#yes that parallel with take me to church is there for a reason

[libraford]

I'm not bothered by the conversation so much as I am a growing approach to activism which makes it impossible to interact with other people. Which echoes a lot of that conversation I had with Ginger this week.

He refuses to have friends that are not faithful to Jesus. Like, he can have a productive conversation with a non-believer and nearly connect with them socially, but if he learns that they don't go to church or don't believe in christ, he finds it difficult to take them seriously because their words were not god-inspired.

Ginger was in a cult. I do not mean this colloquially- Xenos/Dwell is a prominent pseudo-christian cult in central Ohio that preys on college students in need of community. There are rules about who you can date, who you can hang with, they practice gay coversion therapy, and will tell you not to visit your family if they're not Christian.

There is a lot of focus on purity. Actions, thoughts, social groups- it's very controlling about what you can and cannot do.

So. When he goes out into the world with us sinners, it becomes difficult to interact with general society.

We were talking about Merve, one of our foremen, and I said: "the first time I was in a car with Merve, he introduced himself as a Democratic Catholic Pervert. And honestly- yeah that's a good summation."

Ginger didn't like that at all. "Well he's not a very good catholic with all that talk of pornography, he should be ashamed of himself- honestly shouldn't even call himself Christian."

Merve is very much a womanizer, but it's all talk. He's gross about it sometimes and it rubs me the wrong way, but in all fairness- he warned me. Outside of that, he's what I expected from a 60-something landscaper.

"Well, I think whether he's a good Christian or not is up to God, not us."

And he got a little pissy over that comment because I caught him judging.

He only hangs out with 'the faithful' at work, which consists of three guys who are religious in a similar way and it's caused a bit of a rift in the culture. It's gotten a little... preachy. It wasn't preachy before.

So I am making... parallels to this behavior and a particular strain of activism that's been affected by purity culture.

Nothing is ever good enough. If it touches racism, it's banned forever and you have to spread the word about how it's racist. Where doing things that are well-intended puts you in the spotlight for the underlying and actually bigoted reason you're doing a nice thing. And prevents you from doing the nice thing in the future.

Because yes you did a nice thing, but it wasn't enough- you could be doing more.

Yes you did a nice thing, but you did this nice thing instead of tackling this bigger issue.

Yes you did a nice thing, but it was through this program that you didn't know was funded somewhat unethically.

Yes you did a nice thing, but your motivation for doing it wasn't the goodness of your heart, it was motivated by guilt.

Yes you did a nice thing, but it took a horrible event to do it when you should have had the morals of goodness ingrained in you and you should have done this from the start.

Yes you did a nice thing, but you only did it when it started impacting your life and you should be thinking of others first.

Yes you did a nice thing but the nice thing doesn't align perfectly with my worldview.

The goalpost is forever moving backwards.

No one likes to be called 'racist.' It's a really easy weapon to use when something does something you don't like. If you look at anything closely enough, you will see it's racist roots. You could say the same for misogyny, homophobia. Our society is built on hatred and inequality. Untangling it and living a morally pure life free of ridicule is impossible.

Recognizing the roots of an action to be bigoted is the first step. The second step is knowing it when you see it. Step three is pointing it out.

But there are more steps.

Pointing it out, or calling it out, and chastising someone for ignoring or not knowing something actually isn't all that helpful. Because it leaves you to wonder- okay, now what? What can I do to remedy this situation?

Which is the next step- actionable items. Yes, I have done something wrong- I am sorry.

I am sorry. Now I will try to make it right.

I will try to make it right by donating, by volunteering time, by listening to the people who have been hurt and lifting their voices.

Part of healing from an oppressive Christian community is realizing that people are going to sin whether you like it or not. And barring harm to themselves and others, you're gonna have to let them.

If my tarot practice is derived from a 15th century racist, then it was derived for a 15th century racist. Refusing to participate in a past-time that helps me connect with my family doesn't make it not racist. It will still be racist. But I'm not sure who it's hurting in 2024 and I don't have a time machine and I'm not being given clear instructions for how to unracist it.

[wellofdean]

I still remember what Jensen said years ago, I think he would disagree with Rob and Rich https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GjTN6m5WUAAxsWG?format=jpg&name=small

Here's the content of that link. Many apologies for reposting, but:

So, my first answer to this is, as I've said before, I am infinitely more interested in the text itself than I am in what any of them say about it, and the text is what it is (GAY). What's nice about these episodes of Rich & Rob's podcast is that they are actually responding to the thing we all saw in our TV box, and saying "Dial it down to 11 guys, geez," which: Yes. Good to know y'all can see a church by daylight.

But also, in the Q&A format at a con, there are loads of different reasons Jensen might say this or that. What's the context here? Who is he onstage with? What's the crowd like? What exactly was the question? Also, this answer rightly acknowledges that the "whole Dean and Cas thing" was poppin' off in season 8. Well spotted. Perhaps he is thinking that the show needed to separate them for awhile so they wouldn't have to just fucking make out already? In fact, perhaps that was exactly the thinking, because honestly, season 9 goes off on the star-crossed Destiel, complete with parallel cross-species romances to interrogate proof of concept and some serious Romeo and Juliet-ass shit:

Dean praying to Cas and saying "I need you here" while he agonises about what to do about Sam; the whole painful kicking Cas out of the bunker storyline with the yearning date prep and the fanfic gap (plus LOADS of other shit in that episode); Cas gets killed by April and Dean tenderly cradles his face and then is jealous about the sex; they have a big vulnerable heart-to-heart about the Sam situation and why Dean kept Cas away and Cas forgives him immediately and helps Dean; Dean takes the mark of Cain and the Crowley/Dean/Cas love triangle start revving up; Collette is invented for the sole purpose of paralleling Cas; the Garth is a werewolf episode is here about finding love in unexpected places! love Is love, yo!; the fitness centre episode with its many implications that Dean is into dudes; Metatron's speech about what gives a story meaning; Gabriel calls Cas Dean's boytoy; Metatron tells Cas "I left you human because I hoped you would live happily ever after" because HE KNOWS; the whole Romeo and Juliet thing in episode 20 with the werewolf/shapeshifter romance that pointedly mirrors Dean and Cas; Dean drops everything to go help Cas, leading to Cas giving up his army for one man; Hannah is invented to throw another triangle into the works; Metatron says Cas is in love..............with humanity; Dean dies (Juliet much?) and comes back a demon.

Like, I am leaving LOADS out.

Firstly? They were 💯 writing it like that. They leaned the fuck in every chance they got. And secondly, y'all get that Jensen pointedly does not talk about subtext, or things that the story is doing on the DL, or about things that haven't happened yet, and he doesn't talk about any of Dean's feelings that Dean would not openly talk about himself? Jensen is actually admirably disciplined and principled about it? And, you know that he could also just be disingenuous on purpose to avoid doing so, and to allow unspoken things to remain unspoken? If he just tells us, where's our joy in figuring it out going to come from? Y'all should THANK HIM for not stealing our joy.

I personally think? Jensen is clever. He is very intentional and I think he knows what he's doing. If you consider that Jensen talks AS DEAN in cons and never goes beyond something Dean would say, well...then it makes sense he would say that in light of the fact that anyone who understands narrative can see that the text itself is WALL TO WALL star-crossed Destiel, because that's what happens when you separate them and then write them as you have been all along. I'm glad he enjoyed it! Me too!

Like, either you think Jensen is a full idiot, or you have to admit that there might be layers to the things he says.

[beebopboom]

Refined by Fire

annndddd we are back folks with the Death of one Agnes Nutter

Awhile ago @justhereforthemeta made this post about Agnes having some parallels to Jesus which is what really got the wheels turning in my brain in the first place and well now here we are

but just to recap-

Check out part 1 for a list of all her prophecies that we know of and all the artwork I could find referenced in her book

In part 2 we started to dive into where she was getting her prophecies from through some clues left in her book and on her work bench

but now we are going to look into the events surrounding her death

There is something poetic about the last true witch in England and all her prophetic work going up in flames. Even moreso that Agnes Nutter knew her fate and yet she still went out on her own explosive terms

But let's just start with the basics

Fire

Biblically speaking fire is seen as a symbol of God's presence and a tool for their judgement - to either purify or destroy

But generally speaking it is a symbol of transformation, purification, and rebirth

Pentacle

Now something interesting Agnes wears to her death - other than roofing nails and gunpowder - is a pentacle. From my understanding the main difference between a pentacle and pentagram is just the circle on the outside

At their core pentacles - no matter the symbol on the inside - are objects of evocation. Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa summarized there use as,

“fore-know all future, and command whole nature, have power over devils, and Angels, and do miracles”

Going back a bit to the actual symbol on the inside - the pentagram was actually an early symbol for the five wounds of Jesus represented by the five points. This was a symbol of the church and could be used as a symbol of protection against demons and witches

Now it wasn't really until the 1800’s that this symbol started to be associated with the more modern interputation with witchcraft and even then it was only associated with “evil” when inverted.

