#meta or something

[user-needs-new-hyperfixation]

Kind of fascinated by the logic of Hua Cheng's uh...physiology? I've been complaining about vampire boners for years: don't you dare ramble on and on about how cold that man is and how his heart isn't beating and then try to offer me a sex scene, I will pitch a fit. But Hua Cheng is a bit different. His body isn't his corpse; the ashes of his actual body are [REDACTED]. As far as I can tell, his physical body is a construct manifested by the fierce will of his spirit. (Insert caveat here that I know very little about like, common Chinese mythology surrounding ghosts, so I might be coming at this with some crucial information missing. Feel free to educate me, but don't spoil me on anything specifically laid out in what the 8th English volume will cover!) Anyway, if the body is essentially a construct of the will, then it kind of makes sense that it doesn't function in unnecessary ways. It doesn't need to breathe or have a beating heart to move, but those are things that can be turned on at will. But also, there are aspects of Hua Cheng's self that he is not in perfect control of; in a lot of ways he's still just a kid with the crush to end all crushes. He can't tamp down Eming. Why shouldn't his body occasionally do its own thing? Just imagine for example in the coffin; it's the closeness that startles his heart into beating in spite of him, and oh darn now the whole circulatory system is working. Whoops.

#tgcf #heaven official's blessing #hualian #meta or something

[mr-nauseam]

The Case of Lonely Mothers p. 2

A study about the "similarities" between Mrs. Plinth and Mrs. Everdeen and their relationships with their respective children

Read only if you are interested in parallel Sejanus/Katniss. Otherwise just don't read it

For Juli (@julietasgf)

.

Remember I'm doing this for fun. I do not believe that such "parallel" between Mrs. Plinth and Mrs. Everdeen is something Suzanne put in the text with intention, I just notice a lot of coincidences in them

First part here

.

IV. The Conclusion

"You cannot fathom how much I've mourned, what thousands of years of grief has done to me"

(Rebecca Sugar)

Sejanus Plinth and Katniss Everdeen are two teenagers, lacking the skills necessary to navigate the world they live in. They survive as best they can, on their own

Why are them by their own if they are so young? Because they had no one

Their fathers, unable to communicate with them and to guide them properly, either because there is a great Incompatibility that prevents them from being on the same channel or something greater, such as death, creates a barrier between them that is impossible to overcome, are not a option

Their mothers would naturally be the other option to consider to be their guides - and in reality it is socially expected that they are the ones in charge of raising them, and not their fathers, with all that implies. But if they have no one, this mean that their mothers are neither an option?

The answer is yes, and we will now explore this further

Let's pick up where we left off: Mrs. Plinth and Mrs. Everdeen are women with previous stories of trauma, who are re-traumatized by an event of great magnitude that forever disrupts their lives (and their relationships with their children)

In Ma's case, it was the loss of home, of her family upon moving to the Capitol that plunged her into an eternal mourning of longing and sadness

For Mrs. Everdeen, it was the loss of the love of her life and the bleak future she saw before her that plunged her into catatonic depression and death mourning

Their pain ends up impacting and significantly altering their family dynamics

In the Plinth's case, Ma has many advantages that Mrs. Everdeen does not. First of all, her traumas do not have such severe effects on her body (catatonic state) and by having Strabo by her side, she has assured economic stability for her and her son, which alleviates many discomforts (they will never go hungry, they will always be warm), in fact, her privileged position within the Capitol saves her son from one of the most distressing and common experiences that parents live in Panem: the reaping ceremony, which represents the very real possibility of losing their children in a dehumanizing and cruel way

However, this does not prevent her depression, as her more fortunate position in certain respects still lacks important pillars for Ma person

Ma is isolated in a very particular way. Outside of her husband and son, she has no one to talk to, not only that, she lacks the ability to be vulnerable with another human being, as the people around her are hostile to her at every turn

While I don't believe Ma has suffered more than a few incidents of discrimination that were overly explicit verbally or physically, the Capitol is still a world of many delicate social rules, guided by microaggressions and a constant passive aggressive attitude, which makes for a very stressful environment, which for someone like Mrs. Plinth who could never adapt to the ways of the Capitol must be as overwhelming and stifling as it was for Sejanus, if not more so

For she had the responsibility of taking care of him, and having to deal with Sejanus' own trauma and xenophobic experiences (he suffering from bullying for example), placed her in a very complex decision to deal with

Which ended up causing her to become unable to handle it properly or ideally: Making her ends up becoming very dependent on Sejanus. He is her reason for staying in this world (and that may not sound so bad but it is a lot of pressure)

She don't do that with intent - in fact I would like to say that will is not something that intervenes in this analysis- but who else does she have?

