#when even in that interpretation there’s so many contradictions to that

[alastoridiot-meta]

I CANNOT let this continue to be the false narrative throughout the fandom so let’s just talk about Alastor and whether he will be redeemed.

The simple answer I have to this is… absolutely. Like what do you think the message of this show IS.

Alastor is a charming and likable character. He’s edgy and soft and rigid in all the right ways for fandom to take and hold onto him. Viv has said before, along with what is shown in the show, that he tends to have a weird and sort of warped morality.

On one hand, he has no problem threatening Husk, torturing overlords, and overall being a nuisance to every powerful male character that he comes in contact with.

But on the other hand, he believes in being able to control YOUR OWN fate, as said in his fight with Adam “you should know more than anyone what a soul can do when they take charge of their own fate”, implying control over one’s personhood, destiny, and general LIFE. In fact, it’s this sentence that just speaks to so many of Alastor’s true ideals in consent and soul contracts. Like yes he owns huskers soul and maybe nifty’s, but husk only furthers my own agenda of “Alastor targets people with power”, for one reason or another, those people are overlords. HE EVEN IMPLIES IN STAYED GONE THAT HIS TRUE INTENTIONS ARE DISTURBING SYSTEMS OF POWER, GOING AGAINST THE STATUS QUO.

And i know it’s wordplay for destroying the Vee’s, but with the combined evidence of: the Vee’s being the main metaphors for exploitation and taking AWAY control over one’s fate, along with heaven and what the hotel stands for, this makes perfect sense as to WHY he joined the hotel in the first place. Because it’s not for entertainment, and I highly doubt it’s any sort of power. This, along with the previous weird obsession with Lucifer and destroying overlords in general, his friendship with an overlord who values the people she employs to such an extent that Charlie still has to WIN THEM OVER… it just goes against everything the fandom would LIKE to say/think about Alastor.

So I guess what I’m getting at here is that the fandom is acting like Alastor is this big bad villain guy with absolutely no redeeming qualities to build off of, people are acting like defying powerful systems is NOT at all a redeeming quality that Charlie can’t build off of or use to make him gain other qualities.

Not only this, but with Mimzy and his entire relationship with her, how he just lets her walk into his life knowing that she brings trouble and he only banishes her when she proves once again that she brings trouble… like, I’m sorry but it just feels like people actively ignore these things because they’re looking for logical morality systems. Even people who know that this is an aspect of his character, tend to lack the capacity to understand that Alastor can and IS very contradictory.

He CAN own husks soul and make deals with people in exchange for goods or favors, while also disliking the idea of a soul not having independence and/or charge of their own fates. It’s contradictory. It’s supposed to be.

And I guess it’s this that always makes me confused when there’s fanart of a redeemed/angelic Alastor that is FILLED with comments like “I’m sorry but Alastor will never be redeemed” “it’s impossible for his redemption” “cool art but it’ll never happen”, GUYS.

WHAT. IS. THE. MESSAGE. OF. THE. SHOW.

It’s FORGIVENESS. It’s CHANGE. The entire fight in heaven is literally the angels spewing the same rhetoric when talking about Angel, but of course the show has to take baby steps to say that yes, everyone deserves redemption. Everyone deserves the right to change. Everyone can change. Everyone WILL CHANGE.

Alastor already believes in redemption, I know that based off of his conversation with Adam ALONE. What makes you think he can’t work towards it? Even if that’s not now, don’t you think a person would try anything to escape a contract? It’s probably the main motivation for Angel at all.

And I just. I guess I don’t understand how people could be watching and believing in a message about change and forgiveness, while simultaneously refusing to see that a character like Alastor could change. Abusers can change. They should change. If not for themselves, then to stop the abuse they instill in the people around them.

[a-court-of-moonlight-and-ire]

Idk why but i was thinking about the broader acotar fandom's attituide towards "crack ships" and how different it is compared to some other fandoms ive been in because most of the time what a lot of people call crack ships would be considered rare pairs or just. normal ships. Like, ive seen people call gwynriel a crack ship when gwyn is clearly deliberately set up to be part of a love triangle with elain and azriel which is to say, theres a real possibility of it becoming canon and imho thats not a fucking crackship, thats just a normal ass ship. Crack ships arent just non-canon or unpopular ships, theyre usually like shitpost ships that are funny because of how absurd they are and that most people dont earnestly ship. Thats why in ye olden days a lot of crackships were crossover ships from with characters from two very different pieces of media, like fuckin charlie bucket x aang from avatar or batman x sportacus from lazy town or whatever, it doesnt really matter as long as its weird and easy to make fun of conceptually

[dceasesd]

why juni ba’s the boy wonder has my favorite jason characterization of any contemporary comic run: a needlessly in-depth analysis (pt.1)

oh boy oh boy am i excited for this one buckle up boys it’s gonna be a long one. analysis under the cut (WITH PICTURES!!)

i, like many others, have many thoughts and opinions about juni ba's the boy wonder that i'd like to express. i was having trouble formatting my rant, though, so i decided that it was easiest to just address some of the common complaints i've seen about the comic and jason's characterization and insert my ramblings throughout it. so far i've seen three main complaints:

the typical boiling down of jason's character to "the angry one"

his lack of strategy going into the fight with the demon is out-of-character

the neighbor's kid interaction

to start with the first one-- when introducing jason's character, in both the second and first issue, ba uses the descriptors "coarse", "bitter", "hardened", "brash" and, of course, "rageful".

so, yes-- i understand where people are having issues with this characterization. however, even if it's overplayed, it's still important to remember that jason is angry, and is driven, in part, by his anger at bruce and the joker. and, as ba highlights, he deserved to be! completely erasing jason's anger is just as bad as defining him with it.

i also don't think it's wholly accurate to say that ba is boiling jason down to just his anger. it might seem like that when only considering the dialogue and narration, but jason's behavior in the comic doesn't perfectly align with how the narrator describes him. while the narration describes him as "rageful" and could be an instance of generalization, jason's actions throughout the comic are more aligned with two other emotions/motivators: fear and despair. we never see jason get actually, properly angry; the closest we get is when he's seemingly annoyed by damian (which i believe could be performative) and when he becomes violent, accidentally hurting damian.

even in this instance, though, he is not driven to this violence by rage, but rather fear. so, while ba states in the narration that jason is driven by his anger, he contradicts himself by highlighting how jason's sadness and terror motivates his character. this could be interpreted as lousy writing on ba's part, but i'm not going to attribute the paradox to that inference. to me, it actually represents a critque of the "jason is the angry robin" generalization, because it calls to attention the discrepancies between how one is described versus reality, an issue that jason both faces in the comics (bruce using him as a cautionary tale when dying WASN'T HIS FAULT) and outside of the comics, as mentioned previously.

furthermore, this highlights the difference between what jason believes about bruce's perspective and bruce's actual perspective (according to damian). jason believes himself to be a "failure", but damian refutes this by describing his conversation with bruce concerning jason, a conversation that does not align with jason's belief. if you couldn't tell by now, perception versus reality is a BIG theme in this comic (and for jason's character in general!)

i was really fascinated by ba's take on jason, because it veered pretty far from a lot of contemporary comics, most of which do, unfortunately, play with the angry robin jason generalization. they've been doing a bit with his fear, too, which has either been pretty fun or the most awful thing ever (i'm looking at you zdarsky. gotham war was fucked up), but what makes ba's jason stand out to me is how he grapples with his grief.

this boy is so sad. ba's jason might actually be the saddest rendition of him i've seen in canon content. we've seen jason grapple a little bit with the despair rooted in his death and resurrection, mainly in lost days, where he cries 3 (?) times, fresh out of the pit and very traumatized.

even in this comic, though, he reacts to his grief with anger more prominently than sadness. that obviously doesn't mean the despair isn't there, though-- anger is just an easier outlet for it (which i could really get into the masculinity aspects of that, but then this would be wayyyyyy too long).

ba's jason, though? that motherfucker is so. sad.

