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#i think my desire for them stems from a fear of forgetting and a fear that i’ll never actually be fully present and real
thecatslug · 11 months
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So I was wondering if you had to give your Strahd a personality trait, ideal, bond, and flaw in the style of the 5e system what would it be? The one's in 5e's Van Richten's Guide don't feel right but also don't feel fully wrong. Idk.
Intriguing question! I’m not a huge fan of the 5e I/B/F system, but here’s my best shot at the biggest ones;
Ideal: Pragmatism (Lawful Evil)
Traditional Morality can be a stumbling block to practical solutions. It is better to be ‘evil’ when necessary than to fail when it matters most.
Ideal #2: Honor Thy Word (Lawful)
You are nothing without your word. Keep the promises you make unless broken by the other party (e.g., thieves forfeiting his protection; War Against Azalin ch. 6).
Bond: I am the Land
After spending his life fighting for Barovia and literally bonding himself to the land (I, Strahd ch. 2 | WAA ch. 6), Barovia is rather important to him. Though he may not show it conventionally, he does care about the place in his own twisted way. He will go to exceedingly unhinged lengths (WAA ch. 14) to protect Barovia and its people when it is truly threatened in his eyes.
Flaw: Psychopathy Under Duress
In times of desperation or extreme stress, the emotions’ of others are no longer logically factored into decision making to the point of basically forgetting anyone has or is swayed by them.
Flaw #2: The Challenger
It takes considerable willpower to not call people out, rise to a debate (WAA ch. 6), or to a challenge of authority.
Flaw #3: Tactless
Though he tries his best, he has little to no true tact in matters of emotion or the heart.
Flaw #4: Goddamn Nerd
It is difficult to fully resist launching rambling philosophical discussion on a topic he finds intriguing (WAA ch. 6).
Flaw #5: Mental Instability
From clear and clinically delusional obsessions (e.g., Tatyana) to chronic depression and executive functioning deficits- he is hardly a picture of stability. Overall, mental illness has had likely the most detrimental impact on his behavior, decision making, and life in general- and will continue to kneecap him for, well, eternity.
{I slapped in some source notes on where I’ve drawn specific points from, but everything here is, at its core, sourced from his novels!}
For those nerdy souls that clicked on the “read more” thing, hi! Good to see y’all!
I wanted to add a quick point on how I usually notate his (and most of my NPCs’) personality traits, because why not.
Myers Briggs (MBTI) -> describes a person’s style of cognitive functioning/processing which impacts how they solve problems and see the world (Strahd is an INTJ. He is introverted, logic driven yet intuitive, and skilled in taking the bigger picture of a situation, analyzing it, and implementing often out of the box solutions based off of his analysis. INTJs tend to wax philosophical at times and have an essential drive for knowledge as well. Emotions and social graces, however, are tossed out the window.)
(Just read War Against Azalin if you’re skeptical. His crackhead plan to save Barovia and chapters of philosophical musing are evidence enough. If you think he’s an extrovert, read I, Strahd and tell me if chucking letters at people in bat form to avoid social interaction is extroverted behavior.)
Enneagram -> describes a person’s core desire and the fears they stem from (Strahd is an enneagram 8 wing 9, protecting himself though controlling his own life is his core desire, fear of being harmed or controlled by others is his core fear. However, he can reign in overt aggression when needed, opting for long term vindictiveness and more manipulative shows of dominance all while being about as extroverted as a potato- hence the 9 wing.)
Vampire: The Masquerade Roads and Paths system -> Great inspiration for describing lawful evil character “moral codes”. LE characters have their own rigid moral codes which I try to write out. VtM’s Road/Path system gives some good ideas on what those can look like, and how certain “ideals” may rate in a hierarchy of importance. (I borrow inspiration from some tenants of Road of Kings: Path of the Tyrant to notate his core values).
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koinohnia · 6 months
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Is it true love
Whenever I see something lustful or sexually immoral on social media, I just think it is a cheap lie and a false sense of affection. It’s people trying to survive through a false ideal of self-worth. But true love isn’t that way. True love fulfills because it stems from the one who is eternal, and we’ll never find what we are looking for through selfish living. A person will never experience love by believing there is hope in lustful thinking. It’s so passing, but unbelievers don’t realize how passing it is. It’s all they know. The lust of the eyes, of the flesh, pride of life is all passing away. But the one who does God’s will abides forever.
When you live in His will and you build a healthy relationship through Jesus, it bears the fruits of righteousness and righteousness has emotions. The heart of His love produces healthy emotions that last, feelings that grow into something even more amazing. But when your heart let’s the world teach you that believing lust is good, lust may carry feelings but the core is self-serving, human, and those emotions don’t last.
People will lie to you and tell you they love you and tell you everything they want you to hear but their heart is bound by lustful desire.
A man who truly loves you will marry you, not just sleep with you, not just want you in the moment then forget about you. He’ll give you his life, not just his words. So if you want to find out if your man is truly in love with Jesus, ask him to marry you first before you sleep with him. Ask him to lay his life down for you, to give you his life to love you like Christ loves the church.
Jesus was bold and courageous enough to make a covenant with us. He broke bread. He shed His blood. His gave His body for us. He never questioned if we were worth it to Him. He never let our sins affect His faithfulness, and His faithful love drew us into repentance and change. So when you marry, you don’t marry to expect perfection or flawless from them. You marry to love them as Jesus loved you, and that love will keep them and cause them to mature.
But so often because we think with lust, we focus on all things temporary. God wants us to marry in holiness and live with a renewed mind. Being holy doesn’t mean human perfection. Holiness is living by the faith of Jesus who makes us holy. It’s living set apart because of the word that He gave us, the commands to honor His word above our own experiences. God honors Jesus above Christ’s experiences in the world. That is His Holiness. He never let Jesus’ suffering change His view of His Son. The Son never let the sins of the world change His view of the Father. Jesus kept Himself in the Father no matter what challenges life brought about.
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Reverencing Him and not letting any other worldly attraction take His place and become your wisdom and light.
It is possible to live pure, holy lives. It is not impossible to believe. It is not impossible to live sanctified and with a pure heart before God and live free from masturbation and pornography. No one is doomed to sexual sin or fornication unless they want to be by choosing to believe so. I don’t have to cheat on my gf/wife and look at other women with lust. I don’t have to have that heart when my heart could be His and belong to the word of Christ and know true love and fulfillment. I don’t have to live my days insecure and objectified and lonely, trying to find my value through this world when the blood and death of Jesus exposes my value to God.
God loves me, deeply and consistently. He wants me and always wants relationship with me. When I believe and receive His love in its fullness, I can selflessly love others more. My spouse, my family, friends. Nothing can separate me from the love of the Father demonstrated by what Christ did unless I believe another spirit, another teaching, another doctrine that doesn’t align with the Spirit of Christ. And I’m lead astray by religion.
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foggyparadisecandy · 3 months
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I've come to understand there are two fundamental relationship desires for people:
Authentic Connection
Independence and Autonomy
And in healthy people, those things are kept in a good balance.
I'm not a healthy person lol.
I'm an anxious person and I double-down on Connection and struggle with Independence.
It's funny because, in general, I have my shit together. I have a very successful life by most measures. I think most people would be super jealous of my life tbh.
But I have dysfunctions handed down to me by my parents. It's a hell of a thing but my big core fears are:
Fear of abandonment
Fear of rejection
Those are pretty closely aligned by slightly different.
[BTW - Anxious Attachments have a few other fears including:
Fear of being unsafe without a relationship (btw - this triggers actual survival threats when Anxious people feel a relationship is severing - happened to me!), Fear of not being good enough, Fear of being excluded, Fear of being seen as bad (which for me, ties closely into fear of rejection and creates People Pleasing tendencies in me).]
Fear of abandonment is the overwhelming concern that a loved one or friend will just ... up and leave me. It's a shutting down of future possibilities. It's a closure to whatever form of connection and love I was receiving.
It's why ghosting and blocking hurt me so awfully. I mean ... yeah ... no one likes to be ghosted or blocked. But for me? It hits that core wound of "I'm no longer able to get love from this other person. Who will validate my existence now?"
Fear of rejection is the overwhelming concern that a loved one or friend will not agree with me or that I will make them unhappy. Then, they will figure out that I'm not worthy of them. It's the idea of "I'm not worthy of them unless I please them and make them happy - and forget my own opinions because I don't want them to reject me."
This fear triggers the "I am bad" negative self-talk track that further deepens the other fears. It's a shit cycle to get into, let me tell you.
Look - both of those things are fucked up. But if you struggle with these things, there is hope.
A fundamental path to healing stems from improving self-esteem. Being ok with yourself. Being ok with being your own biggest supporter. Being kind to yourself.
Dial back on the Authentic Connections a bit and pump up the Independence and Autonomy a bunch (depending on HOW anxious you are this might be a whole lot of work).
Feel good with feeling good doing things for yourself, by yourself.
These are things I'm working on. I have good days. I have backwards days.
But general progress is forward.
I'm kind of fortunate - I'm only somewhat Anxious - I already lean heavily to being a Secure person. So I see that I have work but a lot of the core pieces are already in place.
My separation triggered both rejection and abandonment (several times over lol) so that made me lean heavily Anxious for the last few months. But I'm getting back to stability pretty fast.
I feel that deeply as a truth. It's not words I'm saying to convince myself.
I still care deeply about establishing Authentic Connections ... that won't go away. But I'm also feeling pretty damn good with Independence and Autonomy again.
