#well it just about wrecked me

[echofades]

MARCEL THE SHELL WITH SHOES ON (2021) dir. Dean Fleischer-Camp

[anna-scribbles]

what a shame, i can see it all now that we’re through

- firearm by lizzy mcalpine

(chapter 5 of call it even is making me feel bonkers insane. thank u @sha-nwa)

[uncanny-tranny]

The most infuriating form of sanism is this idea that mentally ill people/people with mental disorders are just too stupid or too unenlightened to know how to be a proper, well-adjusted person

So many therapists have ignored signs of my unwellness simply because they assumed I was just... being stupid, and I just needed educating about why I'm acting disordered (apparently, mental disorders stop disordering you once you are condescendingly told why you're just disordered and dumb, who knew (sarcasm)).

Like, I could tell them that I knew my behaviour wasn't "rational," wasn't "reasonable" to do or believe and I'd still be treated like I was so dumb I needed hand-holding and scolding about why I'm acting disordered.

I truly wish that people would be able to take the idea of guidance and stop twisting it into "I am superior and enlightened and the people I am trying to help are stupid and wrong and beneath me!"

[kirby-the-gorb]

[ohitslen]

I am here, once again, with my Ao No Flag propaganda

These two specific panels of Toma were the thing that made me think over a year ago “Man. I want to be like that too” as in KAITO drawing expression because—

The subtle shift of emotion, it’s present all throughout the manga, but this is what sold it for me. For no particular reason, it’s not even the best example, it was just what sealed the deal to me

[moredifferentthanusual]

from chapter 12 of Chained: To Wield the Blade we have Forged by Tinerian aka @redhoodinternaldialectical

[stizzysupremacy]

…

[sisterdivinium]

Finding "the meaning" to a show that could have had up to five or seven seasons but was cancelled after the second is somewhat like trying to understand a novel composed of seventy chapters by having read only twenty — there is a whole wealth of information which we do not possess that could alter our reading of any given element or of the entire thing in itself.

Still, there are always patterns that weave a story into a cohesive unit and they can help us to better grope in darkness towards comprehension. One such pattern in Warrior Nun appears to be how the consequences to mistakes, "sins" or evil deeds committed by characters manifest.

Basic storytelling usually requires characters to act on something so that complications or resolutions may arise from their choices and move the plot forwards. In Warrior Nun, many of these actions are quite tragic in nature: Suzanne's arrogance and pride lead to the death of her Mother Superion; Vincent's allegiance to the higher power he believed Adriel to be inspired him to kill Shannon; Ava's flight from the Cat's Cradle ends up damning Lilith as she is mortally wounded and taken away by a tarask... All of these events have negative outcomes and heavy repercussions on all characters directly or indirectly involved. Something changes permanently because of them, be it in the world around them or within the characters themselves.

And yet, it would seem that all of these dark deeds not only move the story forwards but might also have overall positive results. We would have had no protagonist without Ava — and she would arguably never have received the halo to begin with had she not been murdered. What's more, on a personal scale, the horrifying crime she suffers is, in the end, the very thing that allows her a second chance in life, a new life.

An act of outside evil permits Ava to grow and develop, shows her a path she would not otherwise have found. Without her own season in some sort of hell, Lilith would not have been able to advance towards other ways of being and understanding beyond her very strict limitations. Vincent and Suzanne would not have embarked on their own journeys of enlightenment without having caused the pain they are responsible for.

Beatrice might have been paying for someone else's mistakes, but she, too, is given the chance to grow into herself through it. The afflictions that torment these characters advance the overall plot, but they also advance them, as individuals, as long as they are willing to learn and keep going despite the calamities large and small that they are faced with. Beatrice keeps going after parental rejection, Mary keeps going after losing Shannon, Jillian keeps going after losing her son (in part through her own actions, adding insult to injury)... Trouble and the adaptation that follows it, if one is open enough to learn from the experience, motivates the characters, propels them forward, teaches them.

The problem of evil has occupied the minds of many a thinker throughout the ages, given how the very existence of it, evil, might call into question that of God (a good, omniscient, omnipotent one, anyway). A common way of justifying suffering (and also God), then, is by claiming, as Saint Augustine, that "God judged it better to bring good out of evil than not to permit any evil to exist".

Now, it would be rather ridiculous to say of Warrior Nun that it follows in Leibniz's footsteps, also because this philosopher, expanding on the augustinian concept, attempted to defend the goodness of a real God with his "best of all possible worlds" while all we have is... Well, whatever/whoever Reya is.

But there seems to be an inclination towards some sort of optimism as a worldview nonetheless.

Betrayals reveal truth and grant knowledge (Vincent's culminates with the coming of Adriel, which allows us to know of the threat of a "Holy War" and thus prepare for it; Kristian's gives Jillian much needed insight, William's lights up the fuse for the fight to be taken more seriously...), crimes committed willingly or not open the way for Ava (Suzanne's killing of her Mother Superion causes the loss of the halo, which is transferred to Shannon, whose death opens the gates for Ava to walk through after being herself murdered by sister Frances)... The magnitude of these positive outcomes is perhaps not "balanced" when compared to the evil that brings them about, but there is still something to take out of the catastrophe.

However tragic the tones of a given event, the show itself appears to shun the predetermination that makes tragedy as a genre; if everything is connected, here it at least appears to not necessarily drag everyone into their horrible dooms.

What's more is that this lurking "optimism" matches really well with our own protagonist's personality.

And it makes perfect sense that Ava would do the best she could with whatever she is given.

Life for her, in the conditions she experienced after the accident, would have been unbearable without some sort of positive outlook on life. However deadpan, the joking and the "obscene gestures" and whatever other forms of goofing around beside Diego are a way of turning a portion of the situation in her own favour. Proverbial eggs have, after all, already been broken right and left — might as well make an omelette of whatever remains.

Humour is just another way of looking at the bright side of something, or, at the every least, of mitigating the utter horror it might bring. If the show allows for moments of lightness, if it lets us laugh, if it takes us through a perilous voyage which still bears ripe, succulent fruit instead of the rot of pessimism and its necessary contempt for humanity, it is because Ava herself sees things in this way. It isn't gratuitous or naïve in this case, but a true survival strategy, especially as it is confronted with the morbidity of Catholicism.

Here is a religion that soothes its faithful with the promise of reward in the afterlife — how else does one charge into battle against the unknown, risking one's own death along with that of one's sisters, without the balm of believing that we shall all meet again eventually, "in this life or the next"? How else does one come to terms with the ugliness and the pain of this existence if not by looking forward to a paradise perfect enough to make all trials and tribulations here worth it?

True nihilism would have annihilated Ava. Her present perspective is what avoided the abyss.

And there is nothing Panglossian to her attitude or what the show might imply by giving us her view on things. This isn't about "the best of all possible worlds", but of making the best of whatever situation we're in, of taking what we have and doing something with it, something good, something of ourselves. It isn't God making good out of evil, but our choices.

Killing innocent people and feeling no remorse will never be the best someone can aspire to do. Sister Frances, cardinal William, Adriel all learn this the hard way.

Those who do their best find that, somehow, they can move on from whatever it was that paralysed them. Ava, most of all, knows what it is to be stuck, frozen in place; she can never be the character who refuses to grow, even through pain, lest she condemns her spirit to the same fate her body is all too familiarised with. Those around her wise enough to let themselves be touched by her, by the dynamic power she carries, walk forth with her and live.

It says very little about "God" that Warrior Nun should adopt its heroine's views and seem "optimistic" as it progresses — but it speaks volumes about the values it presents for pondering, of the inspiration its protagonists provide, and of the multiple reasons why this is a story unlike most others.

[ultimatemissadhd]

the fact that Kyoko and Makoto in the canon get a happy ending,

after everything they've been through,

after thinking they wouldn't live till their twenties,

after downs and ups of their relationships,

after thinking the other died at some points,

after seeing the most cruel things,

after being put on the pressure of saving the world,

after solving tons of mysteries together,

after losing everything,

they get to live a happy, peaceful life, alive and well,

they get to live until they die of old age peacefully tougher,

they get to think about things like marriage and starting a family, something they didn't think they would live long enough to do,

they get to deal with their traumas in healthy environments, they get to help eachother with their problems,

they get to bring actual hope to students of Hope's Peak Academy and make sure none of them has to go through what they did,

all of this is what makes me extremely happy

[arlathvhenan]

Here I was thinking to myself “I’m going to romance literally anybody OTHER than Anders” but I’m such a whore for pathetic man children with sad puppy eyes…also I like killing Templars.

[rose-milkteaa]

ꗃlogging on... loading..... ╰┈➤ sweet little lovebug <33 mf havent teased me yet, so im a little bit smug right now 🥰

Weren’t you DYING for me to continue tonight? Especially since I got you kicking and giggling like a schoolgirl in your math class?

That’s a shame, really. Looks like someone doesn’t want attention or tickles from me.

Such a shame indeed..~

[pythoria]

hello everyone! a quick break from your scheduled art posting to talk about this incredible fic i think ever bloodweave enjoyer should read.

i know it'a already very popular, but imo it's a must-read. i could not praise this fic enough for what it is, the amazing ideas it brings to the table, the incredible execution of the timeloop trope. it's by far the fic i look forward to seeing in my inbox the most (not that other fics aren't absolutely gorgeous), because every chapter is just. a delight to read. it's got angst, fluff, and an amazing romance, but the plot is what really makes it stand out. it's tight, packed with great characterisation and has perfect pacing. please give it a shot if that sounds at all interesting to you. oh yeah, and did i mention that it's got art for every single chapter? yeah, read it. bask in its genius.

[im-smart-i-swear]

eeneks sister having a fuck ton of scars, but later most of them being revealed as just from her childhood/from mundane accidents is so fucking funny to me for some reason.........

[the-acid-pear]

I never tried the option myself bc it'd probably mean skipping the Reason You Suck speech at the end (fire for speedrunners though) but I Love that you can frame your Phoneys in 3, especially so if you've already killed the previous two. Like yeah couldn't send you off to die so i'll let the goverment do it for me 🧸 like its just Peak evil imo.

[risingshards]

How do you deal with negative comments on your writing that aren't like specifically rude but are cutting in a way that turns around to them being super rude?

[swinesmightsoar]

Thinking over Byler for the trillionth time