christ he's depressing. AND THAT'S SUCH A FRESH PERSPECTIVE!!!!!!! THANK YOU JUNI BA!!!!!!

now i'm pretty sure some people would argue that this rendition in out of character because he's so sad. to me, though, he's still the same jason; he covers up his sadness with anger and pettiness, redirecting his own insecurities onto those around him to mask his true feelings.

ba quite literally illustrates this in the comic. whenever he is being his snide, normal self, he has his red hood mask on; but when he actually opens up to damian and expresses himself truthfully, the mask is off. ba is highlighting how the classic jason anger and bitterness is, in part, a performance and coping mechanism.

this post is already too long, so i'll go over the two other critques in a different post, which i will link below (eventually). if you guys have any thoughts you'd like to share or discuss, my dms and asks are completely open! if you made it this far, i hope you enjoyed my ranting. look out for another post soon! :))

part 2 / part 3

[gothhabiba]

Some hints about evaluating scientific studies

Firstly, understand that something being published in a scientific journal (or an academic journal for the social sciences) does not automatically make it true. Publishers profit from publishing novel, eye-catching, surprising research, which means they are more likely to publish positive results than ones that didn't find a connection between given variables. This means that scientists' careers benefit when they get positive results. Certain institutions also benefit from certain findings above others (a committee for research on "obesity" that is funded by a government organisation tasked with ending it, for example, is likely to try to stretch the evidence to find a link between body weight and poor health outcomes). So how do people evaluate scientific studies, especially without being scientists themselves?

Literature reviews

Literature reviews, which aim to assemble and summarise most of the available or influential papers on a given issue, can be a good place to start when trying to research that issue. Typically, scientific studies shouldn't only be evaluated on a case-by-case basis (since even well-designed studies can be contradicted by other, equally well-designed studies), but a full survey of the different results people have gotten should be taken.

Background information and conflicts of interest

Try to find out who funded a given study. Who published the study? What do these people stand to gain from the results of the study being accepted? (For example: you might pay special attention to the experimental design on a study on whether a certain essential oil helps to reverse hair loss that was carried out by a company that sells that oil.)

In theory, many journals call for study authors to declare any conflicts of interest they may have in a special section of the paper. This section should also list funding sources. You might also look up the authors on linkedin or something to find where they're employed; also look into whether another conglomerate owns that company, &c.

Experimental design

If the study involves a survey, have the authors of the paper provided the questions that people were asked, so that you can evaluate them for potential ambiguity or confusing wording? Not being transparent about the exact wording of questions is a sign that a study isn't trustworthy.

What's the sample size? Is it large enough for the claim the study is making to be reasonable? (More on this in the next section.)

Does the experimental design make sense with what the researchers wanted to study? Are the claims that they make in the conclusion section something that could reasonably be proven or suggested by the experiment that they performed?

Does the experimental design "bake in" an assumption of the truth of its hypothesis? (For example, measuring skeletons to argue that they fall into statistically significant size groupings by sex, using skeletons that you sorted into "male" and "female" groups based on their size, is clearly circular).

How was data collected? People might change their answers to a survey, for example, if they have to speak to a person to give them, rather than writing them down anonymously. Self-reported information (such as a survey aiming to figure out average height or average penis size) is also subject to bias. A good study should be transparent about how the authors collected their data, and be clear about how this could have affected their results.

Also regarding surveys: do the categories that the authors have divided respondents into make sense? Are these categories really mutually exclusive? If respondents were asked to sort themselves into categories (e.g., to select their own race or ethnicity), is there any guarantee that they all interpreted the question / the boundaries of these categories the same way? How would this affect the results?

Interpretation of results

Could anything other than the conclusion that the authors came to explain the results of their experiment? For example, a study finding a correlation between two variables and assuming that this means one variable causes the other ("being in a lot of stress causes short stature" or vise versa) could be missing a secret third thing which is in fact causing both of those things (e.g., poverty). Check to make sure that the authors considered other explanations for their findings and ruled them out (for example, by controlling for other variables such as socioeconomic status).

Are the results of the study generalisable to the population that the authors claim they're generalisable to? For example, the results may not be true for the entire population if only cisgender men between the ages of 30 and 40 were tested. Sampling biases can also affect generalisability—if I surveyed my college to try to find out the percentage of women in the total population, you might ask "but is your college sure to have the same percentage of women as the Earth does?"

Statistics

Are the results statistically significant, or are they within expected margins of error?

Many studies provide a p-value (a number between 0 and 1) for their results. In theory, a p-value represents the chance that the study's results could have been achieved by random chance. If you flip a coin ten times (so, your sample size is 10), it's not very odd to get heads six times and tails four times, and you wouldn't accept that as proof that the coin lands on heads more often than tails. The p-value for that result would be high (that is, there's a high chance that the coin appears unfair only because of random chance). On the other hand, if you flip a coin 100,000 times and it lands on heads 60,000 of those times, that's much better evidence that the coin is not a fair one. The p-value would be much lower. Typically, a p-value lower than 0.05 is considered statistically significant.

In practice, there's more than one way to calculate p-values, and so studies sometimes claim p-values that seem absurdly low. A low p-value is not proof of a claim in and of itself. Check to make sure that the authors of the paper also provide the raw data, and not just the p-values; this indicates a concern with other people being able to independently evaluate their results, rather than just trying to get The Best Numbers.

Citations

If the study cites something that seems foundational to their claims or interpretation, try tracing it back to the paper that was cited. Does the source actually claim what the authors of the first study said it did? Does the source provide proof or support for the claim, or does it seem flimsy, like a "common-sense" assumption?

Replication

Check the studies that cite the one you're currently looking at. Has anyone else tried to replicate the study? What were their results?

What if I really, really don't want to read scientific studies?

That's fine. Not everyone is concerned enough with specific scientific questions for regularly reading scientific papers to be reasonable for them. Just keep in mind that not everything in a scientific journal is necessarily true; that profit motives and personal and institutional bias impact results (e.g. when some studies revealed a lack of poor health outcomes for "obesity," and many scientists responded by calling it a "paradox" that needed to be "solved"); and that pop science and journalistic reporting on science are subject to distortions from the same sources.

Try finding commentators on scientific matters whose output you like, and evaluate their writing the same way you would evaluate any other critical writing.

[lokilokilolki]

Crowley admitted his feelings in Season 1

This specific quote is in reference to Act II, Scene 2 of Shakespeare's play "Antony and Cleopatra." Which canonically had not even been written yet in the series, which IMPLIES that when Shakespeare heard Crowley's words, he interpreted them as what they truly meant and transitioned them into the play. So basically Crowley has been absolutely besotted by Aziraphale from the beginning and Shakespeare agreed so much he put it in one of the most famous romantic plays of all time.

The original quote by Shakespeare read as follows:

“Never; he will not: Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale Her infinite variety;”

This quote is spoken in the play when a follower of Mark Antony describes the appearance of Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt, as she rode her barge down the river Cydnus; and how Mark Antony first lays eyes on her then immediately falls head-over-heels in love with her. "Age does not wither her" means that her beauty and allure do not diminish with the passage of time. It implies that as she ages, she remains just as attractive and enchanting as ever. "Nor custom stale her infinite variety": Here, "custom" refers to familiarity or routine. The quote suggests that even familiarity or habit does not make Cleopatra's qualities or personality seem boring or less interesting. "Infinite Variety" implies that she possesses an inexhaustible range of qualities, moods, and aspects that keep her intriguing and unpredictable---Sound like someone familiar?

Now keep in mind that when Crowley said it, It was never originally about Cleopatra

Crowley said “Age does wither nor custom stale HIS infinite variety” because AZIRIPHALE is the subject.

Crowley has admitted to being captivated by Aziraphale since he first laid eyes on him; since the first ever rainfall. Through thousands of years, Aziraphale has–quite literally never aged nor withered but–remained a consistent and magnetic presence in Crowley's life; Aziraphale company never stales because he is infinite variety, the angel with 100 contradictions, who gave away their sword without hesitation and rebelled against heaven beside Crowley; who keeps surprising him at every turn. Aziraphale himself bends the effects of time and routine because no matter how many years pass Crowley will always find him as gorgeous and fascinating as he did before the light was even born.

