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wewebaggit · 8 months

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I am already not paying for Netflix and will not support ST either, especially after Shawn Levy's open Zionist approach.

Look, no one is saying they cannot support their family in Israel. But what they are doing is basically sitting in the US and calling for an open ethnic cleansing against Palestinians, while cherry-picking their words and spreading false information. As we speak, Gaza is basically being bombed to death, an entire place has its water, electricity and basic resources being taken from them. It may be easy to post random shit on your accounts with millions of followers while living in rich houses. But the reality doesn't match that and both Levy and Noah should have been more sensible and learned better before posting dumb shit on your accounts.

You are free to hate whoever. N I'm not even gonna bother to defend them cuz it's not my job nor do I base my politics off of teen celebs. That being said I've read his statement that is just as passionate and devoid of the complete understanding of everything of it like other impassioned posts. That's what passionate posts do. They appeal to an emotion. I'm not sitting here expecting him or any other jewish celeb to say yaaaaaas Hamas. Nor am I gonna raise my brows if they speak for the Jewish side of things.

The statement that people read and ran with saying he's calling all Palestinians terrorists is as inaccurate as whatever false info y'all are accusing him of spreading. I do not blame him nor do I defend him and him is a placeholder for any Jew celeb, cuz I do not base my sense of right or wrong on what they're saying. I've never once felt the need to publicly anonymously denounce the people I don't agree with because I don't usually find myself overcompensating for anything.

Israel - Palestine conflict is not new. What's new is this one actor who everyone's expecting to say politically correct shit (which in his mind he might be doing just that 🤷‍♀️) and I believe that expecting this in and of itself is stupid and an easy way to pass the blame and do nothing at all to look good.

Palestinians right to self determination is not affected by what a nobody says. Nor is Israel's stance on continuing on with its policies of decades. The fact that people are busy harping on this one thing cuz apparently the only source of knowledge is insta and therefore maybe it seems like it's a must to react to whatever is seen on insta. Well, I cannot relate.

The fact that you or whoever if there are multiple anons find it necessary to approach me on anon so that I can be derisive towards him and that somehow it is the most important thing to discuss here - well, it is laughably easy to post while sitting in your home with food, water and power while others are wont to dangerously struggle for them. See how that works? My post is and has never been about Israel Palestine at all and was always in response to anon (and fandumb) who's been at it for a while.

Are we truly gonna say that he hasn't always be hated upon for things he's done and not done? Is there a comparable backlash against other celebs? That being said you now stop liking a celeb. Good for you. What does it achieve? Were you following them for their immense knowledge and wisdom of politics and geopolitical conflicts? Then I suggest you do not mourn the loss.

Also the fucking hypocrisy of everyone on this site to wake up like the Undertaker when it's israel/palestine (not even out of much real love for the people affected let me remind you as the argument is centered around fucking Noah schnapp/jewish celebs of all the people) and then no reaction to what happens in third world non-glamorous countries. (The glamorous here is Israel to be clear). And before you say well it's a reaction to what he said. Well there have been reactions based on what he should say or hasn't said, too. So like I'm judging y'all atp. Like what's the issue? Your heart bleeds for victims or does your mouth salivate over taking someone down with that pitchfork?

Why should I engage in an argument that's not based on what is says its about but the subject matter is celeb not the thing celeb is talking about. That being said I won't even be talking about the thing the celeb is talking about because there's shit happening in the world all the time and I have my opinions on all of them and I choose to keep them to myself lest people read what's not there and call me a genocidal dogwhister. There are 2 sides to a genocide. (And I'm not saying like 2 sides to a story. But a victim and a perpetrator) And the supporters of both sides will have unfortunate reading comprehension if it means they can take down a nobody in the business of nothing to make themselves feel morally superior.

So should he (Shawn and Noah) be more responsible or considerate or whatever? Idk. They can be or they can choose to show their ass. My respect (if any) for them never did rest on what their political beliefs were because, at the risk of appearing repetitive, I don't care.

I do care about the proxy hatred being spewed under the guise of sloganeering though. I'm way too used to it. It happens on the daily where I come from. I'm not gonna pretend y'all are angels. I see this for what it is.