There is a long history with this symbol with tons of different meanings - from the body of man to the elements with a common theme of mind over matter - but at the time of Agnes’s death, 1656, it had not yet been associated as a symbol of witchcraft as far as I am aware but I’m willing to accept that maybe it was just an oversight or that I’m reading too far into it as it really is just a small detail.

Offering

A burnt one to be exact - now just hear me out I know we are going off the rails a bit

Yes burnt offerings are laid out to only be certain animals but there are instances of human ones as well - Jephthah’s daughter for example and well, Jesus.

Not that the show skips out on the animal burnt offering just look to the Job minisode plenty of examples there - the goats supposedly destroyed in the explosions only for them to be transformed and the whole ass ox upon the altar - but anyway

Jesus’s sacrifice on the Cross is seen as like the Ultimate Burnt Offering apparently. Burnt offerings were typically used as a way to atone for wrongdoings, to show appreciation and a way to appease God - the act of completing giving oneself over to God.

But because Jesus died on the Cross people no longer had to atone. With the burnt offering Jesus accomplishes the Will of God - completely consumed and ascended to God - he restores humanity relationship with God.

So upon the altar that they willingly went to, they were tied. For they knew the reason of their death and called out,

Father, please. You have to forgive them. They don’t know what they are doing

And let my death be a message to the world. Come. Come, gather thee close I say, and mark ye well the fate of those who meddle with such as they do not understand.

Those around them are unaware of the consequences of their actions - one begs for their forgiveness, the other cast judgement onto them.

Agnes does not take her fate of going out quietly. If her death is be an offering, of the start of the end - well what better way to go than with a bang

All her neighbors that she helped heal had all turned on her and called for her death - so she gave them their judgement through explosion and roofing nails

Her village got a completely new start with her death - a chance to be better

also fun fact the Hebrew word for "burnt offering" actually means to “ascend” mainly referring to the smoke that would rise and the smell would appease God

Gold

but Agnes’s story hardly ends with her death - No her work lives on but we aren’t here to talk about her prophecies but rather something she gives in return for keeping them safe

Gold Coins

she leaves a letter each for the two men we see having to keep track of the box containing the further prophecies and when those letters are opened out drops a gold coin

They each have a different reaction to the gold coin - one acknowledges it and then continues on to his letter the other reads letter first and then scrambles to grab the coin and leave.

Now gold in general is a symbol of God’s glory and is associated with a divine presence. It can also represent material and spiritual wealth.

but it’s probably worth mentioning The Parable of the Ten Gold Coins yeah?

In this Jesus tells of a nobleman that gives one coin each to ten servants and tells them to use it while he is gone and when he gets back the first one had turned his one coin into ten, the second had turned his into five, and the third hid his in fear of losing it. The first two are praised and rewarded while the third is punished.

The message from this is that of how people are to use the gifts given to them in order to produce results for the Kingdom of God whenever it comes around. People are to use their gifts wisely, responsibility, and productively.

Now remember those two men from earlier - one using the coin and predictions to build a successful law firm and the other almost seems like a punishment? Where is our first/middle man? The Device family? I would say so

Originally I thought this was a lesson of greed but this seemed to fit slightly more. Also way to hammer in that you are a divine presence Agnes with the gold

Agnes has rigged her Wheel of Fate and I hope she is raising some hell up in Heaven - she certainly succeeded on Earth

————————————————————————

and that’s a wrap on her death. Join in next time for the finale where we will dive into the legacy left behind - family, masonry, ……and what’s up with Maggie?

[cooking-pol-martin]

Green Bean Time Machine

There's this literary concept of a madeleine, which is a metaphor for something that causes you to be mentally transported back to a moment in time. It can be a taste, a smell, a sound which provokes an involuntary memory. The concept comes from Marcel Proust's À la recherche du temps perdu (or In Search of Lost Time)*. The main character takes a bite of a madeleine dipped in tea -- a madeleine is a small cookie -- which overwhelms him with memories of his childhood, the recounting of which fills seven volumes and became a Modernist classic.

There's something of a visual joke about this at the end of the movie Ratatouille -- yes, I mean the cooking rat cartoon -- when the antagonist-critic takes a bite of the titular dish and you see a series of flashbacks of his childhood. (Arguably, the way our cooking rat links experience to memory is one of the theses of that movie, such as it is.) Smell and taste can be deeply, personally evocative, bound as they are to cultural identities individual, familial, and societal.

Which is why I say with some horror that Pol Martin's "Fresh Green Beans with Sour Cream Sauce" transported me back to the 1970s, an involuntary reverie of a particularly turgid period in American cooking. I didn't even know I had those memories.

Before I get into the way-back machine and start working through my generational trauma, I should probably detail the cooking process. First off, Pol had me get out a big pot, fill that bad boy with water, and then boil the ever living fuck out of a pound of green beans. It wasn't as horrific as the boiled leeks, which. I then was to make a roux and pour in reserved water from cooking the green beans, which resulted in a thin, unpleasantly gray gruel. The sauce was finished with not enough sour cream to ungruelify it. Serve over the beans, etc.

So I served this nonsense up, and the family set to eating. My first bite and I started to feel things: the almost overdone-ness of the vegetables married to a dairy-based sauce with virtually no seasoning transported me back to a place I can barely articulate. This dish isn't something my mom would ever make -- she could actually cook, even in the 70s -- but I have the phantasmagorical sense of church potlucks and luncheons after funerals of relatives I can't even remember. It was firmly disquieting.

My youngest kid, a senior in high school, piped up: "Can you take constructive criticism?" You bet your ass, kid. I'm already way ahead of you.

Meanwhile, sitting next me at the table, my husband was grubbing. "This is just great!" he cried. What the actual fuck.

After a fair amount of crosstalk, arguing, and shuddering from yours truly, the family decided that the longer you were alive during the 1970s, the more likely you were to enjoy this Pol Martin green bean abomination. My memories of that decade were created when I was largely prelinguistic, and feel broken and dark, unformed. My husband has a couple years on me, apparently long enough that unpleasantly gray gruel transported him to a place that made sense.

There's a reason my folks largely checked out of popular culture during that period -- beyond the way that having small children ruins your cultural engagement -- and that's because the 1970s sucked. I can see how my dad shakes his head when he talks about the 70s: the American people felt betrayed by Watergate, and the hard-fought successes of the Civil Rights movements bled out, literally, into a dozen political assassinations, domestic massacres like Kent State and the fucking horror shows of the Vietnam war and the illegal and immoral bombing of Cambodia. The first political event I remember was Carter being voted out of office in 1980, God rest his soul. The relationship with the current cultural moment feels grimly parallel.

Phew.

I didn't mean to get so serious in this here blog where I lightheartedly cook some nonsense recipes from a French Canadian chef, but here we are. Food culture is culture, and I suppose it's inevitable that one of these recipes would act as madeleine for memories that have whatever the inverse of nostalgia is.

*I know that reading seven volumes of a 100 year old French novel isn't on anyone's to-do list, but I'm telling you: that shit is some massively entertaining grandiloquent bitchiness.

[proclaimtheword]

Bible study notes: Gospel of John, Acts, Romans

I had finished the book of Acts yesterday evening, in about a week since I finished the Gospel according to John (I decided to skip the first three gospels for some reason, then just planned to continue on until Paul’s letters; I will come back to it before I finish the NT with Revelation). I had a lot of notes from John, mainly affirming Jesus’ authority, divinity, teaching and resurrection.