No friends. No family. No community. No home. And full of emotions (sadness, frustration, homesickness, etc). She also many emotional needs that cannot be satisfied by anyone

I must say. Her relationship with Strabo doesn't seem to be bad but we know he may not be the best person to go to when it comes to her grieving for her home (he had a very strong opinion about this matter). In the text they seem to have talked about it (the mention of Strabo opining that for Sejanus' children the situation will be better), it's just that his comfort is not in tune with her emotions

But she had Sejanus and he suffers in a similar way to Ma. He can understand her and offer her the comfort she needs. They are each other's unconditional support -for Sejanus has no one to be completely vulnerable with either

The problem is that Sejanus was comforting his mother since he was 8 years old

Ma has been Sejanus' mother, she has been able to be. I'm not deny it, she's not in Mrs. Everdeen situation at the end of the day, but I don't think it's such a stretch to say that she has unwittingly forced Sejanus to meet her emotional needs

If we go with this assumption it is not strange to see why Ma Plinth could not teach her son to survive in the cruel world he was born into. For she does not know how to live in it either

Ma navigates the Capitol in the ways of the district. She doesn't fit in, she mismatches. She doesn't know how to make friends. She doesn't know how to stop the scorn of the people she lives with - or the people she left behind.

She doesn't have the tools so she can't pass them on

Mrs. Everdeen is a difficult case, and while her neglect of Katniss - and to a lesser extent of Prim - is undeniable, her circumstances were too harsh to expect her to get through them without a support system

I reiterate here something I already mentioned: willpower has nothing to do with these stories. It's not a question of if they would have wanted to / if they would have tried harder. Plain and simple, circumstances overcame them or at least impossibly - severely limiting their actions.

And this is essential to understand especially when we talk about Mrs. Everdeen. Let's review her context: she lives in District 12 -one of the most fucked districts in all Panem-, she grew up as part of the merchant class so she had certain privileges and then lost them. This influences the kind of lack she is used to face -how she lives it- and also the knowledge she has of how to survive in difficult circumstances -but let's remember that she is still a smart and capable woman, here I'm talking more about the facilities for adaptability

She falls in love and marries a miner from the Seam. The poorest and most oppressed area of D12. A totally new environment for her in which she does not know very well how to manage but she is fine because she has her husband to help her with the process. Her husband who has a high-risk job where it is possible he get injured a lot

Then they have two daughters. Whom she loves and they bring her joy, but in her world there are the hunger games. That monster on the prowl, threatening to take her daughters away from her; to kill them.

And Mrs. Everdeen knows better than anyone the suffering the games cause to the tributes and to their loved ones. Her best friend was chosen in the past, and in the midst of her grief she was forced to do interviews, without being allowed to grieve adequately for the hell that Maysilee lived through and then she perished in the arena

That nightmarish fate was more than a possibility for Katniss and Prim. What probably affected their bond, Mrs. Everdeen could not afford to love them too much without thinking about how quickly they would disappear when they reached the age of 12

There is a short time in her life where Mrs. Everdeen is happy, or as close to it as she can get. Her husband is with her. He comes home, her daughters are small and adorable. Her work as a healer flourishes, and it is a bitter reminder of their cruel reality but nothing impossible to cope with

Until a cave-in in the mines kills Mr. Everdeen. And everything falls apart

The man for she sacrificed everything to be with, her life partner, her support and joy is gone. Now only she is left, trapped in the Seam, and her poverty. Not only that, her daughters are also doomed, the girls -especially Katniss- have their own grief to face

Mrs. Everdeen will have to support them as they suffer unbearable pain, while her own will is shattered. And that is only the least of their worries. How will they live now?

Their budget was already limited for sure, but without the money Mr. Everdeen brought: What will happen to the food, to the clothes they will wear? She now has to support them financially on her own. Also her daughters could one day disappear at the games so Mrs. Everdeen is alone

She has no one who can offer her a helping hand, she gets depressed and her body betrays her. Mrs. Everdeen goes into a catatonic state. It's the only way she can cope with what she's going through

There is no treatment she can receive. There is nothing to be done. If Mrs. Everdeen couldn't take care of herself, how could she expect to take care of her daughters? How could she care Katniss? So she is neglectful of her because there is nothing to be done. No one will come to save her family and Mrs. Everdeen just can't do it

And as we know little Katniss has no choice but to be the one who tries. She doesn't want to die. Her little sister Prim can't die either and neither can her mother -even if she looks dead. So Katniss has to do it -and she does it after an act of kindness; she takes back and uses everything her father taught her, she can't ask for guidance from her mother, so she try to figure out the rest. Or as much as she can because she is still a child

Even if Katniss had no choice but to become the mother of Prim (and this is why I mentioned gender earlier, because while Katniss is inclined to follow typically male molds, she cannot escape the work that is expected of her as a woman)

Which reflects the somewhat strange and tragic cycle that surrounds motherhood and its relationship to powerlessness in the world of Panem, but before we delve deeper, let's conclude the case of Mrs. Everdeen

