#love is a selfish thing

[lineffability]

sometimes I see people calling Aziraphale selfish in an accusatory way, as if it's a flaw that needs to be smoothed out, as if it isn't a trait that is at once defiant and emancipating, as if his selfishness isn't mostly wielded in an empowering and kind way, as if it's categorically bad to want things for yourself, to enjoy them, to have and keep them, as if selfish isn't the most revolutionary thing an angel can be

[girlbossagenda]

HOW TO GET A GLOW UP

‧₊˚❀༉‧₊˚.

I used to be the ugly dunklin, till I change in 1 week and turned pretty much half of my life upside down, it happened right after my 16th catastrophic birthday, at the time I was already following Liz and her tips which helped me so much!! So here how to glow up in minimum 1 week

౨ৎsmell good౨ৎ

This is so important, I noticed how people react to good smelling people, they just say it out loud how much they like the fragrance, knowning that it's you, will just make you more approacable, it boosts your confidence and overl all more liked

౨ৎexercise + diet౨ৎ

This was huge for me, not only it imroves your moods but it also makes your prettier, you need to fist know what goals you want to archive physically, if you want a bigger butt, eggs and potatoes salad can be a good alternative, if you want to have a snatched waist try to do more cardio, at the time the only cardio I used to do was jump roping, which is amazing!!

౨ৎwardrobe౨ৎ

This was the revolution, just dress how ou want each outfit can have at max 2 trendy elements, not more, and the rest it needs to rappresnt YOUR personality!! This is going to make you unique and recognizable!! Also I suggest to go shopping on friday lol, the beauty day!

౨ৎmentality౨ৎ

This is how everything started, a munch of motivational viddeos, the wizard liz and confidence targetting posts, moodboards and much more, at the time I was getting treated really harshly from my classmates, it was probably one of thelowest point of my life, bit I pick myself up, cause I had a goal: Changing my narrative.

There was not sense into staying bitter and hating not only myself but the world around, I wanted to prove to myself that I actually mettered, you don't glow up for other, but for yourself, never, ever welcome in your life people that before put you under the rug, have some respect for yourself and clear boundaries.

Hi bonitas I hope you liked this short post, This is just part of my expereince, tell me if you want to know more + other tips!! maybe I'll make a longer version in the future, Have a great day xoxo gougeous

-𝓐

[clovreat3r]

Made in the Image of Bill

Closeups of the quality gets roasted (just like bills family) ->

[nellasbookplanet]

The tragic idea that the Betrayers loved their siblings so much that it ended up being what drove them apart. They didn't want to settle for anything that could hurt their family, and mortals were doing so, either directly (a mortal usurping one of them) or indirectly (emotionally hurting them during the Schism by just. dying so much). To the Betrayers, it wasn't worth it. They wanted their beloved family to leave and go somewhere that wouldn’t hurt them.

To them, it's the primes who are the betrayers. The primes were motivated by more than just love for their immediate family - they loved their creation, too, and more than that, felt a responsibility for it. They would rather fight their own siblings than leave it.

We saw all the gods love and protect each other during the opening of Downfall. The Betrayers were not uniquely evil from the start. They wanted to save themselves and their family from hardship and suffering, even if it meant leaving their creation, their game, and in response their siblings locked them away. Not only do they not love mortals, they view mortals as this corruptive force that somehow turned their family against them. Do they think that, if they succeed in exterminating them, the Primes will be freed from their influence? Maybe - perhaps some of them are waiting to forgive and embrace their siblings, but far from all, I suspect. Asmodeus certainly expressed during Calamity that he didn’t so much want to be reunited with his siblings as he wanted to punish them. He was betrayed by the ones he loved most for the sake of a game! Maybe togetherness and forgiveness was once an obtainable goal, but not anymore. Even if the Betrayers succeeded in ending Exandria, the Primes would never forgive them, and they would never forgive the primes. Their family can never be whole again because of, as they see it, the toxic influence of mortals. So they hate mortals for this influence, but more than that, they hate their siblings for being so weak as to fall for it.