A memorable scene for me (as I typically imagine the story play out in my head while reading) is towards the end when the Risen Christ sits down, eats and talks with Peter and John, the disciple he loves, who also says to have written the book. After previously being denied three times when He was being tried, Jesus gives Peter a chance to redeem himself in an almost poetic, parallel manner:

Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of Jonah, do you love Me more than these?” He said to Him, “Yes, Lord; You know that I love You.” He said to him, “Feed My lambs.”

He said to him again a second time, “Simon, son of Jonah, do you love Me?” He said to Him, “Yes, Lord; You know that I love You.” He said to him, “Tend My sheep.”

He said to him the third time, “Simon, son of Jonah, do you love Me?” Peter was grieved because He said to him the third time, “Do you love Me?” And he said to Him, “Lord, You know all things; You know that I love You.” Jesus said to him, “Feed My sheep.”

‭‭John‬ ‭21‬:‭15‬-‭17‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

There are many important events in the gospel, but to me that was the most heartfelt and impactful. How the Lord is so good and faithful, even to us who fail Him! Truly He is God and Savior. I was even more in love with Jesus.

And indeed Peter redeems himself—in the next book, Acts, he preached Jesus everywhere, despite facing persecution from both Romans and Jews. As Jesus said to Peter, “On this rock, I will build My church, and the gates of hell will not overcome it.” We see the apostles laboring to get the church off the ground. They were brave and emboldened by the Spirit, and did many wonders in Jesus’ name. I truly believe the apostles’ testimony of the Risen Christ. This is the cause of our faith: the apostles testified that Jesus is the Messiah, and that He rose from the dead, and we must repent and be baptized so we may be forgiven for our sins.

Again, one of my favorite “scenes” from this is when the crowd had plotted to kill Peter and the apostles who miraculously escaped from jail with God’s help, and a council teacher named Gamaliel stands up to them and says:

[…] keep away from these men and let them alone; for if this plan or this work is of men, it will come to nothing; but if it is of God, you cannot overthrow it—lest you even be found to fight against God.”

‭‭Acts‬ ‭5‬:‭38‬-‭39‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

And it made me think, yes! Indeed it is the work of God. If our faith was in vain, it would not have survived and persisted for 2000 years amidst all challenges. How else could you explain that a small group of men started what pretty much was a cult that was heavily persecuted during those times, and that became a dominant global religion that it is today? Jesus told the disciples to preach and baptize “to the ends of the earth” and said, “I will be with you to the end of age.”

God is faithful! In Romans, Paul writes “If God is for us, who can be against us?” In this first book of letters he shows his incredible reasoning and oratory skills. He argues between law and grace, how salvation came first to the Jews then to the Gentiles, and both are equally saved by the same faith in Jesus Christ.

Conclusion: translations, how I read and study, and keeping reverence for the Bible

I have been reading the Bible for about two weeks now. I use NKJV personal size by Thomas Nelson, and I absolutely love it. It’s large print, easy to read, leather copy cover, big and sturdy to hold which makes reading that much more enjoyable. I like my bible clean, I don’t make any marks, and I take good care of it, not only because it cost me money, but also I believe there is a way to study and show respect for the Bible. One thing I realized is that I don’t need to make too many highlights or notes simultaneously. Sometimes the busyness makes you think you’re understanding when you’re actually not, so it’s better to simply read and enjoy and reflect on the text. I can always deep dive a second time. This is how I feel I can go through the Bible quite easily. At this rate I might finish the NT in less than two weeks.

[emily-mooon]

Tell me ur Jancy thoughts. It can be anything you want I will take on the burden of brainrotting with you 🩷

Yes Dearie! We brainrot together!

Like last time, list of random jancy headcanons and thoughts that are brainrot induced.

- Nancy Wheeler pining after Jonathan post s1 lives in my head. I cannot describe it in full because it is hard to word for my tired brain. All you need to know is that she screams in a pillow too, but instead at three am and very quietly because she lives and breathes denial for obvious reasons.

- I don’t know why i love the idea of a Jancy son but it’s in a far more chaotic way. Guy is just Jonathan in high school turned up to 11 since it’s like the mid to late 2010s when he’s a teen and pretentious is far different in the 2010s than it was in the 80s. Also he has a little sister and she gets along very well with her uncles and they play Mario and Pong together.

-Jancy eloping is real and true. They show up at Christmas and announce that they got married like a week ago and Karen drops a mug out of shock.

-they are both equally madly in love with each other. That’s it that’s the sentence.

- Nancy still has the blue striped sweater. She never gave it back to Jonathan. It became hers in November of 1983 and she still wears it to this day.

-Drunk Nancy and drunk or high Jonathan cling onto each other. If one of them goes missing, the other one is close behind.

- they cuddle in every type of weather. Doesn’t matter if it’s 35℃ outside, they are holding each other close the whole night through and living that Wouldn’t It Be Nice by The Beach Boys lifestyle

- I will die on this hill but Jonathan gets Nancy into a few of the songs from bands he likes.

- ok I saw this with Jargyle but this also applies to Jancy in my mind: Jonathan is the type of person to comment on old 80s alt rock music videos and tells a backstory. Like for example, he tells the story of how Just Like Honey by The Jesus and Mary Chain was the song he and his now wife once made out too or how Under The Milky Way by The Church reminds him of the time he went stargazing with at the time just a friend and now wife. He also has one of the most emotional and sweet story about how he fell in love with his wife under the Wouldn’t It Be Nice music video. I don’t remember who made that headcanon for Jargyle but they were a genius for that because it’s true and real and applies to many Jonathan parings.

-bandage wrapping scene my beloved come back to me in a parallel next season where Jonathan wraps a wound up for Nancy after she did that for him. Why have just one matching scar when you can have two?

- ok your headcanon about college era Jonathan getting really into baking while Nancy is studying abroad gave me the idea of him baking two batches of cookies in one week and sharing them with the wnyu members is one that I enjoy because they question if he’s ok cause that is a lot of cookies to make in one week.

Ok this got long so I’m going to end it here.

Thank you for the ask Dearie and I hope you have a good night!

[myrxellabaratheon]

The Lannisters are the ASOIAF Borgias

Yes, I just realized it now!

HI everyone, it's your Italian girl obsessed with Italian Renaissance and History here!

This probably ig going to be messy and all the things are going to be quoted by heart because I'm lazy BUT I just had this epiphany so you will all bear with me.

Considering the title of this post it might be went unsaid but TW: incest applies to the entirety of this little things. So... Let's start.

Tywin is Rodrigo. I mean, it goes kind of unsaid, he's the head of the family, gets to the position he's in because of his meriths and his ability to use people. Overly ambitious, would do everything for the name of his family to the point where he fucks up his children completely. (There are also similities in their deaths -- more like what happens sort after but I'm not going to discuss it here, google what happens to Rodrigo Borgia's body shortly after his death if you are curious).

Jaime is Cesare. Both are their fathers' pride, the designed heirs to the family and both decide (while Cesare's wasn't technically 100% his decision) to take vows that will bring themselves to give up to their birthrights (again, "technically" if we speak about Cesare but honestly THAT part of history is more complex than ASOIAF lore). Eventually they both end up being commanders of their fathers' armies and end up in a siege which has them using more their wits than their soldiers' forces. And yes, there's the being in love with their sisters and the "maybe her kid isn't her husband's but her brother's" thing.

Cersei is Lucrezia. Their hands are basically sold to the better option on the table for political alliances all while their fathers don't really give a shit because they are women and so are only useful when they can marry them off. Actually try to love their husbands (I'm talking about Giovanni Sforza here for Lucrezia as I'm considering her first marriage) but NOOOPE out after their first night together. End up having tons of lovers because a girl has needs, ok?! Both can and will kill a man given the opportunity. End up having a lot of problems with the Church (or what passes for the Church) after their fathers die. Fall in love with their brothers at a very young age and did everything to keep them closer. (Works better for Cersei, but still)

Tyrion is Juan. End up being the heirs even if their fathers didn't want it. Have the fame of spending more time in a brothel than everywhere else. At some point are just "I'm done with this family and its utter bullshit so I'll just go away, it's been a pleasure" except that Juan does it keeping the title and the family name and continuing the dynasty while managing to die in Italy for some reasons cause he eventually comes back. (Honestly I know Tyrion is Juan is really a short paragraph and they didn't have many similarities but the rest of the parallelism worked too well and Rodrigo had more children than Cesare and Lucrezia and I wanted to let you know)

Also I watched Borgia: Faith and Fear and not The Borgias when historical TV series were still GOOD and in that series there are both Sam's and Jorah's actors so I wanted to inform you all about it. ++ Juan's actor would make an AMAZING young Robert and please chec that series out cause it's good and not too far-fatched when it comes to historic accuracy.