Aziraphale obviously doesn't really understand Shakespeare or the depth of poetry at this time, (as interpreted by his reactions to the play) and Crowley realizes this and grasps the moment to confess his feelings knowing that Aziraphale likely would not look too deep past it, you can see the shift in him when he recognizes the opportunity and the sudden morose tone he has when saying it to no one in particular.

The Good Omens writers are absolute saints, nothing they do is lazy in the least and I am positive that effort went into finding a quote that encapsulated the true depth of relations between the two.

[thehmn]

So far Jake Doubleyoo’s version of Loki is one of my favorites. The line “Wow this problem was actually super easy to fix. I wonder how I can ruin this situation for myself?” is perfect Loki.

Like most people who take an interest in Norse Mythology I went through the expected stages of Loki interpretations; He’s evil. No he’s actually good. He’s tragic. He’s actually a misunderstood hero.

But the truth is he’s just a trickster god who thinks he is too smart for his own good sometimes. He keeps doing stuff just because he thought it’d be funny or to see what would happen and well, he finds out what happens. He cuts Sif’s hair off for no reason while she’s sleeping and Thor immediately knows he was the culprit because he does shit like that all the time and when he’s told to fix it he keeps digging himself into worse trouble AFTER FIXING THE PROBLEM.

And thanks to Hollywood people think of Odin as a Zeus type but in reality Odin is a trickster god too. He and Loki have a lot in common and it makes sense that they’re blood brothers. In case you don’t know, blood brothers are men who were so close they decided to mix their blood, usually by cutting or pricking themselves and pushing the wounds together. They do a lot of the same stuff, only Odin is more focused on learning while Loki just wants to party.

I know “Loki turns evil because the gods treat him so badly” is a popular interpretation but if you actually sit down and read the texts you could just as easily interpret it as “Loki keeps fucking around and finding out and is mad that his actions have consequences” because the texts are so vague you have to do a lot of reading between the lines. Some texts even contradict each other. In one text both of Loki’s parents are jotun. In another his mother is a god. You can literally read the texts and their many translations in a million ways.

I personally like the version of Loki we get in the comic series Valhalla. In that version he is a trickster god to the bone who does stuff for shits and giggles or because he thinks he’s above the law. He’s never truly evil but he can’t be trusted either. You get a lot of funny scenes where he’s freaking out because the gods are onto him and he’s trying to talk his way out. Also, for the Aces out there, he’s implied to be asexual in this version. He does the sex sometimes but only to reach a goal.

This version is the base for a lot of Loki interpretations in Scandinavia and is worth a read.

[wooyoungmybelovedhusband]

hiii can i pls request a smut prompt 3,4 and 13 with wooyoung? obsessed with ur writing <3

ᴅʀᴀʙʙʟᴇ #2

PAIRING: Dom! Wooyoung x F! Reader

CONTENT/WARNINGS: Degradation, edging, overstimulation, fingering, oral (f receiving), Mean! Wooyo

PROMPTS USED:

"How many rounds do you think you can go before you turn into a whiny mess"

"You wouldn't run your mouth like this when I egde you till you're digging your nails into the sheets and begging me like a bitch in heat."

"The more you beg for me to go faster, the slower I move to torture you."

Loud moans resonated throughout the room, your moans could be much interpreted like broken cries. Wooyoung's hand worked it's way slowly I side your cunt, curlimg up at the right times to bring you closer to your orgasm real quick – just for him to pull away at your pleas. He had a menacing smile on his face as he watched the way tears rolled down your eyes every time he pulled his hand an inch away from your cunt.

“Told you, you wouldn't be running your mouth when I edge you till you're digging your nails into the sheets and begging for me like a bitch in heat.” And you were indeed digging your perfectly done nails into the sheets while your babbled pathetically under him.

His hands yet again moved in between your thigh, one hand caressing your inner thigh while his other hand rubbed circles over your clit yet again. Your brain felt too mushy to even know how many orgasms you were denied for the night – but that didn't stop you from letting out a series of ‘faster’ and ‘please’.

Wooyoung’s free hand came up to cradle your neck softly, his plumpy lips pressing kisses softly mirroring his fingers who moved slower than ever in your abused hole. “The more you beg me to go faster, the slower I move to torture you, princess.”

His lips captured yours in a kiss right after, his fingers curling up at your G-spot causing you to moan into the kiss, your legs arching in pleasure. Pulling away, Wooyoung shot you an assuring smile, “Perhaps I should let my baby cum shouldn't I? You did so well for me babygirl.” Your hear almost skips a beat from his gentle tone, contradicting his actions the whole night.

His fingers instantly thrust faster inside you, and your orgasm washed over you within seconds. Your vision almost turns white from the intensity of your high that you barely notice Wooyoung buried his face in between your thighs.

A screams falls off your lips when you feel his tongue lick up a stripe of your throbbing lips, before completely latching his soft lips onto your clit. If you could comprehend the lewd noises filling the room from Wooyoung sucking harder on your clit – you would be beetred. But all you could do was grip the sheets harder as your back arched against the mattress.

Your thighs threatened to close around him if not for his hands pressing them down on the mattress. His tongue licks at you harshly, licking off your seeping slick. Your voice turned hoarse from the loud moans that left you, your hands finding home in between his long hair strands. Your hands tried to push him off weakly only for his hand to grasp your wrists tightly.

His tongue moved faster inside you, lapping at your juices. And within seconds you felt your second orgasm rush over you in split seconds. You yell out Wooyoung’s name resulting in a satisfied grin taking over his face as he pulled away. Your body writhed underneath his figure.

Your boyfriend let you take a few long breaths, leaning down to kiss butterfly kisses all over your stomach in order to solthe your nerves.

It was only for a while before your felt his thick fingers rubbing your sensitive bud again. “How many times do you think you can go before you turn into a whiny mess, darling?” His fingers invaded your pussy yet again, scissoring your warm throbbing walls as he kissed your inner thighs, biting a little to leave lovebites all over your thighs. Gosh will this be your longest night – but did you really mind?

[tossawary]

One of the funniest parts of "[Character] would not fucking say that" type posts, in my opinion, especially the ones about fanfiction, is going into the notes to see which characters and media people are salty about. It's a wild spectrum, so sometimes I'm like, "You are SO right," or, "I've never heard of this character or fandom, but cheers, mate," or, "Little petty and pedantic maybe, imo, but I get it."

And then SOMETIMES, I see people writing in the tags saying things like, "Ugh, this! I hate it when people write [Character] as being [Very Well Known Character Trait] instead of [Interpretation That Blatantly Contradicts The Source Material]!" and, "This is why I hate [The Actual Source Material]! And also that new [Adaptation That Faithfully Adapted The Source Material]!" Which is very ironic and in many ways even funnier than the usual salt.

[cthene]

I can’t stand when people are like “Why is Scully still so skeptical after X-many seasons? Mulder is always right! Why doesn’t she belieeeeve already?”

First of all, believe in what? In aliens? In psychics? In Appalachian folk magic? Just because we saw a sewer mutant this week, doesn’t mean we should assume vampires are real the next week. You have to separately prove each of those things.

Second of all, Scully is a scientist. Science is not a set of beliefs, it’s a method for interpreting the world. Science isn’t invalidated because ghosts are real or whatever. If it turns out ghosts are real, then scientists will study them. Scully puts this perfectly when she says, “Nothing happens in contradiction to nature; Only in contradiction to what we know of it.”

Third of all, Mulder is not always right. Half the time he doesn’t even have a theory of the case, he just mumbles something about astral projection and then switches to poltergeists at the last minute and goes, “See, I knew it all along!” It’s easy to look right when your theories are unfalsifiable and constantly changing. Most of Mulder’s claims boil down to “something spooky is happening,” which could mean literally anything. He’s like a stage magician, redirecting the audience’s attention. He will stroll into an interrogation room with a suspect who’s acting crazy and go “Aha! She’s a psychic!” when it could be twenty other more plausible things. Maybe she’s faking it or having a seizure. Maybe she knows where the bodies are buried because she’s the killer, dummy.