So good on you for not supporting ST and staying true to your beliefs and code. That is always a respectable position to take. Sometimes people are just not in your position. Like you might not be in theirs. As you so pointed out.

TLDR: I trust celebs to post dumb shit. Where have you been to have expected differently?

#byler #stranger things #noah schnapp #wewe's askbox #not reread

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intersectionalpraxis · 3 months

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Just wanted to share this thread I came across by a historian from Isnotreal, who will unoubtedly face consequences for speaking out.

https://twitter.com/LeeMordechai/status/1768844679439651111?t=le_JLZ1bS4Hslz4zqA_Vmw&s=19

*Note that while I applaud anyone who speaks out, it's not nearly enough on its own. This is doing the bare minimum but even that is too much to expect from a majority of Zionists.

Yes, I'm always wary when I see Israeli citizens acknowledging IOF violence, but won't demand an end to the occupation of Palestine. He refers to this as a war and talks about the 'conflict' in ways someone taught by a zionist entity is supposed to 'speak' about this. He also doesn't address zionism -which is more than egregious because that entire structure/ideological belief needs to be challenged and dismantled entirely.

I do applaud him addressing the fact that what the IOF is doing is a disproportionate response to what happened last year and details the impacts of the IOF's violence and mass ethnic cleansing of Palestinian people, but as for everything in total, this leaves me feeling a little empty after reading his long thread.

People are calling him brave for speaking up, which in many cases is true, but if he had demanded Israel be tried for war crimes and crimes against humanity I may have been more supportive, because yes as you said this is very much the bare minimum, and isn't conductive to liberating Palestine or holding the IOF accountable for their war crimes. It is also much more systemic that just 'calling attention to what has happened these past six months.' Because this just didn't start on October 7th.

This also happened recently:

Like so much needs to be uprooted and spoken about because this extends far beyond six months. You can talk about how evil Israel is, but when you're not adding that into your message (especially since he didn't once refer to Israel as a settler-colonial project -or maybe he does in his paper, but I stand by my statements). The IOF must be held accountable for decades of apartheid, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and for countlessly breaking international law.

#feminist #social justice #free palestine #palestine #free gaza #settler violence #settler colonialism #zionist occupation #the zionist entity #israel is a terrorist state #israel is committing genocide #israel is a war criminal #israel is evil #end the occupation #end the genocide #ceasefire now #permanent ceasefire

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canmom · 8 months

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re the shit happening in palestine

nobody knows what will happen i guess, but like. what's most likely? my doomscrolling brain can produce possibilities from 'genocide to rival the worst of the 20th century' through 'syria-style proxy war' all the way up to 'first act of wwiii', and I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop of the start of the ground invasion that would presumably make the sickening carnage of the last couple weeks look like nothing. meanwhile the countries around Israel are flinging a handful of rockets at US and Israeli military bases.

so like Israel's got to know that if it sends its whole army into Gaza, then Hezbollah etc. will attack and things will get much worse for them, so at some point they have to back down right? they're already having to play desperate PR damage control after they blew up that hospital, and even the U.S. is starting to say out of the corner of its mouth 'hey that's a bit much there buddy, go easy on the civilian slaughter'. on the other hand Israel seems to be pushing even fashier to enforce a pro-war sentiment internally - locking up any Arab citizen who says something anti-war, banning news orgs like Al Jazeera who don't toe the line, etc. like is it just going to fall back to the status quo plus several thousand bodies, or are we too far from that equilibrium at this point?

and as for Hamas and its allies - obviously they would have known that if they carried out a massive, bloody attack on Israel, the Israelis would go completely berserk and launch an even larger reprisal on the population of Gaza. ergo, they had to have believed that whatever they would achieve through such an attack might be 'worth that price', and have some sense of how things might go next - and they're still fighting, shooting rockets etc., but what's their current objective, just to survive as an organisation until other countries get pulled in against Israel?