[beevean]

top 5 fav NFCV moments and top 5 most hated NFCV moments and top 5 fav NFCV characters and top 5 most hated NFCV characters (I WARNED YOU.)

Isaac forcing Hector to watch Rosaly die was less evil.

Okay. I'll try :)

Top 5 NFCV moments:

5) Carmilla and Hector avoiding the blessed waters moved around by Dracula's castle. Not only it was a dynamic sequence, I admit that Carmilla saying "what the fuck was that" was the only time I legit laughed out loud. The timing was just perfect lmao.

4) Lenore's death. Not only because FUCK YEAH THE BITCH DIED LET'S FUCKING GOOOOOOOO, but it's beautiful, with a gorgeous track, and I like to imagine Lenore killed herself out of fear of becoming like Carmilla, she who wanted to be as human as possible, and not because "wah i don't wanna live like hector". Lenore could have been a good character too if she wasn't used for fetish fuel and rape apologism :)

3) Blue Fangs. By far the rawest, most interesting "CHURCH BAD" scene in the series.

2) Trevor vs. Death. A visual spectacle, and finally, finally the protagonist of the story does something cool and plot-relevant! I also agree that Trevor saying "I love you" to Sypha was just adorable <3

"I'm killing my boy". Lore breaking? Yes. Made Dracula into too much of a woobie? Maybe. Heartwrenching in the context of the show? Absolutely. I am a sucker for McTavish's voice acting, and it is the culmination of Dracula's biggest inner conflict: his virulent hatred for the mankind who took his love from her against the love for his son, and indirectly for Lisa. If only this scene took place in the proper SoTN adaptation...

Top 5 worst moments (how do I choose):

5) The explanation as to why vampires fear crosses. It's Twilight pseudo-science and I can't believe people can take it seriously. It's also emblematic, for me, of how much the series disrespects the religious symbols of the game (that, and ofc the infamous water blessing zombie lol)

4) Everytime Isaac is a dick to Hector. I just hate that guy. He's unpleasantly mean and condescending and we're meant to agree with him when he calls Hector "a simple creature". Go fuck yourself, you Walmart Hector.

3) Dracula and Lisa being brought back and deciding to travel together without telling Alucard anything. bruh. why are we rewarding the dude who slaughtered humans way before lisa even entered the scene. why is lisa okay with what her husband did. why are you breaking the lore like this. why.

2) The Alucard threesome + him pissing on the Japanese not-twins' corpses, for the reasons you said. Pointless, out of nowhere trauma whose resolution was a cheating joke from Greta. bruh

... can I cheat and mention every Lenector scene? Lenore beating Hector up was again torture porn, gratuituously humiliating (dat dick), and only serves to show how cool and stronk Lenore is. Her leashing him up is simply uncomfortable, because it's portrayed as horny and hot instead of being yet another form of torture - Hector seems visibly aroused at points. The sex scene is of course the sex scene. Her humiliating him in front of her sisters is simply gross. The dick jokes are immature and fail at being funny banter. "Oh shush you were having fun" makes me want to stab someone with a plastic spoon, ditto the "parallel" between Hector being lied to by Dracula and Lenore being lied to by Carmilla because oh gosh look how kyoot they are together 🥺 Him protecting her from Isaac is just the last slap in the face towards this character who really deserved better than being torture fetish fuel.

(honorable mention to the "Is this the definition of insanity?" scene, because people keep praising N!Isaac as the character of all time but I only see a brat throwing a tantrum)

Top 5 NFCV characters:

5) Godbrand. The closest thing to a canon Isaac we got, and the only one with a braincell in the joint.

4) Striga. Buff woman who references Berserk <3

3) Trevor. A far cry from his game self, and yes the cliché of the drunkard cynical anti-hero is old, but he never once irritated me. He had a nice arc in S1, a believable tragic backstory, and overall I just felt bad for him when Alucard was a jerk to him.

2) Hector. I love the idea of the character, and he isn't rude or annoying. I was genuinely fascinated by his alien view of the world, and he had potential as an anti-villain without empathy for his fellow humans but still principled, mellow but ruthless when necessary (he did kill his parents after all). The narrative just pisses on him for no good reason.

Sypha. I have nearly nothing bad to say about her lmao. I'm annoyed by her "peeing in a bucket" quote, her moving the Castle on top of the hold was stupid, and she's too OP for my tastes, but she's a genuinely nice girl and her design is so cute and her relationship with Trevor is so adorable <3 best girl. Unironically.

Top 5 most hated NFCV characters:

5) Alucard. ughhhhhhh he's such an arrogant crass jerk! Why does he even have fans! He's ugly to boot!

4) The Japanese not-twins. A complete waste of time, their only narrative purpose was a random threesome, and in their haste to not make the scene incestuous now they're accidentally racist because they look identical despite not being related lol.

3) Isaac. He's flat, rude, contemptuous, full of himself, with a rushed character "arc", never actually regrets his crimes, hypocritical, Islamophobic, with a shoehorned cliché "past slave" backstory, and the narrative won't stop sucking his dick. Hyped to high heavens at the expense of the real Isaac for reasons I do not and never will understand.

2) Carmilla. She's the most shallow, cliché #girlboss you could have written, nothing more than a cartoon villain who wants to conquer the world, and also a stereotypical radfem for no reason. She was irritating in S2, then she peaced out of the story until her death, but not before humiliating canon villain Dracula because I love when OCs get to shittalk about canon characters. I can't believe she unironically said "I'm a queen", fuck off.

Lenore. Do I even need to explain why I despise this manipulative, slimy, smug rapist who gives BDSM a bad name and is shipped with his victim in what is meant to be seen as a cute yet tragic enemies-to-lovers, kindred souls relationship? No words in the English language can convey the sheer resentment I feel for her.

[aprillikesthings]

lol I spent a portion of last night/today reading someone else's live-blogs of season 5 and I'm kinda glad just bc I'd forgotten that in the LAST SCENE of the LAST EPISODE they were like "yay let's go to space and bring magic back to other planets :D FRIENDS ROAD TRIP"

(also I reread an old interview with ND Stevenson where he was like "wooo I bet they visit a bunch of planets")

Anyway it's forced me to re-imagine the first chapter and change of my fic but it's fine, better now than later

okay lets get another episode down while laundry is in the dryer

s1 ep4!

On the one hand I get why they have Angella be like this

On the other hand I'm like, do people here not know what "child soldier" means? Yes, Adora's old enough to make decisions for herself, but that's. Why she left.

I feel like this is loosely inspired by really big pretty churches, but in a fairly neutral kind of way

Or maybe it's just that everything reminds me of Her

(The cathedral in Leòn, Spain; aka one of my fave places on earth, I'm always surprised this pic turned out as well as it did because when I took it I was crying, anyway)

*squints* I forget if they ever explain which defeat they're referencing here, I'm positive they do but I'm blanking

Is that Castaspella on the mural

Catra's little "prrp!" here was almost definitely involuntary, and I love that they had her do a "surprised kitty" sound

Okay so Shadow Weaver is like NO I KNOW YOU NO MORE ABOUT ADORA AND YOU'RE NOT TELLING ME and is visibly threatening Catra, but then her crystal thing starts to hurt her, and as she backs away Catra reaches for her before Shadow Weaver slaps her hand away, have I mentioned how well they portray child abuse survivors

:(

BAHAHAH that's gay

the village hoes just be throwing themselves at her amiright

(I don't mean the baby obviously)

Note to self for later, writing reasons: the Princesses all have literal physical objects that are the source of their powers

Man I can never get over the degree to which Perfuma reminds me of a friend I had in the late '00's, a tall thin blond sorta-hippie with long hair who REALLY tries to think positive and loves trees and flowers

Hordak: why are u still so obsessed with blondie Shadow Weaver: i'm not Hordak: you are so full of shit. give it up or no more magic for u

Poor Adora had NO idea she had to fill shoes this big or old

Bow will make such a great dad at some future point

Wait I gotta include that in my fic *runs off to write notes*

accidentally took the worst screenshot lol plz enjoy

This Ken lives in Plumeria!