A woman whose grief forced her daughter to take her rightful place as the provider, and primary caretaker of her family after the death of her husband. Mrs. Everdeen was unable to care for Katniss. In fact she was cared by her, receiving her attentions, unwittingly taking away Katniss childhood and making her take care of her emotional needs and even her physical and mental health

Katniss navigate the world of Panem all by her own -before her games, where she ends up getting a strong support system and also we had other people in D12 giving her certain support later but that's another story

I'd like to end this with the theme of impotence /powerless as a characteristic feature of the motherhood that both characters experience

Mrs. Plinth and Mrs. Everdeen can't overcome their traumas, they have no way of doing so and it impacts their parenting. Both faced heavy and crushing circumstances that prevented them from living a better life. Their world is Panem. A world that slowly kills their children

And there is nothing either can do to change the reality in which they live in any meaningful way; The Capitol. The subjugation of the Districts. The Hunger Games. They are institutions that determine their fatal circumstances, and to be changed, or destroyed takes more than they can do

The truth is that they are just powerless mothers

And there is something so brilliant and tragic that in the end Mrs. Everdeen who has lived with all the disadvantages on her side; gives birth to a daughter capable of making that change in her time and Mrs. Plinth who has lived with all the advantages on her side: gives birth to a son incapable of making that change in his time

.

And BYE

#sejanus plinth #katniss everdeen #ma plinth #mrs everdeen #strabo plinth #the plinths #the everdeens #tbosas #thg series #thg #the ballad of songbirds and snakes #the hunger games #meta or something #ballad of toxic yaoi

[gailyinthedark]

Poet

There is a secret space

Inside my head

Where no one knows my face

Or what I said:

Where I'm a Story and

A pair of Boots

Tramping the no-man's-land

Of twisted roots.

The worlds outside are bleak

And bright, and dear,

But how my mad gods speak

When I am here!

And I must follow,

Oh, and I must start

For every secret hollow

Of my heart--

And I must go

And I must heed their say,

For what else is there now

But Word and Way?

I drain the cup and rise,

And gently call

Goodnight, and joy be wise

Within you all:

It's written in my lot

That I should go

And you should not.

I wrote it. I should know.

#bad poetry #meta or something #persistence hunting sanity

[biceratops7]

Dang it guys

we only ever talked about HALF of why these scenes were a big deal, like I just realized this today and my heart is going insane.

It’s not just that Crowley’s pissed at Gabriel for treating who he thinks as Aziraphale this way, the last thing he says to the people about to kill him is a benign and peaceful wish to see them again.

And like- this is Crowley trying to replicate Aziraphale to a T. So he legitimately just sees him as this endless well of compassion, someone who is always warm and accepting. It’s not just their friendship throughout the years, he remembers Aziraphale’s kindness on the Eastern Gate. When the angel had absolutely no reason to trust this random demon who just slithered up next to him. Crowley knows that he’s loved. Maybe not like that quite yet (although he’d be very wrong), but he knows that around his friend he’s always welcome and safe.

And Aziraphale?

Well he just thinks Crowley’s the coolest fucker alive, like he is laying it in THICK and enjoying every second. Listen to that charisma, look at that smirk. These are traits that are typically only appreciated in the context of how good it makes Crowley at tempting, a job he hates. But Aziraphale doesn’t see someone manipulative or regard this persona as signs of his “demonic nature”, he just sees Crowley. Someone charming, fun loving, and cute.

This is when we get to know precisely why they love each other, what exactly they see in the other.

edit: this is now my most popular post, good work team, lol

#when someone adores you for all the things others misunderstand or see as flaws #*prolonged scream* #something something mimicry is the deepest form of flattery #good omens #ineffable husbands #Azirphale #crowley #meta #analysis #the body swap #episode 6 #season 1 #biceratops

[howemuginative]

#elon musk #twitter #deviantart #meta #zuckerberg #tumblr #wow tagging things as meta means something different now but I guess here it has both meanings #a meme

[salemoleander]

I am BARELY resisting going full red-strings-corkboard on this season. And by barely resisting I mean not resisting at all here is an extremely long list of the events those pins would be marking out.

BigB getting a Task that was a different color than everyone else's. It's not just a randomly assigned Hard Task, bc Scar rerolled for a Hard Task and his was also just a white envelope. It's fundamentally different.

That task taking BigB away from socialization, and seemingly being an incredibly time-consuming and dull request. Of profound disinterest to any watchers.

The phrasing of his Task!!

Dig a big hole. All the way down. At least 3x3. Make it your base if you want.

Everyone else's are direct and formal - the only one with more than one sentence was Skizz's, with the rule clarification of "One attempt only." Bigb's Task is four short abrupt sentences. It is also the only Task to contain extraneous information, 'Make it your base if you want.' The requirements (at least 3x3) feel like an afterthought to mimic the numerical/specific demands of the other tasks.

Evo symbol on the face of the Secret Keeper statue.

The fact that there's a statue at all; the fact that there is a physical representation of what is assigning tasks that everyone must complete, when previously everything was always handled via commands and unseen RNG.