really what i want to have some reason to believe is that there might be any remotely plausible way this can still work out to a 'better' state of affairs (no ethnic cleansing, no megadeaths - but also no more ghettoes, and somehow, end-of-apartheid-style negotiations to abolish the current Israeli state so that Palestinians can return home with equal legal rights etc.).

i see people talking like here is how the Palestinians will still win, that this is the first act in the overthrowing of Israel, even defining various neighbouring Islamic states as 'the resistance', because you need a team to cheer for I guess, enemy-of-my-enemy logic. but what seems more likely to come from that kind of escalation would just be a massive war which, if recent wars are anything to go by, will kill a lot of people and push every state/group involved to greater levels of internal repression, but eventually peter out without any sort of clear outcome. so... is Israel somehow much more fragile than it used to be? is there reason to think the US would cut it off?

anyway. for some historical comparisons - the Haitian Revolution took a little over 12 years (1791-1804) between the initial slave revolt and establishing an independent country (which promptly got squashed with debt and trade sanctions by the bitter European powers). in South Africa, the ANC turned to insurgency in the wake of the Sharpeville Massacre of 1960, and about 31 years later negotiations began for the end of apartheid (during the collapse of the USSR, which shifted the priorities of the US etc. who had been backing the apartheid gov). the Algerian War of Independence lasted about seven years (1954-1962). if this anti-colonial war is going to follow a similar trajectory... well, it depends when you start counting I guess, but probably it would take a decade or more to approach any sort of 'resolution' you could name.

the status quo obviously couldn't last indefinitely, you can't just keep a population in a massive prison and gradually bleed them out and not expect them to fight back, but in terms of ways this could fall down, there are some obviously very bad outcomes (nakba 2, surviving palestinians in Gaza exiled to e.g. egypt) that could establish a new equilibrium (apartheid state annexes the whole region after sufficiently depopulating it to establish a majority). that's not implausible, it's basically what happened in the U.S.A., Canada and Australia - the settler population now outnumbers the indigenous ones by orders of magnitude, and maintains a complicated legal regime to control the surviving population (reservations etc.). that's presumbly the outcome the present state of Israel 'wants' to achieve, gradually enough that it doesn't look too bad on TV. however, it's not there yet - in the combined territory of Israel and Palestine, there's presently roughly equal numbers of people defined by the census to be Jewish vs Palestinian.

conversely... the state of Israel's constantly broadcast fears about a combined 'one state solution' resulting in the Jewish population being treated the way the Israeli state currently treats the Palestinians (ethnic cleansing, massacres etc.), and the great-replacement birthrate bullshit, are surely completely overblown (notably the much smaller white population in South Africa was not banished at the end of apartheid), but what happens rather depends exactly how the state of Israel might collapse and who would hold power afterwards. and... in South Africa, the apartheid government in the last few apartheid years started to realise it had lost the game, and was making some paltry concessions - which the Israeli gov. is not doing at all, seeming to prefer to rush headlong into an 'us or them' war of annihilation, confident the U.S. will let it do whatever reckless shit it wants?

all in all it's a horrifying mess and I find it hard to feel any sort of hope that it won't just get worse in one of a dozen different ways. would love to be convinced otherwise. i always assume things will go in the bleakest way possible, which is not a very reliable mindset.

#amateur geopolitics analysis hour

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undiscovered-horizon · 1 year

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This might seem like an odd request, but I'm gathering up my courage to ask anyway.

Could you perhaps do a writing where the reader is a very good person, but has a horrific past.

Corinthian comes to her town, she sees him being a menace or maybe murdering someone, although she's very much afraid of him she thinks he needs a friend. The Corinthian *shocked at this behaviousr* ends up becoming friends with her after sometime and visits her every year until she passes away and every year, he leaves flowers on her grave. Perhaps he meets her grand daughter one day too?

Just a thought for a drabble, if you have time.

Meanwhile, I'll be nose deep in you masterpieces on the master list! 😍

[MASTERLIST] | [Sandman-inspired playlist]

Corinthian isn’t religious, so rituals of any sort are quite unfamiliar to him. Despite that, he does have a few of them, even if ‘rite’ is not necessarily the word he’d use, like the way he goes about his victims - the stalking, the loving, the carving. Or the way he’d visit this one grave every year.

