMTQ asks Parliament, then it will immediately be given. Anyone who knows anything about the hundreds of years that it has taken the UK to go from an absolute to constitutional monarchy knows damn well that a) HMTQ would never dream of asking and b) HM’s Government would in no way automatically acceed to any request made by the Sovereign.

Some people seem to think that we live in some sort of medieaval kingdom with an all powerful Monarch.

Yet, there are still those who are jumping up and down, calling HMTQ and PC fit to burn because they are “Not Doing Anything”

OK, so put your money where your mouth is?

What should they do?

Exactly.

Go on,

tell us.

What would you do if one of your sons or brothers, daughters or sisters had got themselves ensnared with a dangerous narcissist? When every word of warning, every well-meant piece of advice does nothing more than drive them further into the arms of their addiction.

What would you do if their mental state before they met this person was a matter of family concern and now, far from your care, deaf to your entreaties, was publicly deteriorating to the point that they have become a world-wide laughing stock?

Tell us. What would you do? They are an adult, one who has not been sectioned, free to make their own choices, to lead their own life. They are your family. What do you do?

How exactly are you going to stop him talking about you, spreading lies and gossip? Go on, tell us, we’re dying to know.

What would you do if your beloved family member had made it clear to you that if their spouse leaves them, they will kill themselves? Go on, what would you do?

What would you do if you believed that anything your family did could be the cause of anger on the part of the narcissist and put your loved one in danger. What would you do, exactly, to stop them? Please tell us. There are a lot of people out there who would love to know.

“Cut them off” many people are crying! But that is what we know PC has done, albeit after providing his younger son and his wife with a substantial gift to help set them up in their new lives, as per the Megxit agreement.

Tell the truth about the surrogates? Yes, we would all like that, we know that niether of those children were born of her body, that they are not entitled to a place in the line of succession. Yet, however much we jump up and down and say that TRF is “public property”, the fact is, they too are still entitled to basic human rights, and one of those is privacy. It is not for TRF to tell the truth about the surrogacies, it is not their story to tell. It is for Harry and his wife. One day the truth will come out, it always does. The TRF can not be the ones to let the cat out of the bag. They just can not.

OK, so people jump up and down saying that HMTQ and PC are showing weakness by not responding to all these attacks. So tell us, what exactly would you do? Exactly, what would you have done when?

They said that you don’t own the rights to the word Royal (which is true)? When every single speech that woman made duing lockdown by Zoom has a dig at your family. Would you respond? How? Exactly.

When they set up a photoshoot trampling over war graves, insulting the memories of both the US and the UK fallen? What would you have done to stop it? Go on, do tell?

I can’t be arsed to dig out the list of all the insults, swipes etc that these two have levelled at TRF, HMTQ, PC etc. Geniunely because I’ve forgotten most of them, there have been so many, they have lost their currency, they have been devaluted. Even the massive fall out from the “bombshell” whineathon with OW, was overtaken by more whinging, it’s a deluge. How could the sitatuation have been helped if, as it was rumoured PC wanted to do, each accusation was thoroughly challenged. Can you imagine?

How many of you own or run companies? How many of you have had, in any shape or form had people complain to you about products or services? How many of you have received unjustified/maliciious/ignorant complaints - 100% I would guess. And what is the best way of dealing with these? Do you engage and argue with every minor point, do you want to “win” the argument. Does it make you feel better to win by beating the complainent over the head with your greater wisdom, teaching them a lesson, showing them for the stupid, ignorant people they are? What happens if you engage? It never bloody stops. But if you reply thanking them profusely for the incredible amount of time they have taken to give you feedback, if you thank them for their custom, if you offer them a discount/money back. If you ARE NICE TO THEM. Guess what? THEY HAVE NO WHERE TO GO! NOWHERE. Believe me, I’ve done both and I can tell you hands down which is the most satisfying and, ultimately the most productive in the long term.

The situation is the same here, if TRF engages in any shape or form it will be playing directly into the Narcs playbook and the Sussexes will push back, it will excite them, thrill them, give them power. It will be more fuel for their global whinging and victimhood. It will be more interminable articles in Hello and Page Six (Does anyone read these publications) Look at the few times TRF have pushed back and H has come in, all guns blazing with legal letters (and what happened to all that, we wonder). Have you noticed that since the word got out that TRF were not going to stand by silently, the BS stories about HMTQ having zoom calls with the mythical child, buying waffle makers have stopped?

They are much more careful now when they try to bring HMTQ into their lunacy.