Pay close attention. Don’t let Mulder razzle-dazzle you. The vast majority of X-Files are more easily explained by some combination of:

People lying

People being crazy

People being drugged

Cold reading

Government or criminal conspiracy

Unusual but natural phenomena (freak weather events, rare diseases, etc.)

Mulder will literally say shit to Scully like, “A complete lack of evidence is exactly the evidence I was hoping you’d find.” That’s not a theory of the case, that’s a riddle on the inside of a popsicle stick! What is this guy, the Mad Hatter?!

Scully is a fricking saint.

[matan4il]

@anon-e-has-a-tmblr asked regarding this post (that briefly referred to the UN's International Court of Justice's ruling):

Wait didnt the ICJ ruled FOR israel?? I dont understand any of this

That's a very good question. The answer is complex. On the surface, they ruled against Israel. The first part of their decision says Israel must immediately halt its military operations in Rafah, and since most people only read this first part, it was taken as a win by the Israel hating crowd. I don't follow every international news outlet out there, but from what I understand, that's pretty much how it was initially reported across the board. Here's an example from the BBC:

Then, the legal opinions of five of the trial's judges were published, including Aharon Barak's (the globally esteemed judge, former president of Israel's Supreme Court of Justice, and a kid Holocaust survivor... Someone who truly understands what a genocide is because he lived an actual one). Four of the five judges indicated that the ruling actually has a second part, where they mention that the military operations that that Israel must stop immediately in Rafah are limited to the ones which might lead to a genocide (the only judge to publish their opinion and disagree with this interpretation is the South African one. Pretend to be surprised).

In other words, the court didn't say, "Israel IS doing this thing, and therefore must stop," instead it said, "Israel must stop IF what it's doing could cause this thing." What the court ended up ruling is still kind of ambiguous when you try to translate it into practical rules on what is and isn't allowed, but it's probably the best that we could hope for, because it does allow military action in Rafah.

In other words, this is NOT the provisional measure South Africa was asking for, they wanted an immediate junction against any and ALL Israeli military operations in Rafah, and even in Gaza overall (they got neither), not a reference to this, but with an asterisk that allows Israel to continue operating there under certain conditions (though having to be even more cautious with any action that might be misinterpreted as contradicting said conditions). Given how politically biased against Israel the ICJ is, this absolutely can be taken as a win.

The issue is two fold.

First, since Israel is already pretty much already doing more than any other army to aid the civilian population under the rule of the enemy, if this is limiting us even more in having to demonstrate the crimes we're not committing (and think of how hard that actually is... how do you legally prove in-existence? If you had to prove you've never murdered anyone or had an intent to murder anyone, and had to do something beyond showing an arrest record clear of murder charges, how would you do that?) then how much military operational room do we have left to root out Hamas, and will it be enough to achieve our goals of destroying it and bringing back all of our hostages?

Second, and this is arguably the bigger one, is the optics of it. Because so many will only refer to the first part, and act as if the second part doesn't exist, that Israel's military operation in Rafah (you know, the city that Hamas just yesterday used to fire rockets from at central Israel, including Tel Aviv, in what was probably the first massive Hamas rocket attack since January on that area) does have to stop completely, and if we don't halt, then we're criminals. Just like some people used being Israel being to court as if it proves our fault (rather than wait for the required conviction to claim we're guilty), some will use the very fact this new provisional measure was issued to claim it's proof of our crimes, even though it's not.

In fact, I've already seen headlines reflecting how notoriously anti-Israel European Union senior Josep Borell is using this misinterpretation to pretend that Israel has to stop completely, or it's not complying with the court's ruling.

A full win for Israel would have been if the ICJ had ruled that there's no room for new provisional measures.

That was never going to happen with this biased court. Instead, the ICJ used the claim that things are deteriorating in Gaza to rule against Israel, even though it never found that it was Israel's fault that the situation is becoming worse (not to mention that they're basing the estimate of how the humanitarian, rather than military, situation is in Gaza is deteriorating on what Hamas is reporting. You know, the terrorists who are the actual culprits in using the Gazans as human shields, making things worse on purpose, for example through Hamas stealing the aid allowed in, and selling some of it back to Gazans at impossible prices).

So I hope this explains why, even though all things considered Israel got the best result it could at a biased court, it's still seen as a ruling against us, when everyone knows how it will be used (including the judges themselves. Listen to the American ICJ judge on this case, a month ago, already having to explain that the previous provisional measures were not a finding against Israel)...

(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)

[jewish-sideblog]

What is Zionism? What is anti-Zionism? These are genuine, serious questions, because everybody seems to have a different answer and those different answers are causing a lot of trouble.

Zionism used to have a clear message. “The ethnic group of the Jewish people should have the right to self-determination in our own country.” That was it. Theodor Herzl didn’t even specify that the country in question should be based in our historical homeland. At the time, anti-Zionism was simply a clear opposition to the ideal of Jewish self-determination.

Now Israel does exist. It’s now a fact, not a hope. So what does Zionism look like now? Some people think it means “Some kind of Jewish state should continue to exist,” and some people think it means “All Palestinians should die.” There are a million different interpretations of modern Zionism between those two extremes.

Revisionist Greater Israel Zionists want Israel conquer and expand, eventually taking over the entire Levant. Labor Zionists prefer a peace solution with Palestinians and Arab nations, and want to establish a socialist Jewish worker’s community in Israel. Christian Zionists want all the Jews in the world to go to Jerusalem so that Christ can come back and smite us all for being nonbelievers. Reform Zionists want to establish a more tolerant, inclusive, and pluralistic society for all within Israel. Is opposition to any of those ideologies “anti-Zionism”? I think it would be difficult to fully agree or fully disagree with every single one of those movements. Many of them contradict each other. Plenty forms of Zionism are even antithetical to each other.

It’s far simpler for the undereducated who aren’t connected to the people or the land to define Zionism as “Jews who support the genocide of Palestinians” and define anti-Zionism as “Any and all support for Palestinians”. But that’s exactly the mentality that leads ostensible leftists to parrot actual Nazi propaganda and recycle ancient antisemitism.

There are similar issues to defining Zionism as “Not wanting the all Jews in Israel to be mass-slaughtered by Arab supremacists” and defining anti-Zionism as “Wanting the all Jews in Israel to be mass slaughtered by Arab supremacists”. That mentality leads to unfair and violent practical treatment of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, and it leads to unfair conceptions of what Palestinian self-determination means to those living abroad.

Both Zionism and anti-Zionism are being used as tools for political gain. Both have been used as tools to justify death, persecution, and oppression. Zionists cannot erase the overwhelming number of Islamophobic Christian supremacists that identify with and act in the name of “Zionism”. And anti-Zionists cannot erase the overwhelming number of antisemitic supremacist groups that identify with and act in the name of “anti-Zionism”.

So genuinely— and I know I’m inviting a flame war here— what is Zionism to you? What is anti-Zionism to you? I honestly believe that most people are decent-minded, and that those who are decent-minded believe in peace and self-determination for all the native peoples in the Levant. And I think we can come to more meaningful solutions when we have genuine conversations with each other and better understand how the terminology is failing us.

[actual-changeling]

I have written many meta posts and s3-theories, and read even more, but I got hit by an idea I have not seen before. (If there is another post, please link it!)

After vibrating for an hour and losing my mind in my dms, I have no scraped together enough brain cells to present what is probably my first actual 'main-plot meta'.

Welcome to another edition of Alex's unhinged meta corner, today with a title to honour Crowley's James Bond obsession and the possibility of another heaven heist.

I give you:

From Jesus with Love - You Will Live Twice

Now, let's get right into it.

I think Neil might have told us more about the main s3 plotline in the announcement article than we previously thought. We all got stuck on 'they're not talking'—for good reason—but it is the part before that which has been bugging me ever since then.

The plans are going wrong—and this time that is a problem for earth and humanity. Turning that around, it means that whatever that plan consists of would be the way to go and beneficial for everyone, the opposite of the main plot of s1.

"They need to prevent the Second Coming (SC)" is pretty much the only and most popular idea I have seen, hundreds of fics and metas and whatnot have been written about it, but I think there's a good chance we're wrong. If we're not, well, I will honestly just be happy to be watching season 3.

Whatever the Metatron is planning will have negative consequences for everyone, or as Michael puts it: "And so… it ends. Everything ends. Time and the world is over, and we begin Eternity… forever and ever."

It sounds very much like Apocalypse #1 - Same Old Plan, same expected result, yet if we look at different interpretations of scripture we find that the SC is not entirely about complete destruction and death for all of humanity—it is about creating a new world/migrating to the kingdom of God.

This is taken from the Wikipedia article about the SC

Resurrection and life in a world to come are a direct contradiction to the result Michael is explaining—total annihilation of humanity.

Now, I am neither religious in any way nor have I ever received any sort of biblical education. Luckily, Christians seem to love talking about the bible because there are dozens of bible website to wade through. If I get anything wrong, please point it out, I have never touched a bible in my life.

So, after reading many, many quotes by a bunch of different guys, I tried to create a somewhat coherent picture of what the SC might look like based on the assumption that the end result is positive. I will talk about how they can be interpreted more in-depth later, otherwise this would turn into a string-net very fast.

Additionally, we can also see where these points overlap with the statement Jimbriel gave in the bookshop in episode three.

What is Jesus' job description?

only God knows when and how exactly it will begin/happen, no one else does, including Jesus and the Metatron

a lot of different catastrophes are mentioned or quoted as something Jesus said, like earthquakes and storms -> Jimbriel mentioned a tempest and great storms

there is also the line "All these are the beginning of birth pains." Birth pains dictate that there will be a birth—birth of the world to come perhaps?

dead people will be resurrected/leave their graves so that they too can be judged (I'd say participate in it but that sounds like the Second Coming is a summer camp activity)

there are also mentions of stars and the heavens in general falling from the sky and the sun going dark -> Jimbriel also mentions darkness as one of the signs

great lamentations, as Jimbriel says, are also a part of many different passages, with humans mourning the world as it was

the Lord will descent with the voice of an Archangel and the sound of a trumpet/the trumpet of God; the grammatical structure of that sentence seems to be interpreted differently depending on who you ask, but the voices of angels/an Archangel and some sort of trumpet are common terms

once everyone is in heaven/wherever the 'main even' will take place, a judgement call will be made for every single person in relation to the book of life, which decides whether they will be punished forever or not (one passage talks about a lake of fire and mentions it several times in a row)

And this is where it gets tricky. To figure out what the SC looks like, we first need to understand a) what the Metatron's capabilities are, b) what he has to lose, and c) what exactly would be a threat to him.

If you ask me, all of this comes down to the Metatron wanting to stay and be in power for eternity with full control over angels so he can do as he please, aka keeping the system running as it is.

We know the book of life (bol) is a thing in the Good Omens universe, whether it does what Michael said is an entirely different question. So far, we have also only got confirmation that hell collects and tortures souls—in such large amounts that they are understaffed—while heaven looks completely empty.

The Metatron runs heaven as an institution, he seems to be the highest power any of the angels have access to and the one they defer to. He refers to himself as the voice of God and combines judge, jury and executioner, making him one great celestial dictator.

From what we know of hell, they do things a lot more democratically, having different councils, dukes, and ranks that are responsible for different levels of command.

We also know that that the Metatron wants the world to end, his goals can probably be summarized as the statement Michael makes, which would leave him in charge without any opposing forces.

We also also know that he sees Crowley and Aziraphale as a threat—why exactly remains a mystery for now—and that the success of his plan hinges on having a Supreme Archangel (SA) he can control. Gabriel decided to become princess of hell and Beez' sugar baby, so he was out of the equation, and after the Armageddon disaster, I don't think he wants to risk failing because of an unfamiliarity with earth (plus, y'know, getting our two idiots away from the plan).

It's interesting to me that right at the end, he says to Aziraphale "We call it the Second Coming"—call, not it is or it will be, CALL. We know that nothing Neil writes is a coincidence, definitely not with such an important line.

Just because you CALL something a specific name doesn't mean it IS what you call it, e.g. Aziraphale calls Crowley a foul fiend when we know he very much isn't.

The Metatron is selling his plan as part of the "Great/Ineffable Plan", so any questions can be blocked by saying it's God's will, it's ineffable. Whatever his plan is, he hides it behind the concept of the Second Coming, which angels know just enough about to understand the basics without having in-depth knowledge of what exactly it entails.

It is a good fucking strategy, I'll give him that, and it WORKS because angels—even if they have doubts—do not question. They simply don't; fear of punishment and millennia of conditioning have left them in a horrible place. When they encounter something unknown, their response is "I already knew that" as to not ask questions.

Crowley questions, we know that, and Aziraphale, ohhhhh, Aziraphale ALSO questions, but he does it in a less dangerous and obvious way. The Metatron is vastly underprepared for that.

(Side note: That alone would be its own meta post, but the gist is that he questions heaven's plans and then adjusts his assumptions of what God might want to what he WANTS God to want, e.g. Job, the Arch)

To summarize everything I just said, the Metatron wants to do what Armageddon failed to do—destroy earth and the universe—so he can be supreme dictator of all remaining celestial beings and gorge himself on power.

But instead of calling it his Big Evil Plan, he calls it the Second Coming, making everyone play along without resistance.

We cycle aaaaall the way back to the sentence I quoted—the ACTUAL plans are going wrong since the Metatron's would mean total destruction.

But what is the SC supposed to be if not the Apocalypse 2.0?

When I look at all the different aspects of the SC and assume a positive outcome, then the end result to me would be a new world that is pretty much like the old world, or maybe even literally the old world but with any destruction reversed. Heaven and hell get dissolved since now that everyone has been "judged", they as institutions are no longer needed, they have fulfilled their purpose.

No more judgement means there is no reason to keep track anymore, so why do you need to run celestial corporations whose only job is doing exactly that? You don't—and THAT is what I believe is the biggest perceived threat to the Metatron, losing full control over everyone and everything, losing his position, his title, and whatever else he has.

On top of that, Good Omens has told us again and again that God doesn't seem to give a fuck about good and evil anymore, and that without heaven and hell being all wrapped up in it, humanity would have 100% free will without any consequences.

Maybe the BoL is empty, maybe it isn't real, maybe Jesus stole it to straighten a wobbly table, who knows. There is a chance it is what Michael says, but I would admittedly find that a bit. too obvious and boring since it would boil the plot down to "they save their own asses again" and not "they save humanity at all cost".

Regarding Crowley and Aziraphale's role in this—I have Thoughts TM but those definitely need their own post. In short, they have to get the SC back on track, the real one.

-

If you have made it this far, thank you for working through what I hope are more or less coherent rambles. Any spelling or grammar mistakes are my own.

Questions? Thoughts? Corrections? Expansions and additions?

Feel free to add to this post however you like (and I can't believe I have to mentions this but if you clown on my post or behave like an asshole you will be blocked).

[sugar-grigri]

Hey! Have you noticed the visual parallels between the gun fiend and Chainsaw man in this latest (152th) chapter?

The parallel between Aki and Denji in the last chapter

No, I hadn't noticed, and I like that others have because I might have an explanation for this parallel.

Fujimoto likes parallels, but this time he does it the other way round. Let me explain: for me, and according to my interpretation, he had already made an explicit reference to chapters 78/79 in this chapter:

Chapter 142 exploited Denji's relationship with others, but also with being a CSM, just as Fumiko's speech only reinforces the fact that even when she places herself as a victim, she reinforces Denji's position as a martyr.

Even when Fumiko argues that she saw CSM as a child, the chapter proves her wrong, whether through her unsuccessful manipulation techniques, her many contradictions, but above all her behaviour is typical, allowing Denji to deny the pain he suffered by killing his brother.

I won't go into it again ((if you want to know more, the link is above)) the only thing you need to remember here is that Fujimoto still intends to exploit Aki's death, albeit in a subtle, poetic way in part 2.

In chapter 152, Denji suffers because he has decided to; his suffering is his own, he demands it and even sees it as a means of experiencing pleasure. What's more, this chapter follows on from chapters 150/151 in Denji's claim to his own identity: I WANT to be CSM, and no one is going to stop me. The negative consequences are mine because I've decided to.

Whereas during his confrontation with Aki, Denji's identity was stolen by his "fans" (a theme dealt with in chapter 142), who positioned themselves as the only suffering parties (ignoring Denji's), and it was the frightened, bruised men and women who decided that CSM had to save them, had to act and kill.

So chapter 152 is more than an awakening, it's Denji who takes back the right to suffer if he has decided to do so. Before, it was always the others who decided, but instead of taking the plunge and saying: I'll never let myself suffer again, this time the martyr doesn't want his suffering to be taken away from him.

Because if we take away Denji's suffering, he won't turn into a CSM anymore

If that's taken away, his memories of Power and Aki are fragmented

These last two sentences are actually linked, because Denji has learnt to love just as much as he has learnt to suffer through Aki and Power. Aki's curse is to have been possessed by his sworn enemy, the Gun Devil, who reclaims his rights over the man who tried to resist him: to be there to make Aki's family suffer, always, even the second time around.

As the curse repeats itself, Aki's mind is stuck in his childhood, when it hadn't yet been broken, so he's blindly enjoying himself. Because, paradoxical though it may sound, it was when Aki realised the cruelty of this world, the loss of loved ones, that he tried to protect his family - the greatest act of love. Suffering is an awareness.

Aki had gambled on his suffering before, wasting his years of life with almost no ties. And when he began to change his perception of wanting to do something for his family, those wasted years didn't leave him enough time to protect his second family.

While he was escaping the suffering of his first family, he didn't even realise that he was causing the second to suffer. Fate was simply amused.

It is just as much for Power, a bestial being by nature who has already learnt about the suffering of losing loved ones with Meowy's kidnapping, Aki's anguish possessed at the door, bringing a birthday cake to Denji as an act of kindness, before realising that she would rather die than let Denji die. Suffering is also what brings destinies together and intertwines them.

Power and Aki are symbols of the same thing: when suffering began to be reflected in others, materialising in the fear of losing a loved one, fate turned against them.

So what Denji is doing is a narrative attempt to free himself from his fate, if he starts to fear more for Nayuta than for himself, if he stops being CSM for her, then the passage of suffering turned against oneself, there will always be someone to catch the ball. So Denji ends the cycle.

Denji will see no-one but his pain, Pochita, he will ignore even the flames that tore him away from his animal family, he will push back to Nayuta. It's a retreat into his own identity in the final chapter, a futile attempt to escape from a pain even worse than the pain of being cut in two, the pain of seeing another part of himself ripped away: a loved one.

Now we've pretty much understood the parallel. But don't forget the beginning of this post, Denji is doing exactly what Aki is doing.

Chapter 152 is the hero's attempt to regain control of his destiny, as if suddenly aware of the suffering inherent in the work, wanting to reverse it, to turn it into pleasure.

But he will not escape his fate. Denji may laugh, but only fate will have the last laugh.

[aminotvxq]

I tried to re-interpret/recreate some scenes from Yugioh DM: fan art series

#4. Episode 176 - Moving on is never the only option

Many of us believe that moving on is cool; and that those who refuse to move on and dwell on the past are a bunch of idiots. The actual matter of fact is that some people need much more time than some others to process their painful past experience. Moreover, some others should never force themselves to move on, or they'll sustain even more irrevocable psychological damage.

Rafael's brutal backstory takes an even more hedious turn when Dartz shows up to force him to move on. Rafael had been holding on to the hope that, if he is a survivor of a maritime disaster that had claimed dozens of lives, any one of his missing family might also be still alive somewhere. Dartz burns his last thread of hope by fabricating the evidence of the death of Rafael's family--by burying two juvenile skulls below the tombstones of his family and getting him to dig the ground himself. This is how Dartz draws the so-called "darkness in the heart" from Rafael.

Atem swiftly notices the contradiction that the skulls of MIA victims shouldn't be found in the ground. Rafael was, however, was too heartbroken at the time to notice the contradiction.

The darkness in Rafael's heart is resolved when Atem gives him a message that it is okay not to move on. The Seal of Orichalcos even dissolves when Rafael is reassured that it is the right path for him to believe his family and his favorite Guardian friends will always stay with him in whatever shape or form.

See #1, #2, and #3 here:

[ #1 ] [ #2 ] [ #3 ]

[cybsoo2]

heated red

╰┈➤ synopsis — Min Yoongi is a man of duality. Familiar with the sugary sweet side, you can’t help but be shocked at what hides behind closed doors.

╰┈➤ pairing — yandere!suga x reader

╰┈➤ word count — 3.5k

╰┈➤ content warning — murder, … DETAILED murder, gore, violence, strong language, yandere behavior, angst

Everything about Yoongi is sugary sweet. From head to toe, Min Yoongi is the sun of your universe. Every action and every gesture proves that he’s the world’s best boyfriend. 

You two have been dating for just over 2 years now, and it’s nothing short of perfection. At the beginning of your relationship, Yoongi could be mistaken as cold and uncaring; but his shy and thoughtful feelings are what brought you two together. It took some time for you both to become familiar with each other. Yet, Yoongi was determined in his attempts to get to know you. A rough relationship, still fresh and sensitive, bloomed into one of trust and time. Each touch that whispers against your skin says, “I know you, I understand you, I love you.” What Yoongi can't convey with the words that tongue-tie him, he settles to portray in his body language. 

His hands always feel so solid from the way they sink into your skin, assuring you of his presence and affection for you. Candy-coated words slide down your throat while he kisses you, mumbling confessions between breaths; “God, I’m so in love with you,” a breathless kiss in between, “I’d do anything for you.” No word he speaks is dishonest and each letter weighs with the seriousness of his admission. His eyes blind you in a heated red with how much fire burns beneath them. Burnt brown eyes, almost burdensome, frequently border on urgent. As if no matter how many times he says the words, it’ll never be enough for you to understand his devotion to you. 

Yoongi is loyal, kind, sweet, and everything else in between. You have no doubt that Yoongi will always continue to remain a constant comfort in your life. Although, no matter what way your brain has interpreted his presence, everyone else seems to think otherwise.

Regardless of who you cross paths with, friends, family, or foe, they plant seeds of doubt into your pretty little head. These troubling thoughts fester with wicked intentions and ideas. In Yoongi’s words, “The filth these people spit at you are just lies. Twisting themselves into your opinions and trying to cut me out. They’re just jealous. Don’t talk about them again.” When Yoongi speaks about the people that spill the blood that corrupts your mind, his face turns sour and his eyes shadow dark slits. This harsh look has played on your mind enough for you to stop bringing up the subject completely.

Yet these off comments and anxious looks continue to devour your mind. Whispers pick up in the wind about how Yoongi is a liar. They talk about the dead eyes that contradict the expressive cat-like ones that follow your motions. His heavy hands on your hips don’t match up to the tight grip he takes to the back of your friend’s necks. A warning, or a friendly gesture; you and those around you seem to have two very different ways of deciphering the deeper design of Yoongi’s actions. 

Today you felt like you were living life in a maze. Chasing demands from not only your boss, but Yoongi too. You spent the day running around the city until the sun set. 

You vividly remember how this morning had gone. Walking in through the elevator, shots of minimalistic grey meet your eye. Stale flowers and sweet perfume waft into the wind. You can’t help but feel small in the presence of such expensive luxury. Girls and guys decorated like dolls in diamonds. Even the blood on their hands shines like rubies. A strike upon the back of your head interrupts your staring.

“What are you doing standing there doing nothing? I’ve got things for you to do.” 

You’ve run yourself down running around like a headless chicken. Searching across town for the products and tasks you’ve been sent to complete. Vain efforts that are impractical and impossible. 

Once the hand hits 5 and your work is done for the day, Yoongi had texted you asking a few favours. No matter how drained you were, you could never refuse a request from him. You dragged your drowsy self into the driver’s seat and prayed the time would go by fast.

It did not. It seemed as if Yoongi was persistent that you stay running into endless walls and dead-ends. Too many things out of stock, nonexistent, or a million miles away. The stars start to shine in the sky, mirroring the way your eyes glisten with galaxies of exhaustion. 

The drive home is a blue blur. Your head mixes up time with tiredness, and your sore eyes paint watercolour tears over your surroundings. This bleary fog blinds you, and once it lifts the slightest bit, you find yourself standing at the front door. 

When you walk through the door, you wish you hadn’t. Yoongi’s kneeled over someone, it would look intimate if it wasn’t for the muffled screams and rageful roars that harmonize in the air. He’s shouting at her, choking and stumbling through laughter that never seizes. She’s trying to scream, but his hand holds a rag that’s shoved halfway down her throat. A dirted knife is held in his other.

You can barely recognize the women beneath her own blood and carnage, but you manage. You’re able to distinguish the bleached blonde hair that he rips from her scalp. The array of hair sprawled out around the two bodies guides your eyes to the bejeweled earrings you set your sights upon only hours earlier. This gore has glossed over the diamonds, leaving them dull and lifeless.

You remember the face that matched the gems, young and confident. That pearly white smile that once had you feeling envious has been knocked off her cocky grin. You’re able to pinpoint her place above you. Her, the idolized icon and you as her dirty dog. 

She’s your manager, or maybe she won’t be when Yoongi’s finished with her. She adopted you to be her pet. A plaything to possess in her position of power. Always replaceable and inevitably desperate, you played along with her game to keep your job. It paid well and the benefits were more than anyone could ever hope for. In a game of pain and promise, you chose the former in order to receive the latter. This tiresome torture laid an ache in your heart, yet Yoongi was there to stitch back the pieces. Giving yourself up to be teased and toyed with by a tyrant allowed you to have a peaceful life with Yoongi, separate from the harm.

Yet sometimes, in the blue afternoon when the world is set to silence, the stinging sadness slips through the cracks. You’ve never been good at keeping things hidden from Yoongi, and you’d like to assume the same for him too. You strained your sore throat through the crying and told Yoongi about everything that happens daily at work. Her taunts that leave you tense and the impossible tasks she’d give only to punish you after you failed to complete them. 

Your rampant rant had left you tired and you leaned up against his chest. The only sound that made sense in your mind was the rushing red flowing through his heart. A serene song that serenades you to sleep. You counted the beats as you drifted off into dreamland. 1, a heart that keeps Yoongi alive. 2, a heartbeat that means he’s here. 3, a heartache that tears him apart.

You couldn’t see it then, off in euphoria while Yoongi laid wide awake. But a bloodshot look with black pupils bled misery down his features. Hot and steady, sorrow fell off his face and the teardrops kissed your skin. Yoongi’s head and heart had been set ablaze into a state of chaos. Hot fury and cold desperation confused him. He’s angry and sad all at once. Although, much like any other time, his rage outweighed the anguish and fiery eyes ignited. 

This was 3 days ago. Yet now you stand amidst an annihilation. The bloodbath soaks every surface of your home. Lost pieces of hair, skin, and claret carnage find their way upon tabletops and splattered across the walls. The sight steals your breath, making you a mute statue in this red revelation. After minutes of struggling with a swollen tongue and stolen speech, you squeak out his name in surprise.

“Yo-Yoongi,” the words leave your lips tainted in tragedy. You can barely make out a single syllable from the flood of nausea that rushes through you. You sound so betrayed, it sends a hot hell-fire burning through Yoongi. The knife clatters to the floor when he whips his head up to face you.

“Y/n!” His gasp is laced with feverish panic that leaves his heart racing. Liquid white agony tangles itself through his veins. 

Once Yoongi directs all his attention to this distraction, the victim on the ground struggles against the dark burden of death. Her shrill scream pierces the silence as she whips her head back and forth in hysteria. Her own mindless panic causes her to smack her head against the wooden floorboards 10 times over. Blood sprays every which way as she mindlessly flails her lost limbs. It’s pathetic to watch her squirm under the inevitable circumstances. Severed stumps replace what was once her arms. Her legs fare no better; mutilated beyond repair, the joints cause their appendages to stick up in an unflattering way. 

The girl’s ear splitting shrieks muddled together with her own blood continue on without stopping. The inhumane noises are both maddening and horrifying to two different people. 

Yoongi feels his irritation rise to a breaking point. The fucked up bitch lying desperate on the floor is trying to ruin his chances of explanation. 

“SHUT THE FUCK UP!” He roughly grabs her head and bashes it into the floor until she stops screaming. She’s left a mangled mess upon the ground. Skin slit in every direction, and cuts ripped apart from the force of his anger. Brain matter spills out the back of her dented cranium. Her whole body twitches before falling into a limp pile amongst the bloodshed. 

Yoongi stands back up from his place knelt over her corpse. He frantically attempts to wipe off the scarlet sins that stain his hands. With a wild fever, Yoongi rubs his hands raw onto his pants and shakes his head in stress. You can see the way the stress sinks into his eyes as well, red-rimmed and tearing up as they stare into you.

“Y/n, y/n please. Please listen.” Each word is slurred together from the tears and terror that take hold of him. He rushes toward you in desperation and you watch as his eyes widen when you step back. “Please, this doesn’t mean anything. I still love you, I LOVE YOU!” His hopelessness destroys his composure as he begins yelling in order to get his message across. Seeing you flinch and fail to hide the fear in your watery eyes leads Yoongi to take a different approach. “I love you, I love you. This is just proving how much you mean to me.” He’s reached you now. Standing six inches away and tugging your figure to fall into him. “I’d do anything for you.” He mumbles his declaration in a low tone. He matches your misty eyes and stares into you. 

He holds half your weight, keeping your knees from giving in and dropping you downwards. He keeps you pushed gently against the wall and pressed into his chest. His hands keep your head cradled gently as he moves to hug you close. 

He lays kisses along your jawline and makes his way up, hoping that if he tries hard enough, he’ll be able to subdue the sadness. He’s counting the crystals as they fall and making sure they don’t double. 

Yoongi hates seeing you cry. His hands shake along with yours as the remorse for his actions flows through him. Although don’t be mistaken, his repentance should not be confused with regret. No, Yoongi doesn’t regret killing that filthy bitch at all. Pride swells in his chest and he chokes back a smile from reminiscing on her screams. Yoongi instead is regretful of not being more careful. He should’ve hidden this better. Shouldn’t have gotten caught up in the rush and been careless with his decisions. He wishes you never would’ve seen that.

Your tears leave tracks in the bloodshed he’s spilled upon you. Your cries have been shushed into small sniffles, but you feel all the same. Shock has taken over your limbs, leaving them heavy for him to carry. All thoughts have been blown out of your head at the drop of this bombshell. 

What were once lipstick marks are now bloodstains. He continues to kiss the pain away. Dragging his lips slowly up your neck and back down lower. These ruby smudges leave raised marks when his caressing begins to hold back an anger. If you could get your mouth to mutter easy words, then you would tell him that his lips sting. His kisses feel like bleach to bare skin. The trails he traces down your body leave shadows of his sins. Each peck he places on your pink cheeks holds the memories of the shouts he yelled only moments prior. 

“Let me get you cleaned up.” His husky whisper is placed at the base of your jaw. He pulls himself away far enough to look in your eyes. Your foreheads almost touching and your warm breath being shared between you. When you don’t resist he places a final kiss to your lips before steadying you against him once more. 

He’s patient and careful in the way he puppeteers your movements. Taking control of each limb as if it’s his own. He towers over you with the way he holds you. Your feet placed atop his, he walks you two, slow and steady, to the bedroom. Placing you down on the bed, he keeps you safe with your head nestled into his neck. He kisses the top of your head and lingers. Grabbing the hem of your shirt, he asks a question that only stills in the quiet.

“Good?” There’s no response. He bends down a tad bit further to try and look into your drowsy eyes. Your head hung so heavy against his collarbone only lets him move so far. “Tell me if you’re uncomfortable.” He takes off your top, moving to your pants, and then follows with your underwear. Empathetic emotions sway his movements as every action is taken bit-by-bit. Taking your body’s behavior as a guiding force on what causes your anxiety to jump. Strong, sharp movements cause you to recoil and a voice that resembles even a hint of a shout or gravely tone sends shivers up your spine. Your goosebumps travel across Yoongi’s skin too. 

Now you’re left bare and sensitive under his skin. Yoongi works to avoid your empty eyes. Instead, he makes sure to support your vulnerable soul. You’ll remain in his arms where he’ll keep you warm and safe. He clings to your fading existence as he takes you into the bathroom. He holds a patient pace, wary of the wind that might steal away more pieces of you. 

He tears his clothes off in a blur, focused on attending to you. Sitting you on the edge of the bathtub, he reaches over to turn on the shower. Each minute is counted in Yoongi’s head as he waits for the water to warm up. One hand extended out to feel the heat, and the other rested on the crown of your head. You rest against his stomach, forehead sticking to his stress induced sweat. So limpid and lazy, you don’t even take the chance to outstretch yourself and grasp onto him. His waist is cold without your arms wrapped around it. Your brittle breath against his belly-button only startles the man instead of teasing a lustful heat that such a position would usually bring. You just lay like a dead doll against him. So silent and still you can almost hear the snakes that stir up a storm in his stomach. 

When the water is a tender temperature, Yoongi picks you up from the meat of your thighs and slides you two into the steam. You stay standing under the water for a while; waiting and watching as time continues its cascade. Yoongi tries to take away all the blood smeared across both of you. Slender hands slide across your skin, rubbing at the red until it washes away. 

His actions soon become more aimless as he grows selfishly desperate to feel your soul. His hands laid heavy upon your hips. His grip tightens and he places meaningless pecks anywhere he can find. His fingernails press a little too deep into your pink flesh, yet there’s no reaction to the pain. His hands work in a flurry to fist any piece of skin he can latch onto. Your wet bodies are so close you’re on the verge of blurring into one. So close, yet Yoongi still can’t feel you. There’s no life beneath his fingertips.

Your despondency startles him. Usually your energetic nature is what he relies on most. A permanent piece of his life that never changes and never falters. Just looking at you now, feeling the cold statue in his arms, he wants to cut himself to shreds attempting to bleed out this displeasure. Even if it is his own doing, he’ll make sure he’s also the one to fix you. 

Yoongi starts by shifting you both so you can sit in the base of the bathtub. He reaches to the shelf above your head and grabs the shampoo. His hands work their way through your hair. He detangles the knots from both your curls, and hopefully your mind. Yoongi has always been so meticulous in everything he does. He takes long, languid movements to assure no soap gets in your eyes. And when a droplet slips past his grasp, he’ll kiss away the escapee while grimacing at the suds his tongue tastes. 

His caring efforts are used to calm himself just as much as they are meant for you. He’s trying to distract himself from his uneven breathing that edges the line of a mental breakdown. His rasping continues as he now reaches for the second bottle above you. 

Once again, Yoongi works to lather the conditioner in his hands before smoothing it through your hair. He’s petting you how someone would comfort a dog, or console a crying child. Each easy touch he makes in order to not startle you any further. When he grabs the soap, he’s diligent with his motions. Efficient at scrubbing you clean, but tender in the way he maneuvers you. 

An hour washes itself down the drain. The water has run cold and the stream has cooled away. Yoongi takes your hands and wraps them around his neck before picking you up. He places you on the bathmat and reaches to grab a towel. You're patted dry before being wrapped in the dirty towel. Lifted up again, the man in front of you takes another dry towel off the rack. Yoongi is shaking from the frigid temperature that creeps around him. This feeling could be the least of his worries and he only pays attention to scaring away the icy droplets from your hair. He smooths your hair in one stroke with the towel then follows up by softening your strands with a brush. This two step process continues until Yoongi has been completely air-dried by the bitter cold. Random but repeated chills bite along his bare back and stir up shivers. 

Atrophy sets in when Yoongi begins to dress you. You're shock-still and there are no signs of it stopping. Unstirring and motionless, set to fall unless Yoongi was there to hold you. It’s significantly more difficult to dress you, so Yoongi only settles for underwear and one of his shirts. He decides to only wear boxers, opting to show you the most humane and vulnerable parts of himself. He leaves himself defenseless, ready to accept anything you give him. You’re pulled and pushed until you settle into the sheets. Both Yoongi and the bed wrap around you. Clinging to every empty space of you, they work to make you warm and soft for sleep. 

Yoongi pushes himself closer against you and tugs at the covers to bring them up higher. His bitten lips lay resting on the nape of your neck. He navigates his hands through the blankets to find your own. He noses the back of your neck and wishes pretty pleas for you to wake up like none of this ever happened

“I’m sorry… I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry…” His melody of the sincerest apologies sings you to sleep. His hymn echoes off the shadowed walls of the bedroom and settles into background noise. The soft words vibrate against your back, almost resembling a purr. Saccharine sorrys and repeats of “Don’t be afraid, I’d never hurt you,” are mumbled until Yoongi loses his voice. His sore throat stings with a metallic taste. 

Feverish determination ends up sedating his sorrows. He’ll guide you into his good graces once again. He’s patient and gentle. As time tumbles onwards, he’ll be the best boyfriend once again, because everything about Yoongi is sugary sweet.

© cybsoo2 2024, all rights reserved

[island-in-the-shadows]

Truly, my sympathies to people watching IWTV and are getting tired/bored of different perspectives. I'm not bored or even remotely tired.

Interviews by their very nature are perspective based. The story has this specific framing. As did the first book. They added to it with Armand now being an active participant and Daniel being more seasoned at interviewing. I understand how Armand's very edited and hyperbolic take on events that Book Lestat describes in The Vampire Lestat rubs people the wrong way. I do think that one could argue the way Lestat writes his own autobiography is the objective truth (note Armand in his book does not contradict Lestat). However, sorry to say, there is never an objective truth. The truth is always subjective.

I was raised by a whole family of lawyers and if I learned anything is that you can spin things in any way, but an objective truth will never exist. Not in crime, not in person to person storytelling, not in fictional storytelling. Hell, viewers seeing the SAME show CANNOT come to a consensus. Why? Because we all put our thoughts, experiences, and feelings to it. That's all perspective.

We see Louis give Armand a kiss in bed. Some think aw domestic and cute. Some think Louis is deliberately withholding and rewarding Armand for good behaviour. Some saw the act they put on in E2 as some version of truth and domesticity and some think it's only an act. Some think Dreamstat is actual Lestat out there somewhere and some think it's Louis' conscience.

Yes, the narrative will confirm one thought or another on some things but not all of them. They're deliberately left up to interpretation. Something btw, Lestat urges the reader to do in TVL when he does not go into details about his time with Louis and Claudia. And part of that has to do with perspective.

We could have a straightforward narrative with no corrections and no perspectives. But would that be as interesting as seeing how minds that far exceed our own twist and bend and interpret events? Would it be as interesting as seeing a vampire who tells himself a story so that he can carry on living despite being miserable? Would it be as interesting as this vampire who tells himself a story get pushback on what he's saying by someone who notices errors and inconsistencies? Would it be an interview at all? Or would it be, as Daniel put it in the very first episode, "a fever dream told to an idiot."

If you want a straightforward non-challenging version of the story, the 1994 movie exists. It's not perfect and a lot of details are missing, but there's only one, unchallenged perspective to it. And even then...how many people didn't (want to) see the queerness in it?

TL;DR I get being frustrated or tired or bored by the way the show is trying to tell the story, but at least it's doing something a little different and not word for word.