#forgiven apathy

[lilpomfriend]

...𝓐𝓹𝓪𝓽𝓱𝓮𝓲𝓪...

Lightwarden - Forgiven Apathy

(Art by @/ins_evil on twitter)

[imagineagreatadventure]

was doing some fic research and came upon this graphic:

It's just really interesting how much the use of the word "forgive" dipped and how we in the last two decades use it almost more than ever before.

not entirely sure what it means and too sleepy to hypothesize but idk i found it interesting.

[gumjrop]

You might be forgiven for thinking it’s been a very quiet few months for the Covid-19 pandemic. Besides the rollout of new boosters, the coronavirus has largely slipped out of the headlines. But the virus is on the move. Viral levels in wastewater are similar to what they were during the first two waves of the pandemic. Recent coverage of the so-called Pirola variant, which is acknowledged to have “an alarming number of mutations,” led with the headline “Yes, There’s a New Covid Variant. No, You Shouldn’t Panic.”

Even if you haven’t heard much about the new strain of the coronavirus, being told not to panic might induce déjà vu. In late 2021, as the Omicron variant was making its way to the United States, Anthony Fauci told the public that it was “nothing to panic about” and that “we should not be freaking out.” Ashish Jha, the Biden administration’s former Covid czar, also cautioned against undue alarm over Omicron BA.1, claiming that there was “absolutely no reason to panic.” This is a telling claim, given what was to follow—the six weeks of the Omicron BA.1 wave led to hundreds of thousands of deaths in a matter of weeks, a mortality event unprecedented in the history of the republic.

Indeed, experts have been offering the public advice about how to feel about Covid-19 since January 2020, when New York Times columnist Farhad Manjoo opined, “Panic will hurt us far more than it’ll help.” That same week, Zeke Emanuel—a former health adviser to the Obama administration, latterly an adviser to the Biden administration—said Americans should “stop panicking and being hysterical.… We are having a little too much [sic] histrionics about this.”

This concern about public panic has been a leitmotif of the Covid-19 pandemic, even earning itself a name (“elite panic”) among some scholars. But if there’s one thing we’ve learned, three and a half years into the current crisis, it’s that—contrary to what the movies taught us—pandemics don’t automatically spawn terror-stricken stampedes in the streets. Media and public health coverage have a strong hand in shaping public response and can—under the wrong circumstances—promote indifference, incaution, and even apathy. A very visible example of this was the sharp drop in the number of people masking after the CDC revised its guidelines in 2021, recommending that masking was not necessary for the vaccinated (from 90 percent in May to 53 percent in September).

As that example suggests, emphasizing the message “don’t panic” puts the cart before the horse unless tangible measures are being taken to prevent panic-worthy outcomes. And indeed, these repeated assurances against panic have arguably also preempted a more vigorous and urgent public health response—as well as perversely increasing public acceptance of the risks posed by coronavirus infection and the unchecked transmission of the virus. This “moral calm”—a sort of manufactured consent—impedes risk mitigation by promoting the underestimation of a threat. Soothing public messaging during disasters can often lead to an increased death toll: Tragically, false reassurance contributed to mortality in both the attacks on the World Trade Center and the sinking of the Titanic.

But at a deeper level, this emphasis on public sentiment has contributed to confusion about the meaning of the term “pandemic.” A pandemic is an epidemiological term, and the meaning is quite specific—pandemics are global and unpredictable in their trajectory; endemic diseases are local and predictable. Despite the end of the Public Health Emergency in May, Covid-19 remains a pandemic, by definition. Yet some experts and public figures have uncritically advanced the idea that if the public appears to be tired, bored, or noncompliant with public health measures, then the pandemic must be over.

But pandemics are impervious to ratings; they cannot be canceled or publicly shamed. History is replete with examples of pandemics that blazed for decades, sometimes smoldering for years before flaring up again into catastrophe. The Black Death (1346–1353 AD), the Antonine Plague (165–180 AD), and the Plague of Justinian (541–549 AD), pandemics all, lacked the quick resolution of the 1918 influenza pandemic. A pandemic cannot tell when the news cycle has moved on.

Yet this misperception—that pandemics can be ended by human fiat—has had remarkable staying power during the current crisis. In November 2021, the former Obama administration official Juliette Kayyem claimed that the pandemic response needed to be ended politically, with Americans getting “nudged into the recovery phase” by officials. It is fortunate that Kayyem’s words were not heeded—the Omicron wave arrived in the US just weeks after her article ran—but her basic premise has informed Biden’s pandemic policy ever since.

Perhaps even less responsibly, the physician Steven Phillips has called for “new courageous ‘accept exposure’ policies”—asserting that incautious behavior by Americans would be the true signal of the end of the pandemic. In an essay for Time this January, Phillips wrote: “Here’s my proposed definition: the country will not fully emerge from the Covid-19 pandemic until most people in our diverse nation accept the risk and consequences of exposure to a ubiquitous SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19.”

This claim—that more disease risk and contagion means the end of a disease event—runs contrary to the science. Many have claimed that widespread SARS-CoV-2 infections will lead to increasingly mild disease that poses fewer concerns for an increasingly vaccinated (or previously infected) population. In fact, more disease spread means faster evolution for SARS-CoV-2, and greater risks for public health. As we (A.C. and collaborators) and others have pointed out, rapid evolution creates the risk of novel variants with unpredictable severity. It also threatens the means that we have to prevent and treat Covid-19: monoclonal antibody treatments no longer work, Paxlovid is showing signs of viral resistance, and booster strategy is complicated by viral evolution of resistance to vaccines.

But these efforts to manage and direct public feelings are not just more magical thinking; they are specifically intended to promote a return to pre-pandemic patterns of work and consumption. This motive was articulated explicitly in a McKinsey white paper from March 2022, which put forward the invented concept of “economic endemicity”—defined as occurring when “epidemiology substantially decouples from economic activity.” The “Urgency of Normal” movement similarly used an emotional message (that an “urgent return to fully normal life and schooling” is needed to “protect” children) to advocate for the near-total abandonment of disease containment measures. But in the absence of disease control measures, a rebound of economic activity can only lead to a rebound of disease. (This outcome was predicted by a team that was led by one of the authors [A.C.] in the spring of 2021.)

A pandemic is a public health crisis, not a public relations crisis. Conflating the spread of a disease with the way people feel about responding to that spread is deeply illogical—yet a great deal of the Biden administration’s management of Covid-19 has rested on this confusion. Joe Biden amplified this mistaken perspective last September when he noted that the pandemic was “over”—and then backed that claim by stating, “If you notice, no one’s wearing masks. Everybody seems to be in pretty good shape.” The presence or absence of health behaviors reveals little about a threat to health itself, of course—and a decline in mask use has been shaped, in part, by the Biden administration’s waning support for masking.

Separately, long Covid poses an ongoing threat both at an individual and a public health level. If our increasingly relaxed attitude toward public health measures and the relatively unchecked spread of the virus continue, most people will get Covid at least once a year; one in five infections leads to long Covid. Although it’s not talked about a lot, anyone can get long Covid; vaccines reduce this risk, but only modestly. This math gets really ugly.

The situation we are in today was predictable. It was predictable that the virus would rapidly evolve to evade the immune system, that natural immunity would wane quickly and unevenly in the population, that a vaccine-only strategy would not be sufficient to control widespread Covid-19 transmission through herd immunity, and that reopening too quickly would lead to a variant-driven rebound. All of these unfortunate outcomes were predicted in peer-reviewed literature in 2020–21 by a team led by one of the authors (A.C.), even though the soothing public messaging at the time called it very differently.

As should now be very clear, we cannot manifest our way to a good outcome. Concrete interventions are required—including improvements in air quality and other measures aimed at limiting spread in public buildings, more research into vaccine boosting strategy, and investments in next-generation prophylactics and treatments. Rather than damping down panic, public health messaging needs to discuss risks honestly and focus on reducing spread. Despite messages to the contrary, our situation remains unstable, because the virus continues to evolve rapidly, and vaccines alone cannot slow this evolution.

In the early months of the pandemic, many in the media drew parallels between the public’s response to Covid-19 and the well-known “stages of grief”: denial, bargaining, anger, depression, and acceptance. The current situation with Covid-19 calls for solutions, not a grieving process that should be hustled along to the final stage of acceptance.

[chatsukimi]

ꜱᴜᴋᴜɴᴀ ꜱᴀᴠᴇꜱ ʏᴏᴜ/ꜰʟᴀᴍᴇꜱ (ʜᴇɪᴀɴ-ᴇʀᴀ) "hell is a pit of fire for a reason" ｅｎｅｍｉｅｓ ｔｏ ｌｏｖｅｒｓ， ｓｕｋｕｎａ ｘ ｒｅａｄｅｒ， Ｈｅｉａｎ－ｅｒａ.

A chill washes over your body, as though a presence has come to visit you. Your eyes snap open, drawn to the Cursed Spirit at the door.

Instantly, you recognise it's a Special Grade. And you sense more crawling down the hallway.

This cannot be happening.

You swing your bedside lamp through the paper window and clamber out, only to be greeted by more of those beasts. Never in your life have you seen this many curses in one place. Why are they here?

BOOM.

An invisible force thrashes you into a tree. You mutter, casting a wave of fire at the Curse behind you.

It's only been a week since you and Sukuna's... falling out. He couldn't have...

A little part of you knows the King of Curses bears no mercy. You've seen him slash a whole village. You've listened to his apathy when the numbers are read in court, the casualties. You, first-hand, had heard him say he could not care less if you went missing.

Maybe he sent these Curses after you, to punish you for disobedience.

As your body drags you further up the hill, away, away, far up from the chasing Curses, your soul is drawn like a magnet towards the tower in the distance. The turret stands tall and imposing over Kyoto, its shadows merciless over the temples. Sukuna's.

Another wall of flames.

The Curses dodge.

At the top of the hill, you hands fumble as you transfer your whispers into a tiny ball of flame. Your head doesn't register what you're doing.

A Curse lunges for your leg. Bites.

You shriek, whacking the Curse to tear it off. It is only getting darker.

Sukuna.

His name plagues your thoughts.

If only... if only Sukuna... Sukuna...

You send out the orb of fire surging into the night.

...

The King of Curses paces around his room in the darkness, until suddenly, he swears.

Something is blinding in the corner of his eye. He whips around and watches an orb glint, bobbing towards him.

Fire.

You.

He crosses the room in fluid steps.

"Special Grades... help. Kuna-"

The words seem to burn him. And he staggers back.

Special Grade Curses. What are they doing? Why are they coming for you?

He races out onto the balcony, tracing where the message originated to find you. He swears again. His fingers are shaking.

When he descends onto the scene, the remnants of smoke and ash linger in his memory.

...

Sukuna watches as the curses encircle you, each one trying to land a fatal strike. He sees you fight and thinks back to the last time he had seen you.

You had been running away from him.

His eyes narrow in rage, as he unleashes his domain expansion. He has to be careful to spare you. The shrine instantly obliterates the cursed spirits.

Upon noticing him, you drop down to your knees, your head bowed to hide the tears welling up.

It's been only a week, yet he cannot anticipate your reaction. Would you shout at him to get away? Had you forgiven him, why you called him to come save you?

"Thank you, Lord Sukuna."

Remember, that's all there is between you. A lord and his subject.

Despite the praise, Sukuna can't help but feel a tinge of guilt for how things had played out between you and him. Something more than hurt pride causes you to hide your pain. Sukuna notices the blood that stains your leg, which you move roughly behind your other leg, out of sight.

"You were about to die, and your first thought was to ask for my help," he mutters.

"I'm sorry." You try to keep yourself together. "It's the middle of the night- I'm sorry for waking you."

But speaking it out loud makes it sound all the more real, the distance between you. And you only bow lower.

He tries to swallow down the ache in his throat. Perhaps he had dismissed you too cruelly. He looks anywhere but you.

He had built you up then tossed you into the wilderness, yet here you are, not blaming him, not even asking for an apology. You only wanted to... to thank him.

"Don't apologise," Sukuna says, quietly, as if it were natural for a lamb to rely on the wolf's protection.

You take a leap of faith and look up, whispering, "if there is nothing else you want from me, I think- I should get this fixed."

You hobble to your feet. He looks down at your leg and his gaze softens. You wonder if he cares at all, stumbling away in a trail of blood.

Then, he scoffs (as if you could hide from him) and follows.

When you reach your living room, you close the shoji screen. But you still sense his familiar power, washing through the cold atmosphere, Sukuna.

He asks, hesitant, "may I enter?"

Why is he even asking? He's the King of Curses! He could knock down this place as easily as breaking an empire, he could destroy eons of progress, bend kingdoms to his will, but even he could feel like a little boy waiting outside your door, for your acceptance or refusal, like he knew he was just like the curse, dangerous yet longing for your touch. His need to pull you so close you were bound by blood and flesh. His heartbeat pounds in his ears at the silence.

You freeze.

You murmur, "... OK."

Sukuna inhales a deep breath and steps into the room. He takes in the condition of the messed up furniture, and you, the state of your attempt to patch up your leg. It hadn't worked in the slightest.

"Do you mind if I provide you with aid?"

You lean back in your chair, huffing out a light breath, attempting to cover your nerves. "I didn't know how to do anything but slice your enemies in half."

Sukuna reveals his teeth, a brutally rare thing. "Don't underestimate my abilities. They far surpass the notion of 'slicing my enemies in half'."

You bite your lip and stays sitting as he nears. Your heartbeat begins to quicken and you're too tired to fight off the instinct.

He has not forgotten your connection, no matter how hard he tried. You and your annoying technique of setting his heart alight. He continues to close the distance between you.

He tilts his head to the side, looking down at you.

"Are you not worried about my proximity?"

"No," you whisper.

You ought to be afraid. He is a thousand times the potency of a Special Grade. He could rip you in half- who says he wouldn't, just to play with you?

"I don't like it..." he mutters, his voice soft and hoarse. You cannot imagine the hatred he feels for you. "I hate it... I despise every second you are near me."

Just as you are about to advise that he leave, Sukuna stares at you -crimson eyes in the moonlight- and grits his teeth.

"... but I hate you more when you are far."

He wants to punish you, to make you endure what he had in the past week, but... he can't.

"Close your eyes," he murmurs, his tone laced with resentment.

You close your eyes and feels him kneel to take a closer look at your leg. He slowly traces the gnash with his fingers, and as he does, a cold sensation creeps into your veins. He channels his cursed energy, and you feel the wound beginning to mend itself.

After a few minutes, the process is complete and he stands up.

Reverse-curse technique. You had never seen him use it on anybody. It is the opposite of slash, an abomination of a Technique. Yet something tells you he took his time with you. While you were blind to the vision, you could sense your weakness leaching onto him as he healed you.

"Thank you... Sukuna."

"Do not mention it," he utters, devoid of any emotion. His feet shift, turning towards the exit. Two weights.

You don't know why you do what you do next. You don't know if it's out of gratitude or out of nostalgia. All you know is that the King of Curses is a frightfully cold thing for a person so alive, one shade from freezing, and your palms are warm from the fire. You abruptly capture him in a hug.

He feels your body against his. You stay there, his flame.

He had never felt this close, so interwoven; his body feels more alive than it had ever been.

Sukuna reaches for your waist to push you away, but his arms only drape across. Break free, break free, break free-

The only thing left to lie is his tongue.

"Let go of me."

He had intended it to sound intimidating. It rings more like a plea. He would much rather you fight him, so he would have something real to slice, but this is warm and soft and weak... and it is the most human he has felt in a long time.

"No."

He pushes you against the wall. "I said, let go of me." He dips his head to your level, threatening, "understand? I said," -bumps noses, leans his forehead against yours- "- you will never survive next to me. You will burn out."

He touches his lips forcefully against the corner of your mouth, not willing himself any further. Already the isolation is seeping into his bones from the lack of you.

"Never," you hiss back. "You think you'd be the one to take me out?"

Sukuna raises an eyebrow in disbelief.

"You won't kill your flame,' you whisper.

"Fuga," he commands.

You part your lips. Just like that, he closes the distance.

Hell is a pit of fire for a reason.

[ne0n-and-garbage]

My Favorite MCR Lyrics

"One day I'll lose this fight. As we fade in the dark, just remember you will always burn as bright." -The Light Behind Your Eyes

"Oh, how wrong we were to think that immortality meant never dying." -Our Lady of Sorrows

"The sharpest lives are the deadliest to lead. A light to burn all the empires, so bright the sun is ashamed to rise and be." -The Sharpest Lives

"Make a wish when your childhood dies, hear the knock-knock-knock when she cries. We're all alone tonight. Hold your breath when a blackbird flies, count to seventeen, close your eyes. I'll keep you safe inside." -S/C/A/R/E/C/R/O/W

"I'm the only friend that makes you cry. You're a heart attack in black hair dye." -Save Yourself, I'll Hold Them Back

"For every one of us, there's an army of them, but you'll never fight alone." -The World Is Ugly

"And when the lights all went out, we watched our lives on the screen. I hate the ending myself, but it started with an alright scene." -Disenchanted

"Touched by angels, though I fall out of grace. I did it all so maybe I'd live this every day." -I Never Told You What I Do For A Living

"I will not kiss you, 'cause the hardest part of this is leaving you." -Cancer

"I am not afraid to keep on living. I am not afraid to walk this world alone. Honey, if you stay, I'll be forgiven. Nothing you can say can stop me going home." -Famous Last Words

"Three cheers for tyranny, unapologetic apathy, 'cause there ain't no way that I'm coming back again." -Sleep

"Do or die, you'll never make me. Because the world will never take my heart. Though you'll try, you'll never break me" -Welcome To The Black Parade

[lol-jackles]

I'm rewatching spn and Jared 's portrayal of Sam when possessed by demon Meg in season 2 I think is sooo good! He really appears unhinged when he comes out as the demon, and even the scenes where Sam (possessed by Meg) is acting like Sam, are so wicked. I think this is the first episode where Jared sort of portrays a character who is not Sam (in mind, body and spirit) and he really does a wonderful job.

With Dean's character I've noticed that whenever he is in mortal danger, like making the year long deal to save sam's life, or the mark of cain arc, or being possessed by Michael arc, and many many more arcs in the later season, Dean just completely gives up on himself and on life. I HATE this attitude with every cell of my being! MORE than Dean being codependent on Sam and not letting him live his life without Dean. I hate this defeatist attitude so much. And then everyone else around him has to worry for him and take care of him and find resolutions for his issues. While with Sam, he doesn't give up till his last fighting breath. I love that!

 Meg!Sam was probably the first time when casual watchers sat up and go, "whoa, the kid can act!". When Meg and Castiel became a canon couple, I thought it was a huge missed opportunity that Meg didn't possess Sam again and gift us scenes of Castiel swooning after a flirty Meg!Sam.

Yeah, Dean's defeatist attitude was a plot device that can get tiresome, starting in season 5. Still, it was a plot device that usually works as part of Sam's hero journy arc.

From Sam’s point of view, Dean’s endless self-inflicted apathy is part of the long list of crappy-things-to-do-to-Sam.  Like in episode 13x05, Dean temporarily killing himself so he can go into the dead zone to find the bodies and free the souls, while a good idea (I guess???), was still a very crappy thing to do to Sam as there was no discussion, just “here’s a needle give me five minutes being dead okay see you later.”  It’s been ongoing since season 2, so I don’t blame Sam in season 14 for thinking the Mal'ex magic box business is just the latest in a long string of events of Dean causing himself harm and then giving up at the first inconvenience.  Sam’s angry speech in episode 14x11 “Damaged Goods” was not only about Dean cutting Sam out of his plan with no discussion but also for giving up by using blind faith in fate as an excuse (“since when do we believe in fate?”).  Sam’s speech in episode 14x12 “Prophet and Loss” recounts their long history of defying fate and surviving literal and figurative hell because they had faith in themselves. Dean is forgiven for forgetting this lesson every season because the plot device kicks in just in time to give us some of Jared's finest acting of Sam’s decade-long frustrations with Dean’s obstinance, causing him to breakdown and ask, “why don’t you believe in us?”, like a child asking why adults do stupid things when the adults should know better. 

Dean's defeatist attitude is part of the determinism (Dean) vs free will (Sam) philosophy that ran through the series by Sam confronting and challenging the authority figures in his life: John Winchester, Dean Winchester, Lucifer, and then God. They all wanted Sam to be something he didn’t want to be - John’s solider, Dean’s companion, Lucifer’s vessel, and Chuck's story.  Eventually, Sam acquiesced to their demands but on his own terms, he became a hunter to leave a legacy, became Dean’s partner to save him, became Lucifer’s vessel to save the world, became Chuck's story to defeat him and bring free will into the world through Jack, a nephilim he essentially raised and influenced.

Dean: "Finally free"

[liminal-lesbian]

Related to my last ask(which i will follow up on) I don’t think its fair to say marcy wasn’t being her true self. While she was hiding her negative feelings, her enthusiasm about being in amphibia was her authentic self.

(Plus, its a little hypocritical that Andrias is praised for following his heart, despite hiding his malevolent intentions)

While I definitely agree her enthusiasm surrounding Amphibia was an expression of her true self I think her interactions with people in Amphibia involved a lot of people pleasing in order to reach a state of feeling secure in her place in Newtopia.

A good example of this is when we see her immediately declare she'll do all she can for Newtopia in thanks for them taking her in. While this does make sense, obviously thanking the people who took you in through acts of service is reasonable, I think much of Marcy's motivation is underlaid with her anxiety surrounding being needed/useful.

For example, New Wartwood is great for showing how Marcy conceives of herself in relation to a new environment. She NEEDS the townsfolk to like her, arguably, if my thesis about her is correct, because that disapproval equates to a threat to her sense of self, as she needs the positive lens of their approval in order to define herself. She goes about it in a way that she absolutely enjoys and IS true to herself, using her special interest in architecture to render a service that will benefit the town, but the important thing to note is she's doing this not for her own enjoyment or interest, but to earn the approval of others.

The same could be said for all her services to Newtopia. I don't doubt for a second that her actions in Newtopia were a fun, gratifying, and engaging experience in which she could exercise her interests that she truly enjoyed. HOWEVER, everything she did was in service of earning approval, raising her standing in order to be liked. After all for Marcy, to be liked, to be needed, is to be. Neutrality, apathy, or, god forbid, dislike, is crisis, because Marcy defines herself in relationships mainly by what she is to them, and if she's not wanted or needed, she doesn't have the solid baseline confidence to be assured of who she is. And that is TERRIFYING.

In a vacuum, yes, Marcy knows what she enjoys, but in terms of interpersonal interaction she doesn't have the sense of self to allow herself to be Marcy for Marcy's sake, always Marcy for another's. That isn't a healthy way to go about relationships, and Marcy learns to take this to heart. She doesn't develop it in Amphibia but in Amphibia is where it begins.

In the timeskip we see the fruits of this growth in her career. It's not a surprise, I think, that Marcy's future is predicted by her principal by what she can do for the world, because up til that point to others Marcy WAS what she could do. Not a person with desires, just the acts of service. By choosing the path that she wanted to take, a career as an independent artist where she's able to express herself artistically, doing what she loves because she HERSELF wants to do it, shows Marcy has attained that secure sense of selfhood, happy to do what she wants without concern about earning others approval. She is Marcy Wu and she's more than what she can give to others.

---

As for Andrias, I'm assuming you mean his change of heart in the finale? (Correct me if I'm wrong).

I wouldn't say Andrias is praised for that per se. He's still, at the end of the day, isolated, exiled, and shown to be atoning for his crimes. Notably he isn't forgiven for anything, especially not by Marcy, as is her right. He hurt her terribly, physically and emotionally, and nothing he can ever do will take that away, and I truly think he'll suffer that weight for the rest of his life.

I think Andrias is meant to show that changing, even if it doesn't outweigh the evil you've done, even if it doesn't heal the people you've hurt, still matters. It's never a wrong choice, no matter how much you've done to hurt people, to choose to do better.

Could Andrias have been written to be a better nuanced villain, of course, but I don't think he's praised for his change of heart. I think he stands as a lesson that, while you can't take away the bad you've done, you can choose to stop adding to it, and maybe even start adding to the good.

[puck-the-devil]

To fall from grace and become a demon is traumatic, tragic, painful experience. The person they were might as well be dead.

But to fall from grace and become fey?

That must be humiliating.

One day you’re an angel, you see a fight, you stay out of it.

Your only sin is apathy and bam.

The next day you’re a leprechaun.

What an absolute shame.

Now, now, don't you know not to go pissing off fairies? I'm sure if you asked any one of us, we'd much rather be one of the Fair Folk than an angel or even a demon. We're rather vain, so if you go around saying it's a shame to be one of us instead of a gift, who knows what one or more of them might do to you? Especially those leprechauns. Though I will say something shameful about being one of them is that they can't swim. They often need mortals to save them from drowning and that's how they end up owing a lot of favors.

You know, it's said that there aren't a whole lot of fairies in the world today because many of them were forgiven and allowed back into Heaven. I wonder how many actually went, though...or if that rumor is even true. Fairies could have just gotten better at hiding, after all.

[loonybun]

been listening to a shit ton of the scary jokes recently so as a follow up to my whump song recommendation post, let me provide you some of my favorite lyrics from their songs.

“You stab at your prize, chiseling fear in her eyes

You know it sounds bad, but you love seeing her sad.

You love someone you can shape

who has no will to escape.”

“You’re just a monster with a BFA.

She wants to claw your eyes open

So you can see, she’s not a plaything.”

“You covet her warmth, like a wolf at a corpse

so it’s fair to assume, your intent’s to consume her.”

“So please don’t go away and leave me with nothing

I have no leverage so I feel no pleasure

If I can’t have you to myself, how can I be happy?

So please give me kisses, I won’t break my promises.

I can be a person if you give me the chance.”

“Can you feel me gnawing away at your heart?

And can you hear me when I scream?”

“Oh, can you see, you took over me?

You hijacked my mind, not that I want it back

I want you so bad, I know that it's sad

It's just how I deal, I can't help how I feel

Look I have no doors, I've torn through the walls

I've ripped up the floors, laid waste to it all

I burned up my body, now I have nobody

Can I have you and can you be everything I need?”

“I love you, I love you (I need you, I need you)

I love you, I love you (I need you, I need you)”

“I hear you're still living as an emotional vagrant

With bright red vacancy signs blaring in your eyes

Well my heart might be shot, but at least I've still got one”

“It must be hard to stay ahead of such deadly apathy

When you become bored so easily

And every new fixation feels like it'll fix everything”

“And they don’t go away, they just gnaw at you until the next soft-hearted sucker comes your way.”

“I imagine it’s quite nice for you

to have so many chances oh-so-many ways

to be redeemed

But as for me

I can only be forgiven if I’m giving myself up to you

on a silver serving tray.

Must I bear myself to the stabbing of your knife and gnashing teeth

While our lovely company appears so entertained?”

“I remain soft and accessible in the face of my own ending.”

“Into my sweetest fantasy

The one where you are crying

And I don’t do anything at all.”

“Icicles don’t soften when they die

they sharpen into sabers, and they stab you in the eye.”

“I’ll take the rocks out of my head

and you can sell them on the internet

to a paving company who

Will grind my brains into cement”

“I’ll be your highway, you can drive all over me.”

“If I can’t be a good friend, maybe I can be a good pavement.”

“You walk through walls, set off the smoke alarm

I feel your arms wrapping around me

your aura almost drowns me like a deadly perfume

Pink smoke”

“It smells so very strange, like grenadine and gasoline.”

(rosé coded im sorry this song is so so him it’s insane)

anyways feel free to tag with your whumpees and whumpers and please check out the albums they’re so good these r just my personal favorites/ones i can relate the most to my characters.

[zenmai--jikake--no--komoriuta]

MiqoMarch'24, Day #7: - light -

A bit of a different take on this prompt, today is all about sin eater D'nyr from the point of view of an alternate timeline where he really did become a Lightwarden!

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀- observations log. 1/5/XX, day.?? - ……..thus the creature was bestowed the title of Forgiven Temperance by its former allies, following the meaning of self-sacrifice and asceticism; excessive restraint/repression of one’s self for others benefit. At his core, one can suppose that this was both his fatal flaw and driving virtue! The poor soul… To date, nobody knows for sure what the beast fully looks like, not even those who fled the site of its transformation at the depths of The Tempest! It has scarcely budged from its initial location a few moons ago… obvious logistical reasoning aside, only a scant few exploration teams have had the wherewithal to venture down there past the safety of the Ondo's dwellings. Reports have led us to believe that the creature is covered in sharp spines and has monstrously large "claw-hands" (as it was described), or possibly some sort of scorpion-like tail as well? Its profile is unclear and hard to make out in the murk from such a distance, but one thing is unanimously clear; all of our teams have fled after seeing what they claimed to be "horrifying gold eyes" staring back at them! Yet the beast has not once given chase upon sighting our researchers, which is just as unsettling as it is perplexing… Due to the unique constraints inherent to its location, we are at present unable to cull the Lightwarden and return the night to the region of Kholusia. Mercifully, its light has not pierced anywhere else due to the sheer distance from the water's surface acting as a convenient attenuating filter, but one could surmise that if the beast were to emerge then all of Norvrandt would be under light pall again… its effect on the populace is quite clear: residents have responded with equal levels of fear and also apathy to this situation, as while some are content to live their lives as they had been before (with the beast effectively "out of sight and out of mind" and therefore not a problem), others are starting to become fearful of the ocean entirely (a complicated notion, due to their relative proximity at all times to it)! Disquieting rumors have started to spread amongst fishermen and sailors alike, that if you venture too close to the ocean you'll be dragged under by the Lightwarden, never to be seen again… though one would hope most people would question how bogus this sounds-- if you'll excuse me interjecting my own personal opinion... at this juncture I simply cannot see the Lightwarden ascending from the briny deep just to prey on hapless passersby when it has showed absolutely no inclination towards moving from even just one single spot-- it has nonetheless had a noticeable impact on the region's imports and exports of fish, so now we must find an effective way to quell the people's terror to rectify the economic impacts alongside dealing with the creature too………..

------ (as a bonus, have the rough draft of his Lightwarden trial encounter under the cut! because I am sad it will never get to see the light of day otherwise and I was proud of the concept years ago lmao)

CONCEPT: . Overall theme is “the breaking down of appearances to reveal what was always there, but hidden away”-- stage and boss both change per phase to reflect this, going from a more idealistic “this is what the WoL as a sin-eater would look and fight like” to a “ohhh god what is that that’s not the WoL anymore” . Mechanics are based around D’nyr’s repressed feelings towards others (loneliness, anger/the need to lash out sometimes, not always saying how he feels, his dislike of others putting him on a pedestal, etc.) and the world at large (eg. the fragility of life, futility of some things, etc.) and his unfulfilled hopes and wants (to live unfettered by responsibility to the world, to settle down with a family of his own someday, etc.)

PHASE 1: . Certain mechanics grant a stacking buff to the boss (Fervent Denial), which is necessary to progress the fight! These mechanics have an interrupt bar and represent the feelings and things that D’nyr has repressed-- if the cast is interrupted, the buff will not be given, increasing the flat % of damage taken from the ultimate attack at the end of the next phase [it's calculated based on the damage dealt to the boss in the first phase (% thresholds that indicate how much it weakens the overall ult damage by), as well as the actual phase progress bar (below 80% is no extra damage, at 80-90% it is +3% extra damage, 90-99% an 5% extra damage, and 100% a flat wipe)] . In a meta sense, the only way to put him down for good is to damage him when he is at his most vulnerable (ie, his final form), and the only way to get him to show that is to let him go berserk and not deny him the things he’s been disallowing himself all this time-- as D’nyr at his core would never allow himself these actions, it causes a “breakdown” of the mask (literally, the bosses’ one too [he has a blank slate mask with a golden kintsugi X like D'nyr's scar, for context]) and internal walls holding him back, fracturing his perceived sense of self and causing him to shift into a form that represents all of these denied things, which is what truly needs to be destroyed/purified! . Normal mode has 7 chances to grant Fervent Denial giving some leeway for mistakes (the buff stacks cap at 5 however, so it is not possible to get 7 stacks despite there being opportunities to do so), but Extreme only has the exact 5 chances needed to progress! If players have not let the boss reach at least 5 stacks by the time the hard-enrage longcast goes out, the party will wipe. . Fervent Denial also slightly increases damage dealt by the boss, so he will gradually hit harder and harder over time, plateauing right before the phase change. . After the boss uses its phase-shift move (what would normally be the yet-unnamed hard-enrage longcast), the stacking buff will disappear and the boss will become untargetable, beginning the DPS check phase.

DPS CHECK: . Unfinished from here on out-- but basically beating up… some kind of add, and while you do that the boss' mask slowly cracks with bright light before shattering into his second form and unleashing his ultimate attack (he becomes more agitated and spiny-looking but I never finished designing any of his forms so just imagine the possibilitiiiiies)

PHASE 2 & 3: . To be continued……. or not! maybe someday :')

[lilpomfriend]

𝑩𝒆𝒘𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒄𝒂𝒓𝒏𝒊𝒗𝒐𝒓𝒐𝒖𝒔 𝒇𝒍𝒐𝒘𝒆𝒓 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒔𝒍𝒆𝒆𝒑𝒔 𝒃𝒆𝒏𝒆𝒂𝒕𝒉 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒓𝒖𝒊𝒏𝒔.

𝑴𝒂𝒚 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝑻𝒘𝒆𝒍𝒗𝒆 𝒉𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒎𝒆𝒓𝒄𝒚 𝒐𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒔𝒐𝒖𝒍𝒔 𝒖𝒏𝒇𝒐𝒓𝒕𝒖𝒏𝒂𝒕𝒆 𝒆𝒏𝒐𝒖𝒈𝒉 𝒕𝒐 𝒘𝒂𝒌𝒆 𝒉𝒆𝒓…

(Art by @Z3Rtj0c on twitter)

[fanfic-recs-01]

Thiam Fics

This is just a list of all the Theo Raeken/Liam Dunbar fics I like on AO3, if you have any recs for me feel free to send me some!

happy birthday, by the way (I’m not your party favor) by unholy_obsessions

~“I’m a legal adult,” Theo argues, not sure why he even has to argue his point in the first place. He has a solid plan, if there is one thing he’s good at it’s strategizing.

“You’re eighteen, that barely counts-“

“Nineteen,” he interrupts Derek. The room freezes and Theo has the sudden desire to shrink into himself.~

Eight Hugs a Day by TheOceanIsMyInkwell

~Liam informs Theo that the human body needs an average of eight hugs a day to develop a healthy sense of self-esteem and empathy. Theo thinks that’s just excessive.~

Numb Apathy by Sun_Spark

~Theo Raeken spent ten years under the cruel care of the Dread Doctors, and it warped more than his DNA. When Melissa and Deaton have to perform minor surgery on the chimera, the pack learns just how numb the boy can become.~

golden silhouettes and these fragile moments by fallingforboys 

~He felt his stomach turn as he got out and sat against the side of his truck, looking out into the preserve. Why did the Sheriff even offer him a job? Theo knew that what the Sheriff had said wasn’t true—that some of the pack had already forgiven him.~

Let's pretend by classythiam (sunclefz)

~"I need you to be my fake boyfriend," Liam repeated.

Or, the one where Scott shouldn't have talked to Liam like he was fragile, Liam should have thought twice before engaging in a childish kind of revenge and Theo shouldn't have accepted to help.~

The Best Kind by CelineStilinski 

~"Ok, I've had enough. Why are you all looking at me like that?" He almost snapped, refraining himself from doing so at the last second.

Scott cleared his throat, clearly hesitating, opening his mouth once, then closing it. Twice.

The third time was the good one.

"Is that Theo's jacket?"~

[chiimeracon]

OLD!! old art but i still like it

sin eater zenos design :) i named him forgiven apathy and tried to make him look kind of like an angelic shinryu

[queer-geordie-nerd]

So lately, I’ve been organising all of Mira’s columns and writings she wrote for various websites over the years into a folder, and she wrote *a lot*

These things keep jumping out at me:

Her seething anger and grief at the way her country was ripped apart and countless thousands of lives destroyed and how the elements of nationalism and ethnic division are in power in that area to this day.

A deep well of hard, and painfully earned wisdom and endless compassion for humanity. She was always unreservedly and entirely on the side of the marginalised and oppressed, and she absolutely did not hold back in calling out the systems of injustice that kept people down.

Her words utterly vibrate with how deeply she felt these things and how earnestly she wanted a better world for everyone.

When a person has endured what Mira had to, has come face to face with hatred and abuse in such a profound way, they could be forgiven for becoming insular and bitter, and telling the world to go fuck itself.

But instead, it just made her more determined to fill the world with love and beauty, to fight for justice, to lift up the downtrodden that society likes to hide and forget.

I get so emotional reading some of them, because sometimes I feel surrounded by apathy and reading the perspective of someone who truly, deeply cared is so important to me.

This woman was a miracle. So many tried to bring her down, to extinguish that light, and they could never succeed.

EDIT: When I’m done, if anyone wants to send me their email address, I’m more than happy to send a copy of the folder. These should be read by everyone, imo.

[pzfr]

📺 + Rex, I imagine you deal with a lot of guys who go off on big dramatic speeches about human nature and how its good / bad with varying layers of nuance. But, as an alien born on raised on Earth, who's been through the ringer when it comes to commercialized heroism ( if that's the right term ), where do YOU stand on that?

send 📺 + a question, and my muse’s shadow will answer it!

"I don't enjoy the industry around super-types any better than when I'm my regular old self. The only difference is that I see people don't want it to stop. They could, but they're too drenched in apathy and pop pacifism."

"--I mean, COME ON! People ~love~ to wax poetic about vast potential for change and self-improvement. But then they balk at doing the bare minimum of anything practical. A teensy tiny bit of regression means 'lost cause forever,' but someone photogenic who spouts off meaningless platitudes about how nice they are means all is forgiven, free-pass to do whatever? That they've achieved some kind of ascended morality?! Makes me sick."

[ameowralism]

i am the cutest girl if a bit sociopathic. my smile is so sweet and my eyes so honest, and my voice is soothing and my thoughts are deranged and when i lie it's forgiven or never found out and my apathy is seen so casually and i don't know nor want to know what a morality is. i look and act like a small cat