Will the two fundamental relationship desires ever be in pure balance for me?
Will I ever heal those two core fears?
Maybe not completely. But now that I understand myself better, I have a better chance of course-correcting and avoiding getting completely out of balance.
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blind-alchemists · 2 years
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Inquisition’s Codex on Pride Demons
Spoilers for: Tevinter Nights
I recently dug into blind playthroughs of DA:I on Youtube (an extremely funny activity, I promise you) and came across a guy who – in an effort to rp’ his character properly – reads all codex entries in the game. All of them. Without fault.
Anyway, after the prologue he read the one on Pride Demons and I immediately thought, ‘huh, that’s interesting; I wonder if it’s deliberate’. Like Mother Giselle saying the Chantry teaches that pride is evil. (I posted about it.)
The Codex entry in question:
The most powerful demons yet encountered are the pride demons, perhaps because they, among all their kind, most resemble men; as clever and manipulative as the desire demon, with a penchant for cruel irony that is almost human. While the demons of desire largely engage in the bribery of mortals, pride will use mortals' own best nature against them. Clever men outwit themselves. Strong men crush themselves. Humble men forget themselves. Jealous men fear themselves. They turn corruption and ruin into an art.
[source]
See? It’s interesting; a bit of a shame this is only a Codex Entry.
Anyway, let’s start taking it apart.
The most powerful demons yet encountered are the pride demons,
For one, there is the first part about pride demons being the most powerful (yet). I never really thought about it until now (or until I started my Nightmare playthrough), because the first boss Inquisition throws at you is a pride demon and on lower difficulties, it’s a joke – but looking back at Mother Giselle’s comment (“We teach that pride is evil”), it’s curious, especially if you take into consideration what roles Pride demons have played in earlier games. (Merill’s companion quest comes to mind.)
I’m not denying that Pride Demons may have the standing they have in the hierarchy of strong demons because of the Chantry’s teachings: Much in the Fade is about believing in something, so many people believing Pride demons to be the strongest will obviously give them a huge buff. On the other hand, it’s reasonable to me to assume Pride has always been a strong form of corruption and thus makes strong demons.
I could get into ‘Pride is one of the Worst of the Seven Deadly Sins & the writers obviously borrowed a shit ton from Christianity, so That Has Implications’ but …
(There is a quote I found when re-checking some facts: “It was Pride that changed angels into devils; it is humility that makes men as angels.” (St. Augustine), and Solas being set-up as being prideful in this context of the Sin Of Pride & Chantry = Christianity specifically makes me fear for the turn DA4 will take, and, … no, I’ll already said I’m not opening this can of worms.)
Anyway! Moving on.
perhaps because they, among all their kind, most resemble men;
It’s an icky part. Don’t the other demons and forms of corruption not also resemble humanity? Desire, Sloth, Despair, Rage, Fear, Terror? I’d argue all of these are more often – and deeply – part of human nature than pride is, but maybe that’s just the Christian Influence. (I think some of the writing has also been pushing ‘All Mages Are Arrogant’ narrative too much, especially with the Evanuris, since everything needed for setting up an interesting plot point featuring religious arrogance stemming from fundamentalism is right there, but I digress.)
Another interpretation is that “most resemble men” part is related to the way they act and think. While I do think every demon has some capacity for communicating, especially with mages, Desire and Pride have been shown to be the most “human-like” in that regard. Meaning, high intelligence that allows them to propose deals or try to divide people. Outside of Inquisition, at least; I think a quest involving such a demon would have done some small wonders for the plot.
as clever and manipulative as the desire demon, with a penchant for cruel irony that is almost human.
Now we’re getting to the parts that I find most interesting. Note the traits mentioned here: clever, manipulative, and cruel irony. Note also the comparison to Desire demons. And note the ‘almost human’ part (when has cruel irony ever been not human?).
Trickster archetypes are often set-up as clever and manipulative; I already said in another post that Solas, himself, doesn’t fit that. The Evanuris made him look like he did.
Sure, he’s clever, and maybe you could argue a good case for him being manipulative to some degree because he lies by omission and makes the Inquisition think he’s some he’s not, but I don’t think this part is necessarily about that: It is more about the nature of Pride.
Which doesn’t bode well for the future of Solas’ arc, since the following paragraph in the codex says this:
While the demons of desire largely engage in the bribery of mortals, pride will use mortals' own best nature against them. Clever men outwit themselves. Strong men crush themselves. Humble men forget themselves. Jealous men fear themselves.
Personally, I’m a big supporter of the ‘the greatest enemy you’ll ever face is yourself’ narrative because I have found it to be true. In the same breath, ‘your greatest strength could become your greatest flaw / your greatest flaw could become your greatest strength’ is an engaging way of setting up characters: Having a deep trust in the people you care for is a great strength … until you become so blind you deny their misdeeds, flaws, crimes, etc. Similarly, never trusting anyone at all is terrible for cooperating … until the new member of your group is a spy and you avoid getting your team killed because you never trusted the newbie to begin with.
In the context of DA:I, this takes on an especially interesting turn in the narrative. Through Solas, we know that Wisdom can be corrupted into Pride. Now, putting aside whether you think Solas is a spirit of Wisdom who took a body or not, the man’s name still means “pride”.
And while there is nothing wrong with being proud, Solas looking for the Red Lyrium Idol when he knows how much it’s going to fuck him up is a clear-cut sign of being arrogant. In DA:I, he’s shown himself to be wise and knowledgeable and reasonable, especially in the one banter with Dorian where he says Elvhenan wasn’t any less innocent than Tevinter.
He has also never been boastful about his abilities as a mage (mostly, anyway). But Pride, as the Codex Entry says, will use people’s best nature against them: Solas may think himself wise and knowledgeable and reasonable, and he may think he knows the dangers of Red Lyrium well enough, but despite knowing it’s going to fuck him up, he’s still going to use it. (He’s not happy about it – “I’d rather not have you see what I become” – but this is his regret about the lack of other options since his orb broke; this is not acknowledging that his pride makes him think he could handle it.)
It comes also down to what you interpret his motivations as, and what you think he’s going to do. I believe there is also an element of desperation to his actions, but, ultimately, he is named “Pride” and that will be his downfall.
(I know I said I’m not going there but: In Christian mythology, Lucifer is turned into a fallen angel because of his pride. It is, literally, his downfall. I can guarantee you Solas’ story will show parallels indicating his pride will ruin him – whether it is through the corruption of the Red Lyrium, or whether it is because he’ll fail to tear down the Veil as he imagines it, or whether it is because he has failed to consider the horrors that come after abolishing the Evanuris’ prison I can’t say. I can just guarantee you he will fuck up even more than he did when he raised the Veil and that’s what will cause regret to eat him alive.)
They turn corruption and ruin into an art.
There’s not much I have to say about this except that it’s kind of funny. Kind of, because Solas is an artist and if anyone knows how to turn something into art, it should be the painter.
But it’s also tragic because it’s not going to be one of his murals/frescoes that’ll show his corruption; it’s going to be Solas himself.
I don’t think corruption and ruin is an art form, and I don’t believe there is anything artistic about it; I think it’s just an allegory. Maybe also a little hint and nudge towards the elf named “Pride” who has a hobby of painting in-game, like his line about the Dalish chasing him away due to superstition and the jawbone of a wolf and his excessive knowledge about things no ordinary Dreamer or elf could know.
The breadcrumbs were there; we just didn’t think about picking them all up because what were the chances we’d get a supposed god as a companion? (In all fairness, DA:I being such a vast game where you can spend +30hs avoiding the main plot didn’t help putting all these subtle leads together.)
TL;DR: The Codex entry holds several interesting clues about Pride demons and, further, the nature of Pride (as a form of corruption). Applying that to Solas, though, makes his future arc in DA4 look very grim.
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doomshroomed · 11 months
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Have to drop some ask game questions for Domi!! Ewe is so sweet i love her sm <3
1. Are they from Sandrock? If not, where were they born? 3. Which city state would they most like to visit, and why? 6. What’s their opinion on the Church of the Light? 10. What’s their house like? Is it well decorated? Do they take pride in their home or let it get messy? 19. What’s their favourite season? 24. Free space! Feel free to ramble about anything regarding them you can think of :>
HI THANK YOU SO MUCH 🥺 i love these questions
1. Are they from Sandrock? If not, where were they born? Domi was born in Highwind! She follows the builder blueprint (hehe) pretty closely so she moved to Sandrock as a builder :)
3. Which city state would they most like to visit, and why? Tallsky! It sounds beautiful for starters but also Mi-an is from there… it’d love to visit her family someday.
6. What’s their opinion on the Church of the Light? Ewe’s pretty apathetic for the most part. On one hand ewe can understand the fear it stems from and the desire to stay away from the dangerous technology that brought about the downfall of the world centuries ago, but on the other hand it might not hurt to explore it in a safe way.
10. What’s their house like? Is it well decorated? Do they take pride in their home or let it get messy? (ok ingame her house is a bit all over the place bc im lazy so im just going to answer this how it Would be in an ideal world <3) It’s fairly minimalistic and simple but with cute ornaments strewn about! She treasures any and all gifts and loves to decorate with them. Things do tend to get a little messy as she’s always busy and often forgets to take care of herself, nevermind her home, but it’s a well-loved space.
19. What’s their favourite season? Spring! It doesn’t do well in the freezing cold but summer is too hot for it (especially summer in Sandrock). Sandrock’s spring is a nice temperature :) 
24. Free space! Feel free to ramble about anything regarding them you can think of :> (typing this after i answered I kinda just rattled off some fun facts/elaborated on things i stuck on her builder sheet but >:) hehe THANK U..)