The sunlight of early spring glides across the grey tombstone. The day is cool but the marker is probably warm to the touch. Lanky weeds grow around the grave, although they are not tall or dense enough to consider the memorial neglected. There are numerous lanterns placed around it. An enormous willow tree proudly stands not too far from the grave. Some of its long branches brush against the grey stone. In a place like this, one’s rest can truly be peaceful.

When people age, it’s a graceful statement of very vital information: they’re alive. Whatever tried to kill them was unsuccessful. Graves growing older, however, are the exact opposite: it’s a malicious cackle only becoming louder as the tombstone cracks and fades in the sunlight; a memory slowly fading away even if it's regularly recalled and relived.

Corinthian reads the line at the bottom of the gravestone over and over again: Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future*. Whether he wants to or not, he recalls the strange night he met you all those decades ago. Nothing about that fateful run-in suggested he’d become a prisoner to sentiments and melancholy:

Hot blood is dripping down his hands. It’s refreshing, cleansing in some macabre way. Giving in to this urge is always just as sweet like finally scratching a patch of skin that has been terribly itchy for the past, well, forever. But the night is going to only become better: now that the thrill of the chase has come to a grand finish, comes the ravishing.

“Well, that was a little excessive,” you speak up.

The man in a cream-coloured jacket suddenly turns around to look at you. His sunglasses are halfway off his nose but he pushes them back up immediately as he stands up. “An uninvited guest!” Corinthian announces. “Wasn’t expecting one. I think I have some spare time if you want to,” here he flips the knife in his hand, yellow light of streetlamps cascades off the well-kept blade, “get to know each other.”

“I’m not scared of you,” you say with a giggle hiding in your voice. “Middle of the night, you’re killing some poor bastard you’ve never seen before behind a run-down motel, trying to act all tough. You have a knife, what did he have? Sweaty palms? Excerpt from the Bible tattooed on his wrist? It’s not scary, it’s pathetic. You don’t need another victim, you need a friend. Maybe a hobby, too.”

He’s standing maybe a meter or two away from you but you’re not bothered by that. You can’t be, not anymore. “It’s quite dangerous for a young lady like you to go around at night, asking strange men to be her friend. Has no one ever told you that?”

“>Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future<,” you quote. “I wonder what's yours.”

A curious smile suddenly appears on Corinthian’s face as though he realized that some things were about to change. It’s hard to say whether he knows how much he is going to change. “Feeling fearless, don’t you?”

“What can I say,” you answer with a disinterested shrug, your hands still shoved deep into the pockets of your coat, “I’ve seen worse. I’ve grown to know the terrors lurking in the dark a little too well to ever be scared of them again. Now come on, I can hear someone walking this way.”

A shy voice interrupts Corinthian’s melancholy. “Excuse me? You knew my grandmother?”

The girl looks to be in her early twenties or late teens if she’s living a stressful life. Judging by the messy hair and bags under her eyes, coming to the cemetery must have come with some hardships. She has a sweatshirt with a logo of a university embroidered on it. There seems to be an orange stain, some sauce without a doubt, on the hem of the pullover.

“Once. At least I’d like to think so.”

She looks at him suspiciously but not necessarily in a bad way - she can tell there’s something utterly exciting about his dishonesty. A thought passes through his head that, in some way, at that moment, she looks exactly like you did that fateful night. “But you look very… young, sir.”

“I eat my greens and use a good SPF.”

Understanding that Corinthian isn’t interested in small talk, she falls silent for now. The two of them are complete strangers suddenly united in grief, despite their respective mourning being so different. They’re together but still so very alone.

“I always liked that quote,” the girl speaks up after a few minutes. Maybe she’s looking for closure in friends of someone she is yet to learn to live without. “It’s very… hopeful. Anyone can be good, all it takes is the right decision. You can always change.”

“It’s a warning,” he states.

The girl scrunches her nose and furrows her eyebrows. “How so?”