Grian talking to the statue, and (bc of his Actual Role as game organizer) acting as a mediator for the impartial decisions handed down, speaking for it.

Grian making one last bad joke and saying he doesn't know if it counted or not- depends on whether we the audience laughed.

Grian asking for task recommendations from the audience. The watchers are making the tasks. The Watchers are making the tasks.

Again I could be off-base, and I'm not usually even that smitten with bringing in Evo lore. I don't want a Big Bad really...but. It feels like something very unusual and intentional and cool is happening in this series. And I'd guess we'll know if theres something going on once we have more than one data point.

My largely unfounded suspicion is that there is another being (maybe Listeners, maybe something else) trying to reach out to the Players via decoy Tasks, and BigB was the first recipient. Get them alone, make them of disinterest to the watchers, and tell them something we don't get to know.

Because that's the really, really fucking cool part (if my wacky theory is remotely right): We're the bad guys. We're the ones giving out tasks - hell, we're the ones actively brainstorming harder and crueller tasks in Grian's comments!

If they actually made a story where the Players have to keep secrets from us I will be delighted. Bc that is the same genius bullshit that made Evo Watcher lore so fun

#secret life #slsmp #life series #grian #secret life smp #bigb #i think im starting to get the shape of the conceit #this could all be nonsense of course. i may be completely off base and nothing will happen and it's just a normal life series #but it feels like there's something Larger happening here #anyways. will keep thinking and mulling this over and collecting scraps of evidence #secret life spoilers #slsmp spoilers #spoilers #salem meta #salem tag #im so enriched. i love being wrong about stories

[disco-asphodel]

realtalk but when i see dudes on steam or ppl on tumblr talking about how disco elysium made them feel pathetic and uncomfortable i just. i don’t know. i cannot relate to that at all. disco elysium is about an alcoholic amnesiac poet in love with a dying city who loves him back. if i had never been an alcoholic, if i had never been suicidally depressed, maybe i would think the world of disco elysium is a bleak one. but when you know what it’s like to go through that darkness and come out of it again? to fall back in love with a world that almost destroyed you? disco elysium is the most hopeful story imaginable. it sees the world for what it is and holds nothing back, none of the horror, none of the wonder, none of the love…

something about art comforting the disturbed and disturbing the comfortable i dunno

#disco elysium #harry du bois #cw suicide mention #i can only speak for myself ofc. but it’s one of the most hopeful stories i ever experienced #its like literature or something! #meta #text #my posts

[ridleymocki]

(seeing so many bad faith interpretations of the argument, y'all are really going to make me do this, okay HERE WE GO)

.................................

What Ed says: "I think last night was a mistake. I'm not ready for... Whatever this is."

What Ed means: "I didn't want last night to happen so soon or under those circumstances. Things are changing rapidly, which makes me feel out of control and scared."

What Stede hears: "I regret sleeping with you. I don't want the sort of relationship that you're after."

.................................

What Stede says: "It was a fine fish. It was... whatever. I was just trying to make you feel good!"

What Stede means: "I only cared about the fish because you cared about it, and I care about you. I liked the fish because it made you happy. Ordinarily, I'm ambivalent about fish."

What Ed hears: "I lied to you. I didn't care about your achievement I was just placating you to get what I wanted."

.................................

What Ed says: "Here's the news: I'm leaving. I got a job on a little fishing boat and I'm leaving. I'm a fisherman now."

What Ed means: "I think I need to be away from you to figure out who I am, because I haven't been able to do that while we're together, and your lifestyle now is the life I'm trying to leave behind."

What Stede hears: "I've made a decision to leave you and have a life without you. I don't value what we have enough to work with you to find a solution, I'd prefer to end it."

.................................

What Stede says: "Oh, Ed. Seriously? You're not a fisherman."

What Stede means: "I think you're using this plan to escape and avoid your problems. It sounds like you're pretending to be someone else. It seems to me like an impulsive decision and I am concerned."

What Ed hears: "I don't support this ambition. I think you're incapable. I don't think you can be different from what you have always been."

.................................

This is the kind of analysis done in therapeutic environments. When I put what they mean, it's not just a rephrasing but a boiling down to the core issue. I could go on to the rest of the dialogue but do you see the continuing ship-in-the-night miscommunication?? It's tripartite:

failing to express one's current emotional reality with the most accurate and clear language, often because that reality is not fully understood to oneself,

misinterpreting the other's language, due to preexisting sensitivities and defensiveness about one's own understanding of the situation,

increasing frustration and sense of personal attack that results from those misinterpretations, which perpetuates and worsens the poor communication.

Importantly, this kind of pattern means you miss the best and most important kernels of communication in an exchange because you're reacting to the more inflammatory parts.

Stede: "This can be whatever we want it to be." (I am willing to make changes to our arrangement so that you're happy). Ed: "I don't even know who I am! Alright? I know I don't want to be a pirate. And you, you're blowing up, you're the toast of the town." (I think we want different things. You're just starting a journey that I've already finished).