[starry-bi-sky]

Unpleasant Revelations - DPxDC Ficlet Idea for the Stillborn Au

"Have you met my youngest, Damian, Mr. Masters?"

Its only from twenty years of long, hard experience and practice that Vlad doesn't increase the room temperature from 'borderline uncomfortably cool' to 'unbearably hot' the moment Bruce Wayne pulls his youngest and "only" biological son out in front of him.

He puts only in quotations because twelve year old Damian Wayne looks scarily, uncannily like one Daniel Brown. Jack and Maddie's foster son, second victim of their foolishness, and only other halfa in existence. Second only to him.

It's nauseating how similar they look. From the scowl and terrible glare on the young boy's face, to his brown skin -- which was only a few shades lighter than Daniel's, the shape of his nose, and even the strange winged edge of his eyebrow. Something that Vlad has long since come to find endearing on the child he considered a son of his own. The only difference was that Damian had dark, sharp green eyes.

Daniel's eyes were blue. The same glacier shade as his father's, who stood behind Damian with a proud, oafish smile on his visage.

It was infuriating how similar they look. Vlad might not have rapidly swung the room temperature from one extreme to the other, but he can't stop himself from letting the fury burning within his core from slipping out and raising the temperature up a few degrees.

Because it really only meant one thing.

Damian Wayne and Daniel Brown were related.

Damian Wayne and Daniel Brown were brothers.

Standing in front of him, it was clear as day. He can already picture a phantom image of Daniel standing beside Damian, the same scowl written on his face, the same glare carved into his eyes. The only difference being the dark, exhausted circles beneath them that seemed to be permanently painted onto his skin. The only thing missing being the permanent loneliness and vigilance permeating his being like a scar.

This, if revealed, would be enough to ruin Bruce Wayne's reputation. Or, at the very least, darken it quite a bit. The great philanthropist Bruce Wayne with another secret blood child? One related to his youngest? One that had been put into foster care? Seemingly thrown away?

It would be a firestorm.

One that Vlad is not keen on starting.

It would ruin Bruce Wayne's reputation, yes. But it would hurt Daniel in the process -- the harassment he would face alone might just be enough to break that fragile child completely. That was just not something he could allow. Or, even worse, bring him into his biological father's care and custody -- something Vlad was even less willing to allow.

It's not out of kindness to Wayne that Vlad will keep mum about this.

His grip on his champagne flute tightens, just a bit. He's still aware enough of the world around him to not let it shatter in his hands. His plastered, pleasant smile tightens around the corners, and he forces his focus to slide from Damian to Wayne.

"The resemblance is uncanny, Mister Wayne." He says, slanting his smile to the side slyly. Although he's not talking about the resemblance between Wayne and his son. Rage simmers beneath his skin, burning coal and embers in the core of his chest, nestled between his lungs, as he meets the man's eyes.

Wayne swaggles his head proudly, his ditzy smile widening as he squeezes his son's shoulder affectionately. Bastard, Vlad wants to spit.

He breathes in through his nose, and exhales out through his mouth. The champagne in his hand cools, and stops its unusual bubbling.

The Damian boy scoffs under his breath, his mouth still coiled upward into a scowl. With the revelation of his blood relation to Daniel evident, Vlad's not sure if he should find it endearing or not.

He is not Daniel, so he decides that it's just simply irritating. He decides to ignore it.

"And you said he was your only biological son?" He asks, voice lilting and head tilting. He knows its a suspicious question at worst, insulting at best. But considering Wayne's past proclivities, he can hardly call it an unexpected question.

Damian puffs in great offense, face twisting angrily. It reminds him of Daniel when Vlad insisted that he was wrong about something or other, and for a moment his heart swells, fond.

But this is not his child, and so the feeling quickly crashes and burns, simmering back into rage. This was not Daniel -- this was his replacement. A replacement that Wayne was free to keep.

Wayne chuckles, idiotically, as if he'd said some funny joke. Vlad's other hand, the one gripping his cane -- something he's required ever since he was dispatched from the hospital all those lonely years ago -- tightens instead. He grinds his teeth -- him and Jack Fenton would get along like a house on fire, he hates it.

