#I am powering through the fear and posting stuff because why not

[gods-perfect-idiots]

Just a study of Wolverine's Emotional Support Degenerate 💛❤️

[ash-says]

Tips for Dysfunctional Family Girlies Part 2:

1) Get your basics straight. Education. Boundaries. Financial independence. Further breaking it down and linking it if you get proper education at some point you are bound to get an awareness of this world, if you are able to adapt and improvise yourself and develop your emotional intelligence and get your boundaries straight you will save yourself a lot of unnecessary drama and problems. Education (formal and informal) both will help you in gaining opportunities and if you are financially independent, you are holding the power to make your own decisions.

2) Develop thick skin. Your mom is calling you names. Slut, whore and what not. Your dad doesn't trust you and abuses you physically. So, what now? Are you going to let them define what you are or internalize the anger and use it as a fuel to become successful? Choice is yours.

3) They say you don't owe an explanation to anyone. Sorry to burst your little bubble. Actually you do. We live in a society and have relationships that we need to maintain for survival. This hyper independent stuff is only good to read. We have responsibilities that we need to fulfill. If you don't owe an explanation to anyone then don't cry about a closure from someone too. If you can live by this go ahead and practice it.

4) Stop isolating yourself. That's it. That's the point.

5) First kill the fear inside you. Being a rebel outside the house is no good. Be disciplined. Know how to manipulate your family members in your favor and if you can't just find the weak points and threaten. I know it's difficult to implement but you learn through trial and error. Plus something is better than nothing.

6) Stop glorifying people who treat you with kindness and love. That's the bare minimum. Just because you didn't get it served in a silver spoon doesn't mean it is not served in a silver spoon. People can have ulterior motives and even if they don't fix it in your brain that's normal. No rose colored glasses allowed.

7) Don't be afraid of indulging in your sexuality. No I am not saying go and have sex with people. I mean it in a deeper sense. Connect with the repressed sexual side and try to find healthy outlets. Don't dim yourself to fit in others'expectations or to ease someone's insecurity. Be unapologetic about your wants and desires. Know yourself. It's a powerful energy source if you know how to use it positively.

8) Cry, cry and cry. Wail like a child. No need to keep it all in. No need to act like a macho woman BUT only in front of your god or your belief system. Max in front of your truly trusted people.

9) Question everything as easily as breathing. Doubt every thing. Every action. Every person. What proof do you have to not doubt ? Stop giving benefit of doubts. Stop looking for excuses on how they could be good and instead look for ways in which they can harm you. That's your lottery to be poised and composed. It's just what it is.

10) Obsession. We have it in loads. That's natural to us. So the trick here is to be obsessive. Hella obsessive but about things, topics, goals, subjects, inanimate things,etc. God forbid but never be obsessive about a person. Not even over your dead body. Why? For that I need to make another detailed post I think.

[shaky-b0n3s]

Hello lotf fandom guess whos gonna rant abt something again!! Warning this rant is going to be about the pig scene so tw for mentions of sa and also religious trauma cuz thats what im gonna talk abt because i have a slight feeling it could also kinda slight be showing stuff bt that and not JUST how they veiw women (before i rant i want to make it clear that ik the main context/meaning behind the scene is that its meant to show how women are seen/treated this is just somthing i kinda got from it based of personal experience and hearing from other ppl)

Okay, so why do i get this feeling? Honestly, it's mainly due to the fact that this scene is all of the hunters/ choir boys who obviously due to the crosses on their clokes went to some type of religious, most likely Catholic school. Even Simon, who was also in the choir while he doesn't participate in the murder of the sow, he does watch it all. Also the fact that i don't think personally that children act that way without having reason to think it's okay. If you can't tell by other post i have i personally think that when the nature nurture convo is brought up, nurture is the reason why people act the way they do more, especially for children because their brains aren't fully developed yet and cant really properly make their own decisions and opinions which is why so many people have completely different veiws then they did as children. So my main concern is why the boys all thought this was so okay. And back on this scene all being the choir boy's while not all churches are bad you cant dismiss the fact that a lot of people have been sexually abused by people in the church who had power over them. Especially during the time period this takes place. Simon veiwing all of this, but just watching and not speaking up under this context can symbolize 2 things. 1: A child in the church knowing/seeing another child be abused in this way but not saying anything out of fear or because they think it's normal or 2: other members of the church ignoring the signs of abue like this happening because the person doing it has power over them. Idk if any of this makese sense but it does in my head and honestly reading it with this idea just made me feel even more uncomfortable with this scene like dude who taught you that was okay whos ur damn parents and what have you seen because that is in no way normal child behavior i am concerned 💔

I would like to hear otehrs thoughts on this idea because im kinda attached to it because I've been through stuff like that. i just can't get the idea of this being hinted out of my head 💔💔💔

[steern]

Living in the end

"Believe in shadows, and shadows you'll see,

Believe in light, and light you'll be.”

- Edward Art

In a lot of LOASS spaces, you’ll often hear people talk about “living in the end.” What it basically means is fully identifying with the version of yourself who already has what they want—as if it’s already real and present. It’s about being the person who already has the thing, right now. (Well you do the moment you decide to anyway, but that’s not the point right now)

But a lot of people struggle with this, and the main reason is usually that they don’t really know what “living in the end” is supposed to look like. It feels abstract. Like, how are you supposed to live in the end when your external world is seemingly saying the opposite, or when your thoughts seem to be fighting against you?

Here’s the thing though: you already know how to live in the end. You’ve been doing it your whole life. Effortlessly. Just like breathing, it’s something that happens automatically—you’re constantly assuming outcomes and identifying with them, whether you’re aware of it or not.

Think about it like this:

Let’s say you have a morning routine. You wake up, you’re not planning it out step-by-step, you’ve seen it in your mind countless times, you expect it and so you don’t question it. You’re living in the end of your day unfolding a certain way. Same thing when you’re getting ready for school or work—you’re stepping into the identity of someone who will be there, even if you’re not physically there yet. Your imagination already has you walking through the halls, dealing with people, feeling whatever feelings you associate with it. Even if ‘physically’ you’re not there yet.

That’s living in the end. You’re embodying the outcome before it’s happened.

The issue is, a lot of people do this more easily when it comes to negative expectations. It’s like bad assumptions come with less resistance, and that usually ties back to self-concept (Which I might make a separate post on). If your identity is rooted in “I don’t deserve good things” or “bad stuff always happens to me,” then your ego doesn’t push back against those thoughts. They’re familiar. Comfortable, even. That lack-based identity welcomes them. And since there’s no resistance, it becomes easy to live in the end of the worst-case scenario.

Like, let’s say a friend is being off with you. You assume they’re mad. You start mentally replaying every interaction, every possible reason why they might hate you. You imagine the conversation where they confirm your fears. You’re already in the end of that scenario. You didn’t need proof. You didn’t need to check if it was true. It felt true because it matched the story you’re used to telling about yourself—someone who gets rejected, someone who messes things up.

That’s the power of identity. You don’t just “think” those things—you assume them, you live them.

But here’s the point: the same mechanism applies for the good. You’re always living in the end of something. Always. Whether it’s lack or fulfillment. Fear or certainty. The only difference is what story you’re buying into.

Take another example—let’s say you want a promotion. You say you want it. You say you’ve earned it. But deep down, you’re already assuming someone else will get it. You feel the disappointment before it even happens. You imagine how it’ll feel when they announce it’s not you. You’re already living in that end. So of course, that’s the reality that plays out.

You didn’t overthink that assumption. You didn’t wonder if it was realistic. You just knew. You accepted it. So why not do that for what you actually want?

Why don’t we assume the best with the same level of confidence we assume the worst?

It’s the same process—just reversed. You don’t need to wait for a sign. You don’t need to see anything in the 3D. You just decide: this is who I am now. I already have it. It’s done.

Living in the end means thinking from the reality where it’s already yours—not of it like it’s distant. It means you’ve identified with that version of yourself, and you’re not looking back.

The only reason you’re not experiencing what you want is because you’re still identifying with lack. You’re still getting something out of that old story. Maybe it feels safer. Maybe it feels more “realistic.” Maybe you’re just used to it. But the only thing standing between you and your desire is your attachment to the self who doesn’t have it.

Let go of needing to figure out the how. Let go of needing external confirmation. Dismiss the 3D. All of it is irrelevant unless you identify with it. The only thing that matters is your internal state—your identity, your assumptions.

The 3D is a mirror. It reflects your inner world, not the other way around. Same thing here. Change within, and the world follows.

You are always living in the end. The only question is: which end are you living in?

The one where you don’t get what you want? Or the one where it’s already yours?

You get to choose. The choice has always been yours.

[9lives2mics]

Do you have any thoughts about the new teaser for S3? I didn’t like it 😢

Hello, dear anon. My initial thought when I saw the teaser was:

���Bet on hope? Why exactly?”

The teaser is completely focused on Daryl’s story, which is solidified by the title at the end that only features Daryl’s name. Daryl is still talking about the “friend” he’d known for a few weeks who told him to bet on hope, while Carol is shipbaited with someone she just met. The teaser made it clear that they ignored us. Daryl gets to do a lot of “badass” stuff while Carol appears briefly in a few scenes. She is sprinkled through the teaser to calm us down with no real drive. Reminds me too much of previous seasons in the flagship show. 

From a marketing perspective, this feels completely unbalanced. A teaser is supposed to put your best foot forward and give a snapshot into what the show will be about while amplifying the tension to get people excited. This just riled me up, not in an “I’ll hate-watch it” way or “I guess I’ll check it out to see where it goes” way, but in a “thanks for confirming my fears, I’m done” way.

If the showrunner is focusing so much on ship baiting and mindless violence, it's probably because that’s the only part they believe will elicit reactions, and it doesn’t seem to matter to them what kind of reactions. 

I made the mistake long ago with S1 and S2 to wait until we learned more. I gave the show the benefit of the doubt, but I have enough proof with S1 and S2 to come up with a conclusion now. You decide how you feel about it, but I don’t like what I’m seeing, and I will not show up for Caryl crumbs because just maybe someday the guy in charge will change his mind about them, even though Zabel has explicitly told us multiple times through written articles that he won’t.

I know Melissa will make magic with what she has, but they turned Carol into a footnote in the season with her name in the subtitle. What will they do in the season that doesn’t even feature her name? The current leadership is comfortable because they hope for free publicity. They’re hoping fans will take the crumbs and be happy so they can continue ship-baiting our favourite characters with new characters. So when we get angry for their treatment of us and the characters, our excitement is thrown in our face by calling us hysterical and telling us “they don’t write for us.” 

I refuse to fall into the trap of “be a good fan and don’t defy us” thing the current leadership has got going on. For me, being a fan means being able to criticize the show and the leadership when they mess up. Ultimately, this direction is costing them ROI because the showrunner keeps alienating the audience. In this scenario, continuing to support this means they will assume I am okay with Carol not being equally represented on her own show. I'm not okay with it. I don’t like the show's trajectory or where this PR narrative is headed. I’m not falling for that line of marketing, nor giving them a dime. 