“Love me, hate me, but NEVER ignore me” is the Narcs motto and it will be driving Harry’s wife mad that they have been completely iced and are not rising to their constant baiting. But some of the Megxiteers are. Effectively, the Megxiteers are doing the Sussexes work for them. That sure is some fuel for the narc.

It makes me laugh when the MSM and SM get their knickers in a twist about the latest fuckwittery coming out of Montecito (or whever they don’t live). They want the child to be christened in Windsor with HMTQ present. Don’t make me larff! That is never going to happen. This is absolute kite flying at it’s worst. It’s poking the bear and all these ridiculous Royal Reporters nod their heads and make seemingly wise podcasts about the prospect of this happening (and they can do it with - mostly - straight faces), as if it was actually a possibility when I’d like to think that they, like me, believe that H and his wife have been well and truly iced, they are personas non grata.

When the wife buggered off back to Canada after the Commonwealth service leaving her useless husband to tell more lies on his own, rather than with her at his side, I was convinced then that she will never set foot on these shores again and I stand by that view now as I did then.

So, the latest stick with which the megxiteers have chosen to beat TRF with is that the second child is now on the website as being in the line of succession. Yes, it is an absolute abomination, yes, it offends every fibre of my being, yes I want to expose these two evil hypocrites for this egregregious fraud that they are perpetrating on TRF and the rest of the British people. Of course, like most of you, I want to see justice done, and I want it done NOW. But life isn’t like that. and just as Caesar’s wife has to be above suspision so do our (much loved) RF. Look how we all noticed the careful wording of the Baby congrats on the birth of the second child, they know, we know, but TRF have to play a staight bat, they just have to.

While, in the SM bubble we can all get ourselves wound up, upset, angry, sure that the monarchy will fall etc etc outside, in the real world, most people don’t give a flying fuck about Harry. He’s an idiot, an ex-royal, gone, finished. He is not important either inside or outside TRF.

HE IS IRRELEVANT.

And, if anyone is wondering while all this stuff about book deals is coming out now. I give you this:

The Mail on Sunday appeal - will probably run into next year The Bullying accusations - will probably run into next year. Tom Bower’s book (this is a biggy) - to be published next year?

The Sussexes are aware they are losing popularity, that is why each pronouncement is more and more ludicrous and each Hello article more and more desperate.

The Sussexes are aware they are under attack by forces outside TRF, and they are making their pre-emptive strikes at the low hanging fruit, the soft underbelly of his family.

TRF are doing exactly the right thing. Keep Calm, Carry On and while ignoring them won’t make them go away, it will make them look increasingly ridiculous.

This is true strength, not to rise to the bait, to carry on regardless. Remember our Queen has a strong and deeply held Christian faith, turning the other cheek is part of that, whether we like it or not. TRF should not, under any circumstances sink to the level of Harry and his wife.

Let’s just enjoy the H show for what it is, a mentally unstable ensnared fool doing everything he can to ensure he continues to receive the favours (sexual and otherwise) of the narcissist he married. Because, imho, that is what it’s all about.

Remember the engagement interview. “I hope she loves me as much as I love her”.

Sorry mate, that ship has sailed and nothing, nothing you can do will bring it back.

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disgruntledexplainer · 3 years

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“Salvation cannot be lost; like oh I dropped my salvation.. oh I sinned too much I lost it. News flash: Pro-Tip Salvation wasn’t performance based to begin with! That which cannot be obtained by moral perfection cannot be lost by moral imperfection! It has nothing to do with merit and performance. You don’t drop it, you don’t lose it-“ -Dr. Michael S. Heiser. Thoughts?

Heiser seems to have completely misunderstood the nature of the relationship between faith and works, and thus the very nature of salvation itself. of course works cannot gain you salvation, because that is not how a court works. if a dude paid for five hospitals to be built, but then killed a kid, would his philanthropy justify the murder? Of course not. He would go to court, and if the judge is just he will sentence the murderer to prison, as that is the just punishment for his crime. The only way for this to be avoided is if the family of the deceased decide not to prosecute, an unprecedented act of forgiveness which cannot be earned. That is what salvation is: forgiveness.

so what are works then? works are the outward sign of a penitent heart. Think of Ebeneezer Scrooge from A Christmas Carol. A man who inflicted misery on others through his apathy and greed for decades suddenly one day turns around and starts helping people. Do his works earn him salvation? NO. what they do is they SHOW FORTH HIS DESIRE FOR FORGIVENESS. we know from the story that he has had a change of heart and wants to be forgiven for the evil he did, but that change of heart would have been empty and meaningless if it was not followed up with a genuine desire to make up for what he did.

Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.

Matthew 7:21

NOW WE GET TO "ONCE SAVED ALWAYS SAVED". I LOATH this abomination of a doctrine; it goes beyond the ignorant claim of "faith alone" to become something truly monstrous. It implies that if you are forgiven once, you will stay forgiven, EVEN IF YOU CEASE REPENTING. If the murderer I described before got forgiven. Then he kills again, then asks for forgiveness again, and yet again the family forgives him. and he keeps doing it, each time repenting and each time inexplicably being forgiven. But what if, one day, he says to himself "they already forgave me once, obviously I don't need to ask them for forgiveness again. once forgiven, always forgiven after all!" salvation isn't an automated script which deletes your crimes as you commit them; you must ask, and ask, and ask. we are human. generally speaking this means that we will always sin over and over again, and God in his infinite mercy will always forgive us IF WE ASK WITH FULL INTENT OF MAKING AMENDS.

"ONCE SAVED ALWAYS SAVED" turns God into an automated script which deletes are sins passively as we commit them. It makes Him into a machine rather than a Person. it dehumanizes (dedeifies?) God Himself. It is a blasphemy.

also, as a historian I have a bone to pick with this foul invention of the human mind. This belief is an outgrowth of traditional Calvinist theology which asserts both positive and negative predestination. Do you know what that means? it means people are predestined both to Heaven and to Hell. this is literally the ONLY context in which the phrase "Once saved always saved" is internally consistent. But there are two problems with predestination, one historical and the other theological.

The first problem is that during the age of exploration it was used by protestant groups to justify atrocities. two examples come to mind. First, the original reasoning behind adopting the slave trade in many protestant circles was that if christians are predestined to heaven, then God would not let a true Christian commit a truly evil act (though he may permit them to sin). Obviously, if he can predestine someone to heaven, then he can also predestine them to avoid true evil. but then they saw that members of their own congregations were slave traders and slave owners, and seemed to both be incredibly pious in Church and incredibly cruel at work. They reasoned that God would not let such pious people do such things if they were truly evil, so therefore slavery and slave trade was not evil. this reasoning persisted for some time until sensible protestants like John Brown called bullshit and decided to do something about the hypocrisy. when american protestants originally began attempting to evangelize native americans and the like, they tried for a couple months or so and then just gave up on any given tribe. the reason for this was that the saw that the natives did not convert right away, and so reasoned that they were predestined to hell. they then used this reasoning to justify shoving them off their land to make room for "God-fearing" protestant settlers.

the OTHER issue is specifically with negative predestination. negative predestination means that some people are predestined to hell. this is different from saying that God knew they were going to hell. God knows everything from the beginning to the end of time. rather, negative predestination means that God made some people, actually a very large number of people, and then proceeded to MAKE them go to hell. he DESTINED them to do evil, SET THEM ON THE PATH TO HELL. this is the equivalent of building a sentient robot and programming him to find the nearest meat grinder and throw himself into it. don't get me wrong, God could do this if he wanted to; he can do anything. BUT HE DOESN'T WANT TO BECAUSE THAT WOULD BE SCREWED UP AND DOWNRIGHT EVIL. If God's will defines what is good and what is evil, then God doing something truly evil like this would simply be contrary to his nature.

so yeah, those are my thoughts on that quote and the philosophy that spawned it.

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46ten · 3 years

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curious as to your take on the current debate going on in hamiltonia re: hamilton a slaver vs hamilton not a slaver?

Whew, this is going to be a long answer. Since Jessie Serfilippi’s “As Odious and Immoral A Thing” was first published (I posted a few brief quotes here), likely as part of an ongoing interest in the Schuyler Mansion State Historic Site with the subject of the Schuyler and Hamilton families and slavery (see here for blogposts labeled ‘slavery’ including a couple about AH specifically), there have been three versions of a rebuttal by Michael E. Newton and some people calling themselves Philo (”Love”) Hamilton, one of whom is Doug Hamilton*. The ongoing engagement on this topic also brings up issues of historiography and hagiography.

In this whole discussion there is only one new piece of evidence that Serfilippi has referenced on Twitter but is not part of her article - I’ll get into that below. Everything else is a re-analysis of known and fairly popular sources, so I don’t think going through it point by point would be helpful.