"I can understand why you'd ask that, Mister Masters," Wayne says, squeezing Damian's shoulder again, "but yes, Damian is my only biological son. Although that doesn't mean I don't love my other children any less."

Bastard.

For all his posturing and flouncing about caring for his city and his children, Vlad never would have thought the Prince of Gotham capable of abandoning one of them.

But, well.

They all have their dark secrets.

And what one man throws away, another man picks up. If Bruce Wayne didn't want the treasure child that was Daniel Brown, then Vlad Masters was more than happy to take him instead.

"I see."

[nibeul]

uncle aaron in spiderverse fucks me up so badly because here is a man who has done terrible, unforgivable things, and he loves his nephew very much

[burnorgetburned]

EVEN MORE CLARA DOLL DETAILS:

So you know how the Dolls have their own distinctive clothes?

Guess who else has their own distinctive clothes!

That’s right. The multiple Homuras are actually Clara Dolls.

And that’s why ‘Homura’ is smiling.

Here they are! The one with the striped hat is Nekura (Gloominess or Pessimism) and the one with the flower is Mie (Vanity).

Here’s their descriptions from the art book.

[The second one to come was Gloominess. Walking out with a tapping sound, she sneered at Good-for-Nothing. “This is Good-for-Nothing! How very unbecoming.” These dolls are only disciples of Freedom, and are devoted to their lust for it.]

[The tenth to come running is Vanity. She exaggeratedly avoids Good-for-Nothing's head and says a few words. “I wouldn't be able to bear dirtying my cape with that sticky blood!” These dolls make fun of the witch's self-mutilation.]

Good-for-Nothing is Homura, by the way, but the Clara Dolls seem to consider Good-for-Nothing to be good for something after all after she splits Madoka. She turns into the Devil, and the Clara Dolls are stated to be “okay” with the Devil. If the young voices in the trailer belong to the Clara Dolls, then they also call her “Akuma-sama” now. Something like Mistress Devil, implying a sense of respect.

[… if they are not summoned, they will simmer. There are orders they will comply with, and also orders they will disobey. What they are and the witch herself's own magic are not well understood.]

At the end of Rebellion, Homura gave Madoka her ribbon back. She declared that they might become enemies in the end. Honestly, I thought that Homura would try her best to avoid Madoka entirely. The trailer suggested that Homura was meeting Madoka, though. Here’s the answer: it wasn’t Homura herself, but Gloominess, who wants freedom.

Now, I’m not sure how this situation works out. Do Clara Dolls have free will? Are they obeying Homura’s orders? Acting out Homura’s true emotions? Is Homura perhaps directly puppeteering them in order to fulfill her goals, or do they act on their own?

I find it likely that it’s a mix of both: some of them obey her, and some of them will try and fulfill her (probably very conflicting) desires, as familiars usually do. Gloominess is likely part of Homura who wants the freedom to talk to Madoka, for example, but Vanity seems to me like a Clara Doll who is obeying Homura. After all, she still needs magical girls to fight wraiths, at least until she finds a way to wipe them out.

[I'm Vanity (Mie). I'm pushing myself to the limit for someone.] And she is, of course. All of the theatrics, the calls, the organization of magical girls. These are things that Vanity is shown to engage in. All of this is for Madoka.

We see with Gloominess, at least, that she seems to be fulfilling a specific desire: in the background are white spider lilies. Instead of the red spider lilies that mean death, final goodbyes, and lost love, white spider lilies mean a hope for the future and a fresh start. Maybe this really is the first meeting for these two in a while, and she wants to be friends again?

Or maybe, being Gloominess, she wants to warn her about something.

[I'm Gloominess (Nekura). Forcing smiles tires me out.]

Then there’s this Homura.

Nothing about her clothes is very different. She is wearing ribbons as Homura in the wraith universe does, but look closely: the ribbons are different. They have some wavy stripes on them, while Madoka’s ribbons are plain. She does not correspond to any known Clara Doll.

However, there’s mentioned to be a fifteenth Clara Doll that is not yet born: Ai, representing love. This could be her. Is it love for others? Or love for herself? I’m hoping it’s the latter, but very likely it’s love for Madoka and her friends. This would explain why she’s trying to fight Homucifer in the poster, as Homura believes that she’s a danger to everyone else.