I think it’s also important to reiterate something I mentioned in a post earlier:

We need to be careful about using the word "willingly" when power dynamics are at play. Women don't willingly stay in toxic work environments. Women don't willingly ask for poor treatment. Women don't willingly accept degrading storylines. Women don't willingly ask for less. Women don't willingly stay small.  The term "willingly" is PR speak to build a narrative that supports the power hierarchy (in this case, the male EPs). A show of willingness during the PR circuit protects EPs — and gives them cover for controversial choices — while holding the female talent as a shield. If they're praised, they can show how "progressive" they are by doing the bare minimum of letting a woman speak uninterrupted, and if there is backlash then she faces the brunt of it.  Majority of the times the options are to do it "willingly" or get labelled as "difficult to work with" and risk your career and reputation. The only form of protest is absence or silence unless it is also overridden by someone in power. In this particular case, the male EPs have done everything I mentioned here and more. Vile is an understatement.

To end this long answer, anon - I am sorry you didn’t like the teaser. I’m sorry we’re here. I’m sad that it’s been years of this, and it won’t let up. I’m sorry that we don’t have a better showrunner who cares about the characters and the audience. You decide what to do next, where this season is concerned, but I’m not betting on hope.  – Shalaka

[waddleonmywaywardducks]

Something I would just like to get off my chest...

Literally I just want to talk my shit. This is just SOME of the shit I'm tired of seeing in my community.

I grew up in a extremely god-fearing Christian home. Most of my childhood years where spent in a church or with my nose stuck into a Bible. It was horrible. When I was 10, I was opened to the world of magic and slowly I realized that what I was reading could be true. I began to research as much as I could and now here we are. But anyways, as I began to expand my craft, I start to find myself with people who also practice!

My first experience with the shit talk in my community was from a witch who came from a long line of witches and claimed they were more powerful then me bc of that....I've never seen them practice or even attempt to practice....and their mother is a wiccan....ok yeah sure ☠️ like first off, literally I don't care, I don't care if your mother is a witch, I don't care that "you are the granddaughter of the witches they didn't burn" ☠️☠️ you can miss me with that. Second off, because they claimed to be a more powerful witch they said they could "mentor" me and teach me the "right ways" and when I said no they then told me I would never be powerful and that they would curse me....where's that curse at girlie???? I do not care for power. I do not care for control. I just want to find harmony with myself and the world.

The second experience I had, AND I KNOW EVERYONE. EVERYONE. HAD THIS HAPPEN TO THEM, was the "I've been practicing for x amount of years so....Im actually better then you" I HATE YOU. I HATE YOU. I do not give a fuck how long you have been practicing. Here's a real question, why do you, a "experienced" witch, feel the need to invalidate new witches, when your practice is all your own? Are you really practicing if you feel the need to scare and fearmonger newer witches? Why not help them?I remember I was at such and loss starting out because no one would tell me, they would be like "how could you not know that?!?!" Or "I would NEVER make that mistake" it's ok to make mistakes, fuck man 8 years later and I still make mistakes. Also, Witchcraft communities have always been about communicating, when looking for where to began, young witches would TURN TO THEIR ELDERS. Why have we driven away from that? Idk I just feel like if you feel the need to invalidate newer witches, you aren't actually secure in your own practice. So are you really better then me? Or are you just worried I'll become more "powerful" then you?

And I know we've all gone through the "I have the most expensive herbs so my spells are way more powerful" just say you love capitalism ☠️☠️ LMFAOOO the witches I see on tiktok are like the over consumption final boss like holy shit. I literally get everything I need from the forest outside my house, I literally haven't bought anything for my practice in like months because I put my time and energy into what I create for my deities, spells, and rituals. And honestly, Ive had way better results because of it. You don't need all this big fancy stuff, just get started with what you have. Make it your own.

Instead of doing all this, mind your business, stay to YOUR craft, and if someone asks for help you can give them what you can. Literally just be a nice person Jesus fucking Christ. Just be a nice person. The entire reason I made this blog was for witches who needed someone to push them in the right direction. This post was me talking shit, if you feel called out....then consider this a sign to try to be better, there's always a chance to start again. And also, in no way am I bashing witches who come from a long line of witches, that shit is cool as hell, I'm just saying when you use it just to be cool and not practice, bc i hate to break it to you but if you don't practice like at all, not even attempt to start, then you aren't a witch my guy im sorry being born into a witch family doesn't automatically make you a witch, you have to carve that shit out for yourself. But anyways it's 1am I'm tired I honestly have no idea why I wrote this. Ok bye.

[mulders-too-large-shirt]

s7 episode 2 "the sixth extinction: amor fati" thoughts

oh god. i just read the episode description. CSM takes him???! WHERE? good lord!!! can’t they have a break??? and scully has to find him!! fuck!! abduction arc parallels!!!

not even going to ponder what might happen or make any predictions… we need to jump into this. STAT.

(post-episode thoughts: bro... they said the lines.......

so much happened. i ended up having to walk around in silence for 10 minutes or so after the episode ended. to see that alternate dream reality... scully and albert and her heart... cupping each other's cheeks...

there were really, incredibly profound moments in this one, and then also alien mytharc moments that made me go "wtf" a bunch of times. i feel like i have way more questions than i started with and they will probably never be answered. so my overall feelings on this episode are complex and confused, and i will probably need time to sort them out. this confused nature may be visible in my notes- but you have to understand! y'all have had years, even decades, to wrap your heads around these episodes! i just got here, so lend me some grace, bahaha.

oh. i once again really want a post-episode fluff fic. i'm gonna have to just suck it up and write it myself, huh? SIGH.

okay, take it away, me from about 18 hours ago!)

(previously on the x-files)

yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah, recap time. scully begging him at his hospital bed to hold on. mmm. good stuff. so much is happening, though. i’m ready for a bit of a break. a chill episode would be cool.

mulder’s on a beach!!!! watching someone play with a child. and smiling. is that his child? or just some random baby? the lighting implies that this is some dreamland.

OH SHIT!!! his mom is here!!! and the doctor is explaining to him that he is dying!!

“enough! there’s only so much bluntness that a mother can take” <- oh, she is not having this…. she says they’re turning him into a zombie. 

ahhh!! he can hear her thoughts!!! and he’s thinking back!! but she can’t hear him!! and she’s walking away!!! noooo!!! he’s screaming for her in his head!!!!! but obviously she doesn't know :( 

WHY IS. CSM HERE. looking down at him. thinking about what it means to have a father. 

WAIT, THEY’RE TALKING??? psychically. “how does anything i do surprise you now?” <- okay, i feel called out with that line, but forgive me for not knowing that he could READ MINDS??? i thought his whole thing was being an ordinary guy who can do awful things through the power of knowing people and fear!

CSM loads up a syringe…. and pushes it into mulder's head. he gasps. and says he is giving him a choice. life or death. he says mulder’s suffered enough. he isn’t christ. 

and he tells him to arise. and he moves his hand??? and is controlling him??? what.

he says to take his hand. “you have to take the first step” (more visions of a baby)

“i am your father” HUH. 

well. uh. let’s just see what canon actually says. because that was implied before. but. didn’t go anywhere. also, why would someone being your father allow them to read your mind? sorry. i don’t think it works like that. 

mulder looks gagged to hear this. 

spender and mulder half brothers…. omfg. juicy. but AGAIN. let’s see what actually happens. i can’t analyze anything too soon. they love a red herring.

hey guys, what’s going on though. CSM psychic reveal??

OOOO, new words after the intro!!! “amor fati” <- see, if i look those words up, i’ll get spoiled, so i must sit tight and wonder what they mean, i guess

where’s scully. i need scully at this time. ah! here she is!!! she fell asleep at the desk!!! translating more words!! but kritschgau opens the door and wakes her up, saying they don’t have time for sleep!! wtf are you doing here???? 

he says she has to use her time with mulder wisely. “like you?” injecting him with mysterious medications? <- OHHHH get him!!! he insists that overdosing him was what mulder wanted. yeah. suuuuure.

he claims mulder was infected with an alien virus. and now he is proof of their existence. so i guess he has started believing since we last saw him.

“well, whatever it is, it’s killing him. and we have to get it out of him” “you destroy this, and i’ll destroy you” <- bro, she WILL shoot you. it’s not even a question. and frankly at this point in time, i want to see it happen.

the phone rings… and he walks away, having contributed nothing to the conversation.

nooo!! it’s skinner saying mulder disappeared!!! oh, she’s gonna kill someone.

there were GUARDS here. but the nurse claims his mother checked him out??

OHHHH, skinner does NOT want to be involved!!! she clocks that he is not saying something and he admits to being in a compromised position- the less he knows the better.

bro is still chilling on the beach in his head. oh shit, he wrote this episode with chris carter. well. i don’t know what to expect. i know that man can write an ep, but chris carter is hit or miss.

is that his child self walking up to him? his imagined future baby? who is this... AUGH. the baby talks in CSM’s voice... NOOO.

he wakes up in handcuffs while CSM drives him…. somewhere…. in the rain. CSM says his doctors worked on him. “at some point, i realized that if the syndicate didn’t kill you, the FBI would. if the FBI didn’t kill you, your own misguided heroism would. there’s really no way out for you” <- ohhh… my heart is racing. i’m lowkey forgetting to breath. cannot tell if this episode will be a masterpiece or a train wreck.

he says mulder needs to just disappear. become a man without a name, like him. but he’ll learn how to enjoy life’s simpler pleasures.

he’s gonna set him up with some fake life and diana, huh. i see what’s going on here. and i DON’T LIKE IT.

he wants to tell scully. but CSM says he cannot. because he is entering a witness protection program. and he offers him a cigarette. “i don’t smoke” “maybe now you do”

poor scully….. poor, poor scully…. at her apartment…. but someone approaches!

she gets her gun. i feel like she looks different, but i can’t explain why. like, her face. am i tripping? is her makeup different this season?

she finds someone and holds him at gunpoint. OMG!!! IT’S ALBERT!!!!!! the best guy to see in this situation, tbh!! he has bandages on his head. is there hope for mulder?? because albert had the same illness he did, right? did they find a cure?

he says she must find him before something happens. for the sake of us all.

hmm. the alien colonization plan must be close. they must be trying to take him away so he can't somehow stop it.

CSM gives mulder keys to a house. he says this is his new life. “you can drive away right now. drive back to scully and your x files and your imminent death. i wouldn’t be surprised if you did. but i think you should take a look around” <- ohhh…. my heart is RACING…. everything is so tense

and CSM walks away. 

it’s a nice little house. i'll give him that.

scully is looking at surveillance footage… the cameras from the hospital were covered up when he went missing!!! they can see his mom talking to someone!!! someone with a cigarette!!! WHICH ONLY MEANS ONE THING IN THIS SHOW!!! what does she know?!

mulder opens the door to the house. it seems empty. he calls out asking if anyone is home…. poor guy is still in his hospital gown. and the fridge is filled with sunflower seeds. this makes him laugh.

HUH??? is that DEEP THROAT??? he’s gagged. he can’t believe it. scully saw him get shot!!! but deep throat says he’s just very relaxed. 

so they faked his death??? for 6 seasons????????? 

or is mulder tripping? he can’t believe it. he felt responsible for his death. “yes, along with scully’s sister and the man you thought was your father and duane barry and even scully’s mysterious illness, and on and on and on. you can let go of all that guilt” <- oh yeah. this was very clearly a trick of some kind before, but now it is even more evidently a trick. but fuck, if the angst of it all isn’t tasty. the concept of that ancient guilt of his being washed away. MMMM!

deep throat explains that they’re puppets in a master plan. and that he’s suffered enough- he should enjoy his life. 

deep throat has a wife and daughters, and he hopes that mulder will visit them for dinner. which is a lot to unpack.

bro gets lots of sunflower seeds and passes out. and dreams of that child again. his sandcastle is knocked down, and he tells the boy it’s okay; he can build it again.

now he’s in bed. and the door opens. he’s still cuffed!!! AW FUCK, and it’s DIANA. in a sultry dress. she unlocks his handcuffs. and strokes his chest. and he kisses her. FADE TO BLACK. the FUCK is going on??????

scully calls his mother. and leaves a message. because she did not pick up. what is she doing...

she gets a package from someone at the FBI…. it’s a book of native american legends. and the writing she was trying to translate!! it matches what is on the book’s cover!!

