i have such a love for characters who descend into madness or villainy out of deep, deep empathy. characters who fundamentally cannot cope with the cruel realities they find themselves in and blow up about it in spectacular fashion. fallen angel type characters with tears of outrage in their eyes. characters who break before they bend, and break so badly they splatter blood all over their noble ideals. every variation on it gets me so good
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“When I first heard it, from a dog trainer who knew her behavioral science, it was a stunning moment. I remember where I was standing, what block of Brooklyn’s streets. It was like holding a piece of polished obsidian in the hand, feeling its weight and irreducibility. And its fathomless blackness. Punishment is reinforcing to the punisher. Of course. It fit the science, and it also fit the hidden memories stored in a deeply buried, rusty lockbox inside me. The people who walked down the street arbitrarily compressing their dogs’ tracheas, to which the poor beasts could only submit in uncomprehending misery; the parents who slapped their crying toddlers for the crime of being tired or hungry: These were not aberrantly malevolent villains. They were not doing what they did because they thought it was right, or even because it worked very well. They were simply caught in the same feedback loop in which all behavior is made. Their spasms of delivering small torments relieved their frustration and gave the impression of momentum toward a solution. Most potently, it immediately stopped the behavior. No matter that the effect probably won’t last: the reinforcer—the silence or the cessation of the annoyance—was exquisitely timed. Now. Boy does that feel good.”
— Melissa Holbrook Pierson, The Secret History of Kindness (2015)
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late summer / early fall thoughts
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The more I think about the last minutes the more I’m sure Crowley was saying goodbye from the minute Aziraphale told him he’d said yes to Heaven. He doesn’t confess his love like he’s hopeful, he confesses it like a eulogy. He doesn’t kiss him to make a beginning, he kisses him to seal the end. He watches him go like it’s the last time.
Crowley knows Heaven. He knows they’ll want to either make Aziraphale just like them, or destroy him. Either way I think he believes he’s seen his angel for the last time.
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if you had asked me as a child what colour the sky was, i would have confidently said blue and yellow. because i grew up on the baltic coast next to one of the most travelled ship routes of the world, and the unfiltered sulfur pouring out of the exhausts of nearly a hundred cargo ships every day turned into a thick layer of sickly yellow laying over the horizon. especially on sunny summer days, it settled of the sea like the cheap imitation of a sunset, out of place during the bright daylight.
then, from one summer to the next, the yellow slowly but surely faded away. because a new legislation passed - one which heavily penalised airborne ship emissions in the area. and while the silhouettes of ships across the passage never became less frequent, their backdrop was now such a pure blue that its hard to imagine that it was ever different.
i think about this everytime someone tells me that climate legislation doesn't work, everytime a new media story declaring our helplessness in the face of certain environmental doom makes the rounds. don't get me wrong - the situation we are facing in terms of climate change and environmental destruction is certainly terrifying. but everyday, people are working tirelessly to implement law and policy that could change that fact. and because of those people, a newly bright blue sky touches down over the baltic sea. and that has to count for something, i think.
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Death, Destruction, and Danny
(disclaimer: I have the barest bones idea of what the Endless are or their personalities, so this is just a quick blub of something I thought of at Work)
So! The JLA have just had an encounter with a member of the Endless, and called in Constantine to explain what exactly they are.
"Okay, so it's like this. Before Existence, before The Universe itself, the Personification of Time had a group of Children. These Children each Represent an Aspect of the Universe, and they are as Immortal as Immortal can get." Constantine explained.
"These children are called the Endless. They are, Dream, Destiny, Despair, Desire, Delirium, Destruction, Death, and Danny."
"...Danny?"
"Oh yeah, Danny's a cool guy. He was adopted later on by Time Itself, and he represents Balance. But that's not a word that starts with D so he just goes by his Mortal Name, Danny, to fit in."
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Does anyone ever think about how Jensen knew this was the last time Dean would get to hug Cas when he filmed it?
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the saying "til death do us apart" does not apply to these two
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