How can this be? Well, here’s a few options:

- The Clara Dolls are grown-up familiars. They ate souls, and they became a copy of their witch. This is a process that was explained to us in the original series, where some magical girls are stated to farm familiars by letting them eat people so that they would grow souls/grief seeds.

- The Clara Dolls are not familiars, or wraiths, but instead a secret third thing. “What they are and the witch’s own magic are not well understood”, as said in the Rebellion art book. They could be magical constructs of a different kind, but I do think that this would get into overcomplicated explanations quickly, so I favor the familiar explanation.

- The Clara Dolls could be familiars, but instead of eating souls they’re simply powerful enough to change their shape. Their strength is equal to the strength of a magical girl…. when Homura was a witch, before Homura became something more. It could also be energy from the contracts making them stronger. Maybe it’s me being sentimental, but I don’t like the idea of Homura letting anyone’s soul be nommed on.

Now, before there’s a panic about how they’ll juggle fifteen extra characters, here’s a few thoughts:

- Just because they seem different doesn’t mean they’re actually different. It might be that the Clara Dolls are a way for Homura to present herself. As Vanity, she might show off more, or have dramatic flourishes like her throne and her dress. As Gloominess, it might be that she doesn’t believe that her plans will work, so she tries to do what makes her happy. It’s likely that the Clara Dolls are just extra ways to explore Homura’s character. They’re parts of her soul, after all, and right now she is extremely powerful. She might simply want to keep her true self away from humans.

- They could work like projections. Homura wants more bodies to work with, but she has to filter herself through the Dolls’ personalities. This could result in a lot of juicy character interactions, as the things she tries to keep hidden are closer to the surface.

- Will ‘Ai/Mystery Homura’ fight against Devil Homura? Very likely! How can this be when they’re the same person? Well, who hates Homura more than Homura? That’s right. Nobody. Anyone can fight and argue with their self, it’s just usually not on the level that a reality-warper like Homura can manage.

If this is true, there’s plenty of interesting directions they can take it.

- Because the Clara Dolls have a degree of separation from Homura, they can show other characters things that Homura herself has ignored or locked away. Bad memories, affection for her friends, the resentment she must feel - everything from concern to a cry for help can be plausibly shown through them as the actors.

- Manuke (Stupidity) is specifically more naive/sincere than the others. Maybe interacting with this Doll would show the Quintet that there’s something more going on than a Devil who wants to hurt other people.

- If Ai represents a love for other people, Ai can have a strange character arc where she learns to value Homura/herself, and become self-love.

- On the other hand, Ai can represent self-love from the start, and because Homura looks very fucking unhealthy in the trailer, she only wants to stop her because she’s hurting herself. This option plays into the themes of self-sacrifice and happiness, which I believe to be some of the major themes that they’re going for.

- The poster could be misleading and Ai ends up fighting everyone but Homura. I find this the funniest option.

- Homura can hug herself. It’s possible. In fact, every character can hug Homura 15 different times.

Smiles are a Clara Doll’s default expression. We have yet to see Homura smile for real.

Is this going to get very ambiguous and confusing? Probably. But rewatching for details was the fun part in Rebellion, so I’m looking forward to it!

[shalom-iamcominghome]

Person with no whimsy: Why are you trying to trick g-d with loopholes? 🙄🙄🙄🙄

[starryluminary]

You Matter To Me

Sara Bareilles (ft. Jason Mraz)

╾━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╼

◃◃ II ▹▹

Noah and Cody have a quick chat.

Cody really didn't expect to like Noah as much as he does. He also didn't expect Noah to make him this happy. That's why it hurts when he realizes Noah's better off without him. Without his baggage, without his adversity, without his mess. Man what a mess it is. He wouldn't blame Noah in the least if he thought it was too much to handle and left without looking back.

Fortunately, Cody matters too much to Noah to let him go so easily. Cody couldn't be more grateful. Maybe one day he'll learn to tell him.