AH! the anasazi!!! “an entire indian culture vanishes without a trace” <- LIKE CSM SAID!! 

she calls skinner…. and asks if he sent the book. “it explains everything that i saw in africa… using the same symbols that i found on the ship” but my queen! he can’t tell you about it even if he did send it!!!

but i don’t think he did… and she goes on about a mass extinction. they think mulder's illness is a gift. that protects them against a coming plague. skinner hangs tf up. which did kind of make me laugh.

she goes to figure out wtf is going down in skinner's office, and even though his secretary tries very bravely to stop him, she hears him moan and barges in…. WHAT DID THEY DO TO HIM??

AHHHHH!!! she sees hairy krycek leave with his weird medical device!! and he pulls the fire alarm to get everyone out before she can catch him!!!! the rat bastard!!

mulder is at his new house, getting the mail. diana comes out. he says everything is perfect- too perfect. what about his commitments, he asks? she says his commitments are CHILDISH. WTF???

WAIT, WHAT THE FUCK???? she says he needs to BECOME A FATHER??????????

what is going on. guys. i’m serious... WHAT is going on. i don’t like it. mom, i’m scared. please come pick me up.

he says that they only slept together one time, it's pretty sudden to decide they need to have kids…. and he’s obviously freaked tf out, because it’s CSM who is arranging all of this!! the devil himself!! but she says oh, we'll go visit him after breakfast :)

girl, i’m scared.

scully knocks on kritschgau’s door. she knows he told someone about mulder… but he promises he didn’t. she sees his computer… and he’s hacked into her files!!!! he was having the NIH analyze all of the genome data they found!!! 

he says it proves he’s become biologically alien. and she deletes them all. what is this guy doing!!!!!!!

diana and mulder go to visit CSM……. he says he has three grandkids and mulder's sister. who has been living here all along. 

they lock eyes. she runs up and hugs him. 

AH, FUCK!! it seems that he’s been imagining this the whole time!!! because now we see his naked body is laying on some sort of panel with probes attached to it!!! i guess that's a relief, though. i didn't want to have to deal with diana/mulder children in canon.

but CSM claims he had such high hopes for his son… he never imagined “the depth of his capacity for suffering”

hey. guys what the FUCK is going on? i almost don’t want to take notes. i just want to watch it all and see what happens. because i’m still not very pleased…..

and fucking diana is watching him on the table!!!!!! she wonders what he dreams of. and CSM says it must be of simpler things. “dreams are all he has now”

FUCKING DIANA, GET OUT OF THE FBI. “bum a cigarette, agent fowley?” <- GET HER ASS, SCULLY!!!! 

they’re gonna fight it out. “maybe before you go around blaming everyone you can find for what’s happened to mulder, you could think about what you could’ve done to prevent it” <- WOAH. JESUS CHRIST. what an absolutely horrible thing to say. scully, we need to kill her. 

scully doesn’t move. she says to think of mulder's promise back when they met at the academy. and think of how he would bust his ass to save you. and diana walks away.

the doctors with CSM are talking about how mulder has become immune to the viral apocalypse…. but he might not survive the procedure. then he will suffer a hero’s fate, says CSM.

FUCK! he dreams of getting married to diana. of going to the hospital for her delivery. of their kids and growing gray. of her death. crying at her coffin. CSM grabbing his shoulder.

but in reality, he's still laying on that table. diana is stroking his face, while CSM says she shouldn’t think of the man, but the sacrifice he will give to the world. CSM thinks he would have chosen to become alien. and she strokes his face again.

(fuuuuck.... CSM as god.... mulder as his son... the sacrifice to the world... your motifs... i'm picking up on them. chris carter saw a bible and he said "this needs to be in my show")

elderly dream mulder is talking to CSM. with the very silly makeup. he knows about the boy on the beach. “i’ve seen him thousands of times”- but he’s never figured out what the child wants him to see. 

the kid builds a UFO out of sand…… and he rips it up. saying it was mulder's. he was supposed to help him.

scully goes to her apartment, and albert is there again. he says she is running out of time. and he suggests looking for mulder in her heart.

“are you asking me to pray?” he kneels down with her. “there are more worlds than the one you can hold in your hand” <- GODDDD.

okay. scully and albert are praying together. it’s very touching. but somewhere else, they’re also stripping down CSM as he is to get infused with mulder’s alien DNA or something. it’s not a pretty sight. “i hope you see the poetry in this, diana” and she says he might kill his son!! so she truly believes his claim, huh?

aughhhhhh…… i can’t watch this……. 

mulder wakes up. he won’t stay under. he’s looking at diana. she walks away. where is she going……..

in his mind palace dreamscape thing, he’s old as hell with CSM sitting nearby. who hasn’t aged. he says samantha died five years ago. “what about deep throat?” “we’ve been over this. he’s dead” <-what a cruel thing, to remind him of everyone he has lost in his old age as he forgets...

CSM says that scully is dead, and he starts to cry. it is not lost on me that it is her being gone that makes him weep. “it’s time for you to let go. they’re waiting for you. if you let go” but he won’t close his eyes………. until he does. 

i’m so sad. wtf.

CSM opens the blinds to look into the outside world of this dreamscape, and the world is surrounded by an apocalypse. CGI war everywhere. it’s aged poorly and makes me laugh as it snaps me out of what is going on. the UFOs…… they fly over……. girl…..

maybe I need a smoke break. thought about that???

but in the real world, someone is burning files!!! so many files!!! they shot kritschgau!!!!! it’s krycek!!!!!

and an envelope is tossed under scully’s door- poor scully, who fell asleep on the floor, she must have been praying... and albert isn't with her

the card!!! is it diana’s card?!!! to get into that lab where they're testing on him? she runs out……

they’re taking all kinds of things from mulder in surgery, and i simply cannot look. but scully scans the card…… and he imagines her coming to his dreamscape bedside!!!! in his very old age!!! 

she’s mad at him!!! she calls him a traitor!! a coward!!! “you’re not supposed to die mulder- not here. not in a comfortable bed with the devil outside” 

he says there was no mission; no aliens. she tells him to get up and fight. he’s so confused. he’s crying. asking where scully is. calling out for her.

she finds him, in real life, laying on the table after the surgery….. she whispers to him. tells him to wake up. his eyes open up. he’s breaking through the years of lies!!!!! her tears fall on his face!!!

“you…. help me” 

OH. SHE HOLDS HIM CLOSE….

let's just sit with that for a minute.

one week later…… she goes to his apartment. oh! he was going to see her in the office!!!! she scolds him for this. "no work". his head is covered in bandages and he has a yankees cap on top.

he says he was coming to work to tell her that albert is dead. he’d been in a coma for 2 weeks. “there was…. no way he could have been in your apartment” “he was there. w-we prayed together.” (mulder purses his lips and nods) “mulder, i don’t believe that. it’s impossible” “is it any more impossible than what you saw in africa, or what you saw in me?” “i don’t know what to believe anymore. mulder, i was so determined to find a cure to save you that i could deny what it was that i saw, and now i don’t even know… i don’t know. i don’t know what the truth is, i don’t know who to listen to. i don’t know who to trust” (she’s crying) (and i might be crying, too, mind your business)

DIANA FOWLEY WAS FOUND MURDERED THIS MORNING??

“i never trusted her… but she helped save your life just as much as i did. she gave me that book. it was her key that led me to you. i’m sorry. i’m so sorry. i know she was your friend” (they hug)

god.... i'm torn between being so sad that scully thinks so little of herself that she actually claims diana helped save him as much as he did, and how kind she is to tell him she is deeply sorry even after how much suffering diana caused

“scully, i was like you once. i didn’t know who to trust. then i… i chose another path… another life, another fate, where i found my sister. the end of my world was unrecognizable and upside down. there was one thing that remained the same.”

so it's as if he considers the alternate dreamscape life to have actually happened. like he saw what would happen if he did make that choice. that's very interesting that he takes the responsibility, saying he chose another path when it never really happened.

OH. HE HAS HER FACE IN HIS HANDS…. 

“you… you were my friend, and you told me the truth. even when the world was falling apart, you were my constant… my touchstone”

OHHHHHH, HE SAID THE LINE THAT EVERYONE SAYS IN THEIR TAGS WHEN THEY REBLOG AN MSR GIF!!!!!!!!!!!

“and you are mine”

AND THEY KISS???

wait. not for real. she kisses his forehead. the angle made it look like a real kiss on the lips for a second, but she was kissing him on his forehead bandages…. for a solid ten seconds. and he smiles. she puts his baseball cap back on. and cups his face. runs her fingers over his lips. 

he closes his eyes. like he’s realizing something.

he sees that little boy…. and they’re building the spaceship together.

the end.

hey guys. i need to go scream for a minute to decompress.

wait. i need to set my phone down and go leave the room. 

i had to go walk around for ten minutes. i had to brush my teeth and do my skincare before bed in total silence. i had to drink straight from the sink and let the coolness of the water surprise me. and then the mouthwash burned a bit. i had to to rub the nice lotion on my hands and put myself back into my body after that.

fuck me.

okay. so, first thoughts: i’m not buying that he’s CSM’s kid. i think it’s too heavy-handed, plot wise. the bad guy is secretly the good guy’s father! it’s been done before. we've all seen star wars. it’s not super satisfying. it’s a fun thought to bounce around in your head and imagine what would happen if it WERE true, but i just… don’t think they’re telling the truth. maybe CSM and his mom had an affair, but i don’t think he’s the result of that. i think it’s a convenient lie to lull him into complacency. and even if he hold diana that it’s true, that doesn’t mean it is. this is CSM. lying is his career. and he went pro. to the major leagues. he also lied about being samantha's father before. i see no reason to believe him.

he's gotta hang on until 23andme is invented so they can discover the truth.... cause god knows CSM could manipulate a traditional paternity test.

okay. so. the alien stuff. he was infected with the virus two years ago (in the gulag, correct?) and he gained some sort of immunity to it as a result, which may or may not be because his brain was going sicko mode. i guess i have some questions on the logistics of that, but none that i think can actually be answered by canon. so the dormant virus went haywire when he saw the rubbings on the letters? that makes no sense, but okay. and then somehow he became alien and then CSM took the alien parts out of him and put them into himself. so now CSM has the immunity. then how did he read his mind at the start? was it a trick? i'm guessing that mulder is no longer psychic, though, since they took the alien part out of him, but maybe now CSM is- which would be very dangerous. or maybe he already was? because he already was doing the mind reading? didn't he undergo the DNA splicing procedure when they thought they were going to have the whole alien colonizing thing last season? so what is the sense in doing it again?

sighs. i just don’t know.

let’s talk about scully, i say, and this is something i could have said any day for the last ten months and it would be true. this was a major turning point for her. being so desperate that she abandoned her own ideals. but, at the same time she began to discard the strict notion of science because she felt so entirely lost, she did also turn into herself and what she knew- praying with albert. turning to the belief she’s had in her all along that has never ran contradictory in her mind. but albert might not have even been there. a messenger from the divine, perhaps? a hallucination from lack of sleep? an angel? i guess we’ll never really know. 

but… man. i need some time to sink my teeth into that. 

her faith in science has been tested before, and to have everything explained by an alien civilization isn’t necessary in contradiction with science, just something not understood by it yet. she’s mentioned that point before. but also… she’s had shades of belief in the past. shoving the doll in the microwave in chinga. gibson telling her he knows she believes, she just doesn’t want to. that same exchange happened like, 3 other times in s6. so no, she’s not a full convert to the extraterrestrial. but she’s seen things she can’t understand and doesn’t know if it came from her own desperation to believe or if that is the Truth, and what is the Truth, anyway, and how can it be known?

what makes me really sad is how she kept repeating she was a failure for being unable to save him, and then at the end, her saying that diana saved him as much as she did broke my heart. diana put him into that situation. deciding at the last minute that she’s too cowardly to go through with it or has some change of heart that could almost be seen as mercy can’t be called saving him. she put him on that table and helped carve him up. we can’t give her equal credit for saving his life when his life wouldn't have been in danger without her meddling.

and for scully to think that makes me feel so sad. it’s as if she thinks that all she has is her science, and if she can’t understand that, what does she have? but the answer is she has her instincts, her kindness, her talent, her brains, her courage… for her to say that diana saved him as much as she did- god, i just think she must feel so guilty, so terrible, and not see her own worth. i will choose to interpret this line as a momentary exhale, a brief showing of her wounds which she normally keeps so tightly wrapped up. a moment of weakness. an indication of her lack of direction and her sheer desperation. because something i love about this show is that scully knows her value. i love that she knows she deserves to take up space at the table and never questions that. but maybe, when you’re questioning god and the universe and what it means to be alive and other unshakable truths, your own self-worth can get caught in the mix. maybe that can get shaken up, too.

mulder…. being lulled into complacency with the idea of forgiveness, starting fresh. a baptismal cleanings of sins via the suburbs. to know that he wasn’t responsible for everything he blames himself for; a reality where his family was whole. his fantasy of a normal life. damn. if that doesn’t tell you everything you need to know about his character… what he wants, what motivates him. but what tells you even more is the fact that he isn't satisfied- not really. he feels like that little boy watching the sandcastle get destroyed. and he almost goes through with it and never wakes up. until dream scully calls him to action. he cannot look away when she calls. he knows that she is reasonable and truthful. and that no matter how lovely this fake life is, it isn’t real. he can’t turn away from his commitments. no matter what fantasies fill his head. 

also. i knew he wanted kids so bad. but to see it in the dreamscape........ man. (gazes into the distance)

FUCK. i’m so mad about the whole diana thing. that she went along with it all… claiming to love him, and that they could be together. and having to see him dream a domestic future with me obviously pissed me tf off. like. shaking like a chihuahua levels of rage. did he really trust her that whole time? is that why he dreamed about it? is that the future he really saw for them in real life- even though he said he loved scully- or was the dreamscape carved up by CSM somehow? but sometimes, dreams are not wish fulfillment. sometimes random stuff happens in your dreams. everything else seemed so purposeful as his ideal reality, though, i can't help but wonder if that is truly how he felt- that he saw a marriage and kids and growing old with her. and why would that be?

she was touching his face, saying she loved him as she worked to kill him. and how nasty she was to scully……… and i'm not off-base in the implication that she assaulted him in the last episode, right? taking off her shirt and going into his room while he was violently ill and could barely speak? the writing was pretty clear on the wall there. i have been known to miss undertones, but that was clear to me.

usually, i love the female characters that everyone hates. if other people are writing dissertations on how much a fictional woman sucks, i am usually picking up a pitchfork and defending her honor. but i can’t do this here. i don’t even find her worth writing a dissertation about because her character was so flat. i will say that they at least gave her some dimension this episode. so shoutout to the writing team for that, i guess.

hmm. and CSM. driving him away. saying he was proud of him as a son. it just…. mmm. i don’t know if it’s not believable or if it’s not personally satisfying to me. what was his mother doing with him in that waiting room? does CSM believe what he claims? does mulder? does his mother? was he really reading his mind at the start? is his character able to kill thanos or something? 

i am very worried about mrs. mulder, however. she might be in very serious danger. she didn't pick up scully's calls, and she was there with CSM when they kidnapped him... it is not looking good for her.

i don’t really care for the alien plot stuff, so CSM getting mulder’s alien DNA removed and put into him was just kinda weird to me. same with all of the other alien stuff. the writings, the biblical imagery, the apocalypse. the appropriation of anasazi and other Indigenous legends, which feels in poor taste in the modern light. it just doesn’t really interest me that much. in this show, i like the vague spookiness and the interpersonal relationships and the search for the Truth and the old, old guilt in these characters, but the aliens themselves do not appeal to me very much. so. yeah. i guess i just feel (shrugs shoulders) about it, you know?

it feels like there is still an untapped wellspring of things i need to say within me.

how about we discuss skinner? telling scully that he is compromised and that he cannot help her. but she still calls him and explains about the book, because it's him- and this is why kritschgau is killed- because someone hears what she says. and she bursts in to find him when she has been expressly told not to, and he is slumped over in pain, krycek having used his remote controller to hurt him. so he was just blaming himself for mulder’s accidental overdose at the hands of kritschgau, saying it was his responsibility. and then things get worse… but they get better.

i want to explore that space of the getting better. of him hearing that they made it out despite it all. does it fill him with hope? but also, is it tinged with dread? because he knows there is more ahead? but mulder knows about him and krycek and the illness now- can they somehow find a cure? is that the next big project to embark upon? will he forgive himself?

kritschgau… idk what his deal was. he hacked into scully’s files and sent them to the NIH because he claimed he wanted to crack into the human genome, but it seems all he really wanted was to backup his claims as whistleblower. why did mulder pick him to ask for help, beyond him knowing the drug that helped him out? why did he threaten scully and break into the FBI? it felt like a really weird unresolved plot point.

what about barnes? what about the dude that came back to life and killed him? what about amina? i liked her!!! a lot!!! what about the ship? is it still there? is any of it still there? can any of it be explained? was it all a fake somehow? or was it real, and the aliens just have really weird priorities?

gah! it makes my head hurt to think about for longer than 5 seconds. and i know that we will never really know, which is frustrating. we are slowly dripped these little plot points that never add up to a whole picture, and it drives me CRAZY. 

but how beautiful it is to know someone so fully that you can know them when you know nothing else. when your whole world is turned upside down, you can see them clearly. that sort of soul bond. to kiss someone’s bandages. to be a touchstone. to cradle their face in your hands and hold the whole world in them. 

fuck. fuck fuck fuck fuck FUCK me. 

good angst here. incredible MSR. but i’m not sure what i would rank my overall satisfaction with this arc. it is an upheaval of everything we have known so far when it comes to our characters. scully, a believer? mulder, an alien (formerly?) and a bastard? skinner, someone who cannot be trusted? i will need some time to process all of these changes. there was a sense of finality and not going back, of every moment being incredibly important and life-altering moving forward. of no return. which happens in some episodes. and they always leave me with a strange feeling. sadness, perhaps? of the loss of what once was? of simplicity?

i think that the grand alien plot can take me out of the simple human connections that make the show so good. it can elevate them to a point that is hard to wrap your brain around and fathom. can make it so complicated for us mere mortals to understand. when dealing with the end of the world in a story, you must zero in on the mundane, the human, so we don’t get loss in an endless series of nearly avoided apocalypses without having a reason to feel a relief, as the audience, that the world didn’t blow up this time. and while there certainly are the essential human elements at play that ground such a fantastical story- when it veers away from focusing solely on that, it can make me aware of the fact that i am watching TV from a specific genre with a specific set of tropes rather than being immersed in the experience so wholly like i am when the plots are more character-driven and down to earth. i think that’s just how the nature of sci-fi/action stuff goes, at least for me. i’m not moved by the idea that aliens are god and left us messages. i’m moved by the humans who discovered that grappling with losing each other and comprehending their reunion. i’m moved by their tears and their blood and their lips touching foreheads, hands touching backs. you get what i’m saying?

fuuuuck. where do you go from here? there has to be some fic that takes place after this episode. 

i’m waxing poetic. because my heart yearns for a softness! and maybe i’m expecting something that the genre doesn’t deliver, but fuck. you need relief after endless punches to the gut and to the gut again and to the head and then to the gut once more. you drive these characters through horrible thing after horrible thing and i, the viewer, need to come up for air- which is why s4 was so tough for me. i felt like there was no air to breath. mytharc episodes will also plunge you underwater. and then, of course, the show is written pretty inconsistently, so whether or not you’ll get the relief in the form of lightheartedness and banter and teasing and fluffy stuff afterward is never guaranteed.

so. thus ought to conclude the diana saga- but who knows? it’s hard to say. maybe she didn’t actually die. like dream deep throat. and it was a shock to see deep throat again. a nice little treat for the viewers. with his wife and kids. 

hmm. despite typing all of that up, i still feel like i have so much more to say. but what is it? it’s a yearning for an epilogue i will never be provided. 

i will say, this episode made me lowkey want to proceed with my plan to not watch beyond s7. i know that i probably will end up going through with all of it… but. my heart was racing!! my feelings were feeling things!!! gaaaah! i need to be sedated. 

"my constant" fuck.

i just realize i wrote all of those words about an alien show. which is fine. i don’t ever half ass anything. 

need the fic where scully goes to his apartment after work and she makes blueberry pancakes in his kitchen and she catches him up on the office gossip since he went on leave and they catch each other's eyes for a liiiiiittle too long.

[lains-reality]

Once a young woman came to Hafiz and said, “What is the sign of someone knowing God?” And Hafiz became very quiet and stood in silence for nearly a minute. Lovingly looking deep into the young woman's eyes, he then softly spoke: “My dear, they have dropped the knife. The person who knows God has dropped the cruel knife so often used upon their tender self and others.”[source]

please give yourself the grace of forgetting, of being sad, of failing, of fearing. you are allowed to. all is Self. you are okay now and here.

allow yourself to look at the insecurities, shame, guilt and fears.

give yourself the chance to respond, not react.

let vanessa be. vanessa is just a person like anyone else. thinks they are born and will die. every vanessa, no matter how well off they are, is scared shitless. but you treat your vanessa so badly.

you hate it. you want it gone. you see the body and mind as a cage without a key. it hurts. you curse it and nothing changes. you try to convince it and nothing changes. you curse it more.

It is not a matter of enduring, it is a matter of you being so crude to Vanessa, and expecting so much of her when she has no power. Do you feel the same way about the homeless man on the street corner? Do you constantly chastise him in your head, blame him for his circumstances? Even if you are the kind of person to judge based on appearances, you do for a moment and move on with your life. That's because you never thought he was you so how could you feel pain on his behalf? You may do the opposite and feel bad for his situation for a bit, but you still leave the matter alone as he's none of your business and you have your own things to worry about. - post source

vanessa is doing the best it can. it sings, dances, loves! it bleeds, it shudders, it hurts. all is the wide expression of Self.

and yet you hide from the pain, from the hurt, from the thoughts, the feelings. this is not the fullness of Self.

forgive yourself. let go of the shame and guilt. stop shaming vanessa for exsiting just like any other person in the street. stop carrying all responsibilities of the world. it's already taken care of.

you breathe with no help, you shit with no help, you eat with no help, you sleep with no help. and even if you do need help, the inability to do so, happens without your help. your amazon package comes through, your sibling grows 2 cm, the sun rises and falls, the seasons pass by. all by itself. what's orchestrating it all? Self. what other reason have we given ourself the world, other than out of love?

Leave poor Vanessa alone and stop assigning her the responsibility and accountability of everything that the dream shows. The entire dream is all an expression of the Infinite Being, not hers (the ego) which she is just one more creation of. And it doesn't have to be your (the Self's/I AM's) dream anymore when you stop identifying with it. - post source

its already out of vanessa's hands. vanessa can't do anything. let that be a celebration: all is taken care of. unconditonally.

"why is it all taken care of?"

"why not!"

"but why should *i* get the world?"

"why not?"

"but-"

its already all here for you. its already as it is. what is vanessa gonna do to change the infinte? why would the infinite need changing anyway?

Treat it with compassion, stop bullying it, it's not its fault you're not where you should be. You think he's in the way so you get mad, you get frustrated it's not following instructions or refuses to step aside. But the ego is not the problem, nor in the way. Your attitude toward it is the problem. Let it be, it doesn't know any better! - post source

give yourself the permission to exist as you are. give yourself permission to be as you are, right now. start asking 'did i give permission for this?' you'll find how much stuff is not even your choice. as ada said its just tolerance and endurance of the forced vanessa.

now you realise you don't have to be a forced vanessa. so you go completely the other direction and try to (forcefully) change the vanessa. you're still holding up standards, ideas & roles to yourself. the things that made you hate vanessa in the first place. just maybe, for this moment hold nothing. drop the knife.

“Stop trying to heal yourself, fix yourself, even awaken yourself. Let go of letting go. Stop trying to fast-forward the movie of your life. It gets so exhausting, doesn’t it, always trying to get there, chasing futures that never seem to arrive, living on second-hand promises. Instead, bow deeply to yourself as you actually are. Be here. Honour this present scene in the movie. Your pain, your sorrow, your doubts, your deepest longings, your fearful thoughts, are not mistakes, and they aren’t asking to be healed. They are asking to be held. Here, now, lightly, in the loving arms of present awareness…” — Jeff Foster

[carebooks]

Emma and Daniel did not belong together.

After extensively rewatching Every Witch Way during Spring Break (yep, that's how I spent Spring Break), I went through tumblr and saw people wondering if this fandom still exists. Well, even if there's only like fifteen people on it, let's discuss Emma and one of her main love interests: Daniel.

I would like to disclose that I am a Jemma fan, after Jax showed up in S2, Daniel went out the window for little thirteen-year-old me. This isn't a Daniel VS Jax post, this is just about Emma and Daniel's relationship. This post will mainly reflect on why I think that, in the long run, they did not belong together. They're definitely a first loves ship, but not an endgame ship.

In S1 both were still young and finding their footing, but mainly Emma. Daniel had already dated Maddie for a while and then went through the whole first season flirting and liking Emma after his break up with Maddie. Daniel was also on top of his game, being the Sharks Swim Captain, and other than Maddie being his girlfriend, his life was happy and fine. Emma coming in merely improved it, she was nicer, thoughtful, and down to earth. But Emma's story was just beginning, she was discovering being a witch, having to deal with her powers, a witch bully Maddie at school, and daily shenanigans that entailed the magical world. Daniel is the last person to discover Emma is a witch and he also has the worst reaction to it. Not that surprising considering how regular his life has been, but that kind of tells us where this was headed.

In S2 Emma and Daniel have been together for months now, all through the summer. The thing is, Daniel's been happier than ever and he thinks Emma's powers never came back, something that she's been hiding from him this entire time. Lying to your SO is never a good thing, especially about something this big, something that is literally part of you. There are reasons for both of them however:

Emma knew how happy Daniel was that she was 'regular' and didn't want to ruin what they had by bringing in all her witch stuff, which tended to bring all sorts of chaos and antics.

Daniel didn't want Emma to have powers out of fear that other evil witches would come after her because she was the Chosen One.

While these are reasonable explanations for both of them, they're not fixing any of their real issues. Emma should not be lying to her boyfriend, eventually, it did catch up to her and she tried using magic to make him forget. Also not a good thing, even if she wanted a 'redo' at telling him. When he does find out, it causes their downfall. The thing is, Emma lied because Daniel just can't handle her being a witch. He's said that her powers being back would "ruin everything" and has shown a fear of witches when magic was brought up in S2E05. Emma keeps telling him that powers or no powers, she's still a witch. Still, she chose to hide a part of herself to try to have a normal relationship with her boyfriend. But hiding a part of yourself is never the answer and it eats away at you.

S2 also explores the fact that witches can't date humans, it's not allowed. The Council tries to have Emma break up with him otherwise they must take the witches magic away, but Emma being the Chosen One is a special case. Her magic removal is not on the table and she wants to keep her powers regardless. (I mean I agree with Emma, let the girl date whoever she wants) But it is another thing that drives them further apart, unfortunately, the Council ended up being right, most humans just can't handle the magical world. (Andi can handle it, so can Katie and Sophie, but Daniel can't.)

When it comes to the Fool Moon, it has a different effect on all sorts of witches. Jax's greed and envy magnify, Desdemona turns vindictive and wants Emma's powers, and Emma's impulse control is gone. This leads to Emma casting spells without really thinking about the consequences and out in the open. The Fool Moon is just a witch or wizard's desires coming to the surface. In retrospect, Maddie was just as affected, she started improving (slightly, but still progress) and didn't run from her feelings toward Diego. She was more open and entered a relationship with him.

We also see Emma's clones in this season. Her first clone, E, encompasses her dark side with none of the good. She calls Daniel dull, she's bored with him and his ideas for dates, and she finds Jax fun and wants to do magic whenever she wants. She's happy when Daniel breaks up with Emma because 1. She found him boring and 2. They get to keep their powers now and the Council can stop hounding them. This may be Emma's darkest side but it's still Emma. Some part of her does believe that Daniel is dull and finds Jax fun. Granted, her third clone, the Nerdy Emma is all about Daniel. This is why the clone spell is so very illegal, a witch is essentially pulling out a part of themselves and without the rest to balance it, they become a paragon of just one emotion or drive or aspect of their original personality. They're not whole. The Real Emma shares all these traits inside herself, she does like Daniel, she does find him dull sometimes, she does like math, she does find it boring at times, and she does like Jax but she does think he goes overboard sometimes.

See, this is where we come into an important piece of dialogue in S2 E16 between Maddie and Daniel talking about their romantic troubles.

Maddie: But if you two were still together, you'd want her to stop using her powers? Daniel: Maybe. Maddie: Then you don't accept Emma for who she is. And as a fellow witch, I'm offended for her!

This is an interesting moment in which someone like Maddie, someone who doesn't like Emma but is a witch just like her, sees that while Emma lied to Daniel, she did it because Daniel doesn't accept her as who she is.

Daniel has openly expressed anger and disinterest at the magic world. And hey, I understand, after all the spells Jax has cast on him to make him look bad in front of Emma's dad, or just the usual magic hijinks from Emma or Maddie, magic is not Daniel's friend. He doesn't find it fun or cool like Andi, he's not desensitized to it like Katie and Sophie. He's suffered from it and doesn't want anything to do with it and hey I can respect that. But this isn't good when you're in a relationship with a witch, the most powerful one in fact. So he's tiptoeing a line constantly between wanting to be with his girlfriend but disliking and fearing something that's part of her (and part of his friends' lives: Maddie and Diego).

Let's get to S3 when he was marked by Mia with her Kanay spider. Spider!Daniel broke up with Emma, started dating Mia, was a general jerk at school, even tied up his little siblings. It turns out that Mia's Spider doesn't cause him to act strange or evil, it just unleashes someone's 'inner wild'. It makes them do what they most want to do. So, Daniel did want to break up with Emma. He called Emma and Maddie trouble-brewing witches and had no problem telling a complete stranger all about their powers.

Now we could get into how Daniel's life was turned upside down more than plenty of times because of magic, but nothing beats S4 when Emma literally rewrites time when Daniel disappears. He and his family end up running an animal sanctuary and dating Mia. Then his life gets put back and it's for the worse because now he has no animals, no girlfriend, and he's back in a school hated by the principal. Overall, Daniel was not having a good time in S4. One of the many reasons why Emma puts him back where he was happy. (I would also like to remind everyone that Mia and her previously deceased parents were alive in the new accidental timeline of S4. I believe that Emma also was the cause of this, not only did she unintentionally give Daniel a better life but the same to Mia. And then she restored that life at the end of the season.)

In conclusion, Jemma forever.

But really, I hope someone reads this and enjoys or sees the situation from both sides and how they weren't really a good couple. Kind of doomed in the end when you think about it. I mean the girl loves butterflies and he's allergic to butterflies. I don't think the writers were subtle with that one, huh.

[thetomorrowshow]

hi i’m the anon who asked to make more of the reverse au

i realised i’m actually pretty terrible at writing and am terrified of posting my work anywhere but i still have so many ideas. i thought i’d just share them here in case you or anyone else is interested (you don’t have to read them i just want to get them out of my head)

-scott and jimmy become pen pals and write to each more and more until it’s a daily occurrence. through the letters jimmy tells scott everything that was said in dissonant air (he can’t control his powers, he never meant to hurt anyone, the depressing thoughts, etc)

-they see each others real faces during a poorly timed letter delivery. scott had come to give jimmy his letter in his civilian get-up at the same time jimmy was leaving his apartment

-scott didn’t return to being a hero between the times he was kidnapped from his injuries and from his fear of seeing xornoth again. he stayed trapped in his house writing letters. his friends were more than happy to help him buy groceries and stuff every once in a while. nobody noticed when he got kidnapped except for jimmy, since the letters stopped coming. at first jimmy thought scott had come to his senses and stopped talking to him but still had a feeling something was wrong

-jimmy tried to tell the other hero’s something was wrong but they didn’t trust him. after days of constantly bothering them and insisting major was in danger they finally complied. jimmy told them about scott’s previous kidnapping and they got on the case

-the hero’s tried to find xornoths lair by themselves (they wouldn’t let jimmy help for obvious reasons) but gave in after months of failure and let poor jimmy help. he used what information he could find from all of the letters he was sent. it wasn’t a lot but it was enough to work with

wow this got long. sorry about that! there’s still other stuff i had in my head with this (like with what was going on with scott during all of this and how they get him out) but idk if you’d want to hear more. sorry if this was bad i’m not the best with writing and grammar

I never thought I would write anything else for this au of an au. But hey, here we are.

For clarity's sake, Jimmy is 'S' and Scott is 'M'.

---

Hey! Hope everything’s good. Sorry about your security camera :/ I think I broke it… But I just wanted to say thank you for not mentioning me to the police. Or the reporters. Yeah. Sorry. But I hope you’re getting to feeling better! Thanks again and sorry again

Thanks

S

~

Thank you for your help.

-M

~

Hey, just wanted to let you know I got your note! Glad I could help, really. I feel like I never do anything right, so it was nice to be able to help someone for once. On a related note, I think your groceries went bad. Sorry :( I should start pre-writing these so that I don’t stand on your doorstep for so long. But how does getting groceries delivered work? I’ve been wanting to try it for a while because supermarkets are a landmine. But I hope you’re well! I hope you’re eating enough. Sorry about the groceries.

Thanks!!

S

~

Please do not stand on my doorstep to write notes.

You visit the store’s website and click the delivery option.

-M

~

Thanks for the advice about the whole shopping thing! I haven’t done it yet because I dropped my phone into an incinerator the other day and I’m still trying to buy a new one but the power goes out every time I walk into an electronics store. I’ll try it out once I have a new one though!! And I’m so so sorry I know I shouldn’t stand on your doorstep because like anyone could pass by, which is why I’ve only been stopping by at night, but I think Pearl almost saw me the other night so I’ll be more careful.

Sorry again!!

S

P.S. Sorry I’m standing on your doorstep but I was just wondering why you haven’t done any interviews?? You’ve been back for while now and people are going to worry… just checking to make sure you’re okay! Getting kidnapped can kind of take it out of you for a while :/

~

Sorry you haven’t said anything I just wanted to let you know that I tried out the delivery thing!! It worked really well actually I didn’t have to sign for it or anything just came right up to my doorstep. A lot of the stuff wasn’t what I ordered and the jam I wanted had shattered but it worked and it was way less stressful than usual so you’re the best for telling me how to do it thanks so much!

S

P.S. sorry sorry sorry but you don’t have to write me back if you don’t want to, I just wanted to check that you’re doing okay! Have a good week :) 

~

If they sent you the wrong items, you should get a refund.

Thank you. I don’t plan on any public appearances until I don’t panic when I go outside for the time being. I am recovering well.

-M

~

Okay you didn’t say to stop writing but it was good to hear from you! I felt really bad that I couldn’t help you more that night so I just worry. I’ve been thinking lately though that you probably don’t want to hear from me though so I can stop.

I do need to say something first, though. I mentioned it when you were at my at that apartment with me, but I don’t know how much you remember from then or anything. But basically I’m so so sorry about everything. Like literally everything. I’ve never forgiven myself for Aeor and I don’t expect you to, either, but I just wanted to let you know that I’m sorry. If I could change everything I would. Believe me I would. I’ve hurt too many people. It would be better if I didn’t exist. I don’t deserve to I’ve hurt I should just start a new note at this point, haha. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I understand if you don’t want me to write any more notes. I’ll stop. I hope you’re doing well and you continue to recover!

S

P.S. last time I got kidnapped I was really scared of going back to my apartment so I moved and I felt better, so maybe you need a bit of time out of the city to help you get tip-top :)

~

Thank you for the apology.

And my therapist thinks that might be an unhealthy way of coping, as much as I might agree with you that getting away sounds nice. I’m working through it.

You don’t have to stop writing.

-M

~

I AM SO SORRY I DIDN’T KNOW YOU WERE AT MY DOOR BEFORE I WALKED OUT LET’S NEVER TALK ABOUT IT AGAIN

Anyways wow you have a therapist that’s good!! My advice isn’t really good haha sorry. I actually did therapy for a little when I was in school but then everything went really bad with my powers and but then things didn’t work out. I don’t know why I crossed that out. Basically I was in therapy to try and learn how to control my powers and well we know how that ended up.

Quick question maybe I haven’t paid enough attention to you on tv but are your eyes naturally that blue? Because it’s really blue.

S

~

This is my natural eye color.

I didn’t know that there was a therapy program for children who struggle to control their powers. You said it didn’t help, though. I’m glad that you were able to figure it out without professional help.

You were kidnapped before. Does it get any easier? I’m sorry to hear that.

-M

~

Oh so about the therapy thing yeah my powers came when I was like 15 and that’s usually a little old for that therapy but they made a special exception. But no it didn’t work. Actually my parents were planning to send me away to a specialist where I could get the help I needed but it never ended up happening. So I just never learned how to control them.

On a related note a giraffe ate my new phone but I tried out the delivery thing again before that! I kind of expect to get the wrong things because of my powers haha so I’m not going to complain about my ten bottles of ketchup. But my jam did shatter again so I have to decide if it’s worth the anxiety of going to the store.

The first time I got kidnapped, I was really scared. I didn’t know what was happening. They wanted information, I think? I was panicking really bad because they kept pointing guns at my head. I got out pretty quick but it was bad for a long time. I didn’t want to leave my apartment. I mean I never do, really, but it was even worse.

I don’t know when I moved on. I think my sink broke and I was forced to leave the house, but moving isn’t the same as moving on, you know? Like you can run anywhere but it’s usually just running away. You have to face it.

S

~

Thanks for the advice. I really liked that last thing you said.

I don’t want to face them, though. I know I have to, but what if they take me again?

I’m sorry. These are my problems, not yours.

-M

~

Oh gosh I didn’t mean you have to face Xornoth!! No that sounds bad! They literally kidnapped and tortured you for like a month dude! Honestly forget what I said about the whole running away thing, you should really try to get away from this situation if you can. You shouldn’t feel responsible for Xornoth when they hurt you like that, let someone else deal with that! There are tons of supers in the city, just tell one of your friends that you don’t want to be involved with Xornoth and they’ll take care of it!

S

~

I’m the Primary Protector, though. It’s my job to face the city’s greatest threats, and Xornoth is one of them. I should be able to handle them.

I don’t want my friends to see me any differently. They already give me weird looks. I honestly wasn’t very badly hurt—I was mostly malnourished. They don’t understand why I’m not back in the game yet. I don’t know how to tell them.

I wish I could leave.

-M

~

:(( it sounds like you’re really struggling. Do you think you might have PTSD? You don’t have to answer that. But you should take your time! If it was anyone else, I think they’d have moved very far away to get away from the danger which is smart. It’s actually really upsetting that you can’t. Maybe you can work out like a code with your friends so that they can come in and handle Xornoth if they show up while you’re working? Honestly just the fact that they were able to kidnap you once means that there should be extra protection for you. Heck maybe I can do something.

If you need anything though I’m here. I don’t get it exactly but I kind of know what it’s like. I mean yeah I’ve been kidnapped before a couple of times but I know what it’s like to not want to go outside in general. To be scared of what could happen. Well you have other friends but I’m here to help if I can. I don't make promises ever because they never work out for me but I'm here.

S

~

Thank you for the offer. I don’t think there’s anything you can do to help.

I have been diagnosed with PTSD, actually. I’m also readjusting to my antidepressants still, so my therapist thinks some of my anxieties come from the meds change and will even out in time.

I think I’ll do a public interview soon. I don’t want them to think that they’ve scared me away.

They’re dangerous. Please don’t endanger yourself. They experimented on me They might try to It isn’t worth the risk.

-M

~

The craziest fight happened downtown!

Okay so I was really just trying to get to the Planet Fitness to take a shower (I’m not homeless haha my shower is broken again) but Mythics was battling Pearl downtown and it was WILD. Like they were not pulling any punches, and I thought they were kind of friendly rivals but this was just crazy! But then the Oracle got involved? So the fight just kind of stopped when he touched them and then he left. I thought the Oracle was a villain but that was vigilante behavior if you ask me. I get it though, if I could’ve done that I would’ve. Like maybe he just needed to take a shower too.

Anyways my powers decided to make everything ten times worse like usual so a giant worm burst out of the ground. Maybe I should have let the Oracle touch me too so that I could join Mythics and Pearl on the ground crying. They’re fine btw some civilians dragged them out of the way of the worm. I was too busy trying to figure out a way to deal with the worm. I think Mythics woke up and magicked it into one of his portal things.

But anyways it was crazy. Well you probably already saw it on the news or something.

I hope the interview goes well!! How does that even work? Like does somebody come to your house or do you go to the news station or what? I'm assuming you've done a couple of interviews before idk.

S

~

I saw about the attack. You should look up ‘tired man throws phone at giant worm video’ if you haven't seen it.

For the interview, I reach out to a news outlet and set up an interview (or, more often, they reach out to me). Then we usually meet in a nice room in their office. I've done tons of interviews, you can find them on my twitter or on youtube.

I'm nervous about the interview. I tried to get a reporter I like but I just know that they'll ask me why I've been away. I don't want them to think I'm weak. It isn't your problem, anyways. I'll talk about it with my therapist.

Really though, you should watch that video.

-M

~

NOOO THAT'S SO BAD THAT SHOULD BE A CRIME

In my defense I was really tired and I just threw whatever was in my hand at the worm, I didn't realize it was my phone.

I've never given an interview before but man that sounds stressful. I hope it goes well! I'd appreciate it if you didn't mention me in it of course but you know that. Good luck and let me know how it goes!

Also if it helps at all taking time off definitely doesn't make you weak. Sometimes it's even stronger to admit you need a break than to keep powering through. Especially after being held captive and tortured for a month.

Good luck again!!

S

P.S. your cat is super cute but maybe she shouldn't be outside? It's really dangerous for cats to live outdoors and I don't want to accidentally hurt her :((

~

Thanks for the kind words.

I can send you the link to the interview if you tell me your phone number. Or I can dm it to you on twitter—is the verified account actually you? The one that mostly shares scam links and random ip addresses?

Also I'm working on leash training Elle, so that we can go on walks and she can be an inside cat.

-M

~

I've tried to write this note like fifty times but the paper keeps tearing so I'll keep it short. My phone number changes a lot and I currently don't have a phone (giraffe again) but I'll just look it up when I get one! And yep that's my twitter, I try to delete the old pictures of me it posts but I gave up on when it posts my location.

Good luck again!

S

~

Why don’t you delete twitter?

-M

~

I did :( 

S

~

Solidarity, your life kind of sucks.

-M

~

You’ve got no room to talk, mister.

S

~

So that’s what it is, isn’t it? We’re just two losers.

-M

P.S. but, for the record, your life is way worse than mine.

~

Okay I’ve got a new phone and I watched the interview! You did incredible, I think I would’ve run away like two seconds in. Like even when they asked that one question about why you weren’t back to work when you’re pretty much physically all right, you really kept it together. I was genuinely so impressed.

Also you’re looking good! I don’t know how to explain it haha, but you look a lot better than you did on my living room floor. How are you doing? Do you think it went well?

S

~

I’d look a lot better in your bed Thanks for watching. It was hard. It was really hard. But I think it helped. I feel kind of better about getting back into it all. Not yet, but maybe soon.

Do you ever wish you’d chosen a different path in life?

-M

~

I never really had a choice to make.

S

P.S. but if I wasn’t powered, I think I’d want to do something with my hands. I used to think subways were the coolest thing ever. I wouldn’t mind learning how to fix a subway car.

~

I studied to be an architect. I loved city architecture. I wanted to design skyscrapers.

I didn’t ever plan to be a hero full-time, but I do like it. I enjoy my job. I’m famous, I live comfortably, I do cool stuff on TV.

But what if I would’ve been happier as an architect?

Sorry, this isn’t your problem. I should talk to my therapist about it.

-M

P.S. Maybe you can take a community college mechanics course?

~

I really can’t, cars tend to break down around me. I don’t even take Ubers anymore (not related to the car breaking-down thing, but because last time the driver held me at gunpoint and stole my phone and wallet).

Honestly mate, if you want to be an architect I'd say go for it. Even if it's only something you can do on the side you know? There's tons of people who never got the chance to do what they love. You deserve a good life.

S

~

Thanks. I'm sorry that you never got to choose. You deserve a good life, too.

I can't let Xornoth win. If I run away, it's defeat. If I don't do anything about it, they might hurt someone else.

I need to take care of this myself.

-M

~

That sounds like a suicide note.

S

~

Wouldn't be the first time.

-M

~

You should ask your friends for help. You don't have to do this alone. You shouldn't face them alone.

S

~

I haven't really talked to anyone since I got back. I know it isn't healthy but I can't. They don't get it. They don't know what Xornoth did to me. I can't let it happen to anyone else. They're a danger to the city and it's my duty to take them down. Alone.

I'm sorry.

-M

~

You aren't alone, okay? If you have no one else, you have me.

S

~

Thank you.

-M

P.S. it means so much to me. I consider you a friend. You have me, too.

~

I saw you on the news fighting the Engineers. You looked good! The fight went really well. How do you feel about it? Is there anything I can do to like support you?

S

P.S. Elle won't stop begging me for belly rubs but each time I try she nips my fingers :(

~

Hey are you doing all right? I mean you took a little bit of a hit in that fight so it's okay if you can't make it to my apartment to drop off a note haha. You can email me if it's easier awsumwingback8@yahoo.com.

S

~

Major please just like let me know that you're okay.

S

~

I may have broken into Blossom’s house (I meant to just knock but the door fell down) and she kicked my butt but she hasn't seen you in a while, she said. Are you okay? I'll break into your house next haha.

S

~

I know you told me not to write notes while I'm on your doorstep but if you don't open the door by tomorrow night I'm breaking in. Elle keeps trying to get me to follow her inside. I'm going to watch your house until tomorrow night, okay? You don't have to write back, just open the door.

I'll come for you.

S

P.S. I didn't mean to sound weird or creepy I mean I have your back. I'll come save you if they got you. 

I promise.

[roninkairi]

And Now, Another Ghostface Sketch Because I Am Bored...

"Ok...another day, another fight..."

"Uh Billy?"

"Yeah Stu?"

"Look, we've been through a lot right? I mean, in between the fights posted here and the stuff on YouTube, we've been getting killed by a LOT of people?"

"Yeah I know. I mean Walter White? Really? Why him?"

"I was thinking MAYBE we should, you know, cut our losses and leave this one to Homelander."

"Look, the sooner we get this out of the way, the better."

"Yeah but...something about this girl is giving me a bad vibe."

"Let me see who we are fighting then. I'll size 'em up for us."

"Right. Now then, tell me...what's your favorite scary--"

"Please...do not hold back on my account. Fight as if you intend to kill."

"OH GOD NO!!!! NO NO NO NO NO NO!!!! STU!!!!"

"It's that bad, isn't it?"

"BAD ISN'T EVEN THE WORD I WANT TO USE TO EMPHASIZE JUST HOW COMPLETELY FUCKED WE ARE RIGHT NOW, STU!!!"

"Ok. But humor me for a second. Just who is she, some kind of elevator attendant?"

"No no, I WISH she was that elevator attendant from Hunter x Hunter. At least the death would have been quick. That, compadre is ELIZABETH!!"

"Ok...keep going."

"All right let me break it down. You know how in RPGs and fighting games, there are bosses that require ridiculous amounts of skill to get to?"

"Yeah?"

"SHE EATS THOSE BASTARDS FOR BREAKFAST!!"

"You mean she could one shot someone like, say, Akuma or Emerald Weapon if she could?"

"Precisely."

"HOW?!"

"Let me fill in the gaps. She's the guide for the protagonist in Persona 3 and helps keep records of all the Personas that he fuses. She also gives you quests to make you stronger. Only after you complete these quests can you actually fight her one on one."

"That sounds...standard."

"You would think. But there is a catch. You can only challenge her on New Game Plus, which means you have to get Personas and items powerful enough to withstand her onslaught. And if you don't you won't even last 10 FUCKING SECONDS of the battle since her main Persona is the embodiment of Death itself. And she's not even the strongest of the Velvet Room Attendants. No no, that role is for her SISTER!!"

"Whoa."

"It gets WORSE."

"How? How could it get worse?"

"The SEES team had to struggle to kill Erebus. At the beginning of her story for Persona 4 Arena, she teleports it to the MOON so she can kill it in one go!"

"The--the MOON?!"

"And just in case you aren't shitting your pants in fear yet, she is also the final boss in Score Attack for that game and the buffs she get in there are SEVERE."

"Oh no...just how severe are we talking?"

"Billy? What is a Megidoalon"

"A VERY good question. Perhaps a demonstration is in order."

"Wait, NO--"

"I give you...MEGIDOALON!!"

[griseldagimpel]

Why Basira Hussain in The Magnus Archives Isn't Textually Muslim

I've noted before that Basira Hussain in The Magnus Archives isn't textually Muslim and is implied not to have strong religious faith. And it is religious faith I want to talk about in this post. Basira may very well come from a Muslim cultural background. But she isn't depicted as a capital B Believer.

Let's start with: a character's background - of any and every sort - is going to have some kind of impact on that character. The specifics of that impact will vary - there is no universal experience of anything - and the extend of the impact will be affected by the specifics of the story they are inhabiting. But a character's background shouldn't just be garnish.

With The Magnus Archives, it's a story that deeply involves religion and religious faith, what with the fear entities being worshiped as gods and all. And that means that characters' non-fear-god religious background comes up more than it might in another narrative. Thus, we get stuff like Eugene opining that the Cult of the Lightless Flame shouldn't just imitate Christianity and Martin & Jon discussing whether the Christian God is a force they can invoke.

As such, the fact that religion never comes up with Basira - when it comes up with so many other characters in the story - leads me to believe that she doesn't have a strong religious background.

Are you following me so far?

Right. So why is this? Why did the creative team make this creative decision?

Well, it's because of season five.

The fourth season ends with the fear apocalypse beginning, and then throughout all of season five, no deity intervenes to stop the fear apocalypse. (Well, unless you want to argue this was the case with Georgie and Melanie's immunity, and there, yeah, I think from an in-story perspective their cult's pretty justified, honestly.)

We spend most of the our time with Jon & Martin, who explicitly come from culturally Christian backgrounds but don't have particularly strong Christian faith themselves and predominantly experience religion in the context of the fear gods. Then there's Basira, Georgie, and Melanie.

The goal of the fifth season is the stop the fear apocalypse, which the characters do, and then the series quickly ends. And the sequel series is over there in a whole different parallel universe.

Because, look, even after being undone, the fear apocalypse was going to fuck with a lot of humanity's religious faith (or lack there of!) something fierce. Gods are real but also they're monsters and also no other god intervened.

That's...a lot.

Basira's doesn't have strong religious faith because if she did, she'd have to process season five through the lens of her religion.

And that's...a lot.

And the creative team wanted Basira's story arc to be about her confronting the harm she and Daisy did as corrupt cops.

Also, look, a British podcast depicting the Christian God as either probably nonexistent or useless? That's like, whatever. England's got a whole Church of England. Christians in England aren't being persecuted for being Christian. The episode "The Architect of Fear" can have Robert Smirke write, "I am certain the Dread Powers cannot take a soul who keeps faith in the Resurrection." and then drop dead before he can even finish his letter. It's fine.

But a British podcast specifically depicting a Muslim character having to confront that their faith is false?

Muslims in England are a religious minority. They don't have a whole institutionalized Mosque of England behind them.

Yeah, that could easily end up coming off as Jerk Move.

Not saying that it couldn't be done or couldn't make a compelling narrative, but it would be a lot to take on. It would risk overpowering the corrupt cop reckoning character arc. And the creative team would have to tread carefully for it not to be a Jerk Move.

Ergo, it's easier on the creative team for them to just...not have Basira be religiously Muslim.

Relatedly, Melanie and Georgie aren't depicted as strongly religious for similar reasons. Because they're outside of the Eye's power! If either of them had a strong religious faith, the characters would likely be interpreting their exemption as being a reflection of their faith! And that would be another plotline where the creative team would likely feel like they had to tread carefully lest their story come off as Jerk Move. Again, not impossible to pull off. But difficult.

[legitimatesatanspawn]

I FIGURED OUT WHY I'M INVESTED IN PRE-FILM MAGNIFICO X AMAYA AND THE RELATIONSHIP GETTING SALVAGED FROM THE CORRUPTION OF FORBIDDEN MAGIC.

Besides the way the film was paced. And besides my lowkey obsession with the magic, symbology, and assorted minor details.

I used to write Asgore. A lot. I used to write Toriel also, a lot. Note: this doesn't mean I forced Asgore and Toriel back together, just was overly aware that they had a LOT of stuff to work through post-paci if only for the sake of their people surviving their return to the world outside of the Underground.

TLDR: I am invested in Asgore and Toriel working things out in spite of the changes and justified outrage each had, so in turn I'm invested in Magnifico and Amaya working things out in spite of his fall. Maybe not with Magnifico back in power, but definitely some form of reconciliation and the realization that everyone involved was going about it all the worst way possible. (The praise heaped on Magnifico for wishes, the fact that the system wasn't "I will definitely grant your wishes" but "I am protecting you from feeling heartbroken and might grant the wishes for you", and how PETTY he could be.)

Magnifico was left alone at the worst moment for him, no time to recognize where and how he went wrong at the end (in fact he doesn't realize it when in the staff glass), and no one will not give him that chance given that the Evil Book claimed no one can escape the corruptive taint of Forbidden Magic upon using it. Asgore had support and time as well as being showing more trust in others.

Also the loss and destruction of what they once knew in the backstory affected them differently because Magnifico was alone in it while literally the whole kingdom in the Underground shared the same story or were descendants of people with those same stories.

More of the ramble below the cut because this got LONG.

Asgore realized - long before the events of the game - that he made HUGE mistakes, but couldn't see how to stop as long as it gave his people hope. Toriel was still bitter about those same choices because she... honestly, they both embodied Fire a little too much. Asgore's anger was a quick flame, burned brightly but cooled off leaving only the ruin of soot left. Toriel's anger is at a constant low ember, every time she lost another human child to Asgore's decree she got more and more bitter about his choice.

Magnifico? In the film, he doesn't have the time to realize how bad he screwed up because he's still caught up in the moment (and in the mindscrew of wielding dark magic). Amaya? In the film, we saw moments where she was hurt or upset but unlike Toriel she set aside her own hurt to help her people. Maybe a little too quickly but she might have a good cry once out of the public eye.

There's a lot more differences of course. Like the fact that Toriel and Asgore lost two children where as far as we know Magnifico and Amaya have no children at all. We've never seen Asgore act petty or overly paranoid like Magnifico, but we have the results of his fear and rage. There's no magic regarding wishes in the Underground but the average person looks up to Asgore like a burgeoning god while the people of Rosas are in awe of Magnifico (or maybe just his magic). And its implied that Asgore connects more and better with his people than Magnifico did (at least if only before the decrees), but that also ties into the fact that the Monsters ALL suffered the same way by human hands while Magnifico alone seems to have lost his original home.

Amaya is reached out to and reaches out in turn to her subjects. She steps up when she recognizes that Magnifico has used the book. Toriel... in a way you can say she chose to help her people by abdicating her position as queen, as a civil war would only harm Monsters further. We do see what happens after Toriel takes up the crown after Asgore's death in some endings, but it is vastly different circumstances to Amaya taking the crown in the wake of Magnifico's... self-destruction.

Likewise too are the kingdoms' reactions to the ending. In Undertale, the circumstances mean that Toriel is stepping up after the person they trusted and believed in was betrayed and murdered himself so she is in turn dethroned and exiled for trying to change things. Amaya meanwhile is stepping up after the people all have seen Magnifico go insane and mad with power, and while the entity that ultimately sparked the change is gone (Frisk vs Star) Amaya and Asha secure a new status quo. Which thankfully is nothing like any of the other Undertale endings (METTATON I still think his is the objectively worst ending outside of a near/fully completed Geno run).

Asgore and Magnifico are both responsible towards their people. But they express it differently in what they try to protect them from and how they go about it. And certainly in how they react to being challenged by their people. Asgore trained Undyne in combat until she could hit him. Magnifico lashed out when Asha kept questioning him. Asgore bolstered everyone's hope for the future, no matter how much the weight crushed him. Magnifico helps everyone forget their worries for a more content present. Either Asgore doesn't know how people see him or he tries to carry on as he always has done. Magnifico has basked in the adulation and glory even as he keeps everyone at a distance.

The Underground doesn't seem to have any images of Asgore. Rosas is littered with images of Magnifico.

They're nothing alike. Their situations are nothing alike. Yet I can see similarities even with all the contrasts. I can see HOW things could've gotten better or changed, or even how they could've gotten worse.

[enjoyvoidblack]

our big post was getting long and it won't let me message so I thought I'd just come bother you here asldkfjsad I am like. so 1000% certain there is mention in the text that the initial purpose and efforts of Jonah and the Institute were to research the fears and prevent their many catastrophes, and that somewhere along the line he came to the conclusion that this wasn't viable, that the world and the fears simply didn't function in a way that was conducive to meaningfully stopping them from doing anything. which was how he settled into the position of 'well then I am going to use the instruments of power to save ME and build a ladder to free myself personally from their clutches forever' I def don't know when he started to turn from that, but i'll have to go back through the transcripts and find it again.

I do get that the narrative is written with Jon as the focal point, and that doesn't leave a lot of room for Elias to be sympathetic--he certainly doesn't make himself sympathetic TO Jon, or any of the Archives crew (beyond what I find to be an interesting amount of patience, understanding, and restraint he shows for them), but I still think like. Part of the beauty of Jonny's storytelling is that there is a kernel of completely understandable humanity to most everyone that's presented with any depth in the series, even the people we DON'T like. The "people here don't have excuses, they have causes" is again really excellent wording. There isn't really a lot of the usual karmic style reasoning or justice in this series; it isn't about Good People doing Good Things or Bad People doing Bad Things, it's just. People Doing Things, while under the influence of powers that are at once cosmic and beyond us, and inherently OF us.

adsfkjas this is getting long too I'm so sorry you activated a trap card here but idk. He absolutely is both manipulator and victim. He did all that shit, and all the while it's being done TO him, and he's walking this incredibly razor thin line between feeding his god/being empowered by it, and bc of it's nature knowing in intimate detail every nasty thing that awaits him should he fail (and I think being deathly afraid of it). That gif from Knives Out lmfao, compels me.

(apologies this probably isn't hugely coherent but there we are)

Thank you I am chewing on this ask violently. You Get It.

Unfortunate that tumblr killed your paragraph breaks, because I now can't find the section easily, but that thing about Jonny's character work in this series entirely consisting of aspects of "completely understandable humanity" is SO deeply how I feel about it. This is part of why I love horror of this kind so much. The horror being the fact that no one can really do anything to stop it opens up a space where the characters don't need to be presented along clear lines of good and evil, or even helping a cause or hurting it. It's a lot closer to how real people react in a natural disaster, if anything. There is love and selfishness and incredible acts of violence and cruelty and understandable failings and greed and fear, and pretty much all of it has a root that you can see, if you know enough about the people doing it and the circumstances to really feel where their mindset must be. I'd say Elias is functionally the closest thing TMA has to a narrative scapegoat, but that doesn't mean he is one. I almost feel like he's there as a pressure valve for the story, to be a villain if people need one to make sense of what's going on without having to constantly confront head-on the horror of the way the setting traps everyone in it. He can be made that kind of scapegoat, but only really by ignoring the parallels to Jon and the letters sent to him in older statements, and the way both show how the Fears drive the people who learn about them into more and more desperate straits.

It's kind of like that with all the older avatars. Simon Fairchild throws people off of stuff for a joke, because he's had more than 400 years of being steeped in the knowledge that humanity is both insignificant in the span of the universe, as well as utterly incapable of stopping the course of the Fears as they exert whatever influence they will by the force of sheer bulk. Peter Lukas never had a chance - he was born into this, isolation was his family and religion and paradoxically from childhood his only possible road to belonging. Adelard Dekker thought he was helping, as did Gertrude, even as they both fed the things that claimed them alongside those efforts. Nikola Orsinov was so far away from having an identity anymore that she couldn't go back if she wanted to, if she had even had enough left to want. Her world would have just been a home that was more like herself, and who hasn't wanted that? They're easier to vilify because their outlooks are harder to understand until the very end of the series, but looking back it's so clear that they were also just people once, and the writing never really lets you forget that.

If I said I'd tried to make all of these replies short, you probably wouldn't believe me. And Yet. I am not NORMAL about this show and the way Jonny writes people.

[inherpower]

Let It Go

So much healing work requires the act of letting go. Letting go of habits, thoughts, ideas, beliefs. Whatever is no longer serving us needs to be released. But here’s the thing. I had a hard time letting go of things. On the surface it was easy for me to tell myself that I was ready to let go of something when deep down I was holding on for a multitude of reasons. Much of why I was holding on to stuff was because it had become part of my identity. In a previous post I brought up a statement that I made to myself "Who am I without my trauma and my stories?” I remember when the words of that question escaped my mouth I damn near did everything in my power to shove them back in. I was exposed in those words. I had said them to a real person, in fact two real people. One person was my therapist who came back with the question. Who do you want to be?

Along this life I have learned a lot about what I do not like. I could craft a whole world around those things. But ask me what I wanted, desired or aspired for and I got choked up. It was a similar vibe to the whole superstition of not telling folks when you applied for a job and feel really good about it, you keep your mouth shut to not jinx it. I held myself back from saying what I truly desired out of fear that the luck would get sucked out and those desires would never come to fruition. In the past couple of days I’ve been taking a deeper look at the art of letting go. And in this reflection I realized that me keeping my mouth shut was less about not wanting to jinx the good stuff from coming into my life but rather because I was still holding on to the old stuff.

In the beginning of 2023 I moved into my own apartment by myself. I had never lived on my own before. I was a mother for the first time at 19 so I had no time to be a young person out in the world figuring things out. At 42 I was truly living on my own. This independence gave me time to learn my own rhythm. Minus my work schedule I started to learn when I like to get up what I like to do first thing in the morning for myself. When do I like to take showers? At night? Or in the morning? What do I like to cook? What do I even like to eat? How would I decorate my own space? I never asked myself these questions directly but I moved through them by simply living. The more I got to know my own rhythm the more that I began to learn more about what I like, what lights me up and brings joy into my life.

Once my rhythm had been established I dove head first into healing. In a short period of time I had gotten comfortable in my agency, autonomy, independence and sovereignty. I was waking up to myself and as a result I wanted to move at light speed towards the things that felt good and repaired my nervous system. I had been living in a space of unhappiness for some time and once I had gotten out of that dark place I yearned for light. But as I tell everyone, you cannot rush healing. In fact not only is it dangerous but it’s kinda hard to do. REAL healing is a slow process, it takes time. I was done being in limbo and wanted to get to the other side of awkward. You know that phase of your life when you’re in limbo. You’re not back there but you’re also not over there, you’re in the in-between.

The in-between is where I must slow down, as hard as that is. This slower pace has revealed something to me that I think is revolutionary. I must let go of the old to make space for the new. And the new is bigger and better than what I’m holding on to. I’ve learned that letting go cannot be forced, and believe me I tried to force it. Letting go is slow and deliberate. It’s intentional, it’s compassionate. Letting go is grieving. I can’t take all the old idea and habits with me into the new. And honestly that is a concept that I hadn’t even considered until recently. I thought I had let go. I thought I had released old stuff, but as it turns out I was only covering it up. So how do you know when it’s time to let go? You’ll know when you feel stuck. When you feel that everything is to tender to hold in conversation and you’ll either cry or get angry at the slightest breath.

You’ll know when you’re ready to let go when your heart begins to yearn for something more. And the letting go doesn’t mean that everything is gone forever. It simply means that you’re not carrying the heavy load anymore. You’re not wearing the mask anymore. Those parts of yourself, those beliefs and stories no longer become your identity. You realize that you are more than the stories you’ve told yourself. You are more than the pain that shaped you and left an imprint. Letting go is the most loving thing that you can do for yourself.

[anonymous-dentist]

You’re writing is amazing! The post you made about the “Federation of Heros” application thing along with their “don’t forget to smile in the face of danger”

legitimately made my stomach turn a little, like these are just little kids! They shouldn’t be being put in danger-

It’s so clearly morally wrong, and the way it’s written to like show the Federation’s subtle propaganda use

Mwah 👌

But it’s made me curious, why does Forever ‘endorse’ it? Is he ignorant of what the reality of life is like for the children who enter the program? Did the Federation threaten him with losing custody of Richas? How do the reef of the Favela Five feel about Richas being in the program? Do they even know?

Oh and what happened with Richas! Like I saw the post about how Cellbit used his powers to help Richarlyson with nightmares-

Is Richarlyson an escapee from the program? Or is he still active in it?

Also does Cellbit’s power let him know what people are afraid of? Or does it just trigger the fear response based off their greatest fear without him knowing what it is?

Sorry for the long ask! These questions have been rattling around my brain. I am a huge fan of stories where the superhero society is corrupt with a side of child soldiers and your story is perfectly hitting that fix!

Okay so Forever the Mayor works a lot like canon Forever the President. He doesn't like the Federation, but he has to work with (read: for) them if he wants to stay mayor and do the good things he wants to do for the city. He's right up there with Cellbit and Bad and Max and everyone as Federation Haters, but he has to be more subtle about it, which has kinda put a big rift between him and all his friends except for Cellbit, who just gets it.

It isn't that Forever doesn't understand the dangers, but it's that he can actually monitor the program better if it's out of the FoH's hands and in his. The program won't be under their control if it's implemented in schools, it'll be under his because he's the mayor and, despite everything, the FoH can't get too involved in the public school system without running into a LOT of controversy, and he is going to use that to his advantage.

Richarlyson volunteered, too. He just wants to help :( He knows that he isn't that powerful and that he isn't that useful and that he's just a kid, but he wants to help :( If this lets him help his Pai Forever, then he'll do it no matter what!

(And his dads are all ready to pull him out and homeschool him if necessary, they are well prepared.)

And then as for Cellbit's ability, it's kinda like that! Yeah! He can find out what scares someone, but he doesn't always rely on his ability for that. He's smart, remember? He knows the general common fears of the general population, and he used to go through them one by one until one stuck and scared his victims to death- like 'the dark', 'public speaking', 'gun violence', stuff like that. Find the basic fear and amplify it by 100 until they're fucking dead, that's how he used to work. No need to use his ability to find their greatest deepest darkest fear, that'd take too long.

...But he doesn't do that anymore, of course! He's much better now!