With those two bits alone they could've sorted this out. The first is the answer to the second. But they didn't -- couldn't -- latch onto it because all their other baggage was getting in the way.

And I'm being proven correct that this is what is happening, because I have seen next to nothing on here about the above two lines, only reactionary takes of fans also focusing on the inflammatory parts because of their predispositions. You're doing an encore performance of what they're doing.

Point being, there are no bad guys in this scene, just repeated system failure!

#our flag means death #ofmd s2 spoilers #blackbonnet #ofmd #edward teach #stede bonnet #ofmd spoilers #ofmd s2 #ofmd season 2 #our flag means death s2 #ofmd meta #something something cracking up on the rocks #cocktail name? my mental state? who knows!

[probablybadrpgideas]

Over the course of the game, roll a d20 every so often.

This measures the progress of a different, unmentioned party of adventurers who are on their own quest to stop an unrelated threat to the entire mortal world.

If you get a one they fuck up and die so the world abruptly ends with no warning.

#rpg #roleplaying game #D&D #meta #rule idea #high fantasy worlds aren't stable #statistically speaking one of these Chosen Ones are gonna fall in a river and drown or something eventually #then we're right fucked.

[puppetmaster13u]

Prompt 191

So. Apparently immortality does in fact exist. And is apparently very easily accidentally achieved, if the fact an entire city has it now. 

The GIW will be waiting a very long time to be able to drop that ghost shield, because the city doesn’t seem to be dying out anytime soon. Or at all actually. It’s been several generations now. 

They might need to request assistance. Maybe before others start to investigate now that vigilantes are becoming a semi-common thing.

#dcxdp #dpxdc #prompts #The ghost shield made it where the ecto wasn’t able to disperse as it came out of the portal & filled the city #Everyone became too ecto contaminated to be able to exit #And just… stopped being able to die permanently or by old age #They’re not exactly humans nor ghosts but something in-between #Aka Liminal as fuck #Technically everyone counts as a meta or alien #They sure aren’t human anymore & all remember the shit the GIW and government have pulled #They’ve opened up trading with the Realms a while ago #They give them living world things that help with obsessions & get seeds or whatever supplies in exchange #Along with training #They all give off necromancing fae vibes #Liminal Amity Park #Danny is Not ghost king

[user-needs-new-hyperfixation]

Trying to start a giant-ass meta on why I ship Mycroft/Albert and what there is to see of it and right off the bat I'm like...I want people to look at every single panel of their interactions.

No, it's not Sherliam levels. And BIG OLD DISCLAIMER: very little of what I'm going to present here is like "We were clearly intended to read it this way." I'll always argue that Sherliam is meant to be romantic: it hits so many well-established notes and tropes it's almost impossible to think otherwise. MycAl is a bit different. I do think it's definitely like...we're welcome and even invited to see it. But a LOT of my shipping it comes from the way I personally read and interpret things. So this is about explaining what I'm seeing that makes me ship it, rather than trying to be like "This is canon and you should agree with me." Anyway, for reference, I'll be using the official translation as far as it goes and then swapping to teawaffles' wonderful translation for the rest!

So...like right off the bat throughout the entirety of their Chapter 4 interactions their body language and expressions and ways of talking are so flirty? (Also, I still find it funny that in the manga Mycroft is introduced before Sherlock and thus Mycal is introduced before Sherliam. Older bros first lol.)

Maybe it's just that 2 decades on the internet have skewed me towards reading suggestiveness into everything, but the way Mycroft addresses Albert feels so flirtatious even if he's literally just being normal. "And what would an Indian Army official such as yourself want from an intelligence official such as myself this late in the evening?" Like...am I crazy? Does that not kinda sound like a porn intro? 😂 (This could also be Sherliam Side-effects. The way they call each other Professor and Detective in That One Scene is like...almost undeniably foreplay. Now every time anyone calls each other by title/profession/rank is this series I assume they're hitting on each other.)

But also Albert is just so...handsy throughout that scene. He's touching Mycroft's knickknacks, and just sort of limp-wristing all over the place. And I mean, I think that's just one of Albert's public-facing personas (customer service peeps, you know what's up) but it definitely lends itself to the existence of Vibes.

Anyway, there's this parallel of "You have my attention. What do you want?" that I think is kinda neat. (But look how comparatively sad Mycroft looks in the second version!!!)

Chapter 4:

Chapter 23:

Btw, in Scandal in the British Empire...why does Mycroft introduce himself to the Queen? Never mind, not why we're here. Again, my weird innuendo sensors perk up in Chapter 17 at "I did not drag you out of bed this early for nothing." Maybe it's because my perception of Victorian niceties, whether it's factual or not, is that there was this sense of avoiding talk of physical realities. We don't speak of pregnancy, we speak of "her condition" and "confinement." We don't "go to bed," we "retire." And so on. So conversely, it feels almost suggestive to even acknowledge that someone was in bed. In whatever state of undress the might imply. *Kellen Goff Sasaki voice:* OOOH how sCanDaLOus. (Mind you I DON'T believe there is anything of authorial intent in this, again, just trying to explain the factors that make me read things a certain way.)

The little mind games: Albert immediately recognizing that he's being tested, and Mycroft well aware that something is off, that he and Albert are using each other to their own ends. All juicy ship ingredients.

Then there's this...I can't articulate why it's important. But it is. Something about mouths and thoughts. If I wasn't terribly lazy, I'd go digging for examples in various manga series and I have a pretty firm suspicion that I could prove that, often, Mouth-Focus Thinking Panel + Name = Ship.

Jumping forward to the start of The Riot in New Scotland Yard (Chapter 29), Mycroft's demeanour has really changed. During the meeting at the British Museum he's radiating "I'm not angry I'm just disappointed" energy. He's tense, he's not sure if the Moriartys are enemies and when he understands their plan he seems understandably sad about it even as he accepts it. But now, he's radiating an almost Sherlock-like excitement. He's just gotten to see a miniature version of The Plan in action during the Jack the Ripper case, and it worked. He says he's just visiting Albert as an acquaintance (read: friend in Mycroftian), and that's what it feels like. They're chummy. It's cute. Also Albert teasing Mycroft over his squabbles with Sherlock when he leaves? When did Albert find out about that, hmm? (I mean, could be spying of course. But I like to think it just suggests they've talked more than we've seen.)

Annnnnd....cutting this part off here because I'm bored of it for now and it's long. I'll do the rest when the mood strikes. 😂

#yuukoku no moriarty #moriarty the patriot #mycal #alcroft #meta or something #been a while since i've done one of these 'not meta so much as just a disorganized stream of consciousness' long-posts lol

[joycrispy]

I'm seeing some confusion out and about over the title A Companion to Owls (generally along the lines of 'what have owls got to do with it???'), so I'd like to offer my interpretation (with a general disclaimer that the Bible and particularly the Old Testament are damn complicated and I'm not able to address every nuance in a fandom tumblr post, okay? Okay):

It's a phrase taken from the Book of Job. Here's the quote in full (King James version):

When I looked for good, then evil came unto me: and when I waited for light, there came darkness. My bowels boiled, and rested not: the days of affliction prevented me. I went mourning without the sun: I stood up, and I cried in the congregation. I am a brother to dragons, and a companion to owls. --(Job 30:29)

Job is describing the depths of his grief, but also, with that last line, his position in the web of providence.

Throughout the Old Testament, owls are a recurring symbol of spiritual devastation. Deuteronomy 4:17 - Isaiah 34:11 - Psalm 102: 3 - Jeremiah 50: 39...just to name a few (there's more). The general shape of the metaphor is this: owls are solitary, night-stalking creatures, that let out either mournful cries or terrible shrieks, that inhabit the desolate places of the world...and (this is important) they are unclean.

They represent a despair that is to be shunned, not pitied, because their condition is self-inflicted. You defied God (so the owl signifies), and your punishment is...separation. From God, from others, from the world itself. To call and call and never, ever receive an answer.

Your punishment is terrible, tormenting loneliness.

(and that exact phrase, "tormenting loneliness," doesn't come from me...I'm pulling it from actual debate/academia on this exact topic. The owls, and what they are an omen for. Oof.)

To call yourself a 'companion to owls,' then, is to count yourself alongside perhaps the most tragic of the damned --not the ones who defy God out of wickedness or ignorance, and in exile take up diabolical ends readily enough...but the ones who know enough to mourn what they have lost.

So, that's how the title relates to Job: directly. Of course, all that is just context. The titular "companion to owls," in this case, isn't Job at all.

Because this story is about Aziraphale.

The thing is that Job never actually defied God at all, but Aziraphale does, and he does so fully believing that he will fall.

He does so fully believing that he's giving in to a temptation.

He's wrong about that, but still...he's realized something terrifying. Which is that doing God's will and doing what's right are sometimes mutually exclusive. Even more terrifying: it turns out that, given the choice between the two...he chooses what's right.

And he's seemingly the only angel who does. He's seemingly the only angel who can even see what's wrong.

Fallen or not, that's the kind of knowledge that...separates you.

(Whoooo-eeeeee, tormenting loneliness!!!)

Aziraphale is the companion.

...I don't think I need to wax poetic about Aziraphale's loneliness and grappling with devotion --I think we all, like, get it, and other people have likely said it better anyway. So, one last thing before I stop rambling:

Check out Crowley's glasses.

(screenshots from @seedsofwinter)

Crowley is the owl.

Crowley is the goddamn owl.

#good omens #good omens 2 #ineffable husbands #aziracrow #aziraphale #crowley #there's probably a few thousand words more I could say about this but. I think I'll just hang the implications deliciously aloft for now. #something something tfw the embodiment of all your worst fears and self-doubts shows you the only real kindness you've known for centuries #you can't help but love him and you can't help but fear him but above all you TRUST him the way you're supposed to trust God but don't #brrrrrrr #do you think Crowley would vibe with being an omen of spiritual devastation or do you think he would get drunk about it #good omens meta

[radiance1]

There was a new cafe open in Gotham.

Such thing would usually not be a problem whatsoever, except for the fact that the family that ran said bakery just appeared out of nowhere one day. No one knew who they were, not where they came from.

The two parents- Mr. and Mrs. Fenton seemed to be the usual case of brilliant scientists about to snap and go crazy, and yes, everyone who visited said store waited with baited breath for said thing to happen.

Except, it never did.

They were just being your normal (as you can get in Gotham) run of the mill parents taking care of their two kids while simultaneously running a bakery.

Almost made them feel silly for waiting for the other shoe to drop, but in Gotham you could never be too sure.

Their oldest child, Jasmine Fenton passed college with flying colors, and seemed to be your normal run of the mil teenage girl busy with taking care of school and stuff.

Their youngest and last child- Danny Fenton- was a bit of an enigma, to be honest. He didn't seem to be going to school, instead staying and helping run his parents' bakery alongside- or alone when they were busy with something else- his parents. The room noticeably got colder whenever he was around, his touch colder than the normal human should be, his breath a tad too cold whenever he was speaking over someone's shoulder, and his teeth literal fangs.

They assume him to be a meta, and if he didn't already have parents would have assumed him to be Mr. Freeze's long-lost child or something.

Everyone was determined to treat them like a normal family, maybe a tad weird but honestly, it wouldn't be inaccurate to say there was something weird about everyone who lived in Gotham.

They were just a normal family, maybe have a past they're running from, who are the Gothamites to judge. At least, until they were attacked by one of Gotham's rouges.

The daughter was at school, well out of the fire zone.

Ms. Fenton calmly rang out a bell on the counter, while Mr. Fenton didn't even stop from where he was carrying multiple people's orders (with the help from small green beings the Fenton's call blob ghosts) and then out from the ceiling appeared what looked like extremely high-tech weapons and without a second's delay were they fired, the villain was not killed, but were knocked out cold.

Then their son appeared from the kitchen, dusting his hands off on his apron, calmly walked to the villain and proceeded to throw them out of the establishment as easy as breathing and walk back into the kitchen as if nothing had happened.

They knew there was another shoe just waiting to drop, and drop it did. They're just glad it wasn't the result of another villain added to the rogue's ranks.

And hey, they'll be turning a blind eye for as long as they could when said family makes some of the best pastries and meanest cups of coffee in Gotham.

(Two days after that was it made known that their daughter pulled out one of those same high-tech guns on the Red Hood.)

#dc x dp #dp x dc #dp x dc crossover #maddie fenton #jack fenton #danny fenton #jazz fenton #gotham #red hood #Jazz pulled a gun on him with zero regrets #Everyone in Gotham thinks that Danny is a meta #And that Jack and Maddie may have been crazy scientists in their past #but ended up stopping for their kids or something #They also make very nice pastries

[biceratops7]

*bracing myself on my knees and trying to breath, nursing a cramp*

I got here as fast as I can. I just wanted to point out that THIS…

Is one of the gayest fucking lines of television I’ve heard in my life.

Even if the presence of the song itself somehow wasn’t a flashing spotlight enough, the literal voice of God directly draws attention to it. Telling us that in universe, a nightingale really is in fact singing in Barkley square, and to know its music is sweet regardless of if we can hear it. Just like there are really in fact angels (one fallen but we’ll let it slide) dining at the ritz, and they’ve been falling in love regardless of if they’ve been allowed to openly pursue that feeling.

And hell, maybe it’s BECAUSE of the traffic that the nightingale finally sings. Perhaps it wasn’t ready until it was sure no one else could listen.

#couldn't get this across but God's tone of voice on but it was there... is SO telling #there's such a cheekiness to it #part of leaving the garden means leaving that surveillance #being able to make free choices and do so PRIVATELY #WITHOUT fear of consequence #something beautiful and rare is happening at that table #and it's now NONE of heaven or hell's damn business #good omens #ineffable husbands #Crowley #aziraphale #season 1 #a nightingale sang in Barkley square #episode 6 #1x06 #biceratops #meta #analysis

[wizardsimper]

There's something about how in Act 3 after Gale has visited the Stormshore Tabernacle, he tells the player (if romanced);

“I would much rather gaze into your eyes than hers. Yours are capable of tenderness, and feeling. No god could ever compare.”

It's worth noting that throughout the game one of Gale's most prominent characteristics is his very expressive eyes, we see it in almost all of his scenes when he looks at the player, in particular his Act 2 and Act 3 romance scene, as well other instances throughout.