Perfuma: we believe karma will come for the Horde someday :) Glimmer: or you could just fight them yourself Perfuma: mmmmmno

You're gonna have to tell her this like fifty more times

where did you get those

Boy it took like nothing for Perfuma to convince her people "actually let's go murder those sumbitches, call me KARMA AHAHAH"

Adora's actual magical ability: hiding that huge-ass sword no matter what she's wearing

All the green growing things taking over reminds me of scenes in Princess Mononoke, which was almost definitely on purpose

Perfuma has tasted blood and she's not going back

The parallels with "she's not really gay, it's a phase, she's confused, I'll get her to come to church" like I'm sorry but there's no way they didn't use that phrasing on purpose

Glimmer: if you were perfect you'd be HELLA ANNOYING

(she's not wrong)

ANYWAY my laundry was done like fifteen minutes ago but I wanted to finish the episode out :D

4/52

[mr-crawleigh]

since you seem to know a lot about Greek mythology, do you think there's some sort of connection between Pandora and Eve?

I’ve considered this one for a while, as it’s a very weighty question. Certainly there’s historical connections between the way that we think of Pandora in the Western world, and the way we think of Eve. Given the association of the Renaissance with the unearthing of Greek and Roman mythos and the rather misogynistic view of both the Greeks and the Catholic Church over the years, I would say that it’s folly to believe that there’s no connection. Eve and Pandora are both said to be the downfall of mankind, and specifically of mankind, because of their tendency towards curiosity.

And yet, do these myths stem from the same place?

Abrahamic mythology varies between religions, and even different interpretations of the same religion. Greek mythology varies vastly by historical period, and different poets have different understandings of what may have happened in different myths depending on the ideas that are prevalent in Greek culture at the time.

Eve, or Chaya, means “life” in Hebrew. Pandora means “all of the gifts.” But Eve was created to be a counterpart and helpmeet to Adam, the first man, whereas Pandora was created to be a punishment.

What, then, came before them?

The Midrash of Lilith is well-known, I should hope–Lilith, the first woman, was created as a full being alongside Adam, and thus refused to be placed lower than him on the social chain. Being incompatible, G-d then either punished or rewarded her by turning her into the Mother of Demons, who would take Adam’s seed and make herself demons from it. Eve was created to fill that gap in the world–Adam needed a mate. It may be argued that Eve’s nature was a punishment for Adam’s cruelty, but the fact is that her primary sin was not really curiosity, or else the serpent would be blameless; it was, rather, the tendency to listen to unwise council. Eve was in fact too obedient and did not use her own intelligence.

Pandora is likewise well-known as a punishment for accepting fire from the gods, a stark contrast to Adam, who was given the ability to name things and use words (there is little about the discovery of fire in the Abrahamic scriptures, but the discovery of various tools and technologies are often attributed to gifts from G-d or the angels).

What came before Pandora, though? Was it an age of Men Only, a boy’s club of immortals? Surely not, or we would not have goddesses. No, the old myth suggests that humans were created with two sides, one male and one female, who could reproduce with each other. This to me suggests a kind of hermaphroditic quality to the creature that we would consider Humanity and which the Greeks would consider Man-anity (because of the idea that women were merely inferior versions of men, rather than their own perfectly reasonable gender).

Adam, then, was created as merely a man, rather than a Man. And Eve was created to be his counterpart in reproduction, rather than a punishment. She was made to be too obedient rather than not obedient enough, incurious rather than too thoughtful. Some might say this was a mistake on the part of the Creator, but some others might say that free will can only come from a decision made freely.

Yes, the Renaissance drew parallels between Eve and Pandora, but I believe that the original Eve was not a punishment, but rather an ill-designed gift, a kind of apology for having created two creatures who were not suited to mate with each other. Pandora, on the other hand, served to separate Man from Woman, which created discord between the sexes that serves to separate us from the gods themselves.

The difference being, of course, that the Greeks viewed the gods as being forever petty and dictated by the natures of what they represented, and the Jews saw G-d as being something with the goal of creating a positive relationship between Nature and Humanity, something that could in fact learn and change.

(Arguably, no gods are exempt from learning and changing. But some choose to learn and change and grow, and some do not, and it is not always dependent on pantheon.)

[estrogenfiend]

Baptised -

I was eleven years old when I became overwhelmed with the awareness that I needed to be baptized. I was alone in my bedroom and I felt like my world was falling apart. I was a broken person who desperately needed divine intervention.

My parents were down the hall in their bedroom. I told them that I wanted to get baptized and they were so excited. My dad quizzed me so that he could be sure I was making this choice for the right reasons.

“What does it mean to get baptized?” he asked

I began to recite the script that I had been taught since birth. The same answers that I had heard every Sunday for 11 years (approximately 572 times.)

“It means to die to yourself and start living your life for Jesus.”

“Do you believe that Jesus is the son of the true and living God?”

“Yes.”

“Are you prepared to make every choice in your life for the glory of God?”

“Yes.”

And so he was satisfied. We made an appointment at our mega-church to meet with the pastor and perform the ceremony.

I was baptized on a Wednesday. This seemed like the perfect time. For the rest of my life I could take a moment to pause in the middle of the week and reflect on the choice that I had made at eleven years old and re-orient my life towards Christ.

My family of five arrived at the church a little before six in the evening. I was excited and nervous. Inside there were a few others who were also there to be baptized. One was a girl around my same age. One was a man in his early twenties. I had never met either before this moment, but here we were together, making a choice that would forever alter our lives.

My dad and I went behind the baptism pool to a small locker room and changed out of our clothes into the robes that we would wear into the pool. The water was comfortable. My family sat in the audience and watched. In the pool was a man whom I had only ever seen on the stage of our church. He greeted me and my dad and began to ask me the same questions my dad had asked me earlier in the week.

“Do you believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God?”

“Yes.”

“Do you believe that Jesus died for your sins and was resurrected so that you could go to heaven?”

“Yes.”

“Do you commit to living your life for Christ, always trying to be more like him”?

“Yes.”

And so I was baptized, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. This man whom I had only seen from the divine comfort of a church pew told me to hold my breath as my dad dunked me under water. As I was lifted up, I heard my mom and my sisters (aged 7 and 5) clapping and cheering along with the families of the other strangers who were to be baptized the same day. I wiped the water from my face and hugged my dad, feeling the exact same as I had 10 seconds ago, albeit more wet.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Baptism didn’t change me as a person. For a few weeks after the ceremony I did feel a little more responsibility to be a good Christian, a good role model for my siblings, but that feeling quickly wore off. I quickly returned to feeling the same as I did before.

It has been several years since I left the church. (I guess some life-long commitments don’t end up being very long.)

-------------------------------------------------------------------

A few years ago a familiar feeling crept into my mind. The feeling that I was broken and needed intervention. Through years of introspection, therapy, and seeking a supportive community I came to accept that I am a transgender woman.

Having been raised in the American Evangelical Church I can’t help but see the parallels between my transition from an unsaved sinner to a Good Christian and my transition from living as man to living as a woman.

I also can’t help but recognize that the second transition feels so much more genuine.

I told my dad and my pastor that I was willing to die to myself, but did that actually happen?

Certainly not when I was eleven.

It did happen when I was twenty-four and chose a new name for myself, leaving the old one behind.

When I was eleven was I prepared to commit to being more like Jesus every day?

Maybe.

Am I currently committed to living more like the version of myself that makes me feel whole?

Yes.

(If I wanted to get heavy-handed I could even draw a parallel between the way that Jesus was pierced while hanging on the cross and the way that I pierce myself every Tuesday afternoon, subcutaneously injecting .2mL of Estradiol. But that feels like overkill.)

The changes I made after being baptized were so temporary.

The changes that I am making now, in every aspect of my life, delve deeper than I thought possible. My brain chemistry is changing. My body is becoming a place I can learn to live comfortably. The way I see myself in relationship with others finally makes sense.

Twice in my life I have decided to die to myself. Twice in my life I have promised to change the way I live my life for the better. Twice in my life I have overcome the feeling of being lost and broken.

The first time I made that decision feels so insignificant now. It is easy to forget that there was ever a version of myself that believed the way I did.

Now I have made the same decision in earnest. For myself rather than for others.

mgc

[dammit-tazmuir]

OKAY some favorite posts collected and shared

Animatics

Take Me To Church (The GtN Animatic Ever)

Kiss Me, Son of Jod

Book Scenes:

Cam, Go Loud

WE DO BONES, MOTHERFUCKER

Mercymorn Art Critique (Acid Jail)

(book scene + FEELS) Landmine People

---------

Fanart

Its Arms Look Like Swords / Canaan House

Harrow's letter to herself /Harrowhark

Ianthe/Harrow/Kiriona pain

Tridentarii pain / probably my favorite Ianthe

Tridentarii Tarot / JODYBETH TAROT / Cytherea Tarot

Soup / The Mithraem

I Forgive You Everything Lord

Nona / Nona and Crown / NONA COVER

The Broadcast / Also The Broadcast

GO LOUD (Paul Edition) / Love Is Too Long

Harrow and John in the Dream / John and Alecto

Alecto / Nona (Alectostasia) / NtN Epilogue

I Love You / I Still Love Y

Ortus / Dulcie and Pro / Terrible Teens / Nona's Gang

Babs Lmao / Streamer John / Graverobbing Scientists

Big artistic piece

(Spoiler until you read) As Yet Unsent Ending

Arguably the funniest thing in these books considering Nona the Ninth was released before the referenced event

Most of the Houses as done by ydteus:

Second / Third / Fifth / Sixth / Seventh / Augustine and Mercy

Several incredible comic adapted book scenes by Naomistares:

Ianthe Ascends / Ianthe Finds Harrow in the Bathroom / Harrow Makes Soup / After Regrowing the Arm / Ianthe Gets Rejected / Post Lobotomy (Lobotomy Bonus) / Gideon Childhood Memory

---------

Cosplay

Biblically fucking accurate Crown / more

Gorgeous Mercymorn

Incredible Abigail

---------

Misc

Notes under books: [ 1 ] [ 2 ]

Small Silly Memes / Text Posts: [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ] [ 4 ] [ 5 ]

Ianthe Facts 😌

Stupidest Paul Headcanon that I've nonetheless grown deeply attached to

---------

Theories / Analysis / Meta

(Recommended not to read these til after the short stories to ensure you've got all context. Also yes lot of these will either be my posts or include replies I've made to posts I like talking about the books okay.)

Small Harrow Pain / Small Fun Abigail

Deeper Ianthe Facts

What is Animaphilia? (Ianthe & Corona theory + Mercy sillier theory)

Eighth House Realization I'm still not sure what to make of but feels like Something

The Reason Mercy Was Briefly But Deeply Relieved When She First Heard Harrow's Age (the best tag anyone put on this was "negative pregnancy test feeling times a billion" lol)

A Case for Tiny Alecto

About John's Eyes

Augustine Theory/Hope...?

Theory: Pyrrha was the Necromancer

Parallels Between John and Alecto and Harrow and Gideon

John is Hiding Another Resurrection Beast (or Equivalent)

What Does Alecto Want?

Some John Theories but mostly because some of those posts are linked / referred to for the following:

What Does John Want?

Finished Nona, am crushed.

I didn’t feel like blogging as I went this time because honestly I spent the whole weekend in a haze where all I could do was read Nona and pace dreamily but I really really enjoyed it. It was SO different from the first two and I was in awe of how well Muir communicated a different character voice while keeping mostly to the same writing style.

I still haven’t read Doctor Sex (will probably have to find it online) but I’m gonna go ahead and look through fandom tags because I wanna see the ART. People should totally comment w links to their favorite text posts or fanart ;))

[roseworth]

okay but i NEED to talk about how jason in green arrow #72 is literally peak Dramatic Theatre Kid energy

like yeah we all talk about the “i wore the mask under the helmet for dramatic effect then it turned into a habit” line from a few issues before this but. this last issue is where he gets insane

first of all. he has mia tied up right at the start. he could have just as easily given his monologue while she was tied up but INSTEAD he wants to talk while they fight so he UNTIES HER and GIVES HER A WEAPON. so fucking funny

THEN he brings her to her school because he has a lesson to teach her. this is the same motherfucker that brought bruce to a broken down church to symbolize how he lost faith in him.

but i think the scoreboard in this is what gets me every time. he went through the effort to change the scoreboard to say “red hood 1, speedy 0” literally for no reason other than the Drama

SO fucking funny that bruce knows exactly what jason is doing. he raised a drama queen and he knows it

honestly i have nothing to add here. i just love this part a lot. but also i just know he practiced this line in the mirror the night before

now first of all. “snazzy, right?” babygirl i love u. he is literally so funny. “goodness gracious i’ve been bamboozled” motherfucker. second of all, i LOVE the implication that he thought “hm… the killing people thing isn’t enough on its own. i need to become an expert with bruce's least favorite weapon just to add spice to bruce’s anger.”

continuing the school metaphors <3 but most importantly this bitch takes off his helmet in the middle of a fight just for—you guessed it—dramatic effect

using the things bruce taught him just to fuck with him? amazing. outstanding. he set out codes and puzzles for bruce and ollie to find while he fights mia just to be a bitch to bruce :) ignore them honey i thot it was funny 💘

once again i have nothing to say about this part but this exchange makes me insane hhgmfhfhsmsgs YES draw parallels between them!!!! it’s what you’re supposed to do!

i LOVE that he timed this out. this boy was waiting with a trigger to make SURE that the building would blow up as soon as they got there. jason exploits his own trauma just to be a bitch to bruce and make him think about his death. i love him

and ofc. letting her go because he didnt want to kill her. he just wanted to fuck with bruce by fucking with her. what as asshole. i love him

:( but also lmfaoooo i still love the acknowledgement that everyone knows jason is just being a dick and making it everyones problem. good for him.

anyway read Green Arrow #69-72

[iredreamer]

Yes I agree it seems like it was written with a season 3 in mind , hopefully it happens. The ending was alright but felt incomplete and a lot was not resolved/addressed. It focused too much on what literally happened in the diaries so some parts felt inconsistent (thinking about M randomly after your wife dumped you but not being clear about why/viewers who read the diaries would expect it but for the rest it felt out of place). The speech around children at the church was nice, finally Anne shows vulnerability. But when she said smth like ‘child I could never have’ i was confused. Since when did she want kids/express wanting them? It seems like pushing heteronormativity, women have to somehow like or want children etc. I also want Ann to have a big confrontation about Anne’s behaviour , Anne hasn’t really grown or changed this season and I want to see that. Marriage too unbalanced, not enough slow moments with them , like the honeymoon being so short, I thought it would take up an episode at least. I wanted to see both the hardships and nice parts but we got so much more hardships, and Anne being completely unappealing. I think the season was too busy and it was hard to keep track and get invested in everything, their marriage almost felt like a side plot.

I think this season was way more complex than the first one and so more tricky to handle.

First season was very straightforward, simple plot and clear goal – everyone knew it had to end with the Ann(e)s marrying. The first season is also a perfect stand-alone piece of tv. It really didn't need a second season.

This second season takes some things that were pretty much established in season one and turns them on their head completly, and by the end we're left with a lot of open plots – that to me feels like an attempt to plant some seeds for a third season.

Some examples:

in season one we see how Anne Lister starts the whole courting of Ann Walker because Ann is a pretty lady with money and by the end it's clear that AL ends up falling in love with Ann Walker – this season starts with everyone questioning whether Anne is in love with Ann, even Anne says she is not in love with her and again the whole thing goes back to the money argument. By the end the whole thing is still very complex and unresolved – is Anne in love? what even is love? Open questions.

in season one we have a whole episode dedicated to Mariana where we get to see her relationship and dynamic with Anne Lister. We see what's the history between them and why they don't work together. We see there is – there was – a love there but time has passed and too much happened. We see Anne Lister thinking about Ann Walker, constantly. By the end of the episode it looks like there's really no hope for Anne and Mariana, and Anne – hurt once again by M – seems to decide to move on. Season two starts with a very very very strong presence of M – it starts with Anne thinking about M constantly and even ignoring her wife because of it. It's as if Sally wanted to open the possible plot of a love triangle when in season one Mariana never really felt like a threat to the Ann(e)s relationship. And by the end the whole thing is still open. We see Anne thinking about M literally the first night Ann Walker is not in her bed. Is she thinking about her because she’s still in love with her? or there are other reasons? Open questions.

the Sowden sub-plot worked perfectly well in season one. It really served as a parallel with what was happening with the Ann(e)s. It showed us how “easy” it was for a straight couple to get married, and more importatly it showed us how even someone who committed a parricide had the right to get married. The Ann(e)s didn’t have that right. And what sin had they committed? That’s a strong, subtle, very cleverly weved parallel. This season the whole Sowden thing was handled very very poorly and didn’t make sense at all. He’s a serial killer now, I guess.

Anyway, these are some examples of what was really strong and solid in season one, what in season one had a proper start, middle and end in the way it was narrated vs. how Sally took some of those things again and remixed them to have drama material to play with both in this season and hopefully the next.

There was proper closure at the end of season one, this time there isn’t, but I believe this was the intent.

About this thing you wrote:

It focused too much on what literally happened in the diaries so some parts felt inconsistent (thinking about M randomly after your wife dumped you but not being clear about why/viewers who read the diaries would expect it but for the rest it felt out of place).

I absolutely agree with you and I think the "it happened in the diaries" shouldn’t be used as an explenation or justification for things that happen in the series.

The show is a show and when we analyse it and try to find the hidden meanings of it all, the answers have to lie in the show itself and not its source material. People that are watching shouldn’t have to read the diaries to actually grasp what is the meaning behind what they’re watching.

That scene you pointed out reads completely different to someone who has read the diaries vs. someone who hasn’t. Someone who’s read the diaries knows what a cross is and that Anne masturbated to the thought of M, but also knows that in those moments she thought of her only as a mistress. Someone who’s read the diaries also knows that she masturbated to the thought of Ann, before and after their marriage. Someone who hasn’t read the diaries is just hit with a scene of Anne fantasizing/dreaming about having hot sex with her ex after her wife left her. There’s quite a difference I’d say.

Anyway these are some of my considerations. I liked this season, can’t say I didn’t, there are beautiful scenes and I appreciated how hard it was to understand or sympathize with Anne. Not an easy watch but a necessery one.

The thing I loved most, and that is really the overarching theme of this season, is that we got to see how Anne Lister manifests her love to Ann Walker – she’s giving her the chance and freedom to truly be the person she wants to be. That, I think, is the most beautiful thing.

[salt-and-vynegar]

I find Vyn's character to be the most tragic in most endings (Artem's is a close runner-up) because no matter the outcome, he cannot win.

Op, thank you for taking these screenshots and for providing your viewpoint here.

I also wanted to talk about this because I found Vyn's character really interesting in this event.

My personal theory on this is that Interpreter Richter's fate was sealed the moment he decided to work with the group.

For me, Interpreter Richter's character has a lot of parallels with Vyn's initial SSR, Medieval Suspense.

Aside from the obvious observation that Vyn plays both characters, I think that there's an additional discussion to be had that the characters that have been assigned to Vyn are characters that end up being very solitary, with higher aspirations for power, to try to change the status quo.

Vyn's characters also tend to be characters that want power for the sake of protection - he doesn't want power merely for power's sake. But the reason why he wants power isn't something he readily admits to. In order to get Vyn to reveal his heart, when he's playing a character, you need to essentially keep pointing out the contradictions. Only after all of the contradictions are resolved, then you can see the truth of the matter.

In Medieval Suspense, it's discovered that the Duke's Son (played by Vyn) was adopted by the Duke, and stands to gain power as long as the Duke's murderer isn't him. It's also discovered that the Duke's son holds disdain for the Vatican and it's rituals, and has been learning and more accepting of modern medicinal practices. Near the ending of the card, the Duke makes an offer to MC Rosa's character about running away with him to "create a new truth." It's with that offer that you get to the heart of the biggest contradiction for his character - why does the Duke's son, who holds negative views of the church, has the symbol of the church on him?

In the event, it's discovered Interpreter Richter was an orphan from the Renhui Relief hospital, and was essentially trained at a young age to become part of the Guangjie Union. However, you do get inklings that Interpreter Richter does not think highly of the Guangjie Union based on where the donations go for the relief hospital. In addition, he also admits to Little Boss that his goal is to be free, and that he's willing to climb up the gang's ladder to do so.

What Interpreter Richter truly wants is the freedom that one can only have with power, so he accumulates it at all costs without moral scruples.

Op, I really like this line in your commentary.

I agree with most of this, but I don't agree with the fact that Interpreter Richter accumulates power without moral scruples.

Yes, it's true that Interpreter Richter wants freedom through power. However, I would also say that he does have morals, if you could call it that. His morals are very self-serving.

In most of the endings, Vyn admits out of character, that Interpreter Richter's biggest weakness is Little Boss. Even though Interpreter Richter and Little Boss are on opposite sides, Interpreter Richter does not want anything to happen to Little Boss. In negotiations, Interpreter Richter will gladly give up Consultant Wing to the Guangjie Union, but stay quiet for Little Boss's sake.

From the outside, that's a huge contradiction to Interpreter Richter's desire for power.

If Interpreter Richter really had no morals, he would have no qualms giving up all of the members of the Mayfly Association to the Guangjie Union.

But he doesn't.

He saves Little Boss, at least temporarily.

You can see traces of Interpreter Richter's presumed ruthlessness by how he informed the Guangjie Union about the killing of Boss Qian and how the Guangjie Union basically surrounded the hotel. It's very clear that he doesn't care about the others as much as he cares for Little Boss.

Which leads me to those final two screenshots for the VOID ending.

In the event, Vyn admits out of character, "When I was playing Interpreter Richter and we started working together, I prepared myself for such an outcome. Neither Interpreter Richter nor I were surprised at the result, and we accepted it wholeheartedly."

I think that particular admission holds the closest parallel with Medieval Suspense for me.

For Medieval Suspense, after the truth comes out and the Duke's Son (played by Vyn) is declared guilty and punished, the game ends. However, while Vyn is waiting for MC Rosa to finish changing, there's a conversation he has with one of the other players in the game, the one who played the Doctor.

The conversation goes like this:

Doctor Player: "Yes. But the key evidence is such an obscure place. No one would have ever found it if you didn't purposely show it." Vyn: "..." Doctor Player: "You surely would've won if she thought she was the murderer. Did you not give up victory for her in the end?" Vyn: "Please do not misunderstand. I was playing the game with the intention of winning." Doctor Player: "Heh, yeah. I could tell from your performance. Well, hope we can do this again."

From this conversation, it's clear that the decisive evidence that caused Vyn to lose the game in Medieval Suspense, was something he purposely showed MC Rosa. No matter how Vyn tries to spin it, working with MC Rosa to get to the truth of the Duke's murder and then showing that contradiction to MC Rosa caused everything to unravel for his character. Vyn lost.

In both the event and Medieval Suspense, it's shown that the minute Vyn's character chooses to work with MC Rosa, his fate is sealed.

Vyn's character in Medieval Suspense could've won, if he left MC Rosa to her own devices. Like the Doctor Player said, Vyn could've won the game if MC Rosa thought of herself as the murderer. Vyn didn't have to throw MC Rosa a lifeline about the Duke's son's character. It's that lifeline that brought about his downfall.

Vyn's character in Enduring Light is the same way, I suspect.

If Interpreter Richter chose to leave himself out of the investigation and step back to be only a witness, Little Boss would end up forming an incomplete picture of the entire story. Consultant Wing, would still end up being seen as the murderer. That would be a win for Interpreter Richter's aspirations for power in the Guangjie Union.

But that's not what happened. Interpreter Richter chooses to investigate Boss Qian's murder with everyone else, and in doing so, ends up revealing his true loyalties, and working with them to negotiate with the Guangjie Union at the cost of being seeing as a traitor.

As a person, Vyn knows that MC Rosa's biggest goal is to get at the truth. He knows that with the truth fully revealed, he would lose. As you eloquently put it OP, despite the fact that Vyn knows that if he works with her, he would lose, Vyn helps out MC Rosa anyway.

It's not until the full story is revealed and revisited, that the extent of how much he helps her is revealed to us, the player.

To me, that contradiction- the fact that Vyn loses by working with MC Rosa- is both tragic and heartwarming.

Interpreter Richter's Tragic Endings

I find Vyn's character to be the most tragic in most endings (Artem's is a close runner-up) because no matter the outcome, he cannot win. He loses his freedom for Rosa or loses her for power or simply dies to protect her. What Interpreter Richter truly wants is the freedom that one can only have with power, so he accumulates it at all costs without moral scruples.

These are all from different endings:

This one hurts the most though, because he knew he'd be forever chained to the gang that he wanted to be free from if he helped Rosa, yet he did it anyway. All for her. And she didn't even realise.

[photos-or-inkblots]

5B thoughts pt. 2

5x18 - 5x19

5x18: All Roads Lead...

i don’t have much to say here because i was gay panicking over daisy. i have no regrets

deke is… a nuisance

“You need me to, uh, back you up, or...? / “You literally just got shot. Why are you out of bed?” no shits given and i respect that.

“All right, people, you heard her. Let's get to work.” you called her a hard-ass–correction, perceived her as a hard-ass–and complained about being treated as an agent when he isn’t one and now he’s flipped the script again. is this adapting and playing the long game because playing the long game got him shot, as was said.

“You’re getting good at this. You are.” SHE IS ISN’T SHE

“Women, huh?” like i said, a nuisance. (really, was this comment necessary?)

the ruby-daisy parallel is going strooooong here. something to be said about this on top of ruby being set for the destroyer of worlds project only for daisy to get the blame.

“It's her, isn't it? She's the Destroyer.” / “Yo-Yo, she's a kid. She is terrified.” interesting.

i really don’t know what to do with the fact that Yo-yo killed Ruby, specifically in the context of the team and the incoming conflict. idk, it’s true, Ruby can’t control herself, even before being infused with gravitonium, she was ready to chop off limbs from FitzSimmons when it didn’t go her way, chopped off Yo-yo's arms and is just really impulsive. but also, killing just sounds a little misplaced here, especially if the reason was because she was the "destroyer of worlds," her motivation was just to make her mother proud; like we're shooting the messenger but hey, no one's really asking for specifics. ultimately i’m glad she gets some reassurance from her mom before dying. (why do i feel like the writers made it a bigger deal than it actually was just for ~team conflict~)

i do have a nagging concern about the gravitonium, it absorbs consciousness, it's how Talbot got to use Daisy's powers in the other timeline/s because her powers are embedded in her subconscious by 5x21. does this mean that, in every other scene we see the gravitonium ( the Lighthouse, the Zephyr) in 5A, there are people in it? does this mean that in the previous timelines where Talbot absorbed Daisy (and/or Coulson, or someone else, since that scene in 5x22 was the only difference with the other timelines) they’re all drifting in space forever? even if some alien species got to extract it, it’s still like, what, five-ish people (Quinn, Hall, Creel, Talbot, Daisy-and/or someone else) stuck together forever? that sounds morbid. and sad. damn that’s dark.

5x19: Option Two

gave myself a moment to breathe before watching this because i know this is where the fighting starts.

sick intro of Talbot reciting the coordinates. btw i looked up this place (43.9462, -76.1191, i realized these were essentially vectors) and i ended up at the United Presbyterian Church of Sackets Harbor in upstate New York. Seems close enough to where River's End is bound to be

“I'll take him. It's the least I can do after dragging them out of hiding. Unless there's some objection.” HOHOHO HERE WE GO IM NOT READY BUT SURE OKAY

“The point is, you don't make that decision.” / “Then who does? You? We all have blood on our hands. Why am I being singled out?” this could’ve been a more interesting conversation if the writers didn’t choose the setting to be the damn Lighthouse Control. i wholly believe Daisy and Yo-yo could settle this in a calmer way than this but noooooo they can't have someone siding with Daisy here

“But this isn't about the decision, is it? This is about not following your orders.” / “It's about both.” yes with Daisy on the mutiny because what the hell guys. no to the invincibility shtick.

“Well, we didn't pick you.” Daisy's reaction… i am heartbroken. but also, SHIELD doesn't really pick who's in charge? It's who's next in command. Simmons was top brass in season 4 when Mace (and Coulson! and Mack!) were gone–see 4x10–and no one batted an eye. Why's it an issue when it's Daisy this time around?

“Coulson made that decision and brought you back when he could have broken that loop right there!” didn’t Daisy say something similar like ten episodes ago? i get why they disagree with killing Ruby but this, take it up with Coulson. Daisy didn’t want it either, but here we are.

“Yes, I made that decision.” THANK YOU

“As far as we can tell, both the Lighthouse and River's End have been cut off from the rest of the world.” even the town? how are people reacting up there? also note the flying alien shrimp (i’m sorry that ship looks like a damn shrimp) is casting shadows, shouldn’t someone do damage control or something?

“I am so stupid. Why am I still in here?” / “I'm sure there's a way around that.” LOL the timing

“So one flying saucer, probably no big deal.” it was a donut, Coulson, and that one’s descending on downtown Manhattan as we speak (oh shit things are getting Real this Early i hadn't thought of that). again, i maintain that this ship here looks like a SHRIMP

“You know I may run away, but I always come back to where I started.” / “I know. I just don't know if I'll be here when you do.” WHOA king dropped it a little bit cold. man, i don’t like this fighting. stop it!

“I can't tell you if what you did was right or wrong. That's up to you to decide. But it doesn't just change you. It changes how people see you. And the only thing you can do is make peace with it.” yeah, i’m with May here.

“…our most powerful team member's gone.” i love every time someone acknowledges Daisy's strength just… this is an asian woman. i need a breather i’ve never had this before

“I killed Ruby for nothing. […] I could've warned myself about a lot of things. Ruby, Hale, these aliens but instead she told me… ‘Coulson is dying, and we need to let him.’” that's a good point. of everything, her warning is of Coulson dying. why. say, if Yo-yo hadn’t killed Ruby, Hale doesn’t sell them out, the Remorath doesn’t come, where does the centipede serum/odium kick in? unless there’s no version of events where Yo-yo doesn’t kill ruby. right okay that makes more sense

“Weird kid. Drew me a picture of a blue lady juggling someone's balls.” / “Pretty sure they were her balls.” okay lol i don’t remember this- OH SINARA 😭 that came out differently

“Garrett's cocktail had an extra healing component that was designed and developed by the Nazis, so that's impossible to get.” i can’t think of how personal this fight is to Daisy. destroyer of worlds being a Whitehall program, John Garrett, who was a head of Hydra they went up against on her FIRST days as a SHIELD agent, had not only centipede serum, which was how Daisy got into shield in the first place, but also Jiaying's DNA, her mom’s dna, (half of her own DNA*) keeping him alive, the reason why Ward was undercover at Coulson's team, which was then the GH-325 from the Kree corpse who was on its way to the Kree City where Inhumans initally went through Terrigenesis, where she went through the mist, not to mention Gideon Malick's capture (and death, all aided and abetted by Hive) setting Hale's plans with the Confederacy in motion after initiating contact from the Battle of New York all the way from the Avengers (which also happened in Daisy's ‘home state’ and where Coulson got killed, setting all of 1x01 up) and mechs guarding Hale's Hydra line of work (Ivanov just got put down for good like, two episodes ago)… i need a minute to wrap my head around all this

“Then let's light 'em up. I always wanted to say that.” of course you did

“Remorons.” 😭

“That is insane. I mean, it's a miracle you survived all that with just one scar?” Davis’s “Boom, you looking for this?” era

“Congratulations. You have survived the nuclear apocalypse. The planet is safe again.” love how they put this in the end as some sort of ‘you win!’ message from a game

lol i remember seeing this for the first time three years ago being bummed and disinterested because daisy was only in it for like three scenes, i think this almost made me quit the show lmao

*also why I initially thought the Centipede serum's power augmentation effect was permanent with Daisy. The science fiction babble here is that the Centipede serum's basically a catalyst for either the healing capabilities of Jiaying's DNA–which was a unique component of Garrett's Centipede serum (yikes)–or the adrenaline high-self-destruct ones of the Odium. As Jiaying's direct descendant, the serum could've impacted Daisy permanently, yes? but i also get why it didn't, because, again, as Jiaying's descendant, the same thing with the GH-325 happened: no adverse effects with anything that was already there. Makes sense, considering Garrett was past saving with the Centipede serum (he had to be pumped with GH-325) whereas all injuries Daisy sustained throughout 5B (psychological and emotional notwithstanding) became nonexistent. but what i love about this is that, ultimately, her mom saved her just then. Jiaying was able to do right by her daughter in the end. and i'm glad she gets that, at the very least.