“Even the smallest, seemingly insignificant choice can change the direction you’re headed. You can never know what you’re going to become until you become it. And when you do… it’s already too late.”

“Sounds like you’re speaking from experience.”

Corinthian doesn’t answer straight away. For a moment he’s pondering that notion, slowly and painfully accepting that those decades he spent with you changed him forever. “Maybe I am,” he says in a slightly quieter voice.

_____________ *Line from Oscar Wilde’s A woman of no importance

#the corinthian x reader #the corinthian x you #the corinthian imagine #the corinthian fanfiction #the corinthian #the sandman fanfic #the sandman imagine #the sandman netflix #the sandman fanfiction #the sandman #corinthian #corinthian x reader #corinthian fanfiction #corinthian imagine #corinthian x you

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dougielombax · 5 months

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Non irish Jew here

What do you make of those comparing irish/english conflict to palestinian/israeli conflict and what might i be able to point to to counter such comparisons when speaking to irish?

Idk how to counter such comparisons but I can say this much.

This is gonna be a bit long but I hope it provides some clarity.

Well.

I can understand why they’d make such comparisons but it’s never that simple.

For one thing, equating Irish republicanism with Palestinian militant activity risks linking it to Hamas, and by extension to Islamist activity as a whole, which I don’t like.

(I’m aware there are also non-Islamist groups in Palestine too but still)

(Now it is true that the PIRA had relations with the PLO, but they didn’t work with Hamas or PIJ or any other such groups. (They also had relations with ETA in the Basque Country and the ANC in South Africa.))

Because this in turn can feed into the myth of Ireland being an antisemitic country. Which it isn’t, the British will tell you otherwise because of decades worth of propaganda bullshit.

Fwiw I support peace and a two-state solution. But many idiots have called me naive and stupid for doing so.

All I can say is that Irish republicanism operates on its own terms, while Palestinians have repeatedly been used and exploited by the likes of Syria and Iran. Sickeningly so.

Irish Republican violence has also never been motivated by any desire for ethnic cleansing or religious motivations. (I’m aware that non-Islamist Palestinian political groups also exist and that many are happy to coexist with Israel but still)

Many people in Ireland don’t like what Israel is doing to the Palestinians, but it doesn’t mean we support Hamas. Because we don’t.

As I’ve said many of us just want peace and a two-state solution.

And the Irish government doesn’t support Hamas either. No Irish political party does. (You might find the odd crank who says they do but they’re morons)

Sorry if it sounds like I’m repeating myself a lot here btw.

I just needed to clarify my stance on a few things.

I can say this much.

All also say one must never use one people’s fight for freedom or independence to put down that of another.

#asks #political crap #israel #palestine #ireland #irish republicanism

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pinksomovember · 7 months

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Day 4 - Cam Work/Livestream [ao3]

Angel knelt in front of the camera, on the hard floor of the spare room, legs spread in supplication.

‘Angel’ wasn’t his real name, of course, but it was easiest to think of himself in those terms when he was doing this. He was still him but there was a haziness to it, a duplicity. He was a regular man in the day—if anything, he was more than ordinary, a picture of pious devotion in his white plastic collar—and he was this in the evenings. Still devoted, still righteous, just…different.

“I’ve got something special for you all, tonight,” he told his anonymous parishioners, a blinking red light and usernames that scrolled across the screen faster than he could often read them. “Tight, brand new blue jeans.”

Angel dragged his palms up and down the denim spread taut around his thighs. This would be a treat for himself, too. He only had a few articles of clothing set aside for this and all of them were old and faded casual wear. Nothing that could trace back to a man of the cloth, which significantly limited his already minimal options.

This was a small luxury, a minor decadence. Just another sin for the confessional—materialism, vanity, lust…all said vaguely, half-truths and white lies, so not one of the clergy would be the wiser. His personal confession held more weight, in his opinion anyways. Even the bishops lied, a little, in confession. It was the Adam-given sin of shame, brought upon man in the garden at the very start of all of this.

He let out a soft moan as a spike of need lanced through him, thighs tensing as he fought to hold his position. It wouldn’t be long now, but his livestreams never were that prolonged so it was alright.