[whetstonefires]

The reason I keep banging the Jiang Fengmian drum so hard is not that he did nothing wrong--he's definitely in contention for best parenting in this book but that bar is in the ground--but because most of the takes I see about him are so extremely bad.

If you want to slag him off for trying to make choices that would hurt no one, and winding up properly protecting no one as a result, that's valid! That's an interesting and text-based critique, which opens into his parallels with Lan Xichen!

If you want to blame him for being weirdly over-invested in Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng being bffs, that's fair, that definitely contributed to the weirdness between them. If you want to say he was a poor communicator, that he fundamentally misunderstood his son, that he failed to be emotionally available in a way his kids could get much use out of, even that he should have figured out a way to stop Yu Ziyuan from creating such a hostile environment, all of that is fair game!

If you want to tackle how the worst thing he did to his kids was die I am so interested in how Wei Wuxian went on to abandon A-Yuan by going to his death, and how that might be tied to how his primary adult role model tied him to a boat and went off to a fight he knew he was going to lose.

After his parents had already left him like that once before, presumably less intentionally.

But no, instead I keep seeing that Jiang Fengmian didn't care. That he never expressed affection. That he actively participated in Yu Ziyuan's fucky game of forcing proxy conflict onto the boys instead of constantly trying (and failing) to shut it down, or that he ignored her bad behavior because it didn't affect him, or that he fought with her constantly, or that he was too much of an unmanly coward to stand up to her when she wanted something.

All of which are directly in contradiction to every scene he's in, and several of which manage to invert or erase the actual conflicts between him and his wife that were the source of all that tension.

And which are really interesting, because some of the most intractable elements are ideological--Yu Ziyuan is fundamentally a conservative and Jiang Fengmian seems to want to be an egalitarian, which ofc matched poorly with his hereditary authority as patriarch of a large sect.

The fact that the bit where we get to actually see him failing to parent Jiang Cheng consists of him gently and firmly trying to correct Jiang Cheng's ethics when what was actually needed in that moment was reassurance for the well-founded insecurities that were causing him to be a little bitch, only for Yu Ziyuan to charge in and make everything fifty times worse, is so much more interesting than literally any version of this family dynamic I have seen in fic. It's to the point I'm relieved when writers kill Jiang Fengmian off, because it means they probably won't feel the need to character-assassinate him too badly.

The number of people I've seen come right out and say some variation of 'men can't be abused' is killing me here. No, Yu Ziyuan wanting to hurt her husband does not constitute sufficient proof that he abused her first and deserved it! That's not how anything works!

[lucy-moderatz]

[critter-wizard]

ep 43 had me tearing up in a fucking shopping centre ‼️‼️

b+w alt version that I truly couldn't decide if I liked it more . Also I included a lot of thoughts in the tags but they're somewhat incoherent<3

[girlbossagenda]

August ⋆.˚ ᡣ

A month of growth, discovery, end of the summer, last minute beach day, dreaming of fall, pearls, starfish, walks in nature, library, quiet afternoon reading books, new hairstyles

[archiveoftragedies]

In mdzs, when the public opinion started shifting and everyone turned on jgy it made me feel vindicated. Finally they're siding with me against the guy that keeps pissing me off. But that only lasted an instant. Slowly, progressively, I started going wait. Wait no hold on. Go back. I didn't mean it that way go back. Because they were saying about jgy the exact same bullshit they had been saying about wwx the entire novel. And suddenly it felt really off.

Then, during the flashbacks leading up to Nightless City, I kept thinking back on that thing wwx tells nhs in volume one, when nhs explains his family's solution to their haunted saber problem. "Well, that's hitting a bit close to the demonic cultivation path". Doesn't nhs refuse to swordfight as well? Is he even carrying a sword? How come he can get away with this (and wwx can't)?

Wwx and jgy have similar origins but were raised in different environments. They learned similar survival methods and tried to play by the rules up until they couldn't anymore. They had the two more prominent roles in winning the sunshot campaign, and yet everyone forgot about that the second they decided they were irredeemable. They met similar ends, fighting and protecting people they loved.