Domi frequents Fang’s clinic as ewe suffers from bad stress headaches. It’s something that ewe just has to live with and ewe refuses to let it get in the way of ewe’s job. Ewe always has ibuprofen on hand incase a headache hits while ewe’s out and about.
She has autism (bc i also have autism so all my ocs are autistic by default <3) and goes nonverbal occasionally! It’s usually brought on by dealing with too many people at once but sometimes it just happens. She tries to avoid people in order to let herself recharge but if she has to run errands she’ll bring a notepad and pen with her so she can write to talk :) Her Sandrock pals are all used to this (especially fang you cannot tell me that man does not have autism and doesnt also go nonverbal. he totally gets it) and are accommodating!
It writes poetry in the evening to wind down before it sleeps. It’s shy about sharing it with anyone but it’s written Mi-an, Nia and Heidi love letters with poetry in them so they’ve seen them :)
Speaking of women. I know we don’t have Nia in Sandrock yet but Domi’s endgame is polydating Mi-an, Nia and Heidi! Mi-an and Nia live with ewe and are also dating each other (i think they’d be cute) while Domi is dating Heidi by herself :) I also know this won’t be possible ingame but I’m quietly hoping someone makes a polymod 🤞
Domi’s Nemo is named Muffin! She also has a Palomino horse named Vanilla and a white horse named Marshmallow (i think i had to name it smth like mallow ingame bc marshmallow wouldnt fit but its meant to be called marshmallow hehe). I would really like her to have a goat as well…pwease Pathea🥺
It’s weirdly lucky and the four leaf clover necklace is one of its most treasured accessories!
Domi and Nia had a mutual crush on each other for years but never addressed it until Domi moved to Sandrock and realised just how much ewe missed her. Ewe then fell in love with Mi-an and Heidi too and things got confusing but everything was discussed and they’re cool with ewe being poly <3 Mi-an also fell in love with Nia so she got Two !!! girlfriends #lovewins
Domi looooooooooves Logan (platonically. she is a lesbian) they’re besties and really close. When he asked her to take care of Andy she practically adopted the little guy (she loves andy a lot too btw).  I don’t have anything else to add yet since he’s not in town but it felt important to mention
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emmyrosee · 2 years
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gosh, im so happy u reblogged the character bingo I've been dying to send u him. the man. the myth. the fattest ass in the family. miya osamu.
THE WHOLE ASS, THE LOVE OF MY L I F E🤤
(As you can see I got very excited for this HA-)
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Also I stole this format for explaining from my lOVE @meloomi I hope you don’t mind! 🥺💍
If they were real I would marry them: even aside from all my posts and my memes for Osamu, I genuinely feel like he’d just be an amazing husband. He understands insecurities about feeling inadequate or not enough *cough* atsumu u bITCH, he works hard, literally opened a restaurant, and I just… like he’d be such a good husband, give him tO ME-
They’re like a blorbo to me: assuming I know what blorbo means (which I probably don’t LMAO), there’s just constantly a song or scenario where he’s the star, and it does bring me plenty of motivation and excitement to introduce him to said scenarios and make it reality
They’re deeper than they seem: going back to the first part, I feel like the insecurity piece is just. So real. Yes, he was liked among his peers, people said he was better than Atsumu at VB, but nothing hurts worse than being told you’re not good at something, than by your own twin, who’s been by you since day one. All that comparison, yet still not approved by his brother. And I feel like that really stuck with him, and now that his brother is this successful player? Come on. That must sting
I like them enough to project my own issues onto them: lmao pls see above HA- also if you’ve read any of my osamu angst, or even some of my fluff? Those very much stem from a place of MY insecurities, or from a place where Osamu’s love and playfulness is something I so desire to have, but fear I may never get the chance to.
I want to carry them in a handbag like a tiny dog: uhm he’s the literal cutest and I’d take him everywhere. If he were real and he were my man, I’m flaunting you EVERYWHERE dawg
I’m mentally ill about them: again, assuming this means what I think it means, I’m an absolute wreck over him. He plagues my dreams and heroes my nightmares. I can conjure any scenario and stick him in it, hence why he’s my most frequented character. If there’s an idea I like and I can’t think of anyone else, I known darn well Osamu is a perfect fit, and more often than not, I HAVE to find someone else bc otherwise, everything I write would be for samu, I’m just. Like stop plaguing me sir, I’m already in love with a fictional character what more can I give-
They work better as a dynamic: even in the manga and the anime, him and atsumu were together. They were the OTHER freak duo, that twin telepathy is real yo. I also feel like he just doesn’t like to do things alone; he loves having support, be it from his teammates, his mom, tsumu, anyone who’s on his sideline (let’s not forget that scene where him and Atsumu practically beg for kita to keep his approval for them oh my GOD I CANNOT SOMEONE BURN ME ALIVE-)
They’ve never done anything wrong in their life <3: and you caNT CONVINCE ME OTHERWISE-
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wolint · 3 months
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FRESH MANNA
WHAT'S YOUR EXCUSE
Exodus 3:11-4:14
If we consider it carefully, we'd realise that most of us can list why we can’t serve God, work effectively, go where he wants us and do whatever he calls us to do.
Moses was a man ordained, called and sent by God but he had a list of excuses that made him almost write himself out of God's will, plan and purposes. So many of us do the same thing Moses did in almost every area of our lives daily.
Moses, like so many of us, instantly thought of all the many things he couldn’t do when God called him.
I know so many of us, including me have questions for God. We constantly question His need for us to serve in the area he's called us and from experience, those excuses stem from questions regarding who we are, who God is, what if "it", whatever it is doesn't work and what if they don't listen (like Moses's fear), or maybe we think we're not good enough and finally suggesting God use someone else, again just like Moses did.
Sound familiar? Maybe you're using one of these right now to try and wiggle out of your spiritual or divine calling and assignments.
Remember what the Lord said concerning Saul turned Paul in Acts 9:15-16, many of us, on hearing that about us, would scare the desire of heaven out of us and see us run so fast back to the world without its expectations and promise of danger.
We all make excuses without ever considering the effects it would have on our lives and destinies.
God says we were all consecrated, like Jeremiah, or set apart, for doing His work in Jeremiah 1:5 but we must believe what He says in Isaiah 42:6b “I am the Lord; I have called you in righteousness; I will take you by the hand and keep you.
God promises to hold our hands through whatever journeys He sets before us, so, there really is no need to try and excuse ourselves.
When we give the Lord a list of excuses, we are effectively telling Him that He doesn't know us as we think, as He should and says He does but He does know us more than ourselves and what’s inside us as declared in Proverbs 21:2 “But the Lord weighs the hearts and knows all our hearts, after all, He created us. He knows every single part of us and what we are capable of. We cannot hide anything from Him. He already knows the thoughts and the words that are forthcoming in our minds and knows how things will pan out according to Isaiah 46:10.
We are called not because we are qualified, are talented, skilled, ability, training and charisma but because God is with us all the way, all the time. Without God, no skill, training and ability will ever qualify or prepare us for God’s work.
Moses gave the Lord his big five excuses for why he wasn’t the right man for the job and expected God to pass him by. Are you like Moses, looking for a way to get out of your calling and assignment? Don’t bother, God can work through and past any resistance you have.
Remember, Moses struggled with identity and other things, he thought God had picked the wrong person.
God’s response to Moses remains the same for us.
“I am with you”, “I am everything you need”, “Guess who made your mouth”, and finally, “I let someone else go but I’m still calling you”.
What’s your excuse? Forget them, God can work with you still.
PRAYER: Lord, prepare me to step up and into my calling and assignment without struggling to get out of it in Jesus’s name. Amen.
Shalom
WOMEN OF LIGHT INT. PRAYER MIN.
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spacecadetspe · 4 months
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Nov. 18, 2023
Thrúd fought with Sun Wukong for two days. Betelgeuse won the bet. As such, she got to choose which guide would be assigned to Thrúd.
She fell to her knees, and I projected myself to her. “I condemned Sun Wukong, the Monkey King, to be imprisoned in a stone for five hundred years, because of the same behaviors you exhibit,” I said. “Congratulations. You have taught him something I could not.”
She looked up at me. “Hope… help me. I can’t stand… too much bleeding.”
I chuckled. “This coming from the girl who called out Death, himself.” I stemmed the bleeding, and she breathed a sigh of relief.
“Thank you.”
“You see now what you should be fighting… Don’t you?”
“The same thing my father fought; his past, his shortcomings…”
I held up a mirror to her. “You don’t gain anything by comparing yourself to others. And by now I think you’ve noticed.”
She looked up into the mirror for a long moment. “Grandfather gave up an eye for wisdom, father gave up his past and legacy...what must I forfeit?”
“Everyone is different. You know Odin nearly killed your father?”
“He told me.”
“You know why?”
She sneered. “Defiance.”
I scoffed. “What a short explanation. Your father loved me enough to know that what Odin was doing was wrong. And Odin couldn’t possibly be wrong, for once.”
She shook her head and squinted up at me. “Isn’t that the point of being powerful? You set the standard for what is just and what is not.”
I shook my head back at her. “You don’t set the standards for others. You set it for yourself. I’d say genocide is objectively wrong, wouldn’t you?”
“Grandfather said the giants were an abomination, an uncivilized blight upon the realms.”
I bobbed my head. “That’s an opinion. And you know what they say about opinions. Having an opinion does not make you correct.” I stepped to one side of her. “The astral realm I introduced you to… it’s full of some of the most amazing guides in existence. Many of them are Jotnar. Like Surtr, who forged my sword. The Reckoning of the Ages. Mother does not discriminate based on race. It’s petty and stupid.”
Thrúd hummed thoughtfully.
I went on. “Odin could not accept that there was any other path than his own. And in that regard, the knowledge he gleaned only served to make him paranoid, manipulative, and violent. And in the end, that is the very trait that led to his demise. He will not reenter the cosmic cycle. Not like others who die.”
The arena where she and Monkey dueled transformed into a section of the Unalome, and Thrúd stood up, bewildered. I challenged her to take a step forward. As soon as she did, BG’s red aura washed over us.
“I just think back to what I heard growing up;” she said, “‘Power doesn't corrupt, it enables’.”
I shrugged. “Sure. And I can do anything. But WHAT does it enable? Your wildest dreams? Your deepest fears? Your darkest desires? You get to choose. And the real strength is in making that choice.”
“Peace isn’t sought; it’s enforced.”
I shook my head. “Peace is a careful balance of pursuit and rest.”
“You can’t perfect something without breaking it.”
“There’s no such thing as perfection.”
She scoffed. “Says the woman who can do anything.”
“And who said you can’t? Not me!” I turned to look at her. “News flash, baby, but I’m not perfect. Never will be. So why the fuck would I be able to create something ‘perfect?’ All I can be is ‘enough.’” I turned and kept walking. “Your grandfather thought the universe would be perfect if he could control all of it." I shook my head. "And as a result, I seriously doubt he was ever happy a day in his long life. There are days when I’m so anxious that I forget I’m not supposed to fix everything. That i shouldn’t care if everyone likes me or follows me, or wants to be with me. And the weight… it’s too heavy.” I stopped to wait for her a bit. “So some days… I’m just a human. Doing my best with what I can. And that keeps me humble. Puts a lot of things into perspective. Do only what you can, and let someone else bother with the rest. When I can carry it, I play dream regent… but I have a lot of help. I have people who really care about me… and not just because I’m powerful.”
I left her in BG’s care, unaware of what would happen next…. That only days later, she would come falling out of the sky, crawling toward my palace.
By the time Vassilios brought her arrival to my attention, she was being escorted by a platoon of guards.
I ran down to meet them, and looked Thrúd over. Her left arm was missing, and in its place was a shimmering iridescent prosthetic.
“What happened?” I asked.
“The red giantess… She took it from me… She said it was hers…”
I started healing her wounds. “Gullveig. That’s who you’re talking about, right? Betelgeuse? The one you fought earlier?”
She nodded. “Yes. She said if I wanted it back, I had to find someone named Elpis.”
I grinned. “And then she threw you at me.”
Thrúd nodded.
I shifted my weight. “Well, first off… BG is Vanir. She wasn’t born a giant. Second, Elpis is my aspect. The Greeks still call me ‘Elpida’. She is also an astral guide, like BG.”
She nodded again. “Father interrupted my battle with ‘BG’, when I called Mjolnir to my hand. Said I had become too brazen. We fought, then BG interrupted and she and I fought for three days.”
“Seems she made her point,” I murmured. “She is the Warrior of the Ages, after all.”
“She said I fought well enough not to annoy her.” Thrúd clicked her tongue. “More insult than compliment...”
“If I were you, I WOULD take it as a compliment. BG does not suffer incompetence.”
BG had told her she fights in much the same way her grandfather did, and that she knew why Thrúd had challenged Death. Instead of revealing the answer, though, she cut off Thrúd’s arm and threw her in my direction. “She said if I wanted to seek what lies beyond battle, find Elpis.”
I chuckled and led the part inside, and invited Thrúd to sit with me in the kitchen. I explained that taking limbs is a thing astral guides do when they notice something holding their students back, and called Elpis to meet with Thrúd.
Neither seemed to be impressed by the other. Elpis is willowy and delicate-looking, with long dark hair, and Thrúd is chiseled, rugged, and a bit unkempt.
“A fairy is supposed to guide me?” Thrúd asked.
I sighed. “Thrúd…. She’s an astral guide. You NEVER underestimate astral guides.”
“I didn’t underestimate BG…”
“But you’re perfectly willing to underestimate everyone else around you?” I asked. “You have a bad habit of attributing muscle to strength.”
I told her very briefly of how Hecate and Hypnos intended to use Elpis as a weapon of mass destruction because of her power, and that was five thousand years before she became an astral guide. It was a nice STFU moment from me to Thrúd.
Elpis was mostly quiet during the introduction, but I got to hear more from them the following day. Elpis was showing her new student around the garden.
“It’s too quiet,” Thrúd said sulkily.
Elpis harrumphed. “Are you so used to chaos that quiet threatens you?” She shook her head. “Literally threatened… by nothing!”
“That’s not it,” Thrúd insisted. ��Have you ever been hunting?”
Elpis nodded.
“It gets quiet when there’s a predator around.”
The guide smiled and nodded her head toward the castle. “There is.”
Thrúd looked over her shoulder at the castle. “What’s she like?”
“Kind. Not the sort to show off needlessly.” She looked back up toward the castle. “You met Phobetor?”
“Nightmare god? Yeah.”
“He’s terrified of her.”
Thrúd harrumphed.
“Why do you want to fight her, anyway?” Elpis asked.
“You learn a lot about a person from how they fight.”
Elpis chuckled, then started laughing out loud.
Thrúd wasn’t entirely sure what was funny, but she invited Elpis back to Thrúdheim for a stein of mead. Eventually Thrúd got around to asking about my swords, what Elpis knew, and if she could wield the ROTA. But although Elpis answered her questions, she refused to produce the ROTA just for the spectacle of it. She expressed blasé disinterest in fighting Thrúd at all. But she had something else up her sleeve.
“How about a game?” she asked, and produced two wooden cups and ten dice.
“What are we playing?”
“Devil’s Dice.” She told Thrúd the rules, and then used the first round to teach her opponent how it was played. Then she decided it was time for a wager.
Thrúd offered her three best Einherjar, but Elpis suggested the stakes be raised. “Let’s be vulnerable,” she said. “Wager something of a personal risk.”
Thrúd reluctantly offered her two favorite ravens. “My eyes and ears,” she said.
“Very well. Shall I wager what you want, or what you think you want?”
“What?”
Elpis elaborated. “You want strength; real strength. But what you think you want…” She pulled out Thrúd’s missing arm and laid it on the table.”
Thrúd stood up. “Where did you get that?” she cried.
“We’re astral guides. We talk to each other.” Elpis sat back. “And I’m an aspect of the chick who can do anything.”
And so the game began. Thrúd lost in two turns, and threw her cup across the room.
Elpis graciously only took one of the ravens as a token of their contract, and promised to still teach Thrúd what real strength looks like. “Fighting isn’t just about crossing blades,” she said. “And besides, no battle is ever won. You never win outright. You just trade one battle for a different one. And we all struggle. Who are you to determine whose struggle is more or less valiant?”
“I am a chooser of the slain. And the best warriors never come quietly.”
“They do if they believe in you,” Elpis answered. “It’s why I mentioned Phobetor. He’s terrified of Hope, it’s true. But she believes in him, and truly cares about him. And she demonstrates it. And so, terrified though he is, he loves her.” She set her stein down. “I’m one of the aspects who formed the ROTA. I went willingly. And I still have a freedom I never had before. That’s what Hope gives that you so readily forget.”
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lightsinthesky · 8 months
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Those Who Are Open Shall Receive
And that’s the problem.
I’m in a place I’ve never been before. For so many reasons. But specifically in terms of my feelings, my ability to endure things in sobriety, and having an understanding of self as I deal with all of this in a period of profound transformation…
The fact is, I’m completely closed off to even the possibility of someone or something new (yes, I’m talking about that thing again.) When my first love ended, I activated slut mode and dated around. I got zero fulfillment and dove deep into emotionally reckless behaviors that had been starting to manifest in my descent into real alcoholism. I was acting opposite my own values and principles and I cultivated exactly the results you’d expect: pure, endless misery and unmanageability. After my second love ended, I was at least open to something better. I pretty immediately adopted the mindset of “well, that didn’t work, so I wonder what else there is…” There was, of course, a back and forth in that relationship, but ultimately I went forward knowing that I wouldn’t “never love again…”
But right now? I am closed off to even the concept as a distant possibility. I’m not seeking to date, to fall in love again, to engage in anything at all, honestly. But the real struggle is that it’s all stemming from a newly formed insecurity that I won’t be open to it again, even when the “time comes.” A lot of fear has crept in in the wake of all of this and it stems from my wildly misplaced certainty that I’d found everything beyond what I could ever hope for. Again, the whole “being on step 9 in my first year of sustained recovery efforts” doesn’t much help…
“Time. T-I-M-E, Justin.” And I know, I know, I know. But this is my space to complain, so bear with me. One day, maybe future-me will look back on this and laugh or forget, but in the present moment, this is what occupies my woes.
I’ve embraced fully my program of recovery by the example set, the written words, and its practices and principles. There are some suggestions outside of that that I don’t put much stock into. One of them is “don’t date in the first year.” I never believed in that, but now I’m beginning to wonder if there’s a viable reason for that suggestion… I’m in the most vulnerable and emotionally raw state of my entire adulthood as I work these steps and self-actualize. Maybe that’s not the best time to risk this level of heartbreak… but I guess I never really believed in “timing,” either.
What’s funny is that in the aftermath, I actually do feel ready. Not in the sense that I in any way desire to seek it out (see above), but in the sense of “maybe now would’ve been a better time.” But that’s just a dangerous game of “should/could/would.” It’s just another version of “what if?” And that is an utterly, devastatingly useless game to play.
One reason I can’t kick myself over the whole timing element is that I wasn’t even in the headspace to receive it when it happened. I wasn’t open to it, let alone seeking it. Until magic met me with a beautiful smile. A lightning bolt straight to the heart. Emotional cardiac arrest. And I don’t regret it. If anything, it serves as evidence that, even when my brain isn’t open to the concept, my heart always knows.
“But you were wrong.”
No, I wasn’t. I loved the only way I know how: with everything I had. That is not my failing. I can’t dictate the outcome, but I’m left knowing how sincerely I loved and how profoundly it affected me and all that it meant to me. And I carry that confidence forward knowing that I am forever capable as much as I may doubt myself in times like these.
I think it comes down less to managing expectations versus maintaining awareness of all possibilities - even the ugly ones. Anything is possible, after all. And that’s true for disaster and success in equal measure.
But I suppose at the end of the day, I just need my heart to catch up to my brain with - you guessed it - time. Any kind of emotional negativity slows time to a crawl. And in total ecstasy, there isn’t even close to enough of it. It’s so strange to experience each and only have an understanding of the one you’re presently in. I wish I had that Billy Pilgrim ability to become unstuck in it… 
But I write this with an almost amused sense of observation and reflection. It’s the first day in weeks I can honestly say I’m just more emotionally tired than anything. The pain is lessening significantly (hey, look at you go, time!) and I’m just kind of doing my thing. I’m realizing just how boring that can be sometimes, but I guess that’s a pretty first world problem.
Either way, now that I’ve written another string of what was once incoherent thoughts in my head, I feel better. I know intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually that everything I seek is attainable. There is ample evidence of literally all of it surrounding me.
No timelines. Just the willingness, belief, and hope of it all.
Still standing, still moving…
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thearchivistsjournal · 10 months
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Day 349,
Mist day.  Going to head back home soon.  Can’t stand the thought of spending tonight down in this dark hole.  
Nor can I abide the thought of traumatizing Cass again if she comes down tomorrow morning to find me in a bad state.
*******
Maiko came with me.  As much as I don’t want to be a burden on anyone, I’m grateful she did.  I truly don’t want to be alone right now.  She didn’t outright say that’s why she was accompanying me, and I’m grateful for that too.
That said, she seems to be a little under the weather herself.  When I asked though she insisted she was fine.  I can’t help but be at least somewhat concerned, but I can tell when to leave well enough alone and just keep nearby in case the desire or need for help changes.
*******
It’s getting late now.  Dark outside and the shades are out.  Can’t bring myself to try sleeping yet.
I’ve been feeling this strange, pervasive melancholy all day that seems to be unrelated to the mists or the coming nightmare.  It’s hard to place where it stems from, but I think it’s some foggy echo of sentiment of my past life.  Some sort of nostalgic longing without a specific focus.  The closest I’ve come to missing that which I can’t remember.
In truth, it’s a welcome distraction from the dread of impending doom.
I’ve always thought of the forgetting as a mercy of sorts to outsiders.  If you had a good life, it eases the pain of losing it.  If you had a life of hardship, it eases the pain of those old scars.  Either way it helps you start fresh and accept this place as you make yourself anew.
That’s what I like to tell myself anyway.  No true way of knowing.  And that’s assuming there even is an intent or reason behind it.  Just as there’s no way of knowing if I’ve physically traveled here, died and gone to an afterlife, or if I’m some sort of copy of another person who exists in another world or in this world’s distant past.
It makes what Theo said way back when about choosing to believe what makes you happiest in the face of the unknowable seem more reasonable than I like to admit.
One truth I can tell though: I’m not a blank slate and I wasn’t when I washed up.  While the memory loss may have tipped the scales of nature versus nurture, there’s more to me than I feel can be explained by nature alone.  Those experiences may be smoothed over to illegibility, but I still had them.  They still left their mark on shaping me.
The fact that Devi’s experience and choices here were apparently shaped by lingering pain and hardship from her former life seem to support this idea as well.  It’s certainly a contrast to my own experience, for I carry no such hurt.  In fact, whatever the lost details may have been, when I try to think about who I might have been before I come away with the vague impression that things were pretty alright for me.  Good even.  Sure, it definitely wasn’t perfect, or else I probably wouldn’t have as many… issues… as I seem to have carried with me, but I believe I had people that I cared for and who cared for me.  Knowing how I can get, probably even more than I realized.  I think I lived in more comfort than most, even if I did still have my own fears and anxieties.
I almost doubt that I came to this place intentionally.  Whatever my old life was, I’m not sure I would have chosen to leave it, presented with the opportunity.  Whatever this place is, ultimately I don’t view it as an escape.  Or a blessing.  Or a curse.  It simply is.  Sometimes things change, you adapt, and life goes on.
But, at least this once, I think I’ll take a moment to thank that life that came before.  It made me what I am, flaws and all.  It was precious to me once.  Still is, if in a quieter, subtler way now.  However I change, whatever comes next, it will always be a part of me.
<==Previous          Next==>
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oldstalethoughts · 2 years
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08/20
“I warmed myself to my own flame because I felt small & sick & powerless at that moment.”  Anais Nin, 1940.
In this time of teetering on the brink of depression, or rather, an attempt to recover from it, climb out of the dark well, grey with its dearth, cold in its passionless air, I grab onto an old friend to find comfort, to warm my skin.  I feel her beautiful words, they begin to fill up my insides which have been empty for too long now.  A cold Saturday morning, waking late, Connor rushing out to buy me medicine to open my sinuses, & I am grateful to him.  He will be drinking tonight, & I will be left alone to my pleasing solitude, able to exist in my attic to fulfill my hours however I choose, uninterrupted.  Sometimes it is an overwhelming concept, the solitude, I have so much of it that I fear the occasional wave of boredom will hit, ennui without motivation, without desire to do something with this time.  I do not feel like that today.  I may write, I may paint, I may lay around reading rich books with great leisure.  Yesterday my husband made his pasta for me, timed it so that it would be ready when I arrived home from yet another awful day at work.  He does not eat pasta this year, his catholic habit of giving up something he loves every year, yet he made it for me, because I had mentioned craving the comfort of it.  I go back & forth on feeling fulfilled & feeling barren in our little life together, but I never overlook his kindness to me, how he does what he is capable of to see me content, to give me the things he thinks I want, he thinks will bring me happiness.
I do not like about myself this hideous habit of only becoming alive when I feel noticed, the cheap high of the compliments from a boy I never loved.  It was easy to forget him again, gone as he always is after a couple of days of sweet words.  Sweet, but hollow, like stuffing one’s self with junk food rather than a hearty, substantial meal.  I know it stems from my lack of passion in my life with my husband, but at all times I am aware that these mental dalliances will do nothing to fix my situation.  It only serves to deepen the chasm between us, Connor may not be able to place his finger on just what’s wrong with me but he is always acutely aware of it, of my difference.  Last night as I ate my pasta & we watched movies on the couch together, the cat atop my legs, he was aware of it, but we enjoyed our evening, I was joking & laughing with him, & he seemed reassured.
Revisiting old journals, as I always do in times of desert-like staleness, hungry for someone who might understand me without need of explanation, down the old familiar rabbit hole.  I see my absurdity, I read my naïveté & attempts to further the belief that what Max & I had was really love, despite all of his efforts to remind me it wasn’t.  How badly I wanted to fix the errors of history, to rewrite us a happier ending.  I see his selfishness & my own, & I know why, very clearly why, we would never have been able to do this, how to pretend we could would have been the biggest lie.  It is not, was never, a love story.  Just two lonely people who had the effect of making each other laugh, of shared vision & compatibility of personality, for awhile at least.  I slip back into that old world, that old desire, so often, but it was never real between us.  I loved him because he thought I was magical, for a time.  Because I needed something to replace the love that I had with Ryan, with whom there was never a question of love.  Ryan continues to be the only time I have ever felt whole, completely whole, that small window of space somewhere between Austin & Iowa, where we were blissfully unaware of the horrors to come.  I did not question his love for me in that window, I could feel it, bathe in it.  I did not question my own love for him, no other man existed when I had him.  I copy my letters to Max down in a little grey notebook, so that I have somewhere to lock them up, so I can remember certain things.  But as I write in them, I muse over the fact that Max would never want a notebook full of obsession of him, not from a girl he hadn’t loved since we were teenagers.  He may appreciate my turn of phrase, but the sentiment behind it would embarrass him, stain the fact of it.  But Ryan, the romantic, the emotional, never embarrassed by an outpouring of feelings like a tsunami, he would have loved that, I think.  His ego would have loved that.  It wouldn’t have been enough to convince him to love me once again, but he would have kept that little notebook, perused it in times of need.  It also occurs to me, yes, that it has been at least - what, 12 years?  12 years perhaps since I have spoken to him, more than an occasional “How are you?”  So I likely have no clue who he is now, the way I would not recognize myself if I met her now.  I desire to know who Ryan is now, that unbearable curiosity, I want to know whether he is still the same person, whether he still whispers into the ears of his sleeping lovers.  I don’t need to delude myself into believing his still thinks of me, I don’t need him to think of me, I wish only happiness & peace for him.  I recall the unsullied optimism in him, his way of looking at the world as if it were a feast, greedy to try everything & I hope he never lost that.
And I wonder how much of this was made up inside of my head, & how the years may have warped the ability of my mind to remember what was real & what was what I wanted to be real.  I regret, enormously, that while I was Ryan’s I did not keep my journal as faithfully as I did when I was with Max.  That alone may be proof enough of the depth of my love for him, that there is very little evidence of when we were together.  I was too busy living in it to write much, I didn’t want to analyze any of it until the rift in us had already begun.  There are mountains of it afterward, reiterating the loss of him, the missing of him, the regret.  But so little to reflect back on, to luxuriate in that one time I was so very happy.  
Perhaps that’s a blessing in disguise, I cannot poison it with my delving back over it endlessly as I do with my records of Max, pulling every scene apart, using the record to suit whatever mood I am in at the time.  That short-lived tenure in eden, it emits an almost magical quality about it, it exists as a fever dream I once had, there are times I wonder if it ever truly happened the way I remember it in my head.  The day I first saw him, that red band t-shirt, his curly hair, buying cigarettes & energy drinks from me, it has become mythical in my mind.  The nervousness of being in close proximity with him, how I felt desperate to be noticed by him.  The long, painful months of not wanting me, not in the way I wanted him to want me, how I did not realize his own shyness, his trepidation, I could only see that he did not want me, was not ready for me, his own life a mess he felt helpless to untangle.  I was too busy with my own overwhelming loneliness, I thought he was the solution to it.  The utter desolation into which I sank when I accepted he was never going to want me.  Engaging in self-destructive actions, feeling worthless, my roommate’s boyfriend seizing upon that like opportunistic users do, waiting until I was vulnerable to trip me up & fuck me to possess me as he desired to do.  All the while in between, speaking back & forth with Luke, grateful that there was still a person out there who wanted me, if only occasionally.  
And then, & then, & then, my decision to leave Austin for Iowa inciting something in Ryan, how he messaged me, wanted to see me before I left.  Probably he liked the idea of the tragedy of it, that I may have been the only girl for him & he’d been foolish enough to sleep on the opportunity.  That silly, reliable way young people are, at least young people like us, wanting the drama, the tragedy of missing out on their great love, of spending their youth pining for what could have been.  Or perhaps that was just me, perhaps he truly did realize his feelings were deeper that he had originally thought.  Either way, I agreed to see him, could barely hold my excitement.  What I had wanted almost my entire time in Austin, just this one person, finally asking to see me, not the other way around.  Because it was his desire, his request, I could feel confidant, I could rest easily on it.  He was flirting with me, I remember that, the way I had always flirted with him.  I think the self-esteem in each of us had hit record lows, & so we flung ourselves whole-heartedly, greedily, into how attractive we felt in each other’s eyes.  We loved each other because the other loved us.  It helped that we were compatible from the start, he was fascinated by me as I was by him, coming from two separate worlds.  I had the family he desired because he lived as an only child by parents who neglected him; I craved his experience, he seemed so worldly compared to me.  Our interests were similar & our idealism was heightened when together.  He enjoyed being the new guy in my group of hipster punk friends in my tiny town, & I basked in the joy & security being in a relationship brought, when I had so rarely ever been seen as more than one of the guys.  That was the happiest time of my life, I think; the months between his reaching out to me & our stay in Iowa.  It was the most secure I had ever been in love, I felt that no matter what happened I could endure it because I could still fall asleep with his face buried in my chest, his arms around me like I was his most prized possession.  Because more than love, I liked him, because every thing about him fascinated me.  I never stopped seeing him as attractive, I never stopped being turned on by him.  This all, before the fall came, before the winter, before I signed the deal that would see me walk away empty-handed, on all counts.  Sort of a Faustian pact, looking back on it: trading the life we accidentally created to maintain the happiness we had built, not realizing how the floor could drop out beneath us, how I would be unable to weather the loss of that life.  How I would spend the rest of my life in regret.  It was the right decision, but that does not ease a fucking thing.
This is how I remember everything.  Does it matter if it truly happened that way?  Does it hurt anything if I am forgetting things, if I am unconsciously recalling with rose-colored glasses?  I think it happened that way.  So many years, I cannot be sure.
I tripped up while walking down memory lane, I read a passage in No. 55, I should know by now to skip all entries made in January.  But I wanted to feel the hurt, it was better than the numb but with consequences.
I wrote, “For the first time in my life, I have absolutely nothing to offer anyone.  I feel so goddamn alone, I want to cry, to scream, to do harm, inflict pain.  And I’ve managed to push away the only person who manages to ebb that for awhile.  This constant fucking sting, burning like fire, & I can’t make it stop, & it’s getting worse, it will consume me.  I am not okay.  I am not okay.  Please let it stop, please, please, I don’t know how, what do I do?  Everything inside of me is spilling out & I am drowning in it, I can’t fucking breathe.  Am I so horrible that I deserve this, that this should be my punishment, my penance for whatever I’ve done?  I’m so sorry, so sorry I was so weak, so blind.  So fucking stupid.  How do women do this?  How do they survive it?”  I wrote this all in an increasingly shaky hand, illustrating my instability, how I was losing it completely, how lost I was.  I began crying for that girl, I wanted to pick her up, carry her off, hide her away in a drawer so no one could reach her.  It’s not that I believe I am a great writer, it’s that the pain is so glaring, so sharp, vulnerable like a gaping wound & I did not write it with my usual slight sense of remove.  I can remember that feeling, complete desperation, fear, like an injured dog spinning out in panic.  Max read that entry once, along with the surrounding pages.  He kept his face stoic as he read it, & now I hate him for that, for not seeing the extent to which I was not, am not ever, okay.  He read that, & he still allowed me the delusion of love that kept me at his side.  Maybe he thought he was doing the right thing.
Who knows anymore what the right thing is, people can only do what makes sense to them, what keeps them alive.  In this quiet Saturday, I relight the candle of Ryan, worshiping old gods, & I am warmed by the flame.  I have no desire to contact him, but I enjoy remembering everything as I remember it.  I don’t care if that breeds further discontent in my current life.  I am still grateful that I had that, once.  I may be stuck in an adolescent way of thinking, I may never have matured past that traumatic point in my life, but I do not care about such things right now.
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libbyhersch · 2 years
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Happy Sugar Life ep. 1-3 (Spoilers, duh)
So I started Happy Sugar Life the other day and it reminded me that in fact I've started a handful of manga before, but I've never gotten very far before forgetting 'em. Happy Sugar Life was one of them.
Anyways, I have some thoughts about it I wanted to write down, because I'm really liking it so far, and I'll probably have more to say down the line, so I want to journal it as I watch.
Long thoughts below:
So! My immediate impression was that this is silly.
My impression during episode 2 was that this may well be one of my favorite anime EVER. It feels good on my brain wrinkles. I get it.
Of course, the surface level interpretation is that it's about a bunch of psychotic pedophiles, and that's not entirely wrong.
However (and I truly mean this), I really think it's a very lovely philosophical thriller as well.
So the two main concepts I picked up on are "love" and "the inherent innocence of children" ... or something like that. The main character, Sato, has never felt love of any kind. Many men have confessed to her, but she felt nothing. It wasn't until she met Shio, an innocent child, that she discovered what love really means.
She loves Shio, and she knows that Shio must love her. Shio says so, and Shio is just a child. A child doesn't yet understand betrayal, or lies, or impurity. If Shio says she loves Sato, then she must be telling the truth. There's no underhanded goal or manipulation.
Shio's love is the truest, most pure love of all.
By contrast, we see the manager, who forces her employees to "love" her and sexually assaults a male coworker for showing so much as an interest in another coworker. There is a teacher who lusts after high school girls because he enjoys the thrill, despite being married with kids of his own.
I'll touch upon Sato's idea of love real quick, which is in fact a controlling obsession that results in her kidnapping and grooming a child. This obsession stems from her total lack of love prior. In episode 3, after recovering from a homicidal bout of jealousy, she begins to happily skip home, realizing that this feeling of jealousy is simply proof that her love for Shio is real, adding "My first emotion!"
My favorite scene so far.
And then there's Taiyo, the coworker who was assaulted in the first place. Afterwards, he becomes anxious whenever in the presence of an older person. Shio embodies the total opposite of this fear and evil attached to women. She's merely a young girl, without a negative bone in her body. Taiyo decides this of her after only seeing a photo. When he finally does meet her, he begs on the ground for her to cleanse him. In her naive innocence, she does so without thinking, cutely patting him on the head and chanting the negativity away, cementing in Taiyo's mind the idea that she is an angel who has the power to "cleanse" him of his impurities.
Paradoxically, this is also right after Shio gains some depth as a character, having visions(?) and all that nonsense, presumably remnants of memories of her family before they were killed(?).
To summarize, each character has their own twisted form of love, and every single one so far looks towards younger people to fulfill their desires, seeing children as more innocent and pure than boring or disloyal or manipulative adults. And Shio is innocent and pure and cute and perfect. Sato and Taiyo both desire her for these qualities.
Shio lies directly at the center of those two concepts. She is, from their perspectives, like a heavenly savior with the power to teach them about what real love means.
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the title comes from exegetic chains by the mountain goats
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herroyalbubbliness · 2 years
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MINE
Family...
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Photo Credit: IG @netflixgeeked
Goes back to what I always say, family by blood is overrated. Whoever is putting in the work, loving, caring about one is who I call family blood related or not. Ciri's father is trash. Yennefer's stepfather was trash. Geralt's mother, trash too. We don't know a lot about Jaskier's background but he has found a family too, they all have.