His viewers seemed to like the treat, the motion, the noise. Their comments were rapid, dripping of hedonistic want like venom off a snake’s fangs.

“I’ve been thinking of this all day,” Angel confessed. And he had, shamefully enough, even as he gave the morning prayer, as he walked within the chapel, as he presided over the Friday evening mass. “I’ve…I’ve been waiting for this so, so eagerly.”

He knew he sounded a bit stilted, awkward, out-of-place. He was used to speaking to people, but he was the model of his teachings except in this one way. He didn’t know how to be seductive, sexual.

His most devoted followers seemed to be endeared by it, at least, praising him for his earnest sincerity.

“It hasn’t been easy. I’ve drank so much…I almost lost my composure in front of my neighbor.”

One of the sisters had surprised him outside when he was making his way back to the house set aside for him and any other priests the parish might host. He had stayed late in the main building, preparing for the many services that would fill the coming weekend and allowing his body to prepare for the night he pre-planned. The house where the nuns lived was only a few dozen yards away, but they rarely were active so late. He’d been lucky to escape swiftly, likely the only thing that had kept his dignity intact.

“I didn’t though,” he said. “I held it, and kept holding it, so I could do this for you all.”

Angel dragged his hand up his legs, to the jut of his hips. He was full—so, so achingly full. It was a just almost-agony, a small type of retribution for the acts of filth and debasement he never had or would be able to cleanse himself of.

His fingers trailed alongside the waistband of the jeans where it was digging in and leaving faint imprints in his so-rarely revealed skin, then lower. He traced the outline of his most intimate self, unmistakable in its shape beneath the zipper and button and denim. It was hardly obscene but it also was.

“I…I want to show you all. How much I was able to hold. How much I- how much I need this.”

The deep well within him made it easy to relax, just enough, to begin to leak.

The specific rush that occurred only in this exact moment caused his eyes to roll back, a moan warbling out low and euphoric. It was unlike anything else: relief cut short; shame at the very action itself; a carnality that stripped away all that he was until he wasn’t a father and he wasn’t Angel, he was barely even human.

The camera wasn’t meant to capture his face but the microphone was perfectly capable of picking up his noises. The comments those watching him left were as vulgar as always, twisting up a sense of wrongness so intensely in Angel’s gut that it almost veered into nausea.

“There,” Angel managed to say, nearly gasping. “It feels- oh, it feels so nice.”

He loved the way it felt, liquid heat blooming first against his skin and underwear, intimate and hidden from any prying eye. The beginning was always his favorite, for this reason. It felt secretive even as he knew dozens of eyes were honed in and staring. And then it began to seep into his outer clothes—staining, tarnishing, defiling in a way that was unmistakable, undeniable. Only in a few spots, usually.

Today it was a circle of dampness directly above the source, beginning to show the definition that was the origin of many a comment that caused Angel to shiver and writhe with want, and two spidery fingers of moisture that followed the folds of the denim.

He forced his muscles to go lax, always a chore of immense mental focus because this was wrong and his body knew it even if his mind could not accept it, and a second wave of warmth flowed directly into his pants. The dark spots grew in size, expanding but still small enough to maintain their defined edges.

His underwear was completely soaked, however. Far more than what was visible on the denim of his pants. Wet enough that, as the pulse came to an end, a new spot began to appear. It was barely noticeable in the camera unless you were looking very closely, a quarter-sized darkening of the fabric near the seam of the jeans just below the highest crux between his thighs.

“I don’t know how much longer I can control it,” he said, because so far these leaks had been tightly controlled. A steady trickle rather than a flood. It always felt nicest when he was controlling it like this, a trembling shivering as he focused as much effort as physically possible into controlling the most miniscule muscles of his body. “It’s- oh.”

He was barely able to control the volume of his moan, high pitched and warbling, his eyes rolling up to the heavens. He was still maintaining control but liquid was seeping out of him despite all of his efforts to keep himself shut. It dripped out of him steadily, darkening the blue denim nearly black—shimmering with such visible wetness it was clear he was losing himself in the act.

The stains on the jeans grