#because we are human we all will sin but it is important to always come back to God

[faithfullyfound]

You can always come back to God

No matter what you have done you can come back to God. Your sins are not greater than His unconditional love your sins are not greater than His power. When you sin come back to God, repent, and pray for Him to forgive you. God will love you no matter what (that doesn't mean you should keep sinning) it means to come to Him for the strength and love needed to stop.

Romans 8:38-39: For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

2 Corinthians 7:10: Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret

[mindfulstudyquest]

❥﹒♡﹒☕﹒ 𝗯𝗲 𝘀𝗺𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗲𝗿 ( 𝗮𝗰𝗮𝗱𝗲𝗺𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝗯𝘂𝘁 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗼𝗻𝗹𝘆 !! )

𝟭. improve your writing skills ( ✒️ )

i feel that not everyone has the perception of how important it is to know how to write. you don't have to be a poet, nor the new emily brontë, but fluid, conscious, rich writing makes the difference. really. you could write a page without saying anything at all, but if that damn page is written good and smoothly, then you can be sure that you will get extra points. take the time to improve your writing skills, the best advice i have for doing so is reading. read as much as you can. read novels (non-fiction in this case doesn't help because the content is preferred rather than the form), read contemporary authors – you don't necessarily have to read sophocles' tragedies, but read quality stuff. expand your vocabulary, your knowledge of syntax, learn to use punctuation! and then write, tell stories, write love letters, write reviews of films, books, cultural festivals, open a blog on tumblr and write to practice, reread what you write ad nauseam, until it is perfect, until the form of your essay is pulitzer prize worthy.

bonus some of my favourite authors (tell me in the comments about yours!): ian mcewan, banana yoshimoto, haruki murakami, george orwell, josé saramago, albert camus, khaled hosseini, hanya yanagihara

𝟮. develop critical thinking ( 💭 )

if you have always studied passively by absorbing information and vomiting it onto a test sheet then you have wasted your time. taking on information is not enough, you need to know how to rework it and develop your own idea about it. especially in the arts and literature one may disagree with certain information provided by a textbook. developing critical thinking is not easy, especially due to the school system that teaches us to standardize thinking. always consult all available sources on a given topic, compare them, analyze contradictions. it might be difficult and tiring – our brain spends more energy processing two conflicting pieces of information than processing two pieces of information that agree – but it will be worth it. by practicing critical thinking and improving your argumentation skills, you will not only be able to improve in your studies, becoming able to present complex topics and make interdisciplinary connections, but also in daily life, you will become much less influenced and manipulated by external information.

𝟯. find yourself an interest ( 🌷 )

it could be anything, but find an interest that excites you and you enjoy and do research about it. watch videos, documentaries, read articles. it doesn't have to be school-related, it must be an external topic that you are passionate about and that allows you to rediscover the joy of studying and learning every time school seems to suffocate it. sometimes i'm not in the mood to study for exams, so i dedicate myself to my personal research and finally find my spark, my seek for knowledge. for example, my interest is true crime, it has always fascinated me since i was little, but yours could be wild animals, makeup, comics, ships, planes, ocean flora, literally anything. there is no constraint.

𝟰. analyze your mistakes and recognize your wrongs ( 🫒 )

there is no shame in making mistakes. everyone makes mistakes, we are human, but the real sin is getting bogged down in mistakes, refusing to acknowledge them, and continuing to make them again and again. we should be continually growing, continually discovering ourselves, both intellectually and emotionally. how many of you were the "gifted kid" when you were little and then grew up into burned out high school / uni students desperately seeking academic validation? there comes a time when talent isn't enough, you have to put in the effort, and this doesn't make you less intelligent or gifted, in fact, quite the opposite. dedicating time and attention to your personal and intellectual growth also means having to ruminate on your mistakes. it's scary, but it's the most effective way if you really want to improve. take a notebook and at the end of the day reflect on the highlights and the wrongs, what you could have done better, where you would like to push forward tomorrow, what you achieved today. did you make a mistake? first ask yourself why and then look for a way to solve the problem, make every bad moment a lesson, a brick on which to build the version of you you wanto to become tomorrow.

𝟱. don't be afraid of doing researches ( 🧃 )

the amount of fake news and misinformation online is appalling. opening any app like tiktok or instagram we are inundated with information that is often (not always, but not so rarely) inaccurate. don't be afraid to conduct your own research, if you have time to mindlessly scroll through tiktok you will also have five minutes to read an article regarding that information provided. don't know the meaning of a word? look it up before using it. not sure about a piece of information? check it before using it in your argumentation. in the age of immediate access to data we have no excuse to be superficial.

𝟲. master communication ( ♟️ )

mastering communication is essential in both personal and professional realms. it's the cornerstone of building meaningful relationships, whether it's conveying ideas effectively in academia or fostering connections in the workplace. developing strong communication skills not only enhances your ability to articulate thoughts but also empowers you to listen actively, empathize with others, and resolve conflicts constructively. ultimately, honing these skills cultivates confidence, credibility, and success in all aspects of life.

𝟳. push yourself out of your comfort zone ( 🧸 )

build your confidence. confidence is uncomfortable. don't be afraid of it. you are young, this is the right time to experiment, take risks, discover who you really are. this is the best time for you to do those things that you would otherwise never do, you don't want to regret later in life that you didn't accept that scholarship, that trip abroad, that job opportunity, because you didn't feel comfortable enough. do things that take you out of your comfort zone until everything becomes your comfort zone. go on solo dates, be a social butterfly, tell the girl at the bookstore you love her t-shirt, go to the theater alone, eat at a restaurant alone, take that trip. if it goes badly, you'll only have one funny story to tell.

𝟴. stay informed about the news (but not too much!) ( 🌍 )

this might be controversial, but: stay informed about the news, just don't overdo it. personally, i am an easily influenced person and i realized that being constantly exposed to the bad things happening in the world had drained me and made me terribly depressed. don't get me wrong, you need to be informed about what's happening in the world and in your country, just being constantly surrounded by horrible news repeated ad nauseam on TV programs is of no use. be aware.

[jessicalprice]

So I've spent a lot of time untangling Christian exegesis of parables and talking about how the way Christians interpret parables almost always ends up being antisemitic.

But aside from how it makes them think about Jews and Judaism and Jewishness, I also want to talk a bit about how it makes them sympathize more with abusers than with victims.

The easy-to-point-to culprit here is the trilogy of parables that culminates in what most Christians know as the Prodigal Son story.

The common interpretation of these parables is that God does (and therefore Christians should) value a repentant sinner over someone who's never sinned.

The problem here isn't the stories themselves--they're pretty enigmatic as far as their actual meanings--but Luke's gloss:

"Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance."

(Mark says, "So it is not the will of your Father in heaven that one of these little ones should be lost," which is very different.

So on its face, in 2023, that's a blatantly dangerous, abuser-supporting belief. What is it like to be a child sexually abused by your youth pastor and to hear that the fact that he hurt you is part of what makes him somehow spiritually "better" than you?

And we can see it play out in the way Kevin M. Young, a popular progressive pastor on Twitter (who describes himself as "post-evangelical" and was the senior pastor at a Quaker congregation) responded to being told one of his tweets was antisemitic, and then jumped in to support a woman who responded by identifying herself as a fan of John Chrysostom (the literal author of "Against the Jews" and the most antisemitic of the Church Fathers, which is saying something).

I'm not going to transcribe the whole thing, because it's not all that important for what I have to say about this, but I am going to call out a few lines:

"The American Christian approach to t'shuvah sees the victim's spirit, character, and speech as equally important to the offenders. I.e. in Christendom, the victim can exceed the sin of the offender simply by their reaction (if it be in sin or acted in a way that is not Spirit led)."

So, to be clear, if someone assaults you, and you don't meekly forgive them in a "Spirit led" way, you're somehow worse than they are.

The uniquely Christian brain rot here is in seeing every sin as an opportunity for forgiveness. After all, if being a repentant sinner gives you a higher spiritual status--if there's more "rejoicing in Heaven" over you--than that of your victim, then you have to sin to get there. It treats other people as props in your salvation journey, not as fellow humans whose suffering matters. (Combine that with the Christian idea that suffering is somehow virtuous in and of itself, and you've got a very toxic recipe. Not only, by abusing others, are you guaranteeing your own value as a repentant sinner, but you're giving your victim the opportunity to ennoble themselves through suffering.)

Of course, a key word here is repentant. Put a pin in that.

These sort of exchanges on Twitter--a Christian being outright genocidal toward Jews, and a supposedly progressive Christian figure jumping in to defend the Christian, with seemingly no ability to comprehend that the Jews in the conversation are human beings who may have their own trauma around violently antisemitic language, with boundless empathy for the Christian abuser and none for the Jewish targets of their abuse--happen frequently and just as frequently leave Jwitter baffled in addition to angry.

Why all this empathy for the abuser and none for the victims?

I think a lot of this comes out of progressive Christian exegesis of parables, which is frequently looking for the radical "twist" to the story.

E.g. in the story of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector, the assumption is that the audience of the time would have empathized with the Pharisee, and thus the twist is to make them empathize with the tax collector. In the story of the Good Samaritan, the assumption is that they would have seen the Samaritan as a threat, and the twist is to make him the hero.

The thinking goes that the audience would have had empathy for certain groups and none for others, so the stories push them to feel that empathy for the latter, and that this was needed to balance the scales, to make sure everyone was receiving love and empathy and care.

Except that this, in modernity, has the effect of simply reversing the roles, not balancing them. The groups that are assumed to be in good social standing get no empathy, even become the implicit villains, and the groups (supposedly, since this is now a Christian-dominant society) traditionally looked down on get all of it.

That might still be a balancing act if the "looked down on" groups were actually marginalized. But in the Christian imagination, that role is filled by sinners in need of Christian grace, not necessarily demographically marginalized groups.

The idea seems to be that the victims are getting sympathy from elsewhere, so it's the Christian's job to make sure the abuser/sinner gets sympathy too.

But I'll point again to that pesky word "repentant."

Ultimately, when it comes to treatment of Jews and Muslims and anyone else who points out that a Christian has in some way harmed them, Christian sympathy goes immediately to the offender before the offender has even expressed any repentance.

The repentant sinner is so much more valuable, at this point, than their victims that they must be preemptively forgiven, that they are more valuable purely because they now have the potential to repent.

And this seems to be lurking under not just how "progressive" pastors act on Twitter, but in a lot of our cultural narratives around, say, college rapists and their futures, around white people who are publicly called out for racist acts, etc.

[misc-obeyme]

How many relationships (or hook-ups) do you think the Demon brothers (+ side characters) had before meeting MC?

All of them are very old and seeing how they live long lives surely they had some experiences, some more than the others.

I'm thinking out of everyone Asmo definitely had the most experience with others. But with Asmo most of his experience are from hookups since he's the most beautiful in all Devildom, so everyone would want to have their way with him. He probably tried going into serious relationships but that didn't go anywhere.

Lucifer's pride might have gotten in the way for him to form a serious relationship in the past (and he was still traumatised being cast out of heaven), but he definitely had hookups here and there. I can see Mammon trying in the past to enter a serious relationship, he was madly in love, but he got taken advantage of :(( Maybe he had hookups for money??

I'm sorry, but Leviathan is an Ancient Virgin. The only experience he had was his right hand. Again it's difficult to say with Satan. He tried relationships and hookups but he wasn't into it and sticks with romance/smut books instead??

I doubt Beelzebub had anything serious going on with someone but maybe he had a few hookups? Belphegor's the same with beelzebub, my guy is too lazy haha.

It's difficult to place Diavolo seeing how he's the next Demon king. This may sound dumb but maybe he had a lot of Physical experience (The best Succubus/incubus for the king! The best Orgies for the King!) but no romantic relationships seeing how easily everyone would want the crown for themselves and how much of a scandal that could be. This could also be said for Mephistopheles since he's a noble too.

Then there's my precious sexy ass Barbatos. It's hard to say but i low-key think he had a few flings here and there when he was still young and not a butler yet. He won't be seeking out any relationships/hookups anymore since he probably tried everything already and that could possibly distract him from his butler duties.

Raphael/Simeon are Angels so i doubt they had any experience in the past when it comes to Relationship/hookups. Solomon DEFINITELY had quite a lot of Relationships/hookups! This guy had a ton of Succubi and wives! As for Thirteen i assume she's not into Relationships/hookups until she meets Mc.

What are your thoughts on this?!

Now this is an interesting topic, anon. I've thought about it a lot, but I don't think I've managed to settle on a solid idea that I like best.

The rest is below a read more because I wrote A LOT, so this way people won't have to scroll as much.

Also NSFW below the read more due to the discussion of sex, but nothing explicit.

I think how experienced the characters are is going to depend on how sex is viewed in their respective realms.

We know how it is in the human world. I personally have a huge issue with the way sex is taboo in our world. It bothers me that there's so much suppression of it and that people are so concerned about stuff that really isn't that big of a deal. It feels manipulative and I've always felt the conservative view of it is the predominant one in our society, which only exists to control people. At least, this is my view of how I've seen it handled around me. So I feel it's important to note that I am a USAmerican. I also happened to grow up in a place that was ultra conservative while not being conservative myself so my opinion may be skewed.

Anyway, the only reason I'm talking about this is that it means I tend to prefer thinking of both the Devildom and the Celestial Realm as more free with this kind of stuff.

Especially the Devildom, but the idea that just because angels are angels means they've never experienced sex or relationships bothers me. I think it's because the CR touts itself as being the pinnacle of all things good and pure and in my opinion, sex is good and pure. I don't like thinking of it as a "sin." (PLEASE NOTE I'm discussing consensual sex between adults, obviously this is not the case for abusive situations.)

That being said, I'm also aware that this is my personal take on it, so it might not really make any sense. Like I just want the CR to be chill about it because that's what I would prefer, not because it necessarily makes sense for them to be chill about it lol.

In the context of the game, it makes more sense for the CR to not be chill about it.

But their stance necessarily alters how much experience I believe characters like the brothers and angels to have.

Because the brothers were obviously angels for a big chunk of their lives.

I also have a personal preference for characters who do have some experience. I think a first love/first sexual encounter is always extremely intense and can be toxic or problematic in ways that the inexperienced person is blind to. (Not necessarily of course, but you kind of move past that all encompassing devotion that you tend to have for your first.)

So for me, it's more appealing for the characters to have moved past that first experience and to have some knowledge of how love and relationships work. It isn't necessarily about the sex part, but sex is often entangled in love and it certainly complicates things.

Which means that in my own personal thoughts about it, Levi is the only one who could even manage to stay a virgin that long.

The reason for that is because he makes it pretty clear that he rarely leaves his room, especially after they fall.

Now if the CR is chill about sex, I think it's possible that Levi had some desperate sort of encounters while he was fighting as the Grand Admiral you know what I'm saying? But if we're going with the idea that they aren't chill, then yeah, he's probably still a virgin.

I do think it's possible that Levi isn't a virgin, though. I honestly think you could easily come up with a situation in which he actually did have the opportunity come up. Maybe he even fell in love with someone over an online message board before meeting them in person. I just think there are options, you know? And in the end, it depends on what you prefer.

In fact, I would say I kinda feel this way about all the characters. I think you could say all of them are virgins if you wanted to. Lucifer, for instance. CR isn't chill, so he never did anything as angel. After he fell, too dedicated to his work and Diavolo to even bother pursuing anybody and always immediately shutting down anyone who came onto him so as not to get distracted.

That's just an example, I'm saying you can change these details to fit with your preference for any of them, though I think Asmo would be the hardest lol.

So here are my ideas on all of the characters, based on the concept that the CR is not stupid and instead chill about sex:

Lucifer is experienced, but not by a ton. In the CR, he's too busy being a seraph and keeping all his lil siblings in line. Maybe there are a couple of people who catch his eye and while he might indulge, I don't think he'd have had a relationship. After they fall, he retreats into himself. At this point, if you're into DiaLuci, that could start to become a thing. But I also think you could say that maybe he had a little bit of time where he kind of went crazy, going out and doing all the things he maybe didn't have time to before, more as a bad way of coping with the reality of the fall and the loss of his sister. After time, when they all get settled, I think it's an every once in a while kinda thing. He just doesn't strike me as the guy who'd have time for relationships unless it was with someone like Diavolo or MC (or Solomon... yes I'm still on the solulu train just you wait). He doesn't have any reason to let someone that close to him, you know?

Mammon, I agree with you on. I think he probably wanted to be in a relationship and likely fell hard for someone, only to have his heart broken. Thus his tsundere attitude now. It's a defense mechanism. I think that could have happened in the CR and then once he fell, he would just do the hookup thing, especially when he's out partying or gambling or something. It doesn't mean anything. He's still protecting his heart until MC comes along.

Levi we've discussed, but I do think he's either a virgin or maybe had some fumbling moments in war time, you know. Pluuuus I kinda think he was probably admired by a lot of angels during that time. So you know.

Satan has a whole stretch of time where he's just trying to figure himself out. I think he'd be cautious about a relationship due to his wrath. I always think of Satan as being super romantic, but he's also concerned about his own anger. He's afraid to hurt people because of it. So I kinda think he'd hold off. He likely had some hookups and such, but I don't think he'd have a full blown relationship until he felt it was someone who truly understood him.

Asmo I agree with you on, but I also think he could have had a serious relationship at some point. I kinda see it both ways. He might not because he doesn't want to tie himself down to any one person, but I think he can also fall in love passionately. So I think he could've had one really intense relationship that inevitably fell apart.

Beel is such a sweetheart, I can imagine someone else falling in love with him easily or other people kinda throwing themselves at him. I don't think Beel would've refused them, either. But I don't think he had a serious relationship, maybe just short ones here and there, probably some hookups, but nothing more.

Belphie I think could go a lot of ways, but I kinda see him being mostly uninterested. He might have had a couple hookups over the years, just because there are so many years and there's no way the opportunity didn't arise at some point. But I don't think he ever cared about anyone enough to pursue a legit relationship.

Okay, now bear with me here, but I kinda like the idea that Diavolo and Mephistopheles hooked up lol. I mean, they were childhood friends, right? Maybe when they got older and started having those thoughts and such, they were like hey... why not? I think it's really cute when bffs decide to be each other's first, even if they never intend to have a serious relationship, you know? Just another reason for Mephisto to hate Lucifer lol. Otherwise I would say Mephisto is probably pretty picky. I think he's more likely to only have been in a serious relationship, considering hookups kinda beneath him.

But aside from that, it's going to depend on what's expected of royalty in the Devildom. I can't imagine they'd have a rule about it, though. It's the Devildom, you know? So I think Diavolo has likely had hookups, but I do think it's a rare occurrence now that he's focused on running the Devildom and united the worlds and all that.

Barbatos, my true love. I like the idea that he was a bit promiscuous in his younger days, traveling through space and time and doing whatever pleased him. He might have been more passionate, more likely to fall in love, a little more free with himself physically. But ever since becoming a butler, I think he clamps down on that quite a bit, just like he does with everything else. He's certainly experienced and I don't think he's like not ever doing anything since becoming a butler, just that he doesn't do it as often as he once did. He's had a few relationships in the past, I think, but not since he started working for Diavolo. He's too dedicated and spends all his time in the castle.

Simeon and Raphael are going to depend on the CR again, but if we're still in my preference of the CR being cool about it, then I think Simeon at least is no virgin. He's too pretty and there is no way a million angels have not come on to him. And like I don't think he'd just fall into the bed of any angel that batted their eyelashes at him, I do think that he's secretly very passionate. Under that cool exterior, he loves hotly and I think he'd have fallen for someone at some point, giving them all of himself. Now he's older and more calm and collected and carrying the grief of losing Lucifer and his brothers.

Raphael I'm not so sure about. Because on the one hand, he's clearly quite passionate too in a "here are the spears" sort of way. But he was also super dedicated to his goal of becoming a seraph, so I don't know if he even had the room for any kind of relationship. Might still be a virgin. But I think you could go either way with him.

Solomon is a human and he's been around for ages there's no way he's still a virgin. I know I said you could make it work, but wow, that'd be tough to do with him, I think. He's like nah, the 700 wives and 300 concubines (or whatever the numbers were lol) are just for show, I didn't actually do anything with them! Wait, no but he had kids. Well you could say that Biblical lore doesn't apply to your story adsklfjdf

However. Solomon is known for being incredibly lonely. Even if he had relationships, he likely had them with other humans who inevitably died and left him alone again. So I think after his normal human lifespan ended and he had to start moving around more and kind of dedicated himself to magic, he likely stopped having relationships of any kind (love or friendship or anything) because it hurt too much. I think he could have hookups or one night stands with people he never saw again. But not so much a relationship.

Thirteen I dunno. That woman is hot af. I could see her having to turn down a lot of advances. I think she might have had some hookups, maybe even a relationship, but nothing too serious. She strikes me as a little more lighthearted about this kind of stuff. Like you know life is fleeting and in the end I'll just have to reap you anyway lol. I don't think she would get serious until MC.

ANYWAY. Sorry for this absolute NOVEL of a response. I didn't realize just how much I had to say until I started... and then I couldn't stop. I hope that somewhat answered the question, anyway??? In the end, I think it's possible to have all the characters as experienced or inexperienced as you like!

[inbarfink]

Sometimes I see Christmas-Themed Good Omens fanworks where Aziraphale loves the Christmas Season while Crowley loathes it. Which makes sense with, like, you know, they’re quite literally an Angel and a Demon in a setting based on Christian theology and stuff.

But also sometimes I see some really great fanworks that flip that expected dynamic. You know, maybe Crowley just loves all of the most obnoxious and overly-commercialized aspects of the Christmas Season because he sees them more as tricks to spread misery and sin to humanity in the most hilariously ironic way. And meanwhile, Aziraphale thinks all of this fuss is just kinda tacky and obnoxious. Or maybe there are expectations from Upstairs that he needs to manifest Christmas Miracles and get people in the Christmas Spirit and that just means a serious extra workload. Maybe Aziraphale’s feelings towards the approach of ‘the Holiday Season’ is much closer to a very tired retail worker who always has to work Black Fridays. 

And like yeah, both of these options for ‘Azirapahle and Crowley have totally opposite feelings about Christmas’ can lead to very fun fanworks but also…

I think people are maybe overlooking the comedy potential of Aziraphale and Crowley being in total agreement over the Christmas Season. Like, I know we default into seeing them as complementary opposites, but it’s not like each of them zig every time the other zag. They are in sync about some stuff. The important stuff, and some of the silly unimportant stuff.

And like, every possible combination here is hilarious and hilariously adorable and sweet. Aziraphale and Crowley being Grumpy Bitchy Old Men together and supporting each other in Hating-Christmas-Cause-You’re-a-Demon and Hating-Christmas-Cause-You’re-an-Angel. Or, alternatively, Aziraphale being very sincerely and earnestly into the Christmas Spirit and every stupid kitschy thing that comes with it. And Crowley is gleeful at how annoying and miserable and stressful all of this forced cheerfulness is and how it’s making everything worse and it’s SO FUNNY. And Aziraphale is just, like ‘Oh, I am so very glad you’re also enjoying the Holiday, Crowley :D”

[antimony-medusa]

on Consequences in minecraft streaming

Okay so one of the real common things that I've been seeing lately is an increasingly passionate call for certain characters to experience Consequences (and the rest of the post always makes it clear that they mean a specific type of definatively negative repercussions) for their actions during QSMP events. And aside from the absolute deja vu of having seen these same calls when DSMP was airing, and how that turned out (sorry, the syndicate did not all have a meeting where they apologized for their sins while tommy told them they were horrible people), I'm not 100% sure if that's going to happen or pan out in the exact way that I think people are aiming for and expecting will happen.

I keep seeing a lot of people saying that it would be bad writing if people don't get "consequences" for their actions, and what they're specifically asking for is punishment and for people to realize what they're doing was wrong. BBH is supposed to repent for furniture thefts and torturing the people keeping him from his kid. Phil is supposed to realize that actually he's good at PVP and apologize for saying that his team has been suffering in purgatory. Tubbo is supposed to fill in his tubhole and only do things other people ask him to do.

But like, so much of the time, what we're seeing is these streamers being interested in writing morally grey characters, just some little guys who make bad decisions, and the thing about characters being morally grey is that they don't always have a come to jesus moment and become morally pure. Sometimes they just keep being morally grey. Sometimes they get worse on purpose.

Maybe BBH never decides that torturing that guy was bad, because he wanted to get his FUCKING KID back. Like, I seriously think you have to be prepared for that character arc to never end in Bad going "that was wrong to do", and maybe his cubito will still be happy. Phil is a dude with anxiety who's been sure that his kids are going to die from the moment he got to purgatory, streaming at 1-4 in the morning while other teams break into their base, even if bolas goes insane and scrapes out a win I think it's way more likely that that team is gonna go "what a wild fluke that's the power of gas masks" and not have a moment where they go "it was unfair of us to assume that we were underpowered, I guess everybody else was the underdogs! Our bad." Tubbo is tubbo, he's already building a new create thing, he is not going to apologize for leaving marks on the landscape with mod packs.

Like, the streamers are interested in making human characters, making interesting decisions, not communicating moral lessons to their fanbases. Bad is operating within a Taken film, not a sermon. Quackity wants his cubito to be pathetic, gay, and out for revenge, not to communicate the importance of forgiveness to those who hurt you. Tubbo's victory condition is having a nice date with Fred, full stop, does not care who he has to run over to get there.

Absolutely I think there are people intentionally doing corruption/villany arcs on the server, and they probably intend for that to lead places. There will be Consequences, as in, things will happen. Cellbit is doing cannibalsm on purpose, and not as a teaching moment about how good cannibalism is for your social bonds. But like, maybe that leads to him being thrown out of his family and not trusted because of his sins, OR maybe it leads to him murdering his way through a federation complex, facing down a bloody cucurucho, and going "you made me into you and I hate this" and eating him. Narrative consequences does not always mean punishment and a return to moral purity. Sometimes people just do bad things, and then repercussions happen, but they don't necessarily "see the error of their ways". The specific call for like— retribution and repentance as the consequences people are going for— for punishment— if a character has done something bad they don't "deserve" good things to happen to them and it's bad writing for that to happen— I just don't think that those are the stories the creators are necessarily interested in telling.

And secondly, what people are often asking for is character conflict— they want people to be socially excluded by characters they feel have been wronged, and learn the error of their ways that way until they apologize sufficiently. Phil is gonna hate BBH or Tubbo is going to hate Roier or something once they return from Purgatory. People want their cubitos to have beef with each other.

But the thing is, on a meta level, I don't doubt that the entire admin team and streaming team on QSMP is just screamingly aware that this fandom cannot be trusted with conflict. The election was just part of it, but I made it through the election, and Purgatory has been so much more unpleasant— and I am not just talking about twitter. This website, tumblr, has been full of people fighting each other for their teams. And I am not just saying "red team fans have been bad", because boy have I been staring in horrified awe at the takes that some red team people have been putting forward (what on EARTH do you mean BBH deserves to have his kid die, touch grass immediately), but if I step outside of red team circles, everyone is talking about how red team people are horrible hypocrites who win too much and only deserve to suffer (I saw this posting the day that blue had back to back wins, so it isn't even tied to how well red is doing). The quality of the discourse has been increasingly unpleasant, and this has been taking place in streamer's chats, on twitter, in discords, and here on tumblr.

Every QSMP streamer is increasingly aware that having conflict with another streamer is basically sending a wave of negativity their way, and setting off bombs in the fandom at the same time. And they're all friends with each other! Sometimes they decide that the story beat they're going for is worth it and just tell each other to stay off twitter, but like, you have got to be prepared that maybe they will just be friends again. And that might be weaker writing, for people to keep forgiving each other, but that is an unfortunate aspect of the technical aspects of this medium and this fandom. Maybe the creators would be more willing to have character conflict if they didn't know that that meant the person they were mad at in-game would get death threats on social media.