But compare that to Gale after he becomes a god, his eyes are no longer the same soulful, emotional eyes as before, but glowing with ambition even if he's trying to express his emotions. He'll never truly look at the player like he once did, even if he still loves them.

#the discussion how gale loses himself to becoming a god has already been talked about #but on a physical level he also loses one of the things that has been a part of him for his whole mortal life #his eyes were once filled with tenderness and feeling too #something gale the god of ambition loses #you know what they say #eyes are the windows into ones soul #bg3 #baldur's gate 3 #bg3 gale #gale of waterdeep #gale dekarios #god!gale #bg3 meta

[lenaellsi]

“Crowley is still an angel deep down” “Crowley is more of an angel than any of the archangels” “Crowley was only cast out because he needed to play his part in Armageddon, he's not a real demon” “Aziraphale wants to rebuild Heaven to be more like Crowley because he’s what an angel should be” no. Stop it. This is exactly where Aziraphale went wrong.

Crowley is 100% a demon. He's not actually a bit of an angel, and he's not cosmically better than any of the other demons we see in the series. He's much less vicious than most of them, yeah, but he's also much less vicious than most of the angels, because how “nice” a celestial being is has nothing to do with which side they're technically on. Crowley's kindness comes from him doing his best to help people despite the hurt he's suffered himself, not any sort of inherent residual or earned holiness. He was cast out just like the rest of the demons, and that's an important part of his history that shouldn't be minimized, excused, or, critically, 'corrected.'

Being angelic is not a positive or negative trait in the Good Omens universe. It's a species descriptor. Saying that Crowley is still an angel deep down because he helps people is an in-character thing for Aziraphale to think, certainly--Job and the final fifteen showed that in the worst possible way--but it's not something Crowley would ever react well to, and it's the main source of conflict in the entire "appoint you to be an angel" fiasco.

We know that Aziraphale thinks Crowley's fall was an injustice, but why? Well, because Crowley is actually Good, which means his fall was a mistake, or a test, or a regrettable error in judgment, or…something. Ineffable. Etc. The point is, he’s special, much better than those other demons, and if they can fix him and make him an angel again, everything will be fine! (So once Job's trials are over, everything will be restored to him? Praise be!) Aziraphale has to believe that Crowley's better traits come from traces of the angel he used to know and not the demon he's known for 6,000 years, because that’s how he can rationalize his incorrect view of Heaven as The Source Of Truth And Light And Good with his complicated feelings about Crowley's fall.

But Crowley's fall was not an injustice because he's actually a Good Person who didn't deserve it. Crowley's fall was an injustice because the entire system of dividing people into Good (obedient) and Bad (rebellious) is bullshit. Crowley is not an unfortunate exception to God's benevolence, he is a particularly sympathetic example of God's cruelty.

And really, Crowley doesn't behave at all like an angel, especially when he's at his best. All of the things that he's done that we as the audience consider Good are things that Heaven has directly opposed. (See: saving the goats and children in defiance of God in S2E2, convincing Aziraphale to give money to Elspeth despite Heaven's views on the "virtues of poverty" in S2E3, speaking out against the flood and the crucifixion in S1E3, tempting Aziraphale to enjoy earthly pleasures because he thinks they'll make him happy, stopping Armageddon.)

Heaven as an institution has never been about helping humanity. And that's not an issue of leadership, as Aziraphale seems to think--it's by design. Aziraphale's first official act as an angel toward humanity was to literally throw them to the lions. Giving them the sword wasn't him acting like an angel, it was just him being himself. Heaven doesn't care about humans. It's not supposed to. It's supposed to win the war against Hell, with humans as chess pieces at best and collateral damage at worst.

Yes, it's easier to think that there are forces that are supposed to be fundamentally good. It's easier to think that Aziraphale is going to show those mean archangels and the Metatron what’s coming to them and reform Heaven into what it "should" be, and that God is actually super chill and watching all of this while shipping ineffable husbands and cheering for them the whole way. And of course it's easier to take Crowley, who Aziraphale (and the audience) adores, and say that he deserves to be on the Good team much more than all those angels and demons that we don’t like. But that's not how it works. People are more complicated than that, even celestial beings.

Crowley is a demon, and the tragedy of his character is not that he's secretly a good guy who is being forced to be evil; the tragedy is that he's lived his whole life stuck between two institutional forces that are both equally hostile to the love he feels for the universe and the beings in it. There are no good and bad guys. There are no "right people." Every angel, demon, and human is capable of hurting or helping others based on their choices. That is, in fact, the entire fucking point.

#good omens meta #good omens #good omens season 2 #crowley #long post #i feel like this is obvious. and yet #when crowley is kind he is NOT acting angelic. the same is true of aziraphale. #(to a point. i do think aziraphale performs 'niceness' sometimes because he feels like it's something he Should do as an angel) #(but that's because aziraphale has so many issues i cannot detail them in the tags of this crowley post) #this is my second long meta post in like 3 days. sorry. it’s my first free weekend in a while