But let’s be clear about something. This discussion around AH is in large part because of this Chernow falsehood: “[f]ew, if any, other founding fathers opposed slavery more consistently or toiled harder to eradicate it than Hamilton.” Chernow also calls AH a “fierce abolitionist” and a “staunch abolitionist” because Chernow doesn’t know what abolitionism is. This lie got tons of mileage with Lin-Manuel Miranda, whose musical character AH may have personal moral defects, but not blind spots as huge and disastrous to a modern audience as a lackadaisical approach to the owning of other human beings. (That Miranda’s approach totally riled some Black artists and scholars is well-known, and I wrote briefly about it here.) Serfilippi’s article doesn’t get the media play it does without the popularity of the abolitionist Founding Father myth that Miranda put on stage. So this conflict and news-cycle interest arose from Chernow’s need to give AH the moral high ground by claiming that he was the best best best abolitionist because Chernow is interested in hagiography, not biography. Unfortunately, Newton-Hamilton seem interested in the same thing.

A brief note on word usage: an enslaver, in most current usage, is defined as someone who participated in any aspect of the slavery enterprise. Considering AH’s undisputed role as money-handler (or the more laughable ‘he was a banker’ assertion in the Newton-Hamilton essay) for members of the Schuyler family acquiring enslaved persons, AH was an enslaver.

In my opinion, on the issue of slavery, AH is damned by his extensive ties from 1780 onwards to the Schuyler family. There’s nothing that can explain away the fact that AH at times lived with, visited, and sent his wife and children for extended stays and to be educated by his slave-owning in-laws. AH did not somehow become innocently involved in slave trading and ownership. Rather, he knew what he was doing when he married into the heavy slave-trading and owning Schuyler family and when he engaged in business acts for that family, including helping them to acquire/sell enslaved persons. These were morally weighty - and abominable acts, argued even in his day - and he did them anyway. There is not any record that remains that he had a problem having his children reared within an abhorrent system/household where people were enslaved and served them; in fact, given the number of times he sent his children to his father- and mother-in-law’s home for extended periods, it could be suggested he found nothing morally objectionable going on there. Philip Hamilton even thanked his enslaver grandfather for his advice on how to “be a good man.” P. Schuyler’s wealth and trading was through the slavery economy. Moreover, AH’s economic concerns were also inextricably tied to slavery - keep in mind that every mention of tariffs on sugar is connected to the slave trade. Almost everything led back to that evil institution.

During AH’s lifetime, a number of white AND Black persons articulated that all enslaved Black and Indigenous persons should be freed, that the practice of enslavement was a grave moral failing. AH was well-informed enough to know that Black Americans were articulating how freedom should be applied to them - indeed, many of the manumission policies of the original states arose from these efforts. So AH was fully aware of the arguments. (His son was involved!) Maybe this helped inspire him and his slave-owning friends and political colleagues to form the NY Society for Promoting the Manumission of Slaves, although none of this group agreed to give up their own enslaved persons as part of the organization of this group.

Or, as Newton-Hamilton audaciously state, “[AH] was more involved in building a nation” sotto voce based on enslavement and racial distinction than he could be bothered to care about the lives of enslaved people. This shouldn’t be a surprise when it comes to AH’s major moral failings/blind spots - he didn’t care about the lives of the people affected by his whiskey tax either. If one wants to nevertheless call this a “good man,” we’re probably looking at each other from across a void.

But this is well-trod territory. Several articles post-Chernow have evaluated and summarized positions on AH and slavery that I share:

“Hamilton's position on slavery is more complex than his biographers' suggest. Hamilton was not an advocate of slavery, but when the issue of slavery came into conflict with his personal ambitions, his belief in property rights, or his belief of what would promote America's interests, Hamilton chose those goals over opposing slavery. In the instances where Hamilton supported granting freedom to blacks, his primary motive was based more on practical concerns rather than an ideological view of slavery as immoral. Hamilton's decisions show that his desire for the abolition of slavery was not his priority.” Michelle DuRoss, “Somewhere in Between: Alexander Hamilton and Slavery,” Early American Review, 2011 [part 1, part 2]

“But it does illustrate something that his primary modern biographers have been reluctant to concede: Hamilton routinely subordinated his antislavery inclinations to other family and political concerns, and he did not ever approach even a modest level of engagement on the issue in his otherwise voluminous published works.” Phil Magness, “Alexander Hamilton’s Exaggerated Abolitionism,” 2015

“He was not an abolitionist...[h]e bought and sold slaves for his in-laws, and opposing slavery was never at the forefront of his agenda.” Annette Gordon-Reed, “Correcting ‘Hamilton’,” Harvard Gazette, 2016.