One thing I love about Geralt and Yennefer is they have this weird kind of trust but at the same time are fully aware of what the other is capable of. I call them the perfect ying-yang. They are not blinded by love. Their dynamic is one I enjoy and I'm particularly invested in.
The way Yennefer's face lights up at the unicorn scene as she says I'm a beacon of purity, really warmed my heart. It was like the world stood still for a moment. Her smile was soft, genuine, innocent, so bright it could light up a room, immaculately beautiful, and that split second of sheer joy and happiness, that comes from deep within before the guilt of what she was about to do crept right back. It was one of those moments you forget all the troubles you have been in and the ones about to come.
When Ciri asked Yennefer about Geralt and she goes on about longing, regret, hope, and fear, and Ciri is just like so you love him too.
Lilac and Gooseberries
Yennefer: How is this possible
Geralt: I don't care
When Geralt addressed her as dear friend, I laughed so much. And then he had the nerve to call Istredd her other dear friend, it was hilarious.
I think I got a bit of shyness as he introduced Yennefer to Ciri which was cute because Geralt is anything but shy.
It also reminded me of a scene in Killing Eve when Konstantin (also played by Kim Bodnia) was hitting the blender, saying all old friends together, sarcastically of course! Haha!
I loved how Ciri and Yennefer were introduced to each other, I think it was just perfect in explaining who exactly she was and what she meant to Geralt without words said.
Of course, she cared about her power. In such a violent world, there is no convenient time to lose one's powers at all.
I think it was interesting to see Yennefer try to cope without her powers not just in survival, but also in what it meant to her essence. And in the final moment as she slashed her wrists, even if she had died, she would have been satisfied because she had finally filled the void of a child with Ciri.
Yennefer is loyal to herself and the people she loves and that's what I love most about her. She understands the dynamics in the sense of how the different authorities are only out to use one until they are not of use anymore.
"Betrayal doesn't depend on how or how much you love someone. It depends on the magnitude of the dilemma before you."- Berlin in Money Heist
I do not condone Yennefer's intentions to sacrifice Ciri but I understood it.
Yennefer struggles with the feeling of not being enough which stems from her childhood trauma, abuse. Someone also pointed out the parallel between slashing her wrists in season one and season two and that broke my heart.
Four marks
I dreamed of becoming important to someone someday.
This is a woman who had given up on legacy, the hope of having a baby, life in the finale of season one. And even said if she died, that will be okay as she had lived multiple lifetimes to which Tissaia said her power could be her legacy.
Except she didn't die, and the one thing she had, chaos, which she described as her sight and a life force that makes one feel alive was gone too.
Desperation and the need to feel.
Now one may ask, but Ciri is a child, Geralt's for that matter and promising legacy, so why do it?
Out of the three women, she held out the longest.
I find it interesting how Voleth Meir manipulates them using their pain and desires against them, telling them it is what they deserve. Showing Yennefer, not just her trauma but also painting a life she desired (with Geralt and the baby) only to watch it burn and disappear in smoke, using them to make fun of her. The sick manipulation makes the psychological torture of it all heartbreaking.
Three women that have been put down many times, Francesca as an elf, you can imagine. Fringilla is abused as a mage in training, tossed from one king to another as we know how unstable the leadership of Nilfgaard is. And Yennefer, abused by her own family, almost killed by the king she served covering up one atrocity to the other and the wrongs go on and on. So it's not entirely surprising that when a shiny gold-plated promise of power is presented whether that is the live birth of a pure elf or to finally have true power and not just be seen as timid or to have one's chaos back.
Geralt: Nowhere is safe now. You can't run from the world. You can't hide from it. But you can find power and purpose. A chance to survive the horror.
We see how she stumbled in the dark (without her chaos). I felt her painful scream in this scene, juxtaposed with Geralt's monologue to Ciri about finding purpose as we see her struggle in opening a portal, no way forward in sight.
But she tried, knowing how selfish Yennefer can be, she held on. But, in the end, her pain, desperation, and selfishness got the better of her.
Jaskier: Oh, no, well, obviously we'll kill her. We'll definitely kill her. I just haven't found a good enough jabbing stick yet. But what if she's changed too? People do stupid things when they think they're trapped in a corner, Geralt. And they say stupid things. That's what friends do. They come back.
And Jaskier was right because, at the dying minute, she didn't go through with it. I think she had been fighting the internal battle the moment she knew Ciri was his child surprise.
Her facial expression in that split second showed, she realized this was going to be harder than she thought. She had her doubts. She kept avoiding Geralt's eyes when he asked certain questions and drank from her cup because she was nervous and lying. The moment she knew who Ciri was to Geralt, she knew this was going to be harder than she thought.
In talking to Ciri and helping her channel her power, she found something greater than her power, purpose. And she faced her fears of the possibility of never regaining her chaos or being able to feel and finally won her internal battle when she didn't go through it.
She realized everything she ever went through was for a reason and so she could teach someone who will not have to walk the path alone as she did. I think this growth was necessary for herself and also for the role she was going to step into, as a mother figure.
Geralt was very justified in his anger and MINE, remains one of my favorite lines. The anger, protection of his daughter and I think at this point, he had fully accepted/realized that he was a father to Ciri just as Ciri had admitted that he was the father she never had.
The betrayal wasn't just in the fact that she intended to sacrifice Ciri, but in that she knew who and what she meant to him and she still went along with it anyway.
In season three, I expect some work especially from Yennefer in rebuilding the trust she has broken...
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solarwonux · 3 years
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41.  “Dance with me.”
59.  “I’m still sore from last night.”
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ceo!yoongi x reader
w.c: 1.6k
warnings: a little suggestive if you like squint, sweet teeth numbing fluff
note: please please let me know your thoughts, it helps me out a lot. Also send in a drabble request hehehe.
masterlist || drabble game
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Yoongi loved mornings. 
Yoongi loved mornings more, now that the two of you had finally moved in together after years of dancing around the subject. He loved waking up next to you, with your face buried into the side of his body and your tiny snores escaping your dry chapped lips, echoing against the eggshell walls of the room. He loved the way the thin rays of the morning sun peek through the slits of the blackout curtains. The light dancing against your body, illuminating all his favorite features. Which was all of you. He loved the way you would stir, and he would race against time to shut his eyes before you could catch him starring at you. 
You always did. 
You will never let him know that you knew he always woke up first to love you silently without you or anyone in the world there to interrupt him. It was his most valuable and cherished secret, the only one he kept from you. So, you vowed to take the fact that you knew about it to the grave. 
Today though, you had beat him at his own game. You had woken up first, silently watching as his breath was calm and concentrated. The minuscule stress lines that had appeared throughout his face over the years of overwork, nowhere to be seen. He looked peaceful, younger; like he didn’t carry the entire weight of the world on his shoulders. 
Despite cherishing his sleep more than anything in the world, you understood now, why he always woke up first. He looked so beautiful, so raw, so intimate, so vulnerable, like a work of art. And you could hope that he felt the same way.
You found yourself never wanting to take your eyes away from his sleeping form, afraid you would miscount the intervals between his inhales and his exhales. Afraid you would miss the way his lips parted in inaudible snores or the way he would pout whenever he moved. Yet, the clock on his bedside table thought otherwise. 
8:30am
Last night, you had made a promise to yourself before falling asleep, that you would wake up early to make him breakfast. It was his day off, the office didn’t need their big bad CEO that never once seemed to crack a smile, even if he was impressed or excited. You never understood why he kept such a fake front for his employees when they knew that he was the biggest softy on the planet, especially when it came to his loved ones. He would turn heaven and hell over  if it meant he could protect everyone he loved. He would even sacrifice himself to ensure that nothing ever happened to his friends, family, and you. But you supposed that his fleeting image was all part of his job, so you let him be. 
You took one last look at your sleeping boyfriend, biting your lower lip, contemplating on whether you should just stay in bed until he woke up. Or get up to prepare him a whole breakfast feast just like he deserved. You almost picked the first option until your stomach grumbled lowly, indicating that the second option was the better option, unfortunately. So, you got up silently, and carefully, afraid that any wrong move would wake him up and ruin your surprise.
The air in your lungs got caught in the back of your throat as you saw him stir slightly. Sleepy incoherent mumbles fell out of his lips. You froze in fear, your robe midway on, watching as he tugged the sheets up to his chin and sunk further into the bed. When you realized he wasn’t getting up anytime soon you finished putting on your robe and quickly made your way into the kitchen. 
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“You know it’s my day off right?” Yoongi mumbled as he walked into the kitchen, sweatpants low on his hips, his messy hair sticking up in all different directions. A slight blush appeared on your cheeks when you remembered how your fingers had been tangled up in it, as you screamed out his name like a mantra, while he made love to you until the late morning hours. 
“And you don’t have to be at work for another three hours.” He wrapped his arms around your waist and gave your temple a sweet kiss, “good morning honey, how’d you sleep?” He rested his head against your shoulder, clinging onto you like he was afraid you would vanish.
“I slept like a baby.” You smiled cutting the last stem of the strawberry you had diligently been working on before he walked in. “Morning to you too sleepy head.” You turned your face, leaving a delicate kiss against his bed head. Yoongi smiled, he loved waking up next to you, admiring you silently as you slept. But he also loved being wrapped up in your warmth as you went around doing your daily morning routine. You always complained about how he never let you get things done. That the extra weight clinging onto you like a koala was only slowing you down. He knew you secretly loved it and would not be able to go about your day peacefully if he just stopped. 