Nhs became the kind of person his brother would despise in trying to avenge him. He became like his brother's murderer. His survival method is also trying to make himself seem harmless, not with polite smiles or clever distractions but with tears. The only reason he didn't meet the same end as the other two is that he managed to stay out of the public's eye, and because his reputation was unstained from the beginning. Although I should note that he is Nie Mingjue's half-brother, which might hint at a more complicated heritage, more similar to that of the other two, than one would suspect at first glance. But whether that's the case or not, the point is that nobody would call nhs a bastard, and that means that people will overlook certain things he does that have condemned the other two to death.

That's what makes them such great narrative foils. In the end all three of them are cheating, but nhs had better cards to begin with.

[lovehours]

i don’t even fucking care

[starry-bi-sky]

thinking about Dan in CFAU and just how different he needs to be (in my opinion) in order for Danny's whole thing to work. Canon Danny with Dan's influence, would never even consider thinking of killing anyone even after losing people close to him because he'd be scared of becoming like him. CFAU Danny however has been festering in this hurt and anger for years and wants the Joker dead and is plotting it. I don't think he'd do that with Dan's influence.

I explained how Rath came to be in this post here. Things happened in TUE as normal -- Danny's family dies, he lives with Vlad, Vlad rips out his ghost half. The difference here is that not only was Danny in a grieving state (something exclusive to banshees that the post goes into) but he also doesn't end up fusing with Vlad.

What happens instead is that Danny's ghost half, consumed already with grief and now enraged by being murdered and lied to by Vlad, destroys him completely and disappears into the ghost zone. He traps himself unintentionally in a negative feedback loop of grief, and as a human spirit banshee, cannot mentally handle the constant agony and sorrow he's experiencing. What happens is that he ends up driving himself insane with misery.

So the difference here, ultimately, between Dan and Rath, is that at the end of the day; Dan is fully aware of his actions. He knows what he's doing is wrong, and delights in it. He acknowledges his lack of humanity and feels no remorse in doing what he does.

Rath? He's... not. Not really. Dan is a hulking mass of muscle; tall, towering, terrifying. He loves what he does and does what he loves. Rath, however, appears as a scrawny young boy in raggedy clothes far too big for him, hunched in on himself while dirty, unkempt hair curtains his face and hides whatever he doesn't have ducked down in his curled-in form.

Rath is locked in a constant, unending state of sorrow and misery. He, for lack of better words, is unable to perceive the world around him properly and lashes out terribly and violently at anyone or anything that catches his attention. The only thing that he knows is that his family is gone, his other half is gone, that everyone he loves is gone, gone, gone.

He is a zombie apocalypse wrapped up in the form of a malnourished child, wandering the world in search of people who are not there, and becomes furious if you're not them. He is constantly crying, but he's been crying for so long that he's all but lost his voice. Meaning anyone trying to keep an ear out for him has to listen for soft, pained gasps and quiet whimpering, and wonder if the sound they're hearing are hurt survivors, or the very thing they're running from.

As a result, Rath's influence on Danny isn't that he's scared of doing something bad and becoming like him. He's scared of losing control of himself and dooming himself and others to eternal misery. As a result, he's adamant that things that he's done were not done out of pure emotion, but were active choices he made.

Up to and including killing the Joker. There's enough grief and rage behind his views on him that anyone could argue, especially knowing that Danny's a ghost, that he was not in the right mind when he did it. He was blinded by his emotions and was not in the right mental capacity, he had no control over himself. It'd work as a convincing argument.

If it weren't for Danny himself arguing against it. Killing the Joker was a choice he made, fully and willingly. It was autonomous, premeditated murder and he won't accept anything else -- it was not a fit of passion, it was not act of insanity, it was a decision. He won't accept it being anything else but revenge either, and if anyone tries to claim that it was a necessary evil he will yell at them. He didn't do this for the betterment of the public, that was just a fortunate side effect. He did it for himself and Jason. If you wanted it to be a necessary evil, then you should've killed him yourself. It was a selfish evil and he knows it.

In the end, Dan’s existence would prevent Joker’s death. Rath’s existence only solidifies it.

Rath's complete difference from Dan is one of my favorite parts about this au even if he never makes a direct appearance.