Serfilippi extends this:

When those sources are fully considered, a rarely acknowledged truth becomes inescapably apparent: not only did Alexander Hamilton enslave people, but his involvement in the institution of slavery was essential to his identity, both personally and professionally.

I have no objection to her statement. We simply have no record of AH strongly challenging the institution of slavery, while several of his colleagues and friends most certainly did. Instead, we have the financial transactions, the possible use of enslaved labor, and the possible ownership of enslaved persons, alongside his strong personal, professional, and political ties to owners of enslaved persons. And the new evidence: the inclusion of the following in a list of persons dead of Yellow Fever in NYC 1798, “Hamilton Alexander, major-general, the black man of, 26 Broadway” An Account of the Malignant Fever, Lately Prevalent in the City of New-York, 1799. We cannot know if this was an enslaved man or a free Black man who lived and labored for the Hamiltons, but it should eliminate anyone confidently stating that the Hamiltons did not own enslaved persons.

Thus, Serfilippi has successfully accomplished at least one important goal: bringing to the forefront the names (as we have them) of persons, servant or enslaved, connected to the Hamiltons.

I wrote above that part of the problem here is hagiography. If his concern is with the truth, I certainly look forward to Newton’s chapter-by-chapter repudiations of books written by Chernow, Brookhiser, and Knott on AH and the AH/GW relationship.This leads to the second issue that has arisen: the unprofessional, and frankly gross, glee in trying to punch down on a young female scholar. In my own field (an ex-partner is a military historian so I’ll speak for their field too), the approach when one believes a colleague is publishing in error and one has additional information that could illuminate the issues is to contact them and seek to work together to analyze and draw conclusions. Newton and the anonymous Love Hamilton clan didn’t treat Serfilippi as if she were deserving of this respect. Moreover, Newton has never, to my knowledge - and I purchased his books! - gone this hard after Chernow, who certainly deserves it even more.

But Newton-Hamilton betray their own concerns here: “Considering the era in which Hamilton lived, the challenges he faced, and his accomplishments, it is not difficult to understand why Hamilton did not make opposition to slavery his primary focus. His attention was on building a nation.” And what kind of nation was that? At the Constitutional Convention, AH’s lengthy speeches on the formation of the government have been recorded. There is no record of him offering any statements about the slavery issue, unlike his friend Gouverneur Morris.

Newton-Hamilton continue: “Unfortunately, that meant neglecting other important matters, not just slavery but also his own financial well-being.” Wow, a comparison is made between AH’s personal finances and the ownership of human beings. Could these authors be any clearer that the slavery issue is an inconvenience that they are ultimately unconcerned about? I’m unsure if Newton-Hamilton realize just how gross their attempt at addressing this issue has been, and that it’s hard to take their interpretation and analysis of the evidence seriously when these are the kinds of statements making their way into the rebuttal essays.

Now there is an interesting discussion about how even later abolitionists did not see a conflict in the employment of enslaved labor, but that too isn’t something that Newton-Hamilton show interest in. Instead, their approach seems to be that AH needs to be celebrated at all costs, and thankfully, those days are passing into history.

*It’s ridiculous that a group of people have given themselves a stupid pseudonym to avoid attaching their actual names to a so-called scholarly article. And I’m aware that I’m writing this anonymously, but on tumblr where maybe 5 people have made it to the end of this (I’m not publishing it on my real blog).

**I will not link it, but it can be found on Newton’s blog discoveringhamilton.

#Alexander Hamilton #Chernow #slavery #Philip Schuyler #Michael E. Newton #Serfilippi #historiography

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virlath · 4 years

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DA4 speculation on red lyrium

Yes I have even more thoughts on those three images, what of it.

So, we know from DAO that lyrium grows in the fade. It even manifests in reality in the circle tower quest, on the third level no less, because the veil is thin (well close to non existent there).

Knowing what we know now, this seems to be some pretty dark foreshadowing for DA4.

In DAI, we encounter a lot of red lyrium in the fade. I know many people have suggested the red lyrium is a manifestation, but I disagree. I think it’s real and it is growing far worse in the fade unchecked, possibly because the corruption dates back to a time when the elven empire was dependent on lyrium to sustain itself.

Is it not strange that most of the red lyrium we find in the physical world has been intentionally grown and reproduced (eg. Emprise Du Lion and the Storm Coast) or where there has been death (thus affecting the veil)?

The only place we see an abundance of red lyrium without much human intervention is at the Temple of Sacred Ashes.This is significant because this is where the breach was first opened.