Like no fucking wonder Phil apologized for getting mad at Wil within the same stream and before Wil said sorry to him. This is why the French have given up on revolution arcs, you know it's why the women are all very careful to get along with people. All of those creators know the cost of making anyone into a villain, and I'm just saying maybe get prepared that we won't have inner-party conflict. Maybe they'll decide it's worth it for a fun story moment! Maybe they won't. Maybe don't get 100% married to the idea that the only good writing possible moving forward is for people to be thrown out of the community and then repent for their sins.

[mania-sama]

A Look into Mental Health: Jujutsu Kaisen Analysis

"Being a child is not a sin." (Nanami Kento, Jujutsu Kaisen)

With the release of Chapter 251, I've seen many horrible takes from dudebros saying that Megumi has "sold" the team. This makes me unreasonably angry because of course it does, so obviously my next plan of action is to take all of my hour-long rants about the mental health of JJK characters and put it here, where said dudebros will never see my (correct) analysis in their entire life. Oh well.

One thing Gege is really, really good at is creating believable, undeniably human, and complex characters. Every character has a different set of motivations, beliefs, ideals, and especially mental states. The constant theme of Jujutsu Kiasen has been "Strength vs Weakness". While the clearest interpretation can be seen through the physical attributes of the characters (Gojo being the strongest sorcerer of his time due to his abilities, and Miwa being one of the weakest, again, due to her abilities), it is also directly applied to the mental strength of characters. No two characters are able to withstand the same trauma and come out the exact same, just as no two real people can process the same trauma. Not only is it a result of nature, as people are genetically different and therefore process information differently, but a product of nurture - in other words, character motivation and environment.

This is where we come to the current state of the manga, Chapter 251. The fated Yuuji vs Megumi debate. I keep seeing people wildly misunderstanding these two, and why it's so important that Megumi isn't standing up to fight, why he isn't able to handle his trauma, when Yuuji can.

Gege writes phenomenal characters. And I want to express just how well done they are, making Jujutsu Kaisen actually kind of deserve its popularity, because some people only care about power scaling. I'm going to touch on Megumi last, because understanding all of the other characters' makes his visible struggle that much more impactful.

1. Geto Suguru

I want to start this mental health analysis with Geto. He is the best representation of depression I've ever seen in Shonen. It doesn't take a hundred chapters to showcase a character's downfall. It doesn't take a hundred significant events to cause a character to break down. Gege shows the best, realistic mental breakdown using only a handful of chapters, and still makes it slow and painful.

Depression can start because of a big event, but it doesn't take more for it to worsen. Untreated, depression runs a vicious course that eats a person through slowly but effectively. It isn't one screaming session, hands clutched over the head and cursing God and the world. It's everything piled onto each other. It's coming to the end of that pile and realizing that nothing will ever change.

This is Geto Suguru's story. He has a big event: the fight with Toji and the failure to save Riko. But his mental health journey was fated to decline, even without the fight and failure. The root issue of his depression came from his ability: Cursed Spirit Manipulation. As long as he kept devouring the embodiment of every vile, human emotion, the more he would lose himself to that vileness. He wasn't changing anything; he couldn't help but continue to swim in negativity because that's all he could do.

Gege wasn't making a commentary on Geto's ability. He was talking about people, as they are, and how staying in a bad situation will not always make you stronger. It can, and most likely will, make you worse. A direct comparison to the sixteen-year-old Geto would be a sixteen-year-old at school, surrounded by people who bully and pick on them with harsh words. The kid will eventually consume all of that bullying, all of that negativity, into their being, because there is simply nowhere else to go. School is mandatory; they can't just leave. They eventually feel isolated, with all that vileness piled on. Even if they have friends, those people could never understand what it's like to put up with humiliation and cruelty day after day.

It's not rational to push away a support system, but who said human beings are always rational? People make mistakes. They don't make the right decisions. Geto didn't. He saw someone offer him a chance at change, a possible light at the top of his pile and twisted it to match his overwhelming negativity. He left and swore to destroy the world that made him the way he is, just as that bullied child may turn away from school and society in whatever form that may take.

I want to touch on the physical aspects of Geto's depression, too. I noted this in a previous analysis I did on him (his character is just that amazing, what can I say?), but Gege knew that the mind can't be affected alone. Geto was drawn with deep eyebags, a nod to an inability to sleep or needing to sleep all the time. Depression makes you tired all the time. Everything becomes difficult. He sits with his back hunched, resting his weight on his knees, like sitting upright is too hard. When someone speaks to him, he blinks and takes a second too long to look over or respond, like speaking takes too much energy. To me, it even looked like he was becoming thinner. It's extremely difficult to maintain a schedule of exercise and mealtimes when your mind is fighting an active war against itself.

Again, a beautiful representation of depression. Geto means a lot to me in this aspect.

2. Gojo Satoru

In comparison to Geto, Gojo's horrible mental health is a lot subtler. Depression isn't the correct term, but you don't have to be depressed to be sad. Sadness is his stagnant state; he has moments of bliss, goals to work towards, a reason to keep going, to continue living, to continue chasing the sun over the horizon, but he does return to the same place he is always at when the lights turn off and he's painfully reminded of this one fact: he is isolated.

All of Gojo's problems start and end with isolation. From the moment he was born, everyone knew he was different. He knew he was different. Through glimpses of his childhood and honestly reading between the lines, it's obvious he never played with kids his age. People don't just develop a superiority complex with their only drive to be better than literally everyone else for no other reason than to get better. It comes from somewhere, and in Gojo's case, it's from his young childhood. It seriously messed him up; even now, he can't shake the lesson that "Strength is the only way to success and happiness".

This is what made Geto so important. Geto was somebody who could share the burden of being the strongest. Geto was someone his age who understood him in a way Shoko could not, though they both were able to see Gojo beyond his capabilities as a Jujutsu sorcerer. Gojo then had somebody to base his moral principles on. Because he couldn't connect with anybody else, he had no basis other than strength. Geto taught him why it was important for the strong to protect the weak.

Then everything went wrong. Gojo became isolated again in his strength and lost the only person who could plausibly stand with him. "Are you the strongest because you're Gojo Satoru, or are you Gojo Satoru because you're the strongest?" Gojo was young, then, and fresh-faced into his newfound godhood. He didn't kill Geto in that moment because he wanted to deny the claim that he is nothing without his strength, that he isn't as shallow as he was raised to be.

But he knew better. He grew older, he killed his best friend, and he realized that he was nothing without his strength. He never got over Geto. In order to cope with the guilt of being unable to save him when he left, he adopted a whole kid, thinking that if he wasn't strong enough to save Geto, maybe he could save Megumi. But there it is all over again - he never broke from the cycle of strength defining his worth. Saving Megumi would define his strength, right? It would prove Geto wrong, right? He raised Megumi under the same logic (that the only way to save his sister is to be strong), only ridding the boy of the crushing isolation.

In this way, Gojo isn't mentally weak. He didn't abandon society and everyone who loved him, instead choosing to hone the trauma of his isolated childhood into a weapon and teach the next generation to be better than himself. He isn't depressed, but he isn't happy. You can't be happy if you're alone all of the time. He hoped Megumi could be someone to stand by him, but in the end, he failed to save Megumi. His strength couldn't save him, just as it couldn't save Geto.

He isn't mentally strong. He isn't weak, either. He is horribly, painfully average. He's not weak enough to be saved, but not strong enough to save others. His childhood plagues him, but not to the point where it prevents him from living. He killed Geto but was unable to bury the body. Gojo is everything he never wanted to be.

As it turns out, strength can't buy you happiness. Gojo may have understood that, but he couldn't abandon it, even to the bitter end. Just as a human struggles to shed their conditioning. Not everyone can break the cycle, but we are always trying our best to work with what we've been dealt.

3. Okkotsu Yuuta

I'm putting Yuuta in between Gojo & Geto and Itadori & Megumi because he is, in a way, a bridge between the two. Geto and Gojo have lived their lives; their stories are complete and ended in tragedy. Itadori and Megumi's are not. They are still actively struggling and fighting their physical and mental battles; their stories have yet to be completed.

Yuuta's story isn't technically completed (ignoring everything that happened in the recent chapter with him for the sake of MY mental health), he is still a success story. He is the average protagonist who started from the bottom and ended up at the top. Only he, as Gege has done time and time again, has a slightly stronger focus on mental health than most other Shonen. He is success where Gojo & Geto failed, and the success that Itadori & Megumi are narratively striving for.

At the beginning, Yuuta was depressed and suicidal. He was bullied at school and involuntarily hurting others. Instead of becoming resentful of the world, he pushed all of the vileness inward. His guilt caused him to try to take his life, presumably multiple times, but Rika stopped him before he could succeed. His life was effectively out of his hands; he felt powerless with all of the bodies stacking around him, and he couldn't atone for "his" actions.

His mental health, as it was, was in shambles. Gojo then offered him a way forward. Yuuta's mental health did not improve overnight. It was when he made friends at Jujutsu High, and developed a support system, that he was able to relieve his anxiety and realize that life is not so bad after all. That all of this pain and suffering and loss - it will pass.

The most important thing to acknowledge when it comes to Yuuta is the sheer fact that he was not alone, nor did he allow himself to be alone. Unlike Gojo, who still had Shoko and Nanami after Geto left but refused to connect with them, Yuuta allowed himself to get close to those around him. They didn't know the suffering he'd undergone for so many years. They didn't know what it was like to be him, but that was okay. He knew that they had empathy, that even though they could never experience his life, they could still be there for him now when he falls.

When given the opportunity to surrender, Yuuta stands in the face of one Geto Suguru and swears to protect his friends and fight with Rika. He's so far removed from the boy who tried to kill himself at the beginning of the manga, and that's because he let himself be changed. He did not succumb. He had friends, he knew. People that would miss him if he left, and people whom he would regret leaving.

This stays consistent with his character. He doesn't let himself become isolated in his strength or his experiences. He's much stronger than everyone else in the room, he's a special grade and he knows that, but he still treats everyone like they are equals. Like they are his friends, like they are people who could share this burden of existence with him. This is something that Gojo couldn't accomplish, which lends to the fact that Gojo had a very off-hand teaching method when it came to mentoring Yuuta. Instead of influencing him under this idea of strength conquers all, he let Yuuta develop far away from the ideals of the Japanese Jujutsu Society.

And, in the end, the fact of him being physically strong - a special-grade sorcerer from the get-go - never helped him in his mental health. In fact, it made him miserable until he learned to get a handle on Rika. His winning or losing that fight with Geto wasn't the point of his character, it was reckoning with the fact that he is okay now. That he can embrace the ugly part of him with dignity instead of guilt.

4. Itadori Yuuji

Itadori's entire character is that he has an unbreakable spirit. As the only one who can bear the soul of Sukuna, he started off like Yuuta, only on the opposite end of the mental health spectrum. When we first see him, he's happy, spending his afternoons with the Occult Club and watching movies.

... What happened?

Like Geto, everything piled on very slowly. So slow that I'm not even sure he felt the true effects of everything he experienced up until the fall of Shibuya. It starts with the death of grandfather, whose parting words "Just save as many people as you can" haunt him even now during the final fight with Sukuna. He was never given time to properly grieve his grandfather, just as he never had time to grieve the brother curses, Junpei, Nanami, Nobara, Gojo, Higurama. At the end of it all, when the fighting is over, I have to wonder what will become of the boy that realizes he's lost most of the people he loved.

The one time he did try to process it, when he realized that he couldn't control Sukuna, was when he broke down in Shibuya. Sukuna leveled an entire city. For the boy who never wanted to kill another human being for fear of devaluing life, the weight of his weakness killing thousands was crushing. Then Nanami died. Nobara died (still hanging onto that unknown status but I digress). Both are right in front of him, and powerless to prevent Mahito from disintegrating their bodies. So, obviously, Itadori broke down. The boy with the unshakeable spirit, the only person who could contain the King of Curses, has his psyche completely shattered.

He laid on the ground, and he wouldn't have gotten back up if there wasn't somebody to help him, to be there with him. Todo pulled him back together, stitched back up the broken into somebody who has allies and people to fight for. Itadori has the success that Yuuta had, only Itadori did not come out of it with better mental health.

After the breakdown, his unshakeable spirit was nothing more than the will to keep fighting. He cares little for himself, and he tries to distance himself from people to prevent them from dying from his cursed hands. He is jumping, quickly, down the same rabbit hole that Geto fell down. One big event, and they realize just how tall the pile already is, and that it will never stop growing. Unlike Geto, however, he continues to get overbearing support from those around him. Against his will. He can't push them away, for they refuse to leave his side. Yuuta, Choso, Megumi, even Higurama. They won't let him fall. This makes him better off than someone alone, in a sense. He can withstand his trauma when others may not.

Even so, even so, there is only so much support, the lack of self-isolation, can do when the traumas keep actively repeating. When he says that he will gladly die to defeat Sukuna, it is not said with the same tone that another Shonen protagonist would say it. Take Naruto for example. If he were to go into a battle to protect, say, Sasuke, he would scream, "I'll die to protect him." We understand that his willpower is stronger than his self-preservation, but we don't get the idea that he actively wants to die. He'll die if he has to. Now, Itadori says the same thing, but about saving Megumi. He says, "I'll gladly die." There is something different. His willpower is leaps and bounds stronger than his self-preservation, but that's not only it. There is an undercurrent of severe suicidal ideation prevalent in Itadori's tone. It's not that he will die to win, it's that a part of him wants for this to be his final fight. For it all to be over. To save Megumi, then atone for the sin of being too weak to save Shibuya, or being unable to stop the Culling Games, or letting Megumi get hurt when all he wanted was to keep him safe.

I'd call it more along the lines of passive suicidal ideation. He doesn't plan to kill himself, but what would it mean for him to go into dangerous situations without protection? What would it mean for him to succumb to his wounds after he wakes Megumi's soul and kills Sukuna? To not even try to seek medical attention? He's guilty. He believes everything that happened in Shibuya and after is his fault. When faced with the executioner's sword, he was ready to die for his sins, if not for the goal of ending the Games. There is a fine line between willing to die for those you love versus wanting to die for those you love.

Right now, Itadori is fighting to save one person, like his grandfather said. He is not fighting to survive. And that's what people fail to understand about Itadori when they compare him to the other members of the cast. These power-scaling dudebros don't understand that their favorite OP main character has fallen apart at the seams, that his unshakeable spirit to save people doesn't include himself.

5. Fushiguro Megumi

Here we finally come to the question: Why can Itadori take it when Megumi can't? There is a very similar quote that you probably think of whenever you hear this question asked. It's from The Outsiders: "Dally is tougher than I am. Why can I take it when Dally can't?" The answer to this question that Ponyboy gives is the same we can attribute to Megumi. "And then I knew. Johnny was the only thing Dally loved. And now Johnny was gone."

The entire reason Megumi became a Jujutsu sorcerer was to protect his sister. When he was five years old and probably too young to understand most of the words Gojo said, he accepted the offer of training to become a sorcerer in exchange for Tsumiki's happiness. Every day, he fought to protect her. He only had one goal in entering the Culling Games: to prevent Tsumiki from having to participate.

It's easy to attribute Megumi's constant attempts at summoning Mahoraga to a lack of will to live - suicidal ideation, the same that Itadori now experiences. On one hand, I do understand that he has a fundamental lack of care for his own life, but on the other, I don't think that he intends to throw it all away every single time. He just didn't know any better. Ignorance can lead to death as easily as intentionally seeking it out. That's why he changes his habit after Gojo gives him a lesson in risking death versus dying to win; Megumi still has someone to live for, after all.

Megumi's mental health was already rocky from the start. Not that it was in shambles like Yuuta, but he wasn't fully stable. Like a lot of teenagers, he's moody, somewhat reclusive, and only really likes one or two people maximum. Teenagers aren't known for their sunshine mental health anyway.

Megumi was given time to grieve Itadori after he first died. This trauma of losing him in front of his eyes stuck with him, but he was allowed a grace period of two months to grieve with Nobara. He experienced Shibuya, too, but he still had that one important person to protect. His mental health was alright at this point, all things considered. As long as his sister was alive, he would be fine.

Sukuna knew this. So Sukuna killed Tsumiki using only the Ten Shadows Teqchnique. The one person Megumi spent his whole life dedicated to, was killed by his own cursed technique, his own failure to suppress Sukuna.

In the void of his soul, Megumi was alone. Truly, utterly alone. The only person nearby was Sukuna, the murderer of his sister, the murderer of thousands upon thousands of people. He drowned in the ceremonial bath of crushed curses to hold his soul down in the depths of despair, literally drenched in all of the vileness the world has to offer. Sukuna killed Gojo using Mahoraga's adaption ability, and before that, Megumi was forced to take several of Gojo's mind-altering domain expansions.

Already, he had given up. He gave up when his sister died, but the rest ground a pointed spur into his neck. When Itadori shakes his soul, Megumi is repeating, "That's enough." He was at the end of his rope a long time ago. What more is there to keep living for? He doesn't want to live with the blood of his sister, the blood of the man who practically raised him, and the blood of countless others drenching his hands.

Sukuna killed all of these people, not Megumi. But then, Sukuna killed of those people in Shibuya, not Itadori. Why can Itadori take it? Why can he keep fighting when Megumi lays broken on the ground? Itadori wasn't alone. And Megumi has never been known for his unshakeable spirit. That is the one thing that Itadori can hold over everybody else, the one trait that everyone admires. He was born to shoulder the burden of the world. Megumi wasn't. Megumi wants to die. He is not passively suicidal, for he has no goals left to complete, a plan to die within the body no longer inhabited alone. He is suicidal. He would drive a stake through his heart if it meant relieving his pain. He doesn't want to do it anymore. He's had enough.

And Itadori was in this position once, too? Perhaps not as directly, but he was there. Here is the moment that the protagonist gives the motivating speech to will someone to keep fighting, that life is worth living. I realized today that this is not something Itadori has done yet. He hasn't had a grand speech that's not been about his own willpower. He's never encouraged someone else to keep living in the way that you would expect from the main character. This is his moment, I suppose. He needs to be the person for Megumi that Todo was for him. He has to show Megumi that he isn't alone.

He needs to save Megumi when, all those years ago, Gojo couldn't save Geto.

I don't think some of this fanbase understands how horrible Gege has to be at writing if he just. Let Megumi get up to fight in Chapter 251. All this time, he has shown how Megumi has been defeated. He showed him crumbled on the ground, unmoving. It shouldn't be a surprise that all of the measures Sukuna took to ensnare Megumi's soul worked. Megumi is suicidal after the people he loves have all died because of his technique. God forbid a sixteen-year-old is unable to cope with his trauma alone.

Honorable Mentions:

There are a lot more characters in this story that represent/show mental illness that I didn't go into depth on but are worth mentioning. It was easier to only talk about the major characters since we spend so much time with them and I can fully flesh out everything that should/can be said about them. Anyway, here are a few more that are notably well-written in their mental struggles:

Yoshino Junpei. His story arc follows very similarly to Geto, except he is the bullied student I was making a reference to. Depressed, alone with a mother whose habits he can't stand, he turned to someone he thought could provide him a better life. Interestingly, he is a good representation of the type of children that tend to be groomed. That's surely what happened to him. Mahito used him, then discarded him for his own gains.

Ieiri Shoko. Her main struggle can be seen through her smoking habits. She's been through a lot, lost so many people, and has to keep healing sorcerers only for them to die. Eventually, she was able to come to terms with this. She kicked her smoking habit at the same time she kicked the vicious mental cycle of caring too much about the patient on her table. It's no wonder she picked up a cigarette, for the first time in a while, when Geto led the phantom parade.

Zenin Maki. She works as a very good contrast to Megumi. They both lost their sisters, the people they loved the most, but she turned all of her grief to killing the Zenin clan and gaining Heavenly Restriction. But this, this is because she could do so. There is simply nothing Megumi can do as a soul trapped in his own body. Her grief made her stronger, while for most, it made them weaker.

Inumaki Toge. He isn't seen a lot, but his story is ultimately quite compelling. A boy who hurt many when he was young. He turned his guilt into kindness, a will to protect. He tends a garden to raise plants healthily, for God's sake. He's one of the examples that shows Yuuta that your past actions don't define you, but instead, what you choose to do going forward.

I am not proofreading any of this before I post it. Sorry if it is borderline unreadable with spelling / grammatical errors.

[indigovigilance]

The Erasure of Human!Metatron

The elephant in the room is that Neil has [purportedly] denied the existence of a human Metatron. But I, for one, think an elephant really ties the room together. So let's get started.

First, I will address Neil Gaiman’s apparent denial of the Human!Metatron storyline (below the cut):

Caption: The Metatron in Good Omens wasn't ever human.

Which would seem to put the debate to bed.

Except.

Caption: That’s not really his father. It is. It is now, and it always was.

By Adam renouncing Satan as his father, we have in-story canon evidence that the past can be retroactively changed. So a storyline past can be divergent from an in-world past which has been modified. But only to a degree, because Aziraphale and Crowley clearly remember that Adam ~was~ Satan’s son, and Adam still retains some residual powers. Like pencil marks on paper, the past can be erased, but the shadow of its former self will always be there. But if that's not enough for you, there's also...

Lucifer!Satan

Neil Gaiman has also been pretty consistent with this characterization about the non-existence of the past in other characters, for example Lucifer!Satan:

Basically (not to be rude), if you think that these statements can be taken to mean that we will definitely not get a story about Enoch aka Human!Metatron in S3, you have fundamentally misunderstood how time, history, and identity work in Neil Gaiman’s Good Omens universe.

So what Neil said about Metatron never being human… can we just collectively set that aside for a moment?

Caption: Work with me, I’m extrapolating here. Yes? Good. Read the rest of the meta.

Evidence of Human!Metatron

Now that we have established that a former, no-longer-existing version of Metatron could have been human, let’s examine the in-world evidence. The best direct evidence is:

Caption: I’ve ingested things in my time, you know.

This is weirdly important in the Book of Enoch. Food is mentioned in the Book of Enoch at least fourteen times, and consistently it is associated with being human, and having earthly desires, and subsequently with sin, whereas the angels are described as not needing to eat food but instead being nourished by faith alone. Enoch!Metatron’s own relationship with food is also explicitly elucidated:

Enoch answered to his son Mathosalam (and) said: Hear, child, from the time when the Lord anointed me with the ointment of his glory, (there has been no) food in me, and my soul remembers not earthly enjoyment, neither do I want anything earthly.

I propose that "in my time" is a direct reference to Metatron's prior existence as a human, and the fact that this time is over serves to underscore his current inhumanity, making him all the more sinister.

Other Evidence Pointing to Book of Enoch

This next bit is somewhat dubious evidence, but the entire reason I wound up investigating this is that I was actually investigating Baraqiel:

…and for the God-fearing life of me, I cannot find any reference to Baraqiel except in the Book of Enoch. So this is a pretty big ✨Clue✨ to just leave hanging out there if it’s not supposed to lead us to this text.

The Scottish Mason

Okay guys, this the part where it all comes unhinged, but I promise the payoff is worth it.

The Book of Enoch was recovered from Ethiopia in 1773 by a Scottish explorer named James Bruce, who also happened to be a Mason. In 1774, upon his return, he was made a Fellow of The Royal Society of Edinburgh. And if this quote doesn’t get you, I don’t know what will:

Amazingly, Bruce brings back not just one copy, nor two, but three! Three copies of this text, which was previously thought to have been lost to the West forever. This inevitably led to all kinds of accusations as to where he had come by them, and more importantly how? Add to this that Bruce was a Mason in one of the most influential lodges, a Bruce descendant, and an imposing physical figure and 6 feet 4 inches tall, with dark red hair and an irascible temper, it is no wonder that so much excitement and mystery surrounded the man. [source]

So, you know, this guy:

In summary:

There are reasons that we should be looking to the Book of Enoch, and the story surrounding its reintroduction to the Western world, as source evidence for Good Omens S3.

If you enjoyed this, you may also like my meta on Baraqiel and Azazel, which draws upon the Book of Enoch.

My original (in retrospect, kind of terrible) Metatron meta is here.

[genshinnrambles]

[4.0]: A Theory On Rhinedottir, Alchemy, and the Meaning of Sin

“One thought may end all calamity, and there will always be thoughts that may transcend time.” -The Meaning of Aeons “Separate the dust in the flames with joy, and extract the exquisite from the crude. For all in the universe comes from a single source, and all things may be derived from a single thought.” -Cinnabar Spindle

I’ve been wanting to do some Rhinedottir speculations for a while. With the new Ancient Colors world quest in Fontaine, I think now is a good time to propose a theory about this mysterious member of the Hexenzirkel, her approach to alchemy, and the reason she is a “sinner,” especially within the context of one of the Archon Quest’s central questions: what does it mean to be “born with sin”?

SPOILERS: Up to Act II of the Fontaine AQ (just Primordial Sea stuff), and Ancient Colors.

Although Rhinedottir is never mentioned by name in Ancient Colors, all of the signs of her are there: Mamere’s identity as an artist, Elynas’ otherworldliness and similarities to Durin, and the differences between the Melusine’s perception of the world and our perception of it (or their aesthetics, which we will touch on later). Ancient Colors is trying to remind us of Dragonspine and, if you were playing during this time, Shadows Amidst Snowstorms, and I believe it is doing so because it is key to the secret of the Primordial Sea and the prophecy of Fontaine.

We’ve heard Rhinedottir’s perspective only twice so far, and that was in the Windblume festival from this last year and in Cinnabar Spindle’s lore. Though we still don’t know much about her, she does identify herself as a “mother” of many children, and that she is raising the only son she has left. This, of course, is Albedo. 

We also know that she is considered a "sinner" at the center of the Cataclysm who unleashed "an army of shadowy monsters" onto Teyvat, but we have very little grasp of what exactly is meant by "sinner," and what if any consequences this label has had on her since then. Although every Hexenzirkel witch will undoubtedly be very important to uncovering the truth of Teyvat, Rhinedottir presents a particularly interesting case as the only one whose activities may have caused cataclysmic destruction, as opposed to Alice's general mischief and strange sense of humor.

It’s almost nothing to go off of, but I hope to demonstrate in this speculative theory that it’s more than enough to arrive at some answers.

Psychoanalysis 101, Round 2 

To better explain what Durin, Elynas, and Rhinedottir’s other children are, we need to use an analogy rooted in Freud’s psychoanalytic theory of dream interpretation. This is a super TL;DR version of it and way oversimplified, but if you’re interested I wrote a more detailed theory about the significance of dreams in Genshin that has a full explanation of it there. (Also, it should be said that these were just Freud’s theories, please do not take any of the following as an accurate description of the human psyche and how it works. We are just having some fun for the sake of media analysis.)

Freud thought that dreams are the mind’s means of expressing unfulfilled wishes, and that the psychological purpose of dreaming is to “fulfill” those wishes. In A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis, he gives an example of this through a little girl’s dream where she was sailing on a lake: this dream was born out of an unfulfilled wish in her waking life, where she had to stop sailing on the lake despite wishing to continue. Hence, “I wish to sail on the lake” becomes “I am sailing on the lake” through the dream.

Further, Freud thought these unfulfilled wishes are “forgotten” in our unconscious mind when we are awake, censored by the ego to protect our conscious mind, but that at night this censorship is weakened. This is what allows a dream to occur while we sleep. 

These unfulfilled wishes are often more complicated than a childish wish to keep sailing on a lake. Think about it this way: a wish is, at its core, a thought in our head, or a desire. What do we do with the thoughts we don’t like, the ones that are unbecoming of us or are unacceptable to fulfill? 

We deny them. 

Specifically, we repress them into the unconscious, where they are forgotten. Thing is, even if we temporarily forget these thoughts, they won’t just disappear from existence - they fester in the unconscious, waiting to be expressed. The dream, therefore, is the unfulfilled wish/repressed thought’s attempt to cross the boundary from the unconscious mind into the conscious mind - to be acknowledged, or indeed remembered.

“Unfulfilled Wishes”

Making sense so far? If so, try to think of Teyvat like this: everything that is visible, everything above ground that the light touches and that can be perceived is like the ego and conscious mind. All of these things are what you’re aware of, things that you “know” and can make sense of, things that you understand, things that fit into rules and laws and order.

Now, think of everything in Genshin that is “unseen” and “unknown”: the Abyss, the spaces underground, forbidden knowledge, things that are “not from this world,” from beyond the firmament…these are like things from the unconscious mind, the repressed thoughts that we deny in ourselves because they may reveal a truth we are unwilling to face. These things are comparatively chaotic in nature, things we’d rather avoid, or things that we wish to forget.

We know that Elynas’ and Durin’s bodies are composed of matter that’s foreign to Teyvat, and that this is a major reason why they are incompatible with Teyvat and cause its destruction. This would make them more similar to a repressed thought, something that we don’t understand or know, and attempting to understand it destabilizes our sense of self, our “truth.” It follows that their home, the Abyss, is most similar to our unconscious mind, and Teyvat is most similar to our conscious mind.

Elynas: Before I was born, I floated in the cosmic darkness. It was cold there, and lonely. I was so sad, then, and I would often cry.

So, as their mother, who or what is Rhinedottir in this analogy? Well, we can be a lot more specific than calling her a “sinner.” In fact, she’s a dreamer, and alchemy is the medium through which she “dreams”:

This was a story from long ago...  Unborn life, unfulfilled wishes,  Tragic dreams at the edge of the universal darkness that could never come true, Indwell my body, and descend unto this world.  Then, my lovely children,  Like rainwater flowing into creeks, and plants growing towards the sun,  Go unto a lovely place, and display your own beauty there with pride.  This is a memory, a memory that a child named Durin had of his mother… "Thank you, Mother, thank you."  "You gave me wings to soar and a mighty form."  "Mother, I wish to go to a land of lovely songs,"  "I will tell them about you, Mother, and about everyone else."  "I shall tell them that the place where I was born is beautiful." -Festering Desire

Rhinedottir’s children, then, are like thoughts or ideas that she is bringing to life, or “making conscious,” by moving them from the Abyss to Teyvat. It may even be the reason why the sword from The Chalk Prince and the Dragon is called Festering Desire in the first place - it’s a reference to the idea of repressed thoughts, wishes, and desires festering in the unconscious.

Should the analogy hold true, it provides some insight into what her intentions may have been in creating her Abyssal dragons. But before that, we need to take a little detour into Enkanomiya and brush up on some lore.

Denouement of Sin

Eboshi: However, the heavenly order seemed to not wish for those who remembered all this to remain on the earth. We searched and searched for a road of return, but there was none to be found.

Remember these hologram-looking dudes? They are the Shades of Tokoyo, also known as Sinshades. They are described as afterimages of the former citizens of Byakuyakoku preserved by Istaroth’s favor, specifically those citizens’ most powerful emotions, and they are only visible during Evernight:

Eboshi: Due to the phenomenon known as Sinshades, the “past,” “history,” and “truth” of Enkanomiya would endure even if left to their own devices. Eboshi: As such, great effort was expended, not that we might remember, but that we might “forget.” Lady Sangonomiya was of this view.

Like a dream, Sinshades only appear at night, and they are a kind of embodiment of history or “truth” that Watatsumi Island has chosen to forget, representing the thoughts and emotions of those who once lived in Enkanomiya. Using Freud’s theory of dream interpretation as a framework, Enkanomiya then functions as Watatsumi Island’s unconscious mind. 

Put another way, if all Sinshades are the result of strong emotions preserved in time through Istaroth’s favor, then those emotions are like thoughts, and that would make the Sinshade a “physical” form or expression of those thoughts. So, when we call the afterimages the “Sins of Tokoyo,” we are in effect calling them the “Dreams of Tokoyo,” because they are the thoughts and emotions of Enkanomiya given form, and that’s what dreams do: they convey thoughts and feelings through a series of images. 

Through the Sinshades, we see an implicit association with the concepts of dreaming and sinning in Genshin’s worldbuilding, and through them we understand that they are not so different from one another.

A Brief Note on Aesthetics

Jakob: Look at your feet. Blood, flowing like a river, fertilizing the very dust of the earth with their filthy fat.

It may have struck you how various Melusine perceive reality in a way that greatly differs from the things we see, as if at times their perception was “flipped,” if not somewhat strange. By the end of Ancient Colors, it’s clear that this is due to the Melusine being born of Elynas, who is not from this world. A similar phenomenon can be seen in both Durin and Elynas, the former imagining itself dancing with the people of Mondstadt before it “woke up” from this dream to Dvalin’s fangs in its neck, and the latter realizing that the things that it finds fun are destructive and harmful to the people of this world.

This is a part of the commentary present in several world quests and commissions in Fontaine that deal with “aesthetics,” or one’s own sense of beauty. Aesthetics are principles that differ on both large and small social scales, varying between groups of people and between individuals (see Salsa’s and Ubu’s aesthetic disagreement), and they can change throughout time as values change. In other words, they are informed by perspectives.

For example, think of what we know so far about the Primordial Sea. Neuvillette wonders how the Primordial Sea could be capable of giving life and then “suddenly reversing itself” so that it instead “devours life,” but this is just his judgment of what the sea does, and ultimately his perspective. Many others view the properties of the Primordial Sea differently from him: to them, the prophecy is comforting because it signals a “return,” or a “homecoming.” To take it a step further, Neuvillette may be making an assumption by stating that the sea has reversed itself. Perhaps this is just how the sea is, perhaps this is its “truth.”

Verenata: The "truth" will not be limited or constrained by the eyes and perspectives of the viewer, and won't be distorted by what is in their heart. It objectively exists, and it just is...like the white sand, like the bones of seastars, like the waves that crash and pound...those are "truth."

Now, imagine that you are staring at a 3D object from a 90 degree angle. If I ask you to describe the object from where you're standing, you'll be able to accurately tell me about what roughly half of the object looks like, but you won't be able to accurately describe the other half of it without help from someone standing on the other side of the object.

But how can you be sure there even is another side of the object, or that it's any different from the one you see now? From your perspective, what is already visible to you may seem sufficient to describe the object in its entirety. In other words, your perspective becomes your "truth."

It is only through considering additional perspectives that we broaden our own understanding of reality and expand on our "truth." However, broadening our perspective is usually not a comfortable experience, as is typical when we engage with ideas that differ from our own. Part of expanding our "truth" requires us to shatter our current understanding, pick up the pieces, and reassemble them into a shape that makes space for these other ideas and their "truth."

For example, when we confront Jakob at Elynas' heart, he describes the rushing currents beneath our feet as Elynas' blood. To the player, who has been swimming around in that for a couple of hours by that point, this idea is macabre and horrifying. However, when we consider Jakob’s perspective, his “truth,” it also expands our understanding of Elynas as a being that is somewhere between dead and alive, sleeping if you will, and that he is more than capable of waking up from his slumber with the appropriate stimulus. Another example is Canotila, who saw the wasteland in Rene's Book of Esoteric Revelations as a peaceful forest. When we consider Canotila's "truth," her aesthetic sense doesn't change the way we see the wasteland, but it does show us something equally important: the way that we experience the wasteland is not the only way it can be experienced.

If we return to the other ever-present metaphor of alchemy as a form of painting, we can see that Rhinedottir’s aesthetic sense greatly differs from what is acceptable and compatible with Teyvat. But, just like Mamere, she paints regardless of whether her paintings are understood by a greater audience. In time, Teyvat's "aesthetics" may change again, and perhaps her "art" will be received differently when that time comes.

Concluding Thoughts

(A pool full of Water from the Primordial Sea. Countless sins were born of it…)

So, that is why I think Rhinedottir was deemed a sinner. She sinned by “dreaming” up these chaotic life forms that were not from this world, bringing them into being through the Art of Khemia, and telling those chaotic life forms that they were beautiful, too, that the ordered and lawful world of Teyvat just needed to realize how beautiful they were. Maybe Rhinedottir was dreaming of a new world, one where her children’s wishes could be fulfilled, where they could exist with everyone, and maybe creating that world required the destruction of this one. You could also think of her as someone who has introduced “external variables” into Teyvat, which, hmmm..:

“...No matter how many times I derive it, the result remains the same, though this result is not expected... Unlike the world depicted in these ancient texts, there will be no more new civilizations born... Unless we consider introducing "variables" from outside the system... If it was that sort of power, there might be a chance…” -Enigmatic Page I, Book of Esoteric Revelations

In this way, her “children” (thoughts) were all “born with sin,” or are born from sin (dreams). If Rhinedottir is a dreamer, then alchemy is the way that she dreams: it allows her to give forms to these thoughts. And if you buy that, then there are some serious implications to consider from this whole notion of Fontainians being “born with sin,” and just what exactly the Primordial Sea might be. Definitely something to think about while we wait for 4.1. 

One last point that is more of an aside than anything else: Rhinedottir’s only remaining child is Albedo, but through this lens we see that he is not just the culmination of the Primordial Human Project, the creation of a human through the power of alchemy, but also the only known example of Rhinedottir’s “ideas” that coexists with Teyvat as it is now. As for her known extant grandchildren, they have integrated with Fontainian society and don’t seem to cause them any trouble. I wonder if she knew something like that could happen?

But…that’s just my take on it so far. What do you think?

(also, fun fact: there is a parallel storyline to this one unfolding in Honkai Star Rail right now as it relates to being deemed a “sinner” for creating life, and another parallel storyline in Honkai Impact 3rd about creation and rebirth and “returning home to the sea” and I just love when Hoyoverse connects their games like that) 

EDIT (9/8/2023): Touched this up a bit and made some grammatical corrections. Thesis is the same, some added support and re-phrasing was done to better convey it.

Sources

A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis by Sigmund Freud

[severepink]

Understanding Death in Hazbin Hotel

There seems to be a lot of misconceptions around what exactly angelic weapons do and how death works in the Hazbin Hotel universe. I want to explain my thoughts on this with everyone using the information that we know.

We first need to look at what species we know that exist in the Hazbin Hotel and Helluva Boss universe. Because this is where I believe most of the confusion around death in the show comes from.

As of right now we have three different types of beings.

Angels, Humans, and Hellborns. Angels live in the realms they created or helped to create (god hasn't been mentioned much in the shows at all outside of a few 'oh gods'). They existed before Humans and Hellborns. Angels can fall and become powerful beings in hell.

Humans were created by angels. Originally three were created and they had different purposes before Eve ate the Apple and they were intended to be immortal (by biblical story telling). They exist on Earth. When they die, they are sorted into being angelic type beings or sinful beings, their souls are sent to either Heaven or Hell.

Hellborns were creatures born in hell. We do not know their full range of their lore of how they were created, but the speculation so far is that Lilith likely birthed at least some of them or they were created by the Seven Deadly Sins. Either way, they are mortal to one another unless they are the Ars Goetia. Humans are very different from Angels or Hellborns. They are born on Earth and the content of their souls and their actions are judged by an unknown source (as of right now). When they are judged, they are sent to either Heaven or Hell. Adam is not an Angel in the same way that Sera or Emily are angels. He was a human soul who got sent to heaven. He is a human soul that has been imbued with more angelic/divine soul than others we've seen so far. This is an important thing to remember. People seem to think that when anything is killed with an angelic weapon that it just disintegrates a soul entirely when that's not how it works. Sinners are confined to the Pride Ring of hell and are not allowed within the realms of the Hellborn because hell is over-populated and must be cleansed, only because Sinners can not kill one another in a traditional way, unlike the Hellborn who can do it naturally themselves without the need for angelic weapons. Hellborn entities can kill one another just fine unless they are of the Ars Goetia. This is telling me that they have unique properties unlike the other Hellborn. My guess is they were created by the Seven Deadly Sins amongst one another, so while they are technically hellborn, they likely have those residual angelic energies from their creators making them less capable of dying by an attack. However, we can see that they do age and likely do die of old age, as there is a generational component. The Seven Deadly sins have always been other angels that were cast down alongside Lucifer, meaning they used to be Angels in the same vein that Sera and Emily are angels. Hellborn entities like Imps or Hellhounds can grow old and die within hell. When they die, they become one with the energy of Hell. Vivziepop has expressed this before. If a Sinner is killed and has not made an honest effort to repent, they find the same fate and their energy is imbued into hell itself. It's why there are eyes, mouths, seemingly sentient flora and fauna in hell. Hell itself is like a living creature that feeds and regurgitates in an endless cycle for the hellborn. Angelic weapons really seem to be confusing people too, because you're assuming that Adam's blast of energy to Sir Pentious is not the same as the weapons, when it more than likely is. Angelic weapons have to be created with the same kind of energy blast as Adam has shown. He's unique in that he's the only human soul shown so far who can do this. He could have been an angelic weapon himself. Lute and the other exorcists were likely humans themselves. That is why they can be killed the same way that Sinners can be killed. They are human souls, they are being killed and subsequently rejudged by whatever entity (god probably) is doing the judging. Heaven probably has its own systems of life and death for it's naturally born denizens. Remember this billboard in Welcome to Heaven?

This is an old lady. More than likely a naturally born Denizen of Heaven. Everyone in heaven is supposed to be hot and healthy, right? It's probably just the human souls. This could also just be a gag, but I think Hell and Heaven are more or less inversions, especially considering the Cherubs are an inversion of imps.

What's interesting is in the episode with the Cherubs, they're refused re-entry to heaven because their actions resulted in the death of a human, a human that goes to hell, a human they were trying to keep from killing himself and find beauty in nature and love. Sera talks about they have their own souls to protect as well. Human souls are unique in some form or fashion that means their deaths are different from what Angels or Hellborns experience. They have the capability of immortality within heaven or hell, just like they would have had on Earth if Eve didn't eat the apple. That's why Sir Pentious is in heaven instead of being dead despite an angelic blast. That's why we'll likely see Adam return as a demon. Human souls are important to the being giving judgement, they are more or less immortal for some reason unless divine intervention is at play. When humans make deals with one another in hell, they gain more power. They bargain with their souls. Souls are power. Humans are naturally generating sources of souls. I believe, eventually, the show will dip its toes into concepts like reincarnation outside of shifting between heaven or hell. If it doesn't, then it's more than likely going to be how Heaven and Hell are in a constant state of trying to collect as many souls as possible for the power that they infuse into each respective dimension. Lilith gained more and more power with the more souls sent into hell. Heaven fights those souls with the exorcists who are also more than likely human souls. That's my speculation anyways!

[edenfenixblogs]

hey i saw the post about your cousin's bar mitzvah, and well first of all congrats to her. but also uh one thing you mentioned made me curious- what *am* i supposed to do should i find a dead body on the side of the road, if it's no problem for me to ask? not to worry you or anything like that but i guess it'd be useful to know if i pass a car crash on a road trip again.

Ah! What a good ask!!!! I see you committing to the act of learning more about Judaism as an act of allyship, and I appreciate you! Thanks so much for taking an interest.

Obligatory disclaimer: I’m not a biblical scholar or a Talmudic expert. I’m just a Jew who likes being a Jew.

So my Torah portion was in Leviticus. For those who don’t know, Leviticus and Numbers are often considered the doldrums of Torah books. It’s not where a lot of the well-known exciting parts happen. Those books generally contain a lot of lists of rules and mitzvot.

But this is actually why I like the way Judaism reads the whole Torah in order. It forces us to confront the “boring” stuff. And in so doing, we have to think harder about why that stuff is included in our books.

So that’s why my assigned portion was interesting to me.

The actual text basically says “don’t touch dead bodies.” But I remember reading the Talmudic scholarship which was especially interesting because its focus was to elaborate on all the exceptions and then talked about the importance of doing good deeds without a reward and not punishing those who need to do things like touch dead bodies.

The point of the text isn’t to condemn people who are doing the “forbidden” thing without any cause. The text outlines a lot of rules (many of which are not relevant anymore) and, frankly excessive punishments for breaking the rules.

But Judaism doesn’t end at the literal text. Talmud (rabbinical interpretation) is equally important.

My take on the material was this:

There are some things that, on the whole, we shouldn’t do. We shouldn’t touch dead bodies. We shouldn’t come to synagogue when we are sick. We shouldn’t cheat on our spouses. Etc.

But sometimes, you do need to break the rules. And for some things, someone must always break the rules. There must be someone in any community whose job it is to touch dead bodies. Someone must bury the dead. At the very least.

For people in that position, it is so vitally important that we do not throw the literal text in their face. It is important that we do not condemn them or shun them or otherwise exclude them from our community. Judaism is about community. And you cannot have a community that is based upon excluding people who do essential jobs. Rather, thank them. Because they are doing a good thing with no inherent reward. Quite the opposite. Those people should be celebrated. They take on the hard work knowing it carries risk of exclusion and judgment, but they do it anyway. Because it’s right.

Back in the day, if you saw a dead body on the side of the road and no one seemed available to bury it? Bury it. Give that fallen soul dignity. Then pray about it. Physically and emotionally wash the sin* away. (*sin in Judaism is not the same as the Christian idea of sin. Sin is more akin to an “oops” or “missing the mark.”) And take pleasure in doing something good for humanity and knowing that nobody else had to take on that sin for you.

So, nowadays, if you see a dead body on the side of the road? Call the person whose job it is to deal with that. And thank them for doing this very emotionally difficult work. Welcome that person into your community. Be kind to them. It matters. Because there is no community at all without them and people like them.

And in general? The more broad lesson to this is to of course be kind to people who do unglamorous but necessary work. And to take on that unglamorous work ourselves when necessary. That’s how we keep our community functional and healthy. Do good deeds without expecting a reward. Do what’s right even when you expect a bad outcome. Do good and right things for their own sake, because that’s what we exist to do. Create goodness in the world. The reward is the better world we create.

Thanks for asking @clawdia-houyhnhnm

[let-us-cultivate-our-garden]

The Owl House Series Finale Thoughts, part 1

So, now that I’ve had time to vent and gather my thoughts I can say that The Owl House series finale, was a letdown. 

There were strong elements: the animation, the voice acting, the music, all incredible. I do deeply appreciate the hard work and talent the crew brought in making this show and how many people have felt represented and seen by the show’s inclusivity and themes. I feel that this show will be beloved and remembered for a long time.

However, I feel like the show made critical errors that actually undermined what it set out to do. Before I get into my thoughts, let me explain how I got into this show:

I happened to stumble upon the show because it looked neat and heard that the show creator also worked on Gravity Falls, another show I enjoyed. The first season was fun; bright, clever, and you could tell it wanted to tell a larger story with deep and meaningful themes. Season 2A was also fun and it had begun to depict a darker, more mature world. I didn’t think too much of the show, it was just fun, a typical kids’ cartoon show with good storytelling and memorable characters. Nothing really grabbed me about the show.

Until Hollow Mind.

Long-term fans will remember people being disappointed by the episode because they became attached to Fanon Philip that had appeared during the hiatus and we got something completely different in canon. How did this seemingly sweet young man turn into Emperor Belos? Turns out, he’s just a dick. A huge, murderous dick with a hero complex. 

I wasn’t there for Fanon Philip but what drew me to Belos was that in HM, his apparent backstory was in the literal background of the episode and it sparked my imagination. I joined the fandom because, like many, I wanted to know what Belos’ deal was. Many talented and creative people came up with long and compelling theories about the Wittebane brothers, speculation that was further fueled by the grimwalker reveal and Caleb appearing in Belos’ memories in King’s Tide. That speculation grew and people wrote whole fan fics and drew art depicting the trials and troubles of the Wittebanes. 

I became invested in the Wittebanes because their story was so tragic: two orphan boys who grew up in a cult, essentially forced to participate in witch hunts in an adapt-or-be-hanged situation, only for the elder to actually see the error of his ways and leave his younger brother behind, making him think he had been bewitched and that it was his duty to save him. 

We got more scraps of information in Thanks to Them, the most important being how the brothers only had each other and became witch-hunters to fit in. In For the Future, Caleb’s apparition appears--whether a ghost or hallucination is unknown---above his specter is a bloody knife, Caleb stares accusingly at the wretched, shambling remains of his younger brother. Philip lashes out angrily accusing him that it was his fault and that he “tried to save his soul.” This is a highly interpretive scene, and many thought it implied Belos’ deeply buried guilt and how he always lies to himself to justify his actions. All the while, deep down knowing the truth.

With all that in mind, what did we learn in Watching and Dreaming? What made this young man who ventured out to what he thought was literal hell to rescue his brother? His only family? Only to kill him in a fit of madness and spend literal centuries trying to recreate the brother of his childhood, to erase his original sin, all the while descending into madness and depravity?

Turns out he’s a dick. A huge, murderous dick with a hero complex.

“You assume Belos’ goal comes from a genuine place,” the Titan tells Luz. And seemingly the audience because fans wanted to see this story, this foundation to all of the horror and trauma. To understand how a man becomes evil. 

Well, according to the show, he’s just like that. Luz attempts to reconcile Belos’ goal of saving humanity with her own and wonders if their morality is really so different. Silly human, the Titan says. Your goals and motives are genuine, he’s just delusional and evil. So you can take comfort in the fact that your enemies’ goals are just self-serving, but yours are the real deal. 

Sorry but this is lazy.

You can’t say people are complicated and then turn around and say actually, no some people are just delusional and power-hungry and we’ll leave it at that. It seems that, in the universe of The Owl House, only good people are complicated; Lilith cursed Eda because she was desperate to get into the Emperor’s Coven but then she spends the rest of the time trying to cure her sister. Amity bullied Willow, but only because her parents forced them to no longer be friends, Hunter was the emperor’s right hand man, but only because he’s an abused teenager. Meanwhile, the villains of the show don’t have their motives given such depth, they just act in selfish and petty ways because they just are. 

I wouldn’t be bothered by Philip’s flat characterization if the show did not waste so much time giving us hints and clues that there’s actually more to him. What a twist! The villain you thought had greater complexity is just a Standard Villain, how genius! Such clever writing!

If he’s going to be simply a metaphor and not a real character then don’t tease us with a story that suggests otherwise. Keep your story clean and concise. Don’t dangle a potentially amazing storyline that aligns perfectly with the protagonist’s only to yank it away.

This is a waste of the audience’s time and squashes what could have been a wonderfully twisted and dynamic villain. But the show wasn’t interested. It's much easier and more comforting to just say bad people are just bad and never explore why. You could never become the villain because you’re good; don’t bother worrying that you and the villain have the same goals because his aren’t genuine!

 Remember kids, people are complicated. Unless you’re a villain. 

[daddys-silly-little-gem]

Forever My Whore

Toji Fushiguro x Prostitute! Reader

Rated : M

The Red Light District. It's a place full of sin and guilty pleasures that happen at night. Prostitution was a common way of getting by when you lived in this place. Prostitutes, however, don't always get a good rap. We're usually known as whores or homewreckers. We get called bitches, useless whores, dumb slut. Nobody ever thinks about our pleasures, they never think about how we feel during the act. It pays lots of money, and you meet all kinds of people, but they never stay long, and you know they whisper lies behind your back when they leave.

Being left unsatisfied was a common thing. Never getting to finish or getting the benefits from it. The customers usually come for themselves, they think about their own pleasure and don't even ask if you felt good, or if you enjoyed it. They get their orgasm, and then they leave. Being left pint up and frustrated became a norm. Sometimes having sex with one another, was typical. Some even began dating one another due to the fact that they only had one another.

This whore house, that you work in, has a man's section and a women's section. It was split up into two buildings. Whichever you preferred, that's the house you went to. Some of the female workers were dating some of the male workers. Some couples were same-sex and some were heterosexual couples. But the same silent rule applied to all couples. DON'T GET CAUGHT. That was the most important rule. If you get caught, you either get sold to another district or you just vanish. Everyone here had no ties to family, so it never mattered what happened to us. Our lives were in the hands of the Mistress and her Husband.

Under their watch, we were considered a family. Sisters and brothers were not allowed to date. But none of us were related, and we all wanted to feel something. Whether it's love or just sex, we were humans. We needed to feel alive. You didn't mind the loneliness, you could care less. You've become numb to never being satisfied. Laying up there on a mattress, giving fake moans as your body rocked from empty thrusts. Sometimes the sex was good and you'd actually moan, but it was never enough to feed that emptiness.

You were disowned by your family when you were 15, all because you lost your virginity. Your family believed in sex after marriage, but you weren't feeling it. You've been here in this district for 7 years now. Nothing much has changed, and you didn't mind that. You had food, a warm bed, and a roof over your head. You were set. You didn't mind not getting satisfied, it was just a small sacrifice you didn't mind having to make. That was until, you met him.

Toji Fushiguro

He was a common customer here, he didn't visit as much as the other guys, but when he did, he was always big talk amongst the young girls. When you first saw him, you didn't like him. He gave off a smug air, like he was too good for any of these girls, and that he could have them all. He didn't talk much, but he sure did eat a lot. You've served him food a few times, but nothing more than that. But the girls always swooned over him. They always talked about how much pleasure he gave them, and how many times they'd orgasmed while in his care. They'd talk about how big he was, how strong he was, how rough he was.

They'd always speak so highly of him. And you'd never admit it, but you were curious. You didn't want to admit it, but you wanted to get that experience. You wanted to have him, if only for a night. But, that would probably prove to be hard, because he never seemed to pay you any mind. You could understand why though. Your breasts weren't that big, your ass wasn't as wide, and you weren't considered as beautiful, just a simple 'Pretty'. You'd usually get the run-down guys. The ones with missing teeth, skinny and frail. Sometimes muscular but too nerdy to talk to the beautiful women.

You always got the rift rafts. So you weren't expecting him to ever pay you any attention. And You were right, he didn't. He never even glanced your way when you'd bring him food. It felt almost insulting, but you've learned to cut off your emotions to it, but it still made your eyes sting when you put thought into it. Eventually, to save yourself from messing up your makeup, you just started to avoid him altogether whenever he came. Usually, it was you who gave him his second or third meal, but you decided to stop.

You invested yourself into the job, seeing more customers than what was needed when he came for a visit. Or you'd stay hidden in the crowd of girls.

Until one day, he sought you out.

You were walking through one of the many long hallways within the building. You were on your way to your room, to tend to a customer who was waiting in your room. You had just freshly done your hair and you changed your kimono, the mistress made you dress nicer than usual, with was very strange for you. You'd usually get the standard kimono, nothing special. This time, you were given a much more beautiful one. It was full of patterns and colors. It was beautiful. But you didn't have time to dwell on it, you had a customer to please. You got to your door and you sat down on your knees.

With practiced ease, you slid open the shogi door, your passive face set in a rehearsed bashful stare as you looked through your lashes with false shyness. When you slid the door open, your act dropped and you stared on in confusion. Toji Fushiguro, was in your room. He was draped in a dark blue kimono. It was lazily tied around his waist, and the fabric hung loosely around him, showing his powerful physic. He stared at you with an observatory gaze. "There you are." He said.

You looked on in confusion before you responded. "I-I must be in the wrong room. Excus-" You were cut off when he suddenly stood up, and he wordlessly walked over toward you. Your head slowly move up, as you craned your neck to his height as he drew closer to you. He stared down at you. "I chose you. I want you." He said in a factual tone. He stared down at you with an unwavering gaze. The intensity of his gaze made you quiver, and your pussy throbbed from it. 'I'm... aroused.' You thought. The feeling was almost unknown to you, it was hard to get aroused when you already knew the outcome.

But this was new, it was intimidating, it was powerful, it was overwhelming. You liked it. He didn't give you time to answer, when he suddenly reached down and he grabbed your arm. You nearly melted under his touch. His hands are giant, and strong. They covered your small bicep with his palm. You were yanked up from your spot as you were pulled into the room. The shogi door slides close behind you.

He effortlessly tosses you onto the mattress. "Oof." You huffed as you landed on your ass, your hands kept you propped up as you looked up at him. He stared down at you quietly, his eyes seemed to eat you up, as they slowly trailed up your legs where the kimono parted from your fall. Your feet laced over one another, as you shyly looked up at him. "You stopped serving me. Why?" He suddenly asked. You looked up at him in question. "I stopped serving you? When did I ever serve you?" You asked. He stared at you a little longer before he suddenly began to peel his kimono off.

Your breath hitched, as his body was revealed to you. Your pussy leaked fluids and your clit twitched, you pressed your thighs together trying to stimulate the sudden heat that was consuming you. His kimono pooled around his feet as he carelessly dropped it. His boxers were the only thing saving you from just turning into a mess, but that's what you wanted. He was semi-hard, and your nipples tingled at the slight imprint of his thick girth. "You stopped feeding me." He said. You stared up at him in wonder. 'That's right. I stopped serving him food.' You thought.

"I-I didn't actually feed you, the cooks made it, I just served it." You explained, as you watched him get on his knees. He crawled over towards you until his hands trailed up your legs. Your breath hitched as his large rough hands trailed over your soft skin. They moved slowly up your legs and over your knees, his fingers pushing your kimono up. Once at your thighs, he wrapped his hands around them and squeezed. You gave a small moan at the feeling of his fingers pressing into your plush skin.

"The food always tasted better when it was from your hands." He said in a hushed voice as his eyes traced the way your skin pushed up around his fingers. Your cheeks warmed at his words. 'That's... actually so cute.' You thought as you stared at his handsome face. You nearly screamed when he pulled you towards him by your thighs, your back hitting the mattress as he pushed your legs together. He pushed them towards you. "Hold them together like this, don't let go." He said. You wrapped your arms around them, holding them tight together as you looked at him from between your knees.

Your pussy quivered at his order, it was something you were newly craving for. He palmed himself through his boxers as he softly grunted to himself. "Your thighs are sexy. I wanna fuck 'em." He said as he pushed his boxers down enough to free himself. You gave a breathy whine at his words as you pushed your thighs together tighter. His eyes trailed down the plushness of your thighs pushed together, going down to your glinting pussy. He watched as she slightly quivered and he trailed his thumb down your lips.

Your body jumped from the sudden touch. He lightly trailed his thumb down your split, gathering up some of your juices as he did so. He stopped at your entrance and he pushed his thumb in. "Nnnnuh." You lightly moaned at the feeling as he bullied his thumb into you. 'Just his thumb alone is thick.' You thought as he pushed his thumb in all the way. Your pussy clinched down on his thumb and he gave a light smirk. "You're such a whore. Just from my thumb alone, you're leaking for me." He said, you whined at his words. You usually hated to be called a whore, but this was different.

He thrust his thumb in you a few times, and the feeling of you clenching down on him made his cock twitch. He pulled his thumb out and he replaced it with his fingers. Your head rolled back into the mattress as two of his thick fingers entered you. "Nnnnuh, ha. So big." You whispered as he slowly thrusts his fingers into you. "You think this is big, wait until you get my cock, you'll be given a new definition of the word 'big'." He confidently said as he thrust his fingers into you faster. You panted as your hips lightly rolled on his fingers.

'They're so thick. But I need more... I want more.' You thought. He suddenly pulled his fingers out and you whined at the loss of them. He chuckled. "Don't whine baby, I'm gonna make you feel amazing soon. I promise." He said as he grabbed his cock in his hand covered in your fluids. He groaned as he pumped himself a few times, smearing your essence on himself. He grabbed the back of your legs, as he pushed them down onto you. Whined at the pressure, as your back curved. "Stay." He ordered, as he rubbed the head of his cock over your dripping entrance. You whined in anticipation, but you were denied as he trailed the head of his cock up the crack of your plush thighs. "So soft." He said.

He pushed the head of his cock into the crack and he groaned as he pulled back. He did that a few times, teasing himself as he only entered the tip of his cock in the plushness of your thighs before he'd pull out. His tip would graze your cunt and you'd twitch from the feeling. He was so close to your clit, yet he never pushed in far enough to touch it. You whined in frustration. "Fushiguro!" You whined his name. He looked down at you in question. "What is it, baby? You want me to stop teasing this pretty little cunt?" He asked in a teasing tone.

You nodded your head with a pout and he smirked. "I honestly shouldn't tease you. You've been such a good girl." He said, as he pushed his cock in further, the head of his cock finally grazing your clit. "NNNUH!!" You moaned, as your clit spasmed from the stimulation. Your thighs clenched and Toji hissed. He pulled his cock back out to the tip before he shoved himself back in fully into your plushness. The underside of his long cock grazed your clit and you moaned from the friction. His gaze narrowed and his teasing stopped as he began to fuck your thighs. His pace was rough and fast as he thrusts. His balls slapped your lips making your pussy clench, and his cock dragged over your clit making you squirm.

He thrust his cock in between your thighs, and your body rocked back and forth from his powerful hips. 'Nobody, ever fucked my thighs before... I love it.' You thought in a daze as your core tightened. "I-Im going to... cum." You moaned out as the cord within you became tighter and tighter. 'Yes, yes yes.' You thought, excited to reach your end. But he suddenly stopped. You blinked a few times before you swallowed thickly. "W-why'd you stop?" You said in a light voice as you slowly came down from your daze. He didn't say anything, as he spread your legs open. Your arms have fallen to your side long ago in the midst of your pleasure.

He stared down at you with a predatory gaze. Your pussy throbbed at the sight as fear slowly crept up your neck. You looked down between your legs and your eyes widen. "So big." You whispered as you saw his cock. He was thick, and veiny, he was decently long with a slight curve. You could see a vein throb on the side and you gulped. You wanted to choke on it. He grabbed himself in his palm and you gulped. His hand was perfect for it. Big, strong, wide hands that engulfed his own cock with a few strokes before he moved the head down to your dripping entrance.

You pulled yourself from your daze at his movement and you pressed your hands against his chest. "Wait!! It's not going to fit." You said, fear laced in your voice. Yet your pussy throbbed at the thought of him wrecking you with it. He stared at you with an unreadable stare before he smirked. "Don't worry, I'm gonna make sure I fit." He said with a sadistic smile. Your breath hitched at his words and you moved to speak once more, but he suddenly forced his cock into you. Your head snapped back as your back arched. Your toes curled and your hands fisted into the sheets.

"NNNUUH AHH!" You practically screamed as he slowly yet meanly, forced his cock into you. Your eyes rolled back as your cunt stretched deliciously around his cock. "So-sooo big. I can't." You spoke, your words coming out slurred as you were lost in the feeling. He chuckled at you, as his hand came up and he grabbed a fist full of your hair. He pulled, making your head come up as he smirked down at your dick-drunken face. "Look at you, dick drunk, and I haven't even started yet." He teased as he laid your head back down, his hand trailing down your body, pulling your kimono down as he did revealing your breasts.

"Your nipples are hard and I haven't even touched them yet." He said as he pinched one of your nipples. You gave a broken moan as you weakly arched your back. "Dick drunk from my dick." He said, as a possessive gleam come into his gaze. "You're only able to be drunk off of my dick alone. You're mine, and mine alone." He said, as he moved to grab your waist with his hands. "You're my fucking whore. Only I'm allowed to fuck you like this." He said as he began to thrust. You moaned loudly he did, his words barely registering in your mind as he did so. They were foreign to you, yet you understood them. "You hear me, you fucking slut. Only I'm allowed to own you like this. Make your dick drunk, make you moan like this. Only me." He said.

Your body rocked and your breasts bounced almost painfully but you craved it. You craved him. He grabbed your face, squishing your cheeks in his hand as he made you look up at him. "Say it, tell me that you're mine, and only mine alone." He said as he stared down at you. His cock constantly thrusts into you, hitting places that have never been hit before. "I-...I'm yours. I belong to you, and only you... Toji." You moaned out. He gave a victoriously vicious grin as he leaned down toward you. "That's right... You're Toji's whore." He said, as he pried your jaw open with his thumb. "Forever." He said, as he spat into your mouth.

[hiemaldesirae]

Tis Arrax,:3 and Fallen Angel Vox with Human Alastor (then eventually Radio demon Alastor) Anyone?

A Vox who is the baby brother to Lucifer, who looks up to him, who follows Lucifer anywhere. Who joins in on his rebellion, and--because he's so young, both Lucifer and Lilith curl around him and protect him during the Fall. Saving most of his wings from damage. They're still a little scorched, but he can still fly like Lucifer and the dark blue is visible. Vox, since he was Lucifer's younger brother keeps his human shape unlike the Sins. He becomes a Prince of Hell, but usually spends his time on earth, enticing humans.

That's how he meets Alastor--or should I say, that's how Alastor attempts to kill him. He immediately thinks this murderous human is hilarious-he takes the knife out of his chest, wings unfolding out of his back and draws Alastor close, a purr in his throat.

"Oh, Darling aren't you just delicious?" He murmurs, gently cradling Alastor's chin. Wing cocooning them Intimately. "Very possessive aren't you? I'm your muse, and no one else could have me hmm? That's why you had to kill me, precious?" Vox croons, demonic form fully showing, tail wrapping possessively around Alastor's thigh. "A gift, for when you enter my brother's kingdom--power, form your muse." He murmurs, mouth crashing down onto Alastor's tongue demanding entrance, the taste of his own blood thick as he entered his human's mouth. (A gift without taking Alastor's soul :3)

Laughing, he broke away as Alastor greedily swallowed his blood, and he flapped his wings, vanishing into the night.

Alastor of course never forgets his muse. Never forgets how powerful his muse WAS that night, or how safe Vox made him feel, wrapped in his wings (not that he'd ever tell anyone) and when he drops into hell...well, he is astonishingly powerful and becomes an overlord overnight, power no one's seen before at his fingertips.

Of course, he doesn't see is precious muse again until Charlie Morningstar opens her hotel (which he goes to help only for the chance to see more of the royal family.)

And who should be helping dear sweet Charlie on behalf of her father because he's in trouble for killing some important human too early? Why, her beloved uncle and Prince of Hell, Vox.

Alastor is thrilled. His muse, his beloved, his soon to be mate is here! Yes they're stuck doing this dumb redemption thing but they're together! Maybe Vox will let him curl up in his wings....and get a taste of his blood again. (But mostly he wants to feel safe, just wants to feel those wings around him again...)

WOOOO (very excited clapping) YES i love fallen angel aus... ive always wanted to do a fallen angel vox au but this one is the only one thats spoken to me so far LMFAO

the idea of alastor joining up the hazbin hotels efforts to rehabilitate sinners SOLELY because he wanted another chance to see the pretty (fallen) angel he tried to kill all those years ago in life is so fucking funny to me. like yeah okay go off boyfailure try and get your cognitohazard wife

also i do want to ask questions for this. obviously because i have nothing in my head ever and i hardly understand asks when i first read them through LMFAO. but uh, as a prince of hell would vox be considered like one of the sins??? in which case would we have... 8 sins? if so... i wanted to mention vainglory/vanity, which is a historical sin no longer used in reference when it comes to the cardinal sins. i think given the fact that it's now encompassed into pride as a sin works for vox, who followed lucifers guide and would thus want to follow even in his brothers footsteps when it came to his ascension (decension?) as a sin. and of course, the way that he behaves with alastor is... well. vain as fuck but you know what my wife deserves it

also. sighs and hangs my head. even though i have like 19 wips to do would you let me try and write this one too,..... (making puppy eyes at you)

[linkspooky]

JUJUTSU KAISEN, CHAPTER 214 THOUGHTS

Hana's death could be read as the destruction of innocence. The pointless suffering that is inflicted again and again by life. Just like the audience, the characters in Jujutsu Kaisen are always suffering too. Sukuna and Yuji clash this chapter, and so do their world views. While they seem like opposites they're actually talking about the same thing. How do you live in a world full of suffering? Why do you live in a world full of suffering? What's the point? Yuji and Sukuna are both puzzling over and trying to answer this question, but they're arguing from completely opposite points of view.

They represent two ends of the extreme, one of the side of the weak, and one on the side of the strong. Understanding their points of view can help understand their characters, more underneath the cut.

1. Samsara

Samsara in BUhism refers to the cycle ofrepreated birth, mundane existence, and dying again. Samara is considered to be dukha, suffering, and in general unsatisfactory and painful. More or less from a budhist point of view suffering is always inherent to life no matter how noble a life one tries to lead. The rude of suffering in this thought comes from ignorant desires and fears that all people have.

To borrow a panel from another manga (Tokyo Ghoul, if you read my blog you might have heard of it) the budhist view is essentially life itself will always have suffering and the only way to escape suffering is to eventually escape the cycle of death and rebirth entirely.

"Suffering is inherent to life" a depressing thought, but true nonetheless. There's no such thing as a life without pain or sadness. The cycle of karma is represented in many ways in Jujutsu Kaisen, such as curses which must be exorcised over and over again by sorcerers. No matter how many curses are exorcised, they all eventually reform, which traps sorcerers in this cycle.

Geto's downfall and madness even comes from being worn down as a part of that cycle, and the extremes he's willing to go to our driven by a desire to break free or end that cycle permanently. The curse he's exercising in that panel is the same face as this classic depiction of a thangka showing the bhavacakra, the five cyclic realms of samsara in budhist cosmology. It's the creature at the top of the wheel with the third eye opened.

Curses are created by desires and negative human emotions the same way the sufferig inherent to life in budhit cosmology is created by sins like ignorance and desire. Now, this chapter we have Sukuna, a curse, and Yuji a human who are both aware of the suffering of life and their two completely different responses to it.

2. The Myth of Sisyphus

Yuji's shouting at Sukuna almost comes off as naive. Yuji's basically just yelling "Why can't everyone just be nice?" I just said that Yuji and Sukuna are both responding to the suffering inherent to life but Yuji doesn't even seem capable of comprehending why that suffering exists. To borrow my friend @theanimepsychologist's words.

Theanimepsychologist: It's also kind of infantile of him to ask "why can't you just live without causing suffering?" As though he can't fathom that suffering is a normal aspect of life. Very pisces of him to just want to alleviate suffering.

Gege said in a world where jujutsu sorcerers didn't exist, Yuji would be a fireman, not a policeman. Which is important discussion, because Yuji is entirely focused on rescuing people, he doesn't really think of dealing out punishment. However, as a Jujutsu Sorcerer it's fortunate Yuji is dealing with curses who are just abstract embodiments of negative human emotions that are for the most part chaotic evil. Like, what would Yuji say exactly if he was just facing a normal human being?

To borrow from another manga again, what if he was facing a villain like Shigaraki Tomura, someone who has suffered all throughout his life at the hands of other people, and inflicts suffering in return, but also has a goal of destroying society because he sees the society that rejected him as the source of that suffering. Yuji, conveniently only fights curses who's nature it is to eat humans and consume human misery for no specific reason what would he say exactly if someone had complex nuanced reasons for what they do.

All of this to say while Yuji has good intentions, his views are in the extremes of black and white. Arguably, and this is where the foiling comes in his views are as black and white as Sukuna's, he just sits on the opposite end of the spectrum. They are both unequally able to see nuance or shades of grey in reality, Sukuna just sits from the perspective of the strong, and Yuji from the perspective of the weak.

I'd argue that Yuji doesn't actually want to think of the complexity of the world around him at all. He doesn't even see that humans are equally capable of inflicting suffering on other humans, or that say structures that are constructed by humans, like say the legal system that made Higuruma suffer, or the sorcerer society around him can also make humans suffer. Yuji's so fixated on exorcising curses and looking at doing nothing else because it conveniently plays into this black and white narrative he has.

Yuji's views are, surprisingly nihilistic for the hero of a shonen manga. If he sees life as nothing more than exorcising curses, if there's no deeper meaning to it then just doing his job then why is he even living in the first place? The answer of course, is that he's not really trying to live.

Let me bring out handy chart to explain my point.

Existential nihilism is the philosophical theory that life has no instrinsic meaning or value. With respect to the universe, existenital nihilism suggests that a single human or even the entire human is insignificant, without purpose and unlikely to change the totality of existence.

The Myth of Sisyphus written by Albert Camusb begins with what has become the most famous opening sentences in literature and philosophy.

"There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. Judging whether or not life is or is not worth living amounts of answering the fundamental question of philosophy. All the rest - whether or not the world has three dimensions, whether the mind has nine or twelve categories - comes afterwards. These are games; one must first answer. And if it is true, as Nietzsche claims, that a philosopher to deserve our respect, must preach by example, you can appreciate the importance of that reply, for it will precede the definitive act."

The Myth of Sisyphus itself basically represents the same concept of Samsara. Sisyphus pushes the bolder up the hill, it falls down, then he pushes the bolder back up the hill again. People live, die, and are reborn again. Jujutsu Sorcerers exorcise curses, only for those curses to reform, and they have to exercise them again.

Yuji's views are as nihilistic as Sukuna's. Sukuna doesn't see a point or reason for weak people to continue to live. Yuji isn't trying to live either, nor is he trying to create any meaning for his own life.

3. Hedonism

Sukuna is an inherently hedoinstic character. He has a giant mouth on his stomach. He is a walking appetite. His domain expansion is based around cooking. His only servant / ally Ura Ume was a really good cook. If the concept of samsara argues that all evil in life comes from worldly desires (like gluttony eating more than you need to survive) then Sukuna as a curse represents that evil he spreads suffering because all he does is consume, consume, consume.

One important difference is Hedonism is a lifestyle, whereas Nihilism is a philosophy. Sukuna's views are similiar to Yuji's, life is just suffering for the weak, and he doesn't really see any meaning in extending that life if you are weak. However, his hedonistic lifestyle is a response to that nihilism.

Pleasure plays a central role in all forms of hedonism; it refers to expereince that feels good, and contrasts with pain or suffering. Psychological hedonism is an empirical theory about what could possibly motivates us: all our actions aim at increasing pleasure and avoiding pain. This is usually understood in combination with egosim, i.e. that each person only aims at their own happiness. It probably doesn't need to be said that Sukuna is an extremely egotistical character.

If you accept nihilism as truth, the world has no meaning, people suffer for no reason, than hedonism is one possible logical conclusion, live your life minimizing suffering and seeking pleasure. This is basically what Sukuna says.

People, especially weak and miserable people should spend their lives stifling their misery, and numbing themselves down by avoiding pain rather than trying to seek more.

Sukuna is also equally asking the same question that Camus asks. The basic question of all philsophy is whether or not to shoot yourself. The same way Yuji doesn't see a point in himself living, Sukuna sees no point in weak people living.

Ironically, when it comes to drowning your sorrows as Sukuna suggested, Nietzsche was against that.

He only ever drank milk and avoided alcohol. The idea went to the heart of his philosophy: "There have been two great narcotics in european civilization. Christianity and alcohol." He hated alcohol for the very same reasons that he scorned christianity, because both numbed pain, and both reassure us that things are just as fine as they are, sapping us of the will to cahnge our lives for the better. A few drinks offer in the transient feeling of satisfaction that can get fatally in the way of taking steps necessary to improve our lives." [SOURCE]

Sukuna sees no point in self improvement or struggle to get stronger, the weak will always be the weak, the strong will always be the strong. His views are equally as black and white as Yuji, because he divides those two groups into rigid boxes that will never change. His views even reflect Geto's just a little bit, defining sorcerers and normal humans as two distinct categories with no overlap, sorcerers are strong, humans are weak monkeys.

The weak aren't even worthy of living in Sukuna's eyes, and Geto wants to exterminate the weak non-sorcerers. Sukuna even reminds me of this passage from the JJK light novel.

"To live for the purpose fo being yourself, and for that goal, Geto could only continue to pursue his twisted dream, drowning himself in the curse that lies in the gap between ideal and reality. This was the final confession of a man who could only choose to warp himself, who had erased himself in the pursuit of his goals."

Sukuna, like Geto is a powerful sorcerer who became a curse in pursuit of his goals. Sukuna, like Yuji despite how self-aggrandizing he is, despite how egotistical seems to have no sense of self like Yuji. He does everything for himself of course, he has an overpowering ego, he has strong desires that he lives for... but rather than satisfying those desires, and being the strongest, does Sukuna really live for anything or have a reason for what he does? What are his personality traits besides... strong? He has no friends besides loyal servants. He just eats, and eats, and eats and then what? It's just another cycle, like Geto consuming curses only for more curses to be born, like Sispyhus pushing the boulder up the hill. This is how Sukuna reflects Yuji, because he's not trying to create any meaning for his life either. He's also trapped in the cycle. They are at opposite ends, Yuji is "Weak" while Sukuna is "Strong" but they both have the same nihilistic views. They're both still stuck in the same cycle.

[mdhwrites]

Amphibia's Ending is SOOOO Much Better Than People Made Me Believe

So I remember back in S2 when I watched "A Day at the Aquarium" expecting to be upset about the finale like a lot of the people I'd followed were when the finale came out. After all, with them being so close, why would they choose to leave? Could they really justify them just dropping the stones and moving on from these bonds they made?

And... That's what the story wants right then. But it was an assumption built off of false impressions that I want to talk about because the ending is REALLY smart in making its points. But to talk about an ending, I feel like I should bring up its beginning. This isn't always necessary but Amphibia actually includes what is effectively a primordial sin. A first failing that causes everything to happen.

A scared girl who is told that change is coming and that she must give up those she is closest to finds out that with some magic, she can make it all go away.

NEVER is this portrayed as having been the right thing to do. NEVER is the show about justifying Marcy's decision. Instead, the show's entire purpose... Is about letting go. It's about how the experiences we keep from others are more important than keeping those people beside us. Otherwise, controlling people, forcing them to be like you, the goals of Sasha and the Core, would be painted as correct. Chances to be together forever, doing whatever they want and never having to change.

So it ending with the trio having to say goodbye to the connections they've made is kind of the only way it COULD have ended. First is the fact that neither Sasha or Marcy would have accepted Anne dying at the start of the series. Anne would never have been willing to take such responsibility or sacrifice. She wouldn't have been willing to embrace such a painful change, just like how early on in the series she rejected the frogs and their culture outright.

And here is where we get my first misconception. I thought Anne was straight up given her second life for her deeds or because she made a deal that she'd be willing to be god if allowed to live her life. This is as much on me as anyone else but can we talk about the brilliance of Anne's resurrection? She's only saved to become a god. Theoretically, turning down the position is choosing to die again. It doubles down on how Anne has accepted change, no matter how dire. She even has good reason because like the Core said "Full of heart but dumb as rocks." She's made PLENTY of mistakes in this season, even as we've gotten to enjoy what a resplendent person she's grown up as. The fact that she's willing to admit that is beautiful, especially for any coming of age story.

And it's a good argument. One full of the sort of wisdom a god needs. So this bored cat of a god likes it. Likes it enough that without giving Anne a choice decides to let her get some more training before coming back to work for him. It's keeping in line with the explanation that he gave for the stones. He was CURIOUS about what mortals would do with ultimate power and was disappointed for TEN. THOUSAND. YEARS.

And here we get misconception two which I think is much more on the fandom. No one DECIDES to put the stones away. No one decides to cut off the worlds from each other. Hell, on the human side of things, one could argue that it's not closed, they just need a better power source since the music box just uses, well, music. No, the stones are gone because someone more powerful than them is tired of their trouble and removed them.

And so we're right back where we began. Having to be told to say goodbye and that you don't have the time to do it how you might. Yes, they technically have a choice to stay but let's actually talk about if any of them actually have a reason to want to be there.

ALL of the newts have only ever used Marcy (even when Yunan and Olivia save her, it's explicitly because of her mind, not because it's the right thing to do) and it took until she was STABBED for any of them to actually care about her with even basic humanity. This is not her world. And yes, her parents will force her to leave things behind but A: At least they were honest with her! And B:... Running from that choice hurt so many people before. Why would she choose that now? Why would she choose to suddenly claim to have learned nothing and considered herself right to have stranded them all there by stranding herself now?

Sasha may have made great connections but the point for her character is to give up control and prestige. She could live in this land as a hero and general, leading how things will be shaped, potentially in her image even... And it doesn't even cross her mind. She probably knows she has a lot to set right back on Earth. Besides, you know, there's just the basic fact that being literally the only human here would be a bit of an existential problem. It would still would also mean running away from finishing the work she needs to put in to become a better friend and mend the rifts between her, Anne and Marcy (I'll get to the ten year gap, bear with me).

And finally Anne. She has her parents to go back to. She does still prefer life on Earth, even if she came to love Amphibia. Hell, the fact that she does clearly prefer Earth, as showcased in S3A, actually makes her sacrifice MORE impactful because she's not doing this just because it's her home. She's doing it because she cares and because of the connections she's made.

But just like she was with the core, she is brave enough to say goodbye. Just because someone isn't right next to you doesn't mean they've left you. Honestly, in an age of constant communication, I love that. A reminder that you can take your time. You don't have to talk every day, do things together constantly, etc. like that just because you can. You are still your own person with your own life but you can carry the support and love those people gave/give you even when you're not face to face.

And so rather than run from change, they admit it's painful, they cry, they celebrate, they joke... And then they're gone. There is literally no better ending for this story than that.

It even follows through with the epilogue. Marcy, Anne and Sasha were codependent. S3 actually reinforces a lot that their negative traits are still there, or have new ones related to each other, even as they've grown. Anne still can't say no to people she cares about like with Sprig's Birthday and Give a Frog a Cookie. She still can't entirely trust that Sasha isn't self serving like in Sasha's Angels. She has scars that will take time to heal and change, just like she pointed out to Marcy in New Wartwood.

Sasha though has a whole NEW heap of issues though. She's gone from being controlling to subservient. Anne says jump, she'd say off what. She is terrified of making the same mistakes twice. She is constantly trying to seek forgiveness. That is NOT a healthy place to be as a person and it's almost entirely wrapped up around Anne. Them deciding they were okay with just staying in touch, rather than being on top of each other... is actually great.

Marcy doesn't have as much to say but she moved... And she figured out how to handle the human realm like she did Amphibia: Alone. Who she was and how to be herself rather than relying on Sasha and Anne or needing them.

But was ten years necessary? I mean... Kind of actually. If Anne STARTS the series turning thirteen, she still has this school year and 5 more to finish for primary school. Then since at least two of them sought degrees, you have four more years where Sasha and Anne might not have even been in the same state, let alone the same town, and Marcy MOVED. She literally couldn't come back unless the fates decreed until she was 18 and she might have chosen to persue an artistic degree so there's another 4 years for her.

Then one year after college to settle in, get the money for trips, etc. like that and... Yeah, ten years sounds about right because life's a bitch. Almost like that's one of the lessons of Amphibia. But as it also says: Those bad times don't need to be only bad. You never know what will come back to find you and be better than it ever was.

So yeah, I'm definitely not just in the camp that the Amphibia ending is good but that it almost couldn't be improved. Small things, mostly pacing wise, maybe but thematically and how it does those beats? Not really. Not when this is so focused on one goal.

And I'll take dedication to your concept over giving the audience a simple, happily ever after ANY day.

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