In fact, he had tested it out once after the two of you had gotten into a petty fight. You had called him that day at lunch time in tears, claiming that everything had gone wrong because he had ignored you all morning. Truth be told he had felt the same way. That was the day he truly realized that he could never live without you.
“I was hoping you would wake up after I finished making breakfast.” You pouted putting your knife down and gathering all the strawberries you had tentatively cut up putting them into a bowl. 
“And I was hoping we could spend the entire morning in bed, but we can’t always get what we want in life can we?” He mumbled against your clothed shoulder. His fingers cheekily playing with the knot of your robe.
You turned in his arms, “all morning? Doing what?” Your arms made their way around his neck pulling him closer. 
Yoongi smirked, his fingers itching to untie your robe praying you weren’t wearing anything underneath. “I have a few ideas, some good, some bad. But I mostly just wanted to keep sleeping with you in my arms.” He shrugged, running his tongue along his bottom lip, wetting it before closing the distance and planting a soft, intimate kiss against your lips. 
It was savory, enough to keep you on your toes, wanting for more when he pulled away. “Good because I’m still sore from last night.” You said pointedly. Yoongi threw his head back laughing, his chest swelling up with pride as he remembered how you didn’t want to stop after three rounds. Even begging him, getting down on your knees for him in the shower. The two of you still hadn’t christened your newly shared apartment but he was positive that last night would’ve been the night if you hadn’t fallen asleep. 
“That’s on you my little minx, you didn’t want to stop, I just fulfilled your desires.” He winked, kissing your cheek and moved aside, an arm still around your waist as he reached over for the Bluetooth speaker he kept in the kitchen. 
“Hey!” You scoffed, hitting his chest lightly, “this isn’t completely on me, you came home and didn’t even let me greet you properly before you were carrying me off to our room.” 
“Honestly babe, I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He smirked as he scrolled through his phone. His eyebrows furrowed in concentration as he looked through his music selection. 
“We’re going to have to work on that memory of yours. It's starting to worry me.” You said in fake concern and circled your arms around his waist pulling him close, “I can help.” You whispered before planting a small kiss on the blooming flowers you had left on his chest last night. You could never get enough of him. 
“Mhm, I’ll take you up on your offer later.” He set his phone down on the kitchen counter, the soft melody of an unfamiliar song sounding through his Bluetooth speaker. “Right now, dance with me?” He tilted his head to the side. He didn’t give you enough time to answer when he was already leading you to the middle of the kitchen, his arms finding their perspective place around your waist as he started swaying the two of you in place. 
You wrapped your arms around his neck, giving his nose a tiny peck, earning a boyish smile from Yoongi. “What is this?” 
“A song Namjoon and I are working on...for our wedding.” The afterthought falling out his lips before he had time to stop it. It wasn’t until he felt your body go rigid in his arms that he realized what he had said. “Um, forget I said that.” 
“We just moved in together and you’re already planning our wedding playlist, I didn’t think you would be the type. What’s next you’re going to show me the Pinterest board you created?” You joked ignoring the way your heart was racing, hoping he couldn’t feel it through the thinness of your silk robe. 
He groaned, annoyed. So what? Maybe he did have a Pinterest board with ideas for your wedding. He had been adding pictures to it since he met you five years ago at Junkook’s grand opening for his art gallery. The second he spotted you laughing along with his best friend, hard enough for champagne to come out of your nose. The ice around his heart melted and he knew he would be spending the rest of his life with you. He’s been writing songs about it ever since.
“Maybe another time, we have enough time for that, right now we have two hours before you have to go to work and I plan on milking every second of it.”
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danteinthedevildom · 3 years
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Something I love about Obey Me is that, on the whole, for every trait a character has, they have another trait that actively counters it and thus makes them seem genuinely conflicting on a surface level, but wonderfully three dimensional on a deeper dive into their character.
E.g. People in the early-game sometimes think Diavolo comes across as a little two-faced, or that there’s something a little suspicious about him and the things he does - and I def. originally saw some theories (and when I first started playing, had some suspicions of my own) that he might end up being the real “villain” of the game. 
A lot of this stems from the fact that he seems genuinely friendly, open, and willing to spend time with the exchange students in casual, informal ways, but also has abilities and moments of power abuse that seem to completely diverge from the image of the smiling prince. 
Surely someone who does this is hiding something? Surely that carefree attitude is just a facade? It’s definitely the sort of twist you could expect with the character setup present in Diavolo.
But when you look at it, there’s a reason behind this duality that doesn’t actually fall into the usual tropes - and instead builds a much more interesting, well-rounded character. 
(Spoilers ahead, both for Lesson 16 and for the most recent Lessons, especially involving Diavolo’s childhood.)
For instance, how could he claim to see Lucifer as a friend when he has him bound by an Oath that puts an incredible power imbalance in their relationship, and stops him from speaking of it?
The answer is that he’s genuinely never had a friend in his entire long life that hasn’t had some form of reason to stay by his side. To Diavolo, the Oath was a way of ensuring Lucifer couldn’t leave - not a way of keeping control. He wanted Lucifer to be his friend, has been enamoured with him even since Lucifer was an angel, and took the opportunity to secure that friendship in the only way he knew how. 
Because Diavolo is pitifully lonely. Because Diavolo was raised in a way that left him incapable of making friends. Because Diavolo likely never would have been able to make a friend if he hadn’t tethered them to him. 
Does this make the Oath any better? No. He took advantage of a broken, freshly fallen angel, terrified of the fates of his siblings, and vowed him to silence and servitude in return for their lives. 
But does this mean that the Oath was inherently evil? No. At its core, the Oath was the act of a very lonely man realising he had a chance to secure the one thing he wanted more than anything. It was selfish, but not evil.
It does, however, show us the sort of extent Diavolo will go to get what he wants. He will leverage something over others if he thinks that’s what it takes. This is even reinforced by the truth of Barbatos’ servitude; that he treatened to refuse ascension to the throne if Barbatos didn’t stay. 
At the same time, it shows that what he wants, more often than not, is something harmless, if desperate. It’s often a desire for companionship that spurs him into dubious action. 
He’s very unlikely to abuse his power to genuinely hurt someone, but he may use his power in a way that has hurtful side effects.
Diavolo is aware that his actions had consequences, and feels guilt. He still isn’t confident that Lucifer and Barbatos genuinely want to stay with him or in his service, and he’s openly aware of the fact that Lucifer, at the very least, doesn’t see them being as close as he does. 
He doesn’t want to remove either of them from his service for fear that they really will leave him, but he’s aware that keeping them there potentially against their will isn’t conducive to healthy friendships. 
Diavolo has done dubious things for selfish reasons. This is undeniable. But those reasons are genuine and understandable, and something players can easily sympathise with. 
That’s the sort of thing you want for a well fleshed-out character; the ability to say “there was something inherently wrong in this action taken,” but also say “I can understand why he took the action, even if it was wrong”. 
I focused on Diavolo for this, but here’s another two points I can think of to further illustrate the point:
- Lucifer’s genuine love and care for his family constrasting against his prideful brutality and absolute loyalty to Diavolo above all else (e.g. how he can justify locking Belphie up in the attic. This was an act of love. The alternative was to hand Belphie over to Diavolo and let him face an unknown fate. By locking him up for the duration of the Exchange Programme, Lucifer was working to avoid being disloyal to Diavolo and being disloyal to his family. It was absolutely an imperfect solution. It absolutely had its flaws. It absolutely made things worse. But it was his way of keeping his youngest brother alive and allowing Diavolo’s dream to come to fruition. A dubious act founded in good intentions.)
- Satan’s kind thoughtfulness and amicable nature contrasting against his Wrath and how it affects his brothers (e.g., how he can switch between fretting over Beel’s mental health in one chat, to being so furious with him over his Gluttony that Beel actively goes into hiding in another. Satan is a character rife with stark dualities and his own frantic attempts to try and stitch together something whole. He’s not overly good at it. His Wrath often gets in the way. But he has spent his entire life trying to improve, to find himself, to come to terms with his creation; he is trying every day not to be the Satan that lashes out at the drop of a hat.)
The game isn’t always perfect at showing these characteristics in equal measure, but sometimes that’s the point. 
It’s why, for instance, some people write Satan to be a heartless, Wrath-filled asshole, and others write him as a harmless bookworm with a knack for academia; the truth is that he’s both, and a key part of his characterisation is finding balance between the contrasting sides. 
On the other hand, it’s why some people completely look over Beel as very two dimensional when he truthfully isn’t. He’s a naturally quiet demon, content for others to see him as a jock with a love of food and nothing more. But in that quiet, he hides a demon struggling with survivor’s guilt who is secretly hurt by how simple people think he really is, and has such a strong love for his family that he puts them before anything else. His characterisation isn’t finding a balance in his contrast, but finding the contrast to begin with.
That’s the point of a three dimensional character. You’re meant to be able to debate about them, and understand them while disagreeing with them. You’re meant to be able to view them from different angles and see something new each time. That’s half the fun of them - that’s what makes them interesting.
I won’t lie and say the game’s great at this all the time, because sometimes it is really, genuinely not, and sometimes even Solmare have a tendency to forget some of the deeper aspects of their characters for the surface-level stuff. 
But for what is there? There’s so much interesting craft at work in the characters, and it makes taking a closer look at each of them - and how different players view them - so, so enjoyable. 
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