When you first get to the temple in DAI, Varric is confused as to how the red lyrium got there:

“You know that stuff is red lyrium, Seeker"

“I see it, Varric”

“But what’s it doing here?”

“Magic could have drawn on lyrium beneath the temple, corrupting it..”

The temple is on a mountain, which could indicate a titan and abundance of normal lyrium, so Solas may still be correct (also note he suggests it was magic from the anchor that caused the corruption!!!) However, I think the main reason why the temple is so overrun with red lyrium is because the corruption came through the breach.

The temple features some pretty massive lyrium veins close in size and shape to the ones from the fade. It’s also interesting to note the rocks at the temple glow green like the fade as well (similar to the crossroads too, incidentally) - right alongside these shards of red lyrium.

I think the simple fact that lyrium can manifest from the fade in reality is significant, because if the veil was destroyed by Solas in DA4 (looking very likely at this point), it means red lyrium from the fade could easily manifest into the physical world.

This could explain why we see an abundance of red corruption above ground in the teaser images- because red lyrium has manifested from the fade into the physical world (not the other way round).

The veil is seemingly destroyed (see the green in the sky), and the flesh sacs are eerily similar to the demon growths we saw in DAO’s circle tower quest, indicating demons and abominations to come.

This is why I’m hesitant to believe that pulsating mass we saw in that DA4 teaser is in fact a titan heart. Not only is the corruption and mass above ground inside a castle, the flesh sacs all lead to this central, pulsating mass that looks corrupted, scorched, and molten (like it’s been through a fire?). Those red tendrils in the teaser may look like deep mushrooms, but they also look like the lyrium veins we see in DAO.

Considering the fact demons and abominations arose from similar fleshy growths in DAO, the fact so much red corruption is found in the fade, and the fact these growths lead to the “heart”, it seems to me like the pulsing mass is actually the precursor to a super demon or corrupted being about to emerge into the physical world.

The mass has a likeness to the red lyrium idol as well, which we know is integral to Solas’ plans (based off TN). Could this be what Solas has been planning all along or is this something else, maybe a mage’s ritual gone wrong?

It’s worrying enough that Solas is dabbling with the idol in itself, but he’s also clearly got limited options with his orb destroyed (he is a means to an ends kinda person after all).

I don’t believe the idol even forms a part of his veil destruction plans, because from TN we see that he has already started the ritual and it will take several years to complete. Rather, I think the idol has more to do with his plans for the imprisoned gods, of which we are still completely in the dark as to what he intends.

I wrote in a previous post about some potential symbolism with Mythal and demons from DAO in the circle tower. Knowing Bioware planned a whole lotta stuff in DAO for future games, and the fact that Mythal herself says she *and* the world were betrayed, what are the chances she has a personal stake in the blight itself?

Often in stories, especially fantasy (think LOTR which DA is heavily inspired by), the hero needs to defeat evil with something that is in direct opposition to it- something to cleanse and purify/nullify. What if in this case the scenario was reversed?

We already know Dagna was able to nullify Samson’s red lyrium armour using red lyrium fashioned into a rune.

What if Solas intends to harness this very same corruption, something he clearly abhors, in an attempt to stop the blight / deal with the false gods for good, thereby losing himself in the process?

The imagery of him in the mural and even his tarot cards show him with red eyes...which is foreboding in itself.

I just have so many questions.

If red lyrium is growing out of control in the fade, how long has it been spreading and what triggered it’s growth in the first place? Keep in mind no one even noticed this variant of lyrium for thousands of years in the physical world, up until Hawke and co. found the idol. Then after the breach, pockets of red lyrium began appearing everywhere.

Is this why Solas has finally decided to act after observing world events for so long- because the idol is out in the wild? Or is it that his home, the fade which he loves so much, is increasingly being overrun by red lyrium and will soon be entirely blighted if he doesn’t take action?

The circular logic is what gets me about Solas’ plans - they’re clearly genocidal, but he also says in TN he is “saving the world”. If he hadn’t given his orb to Corypheus, would there still be red lyrium everywhere in Thedas? Or does his personal responsibility go back to ancient elvhenan, when he personally helped control a lyrium mine which was eventually collapsed due to the “evanuris’ greed”?

Is this why he feels like he must do what he “must” - because he is in part responsible for the blight? Or because he has the best chance of stopping it- before the world falls to it?

#dragon age #da4 #dai #dao #red lyrium #demons #the blight #mythal #solas #da theories #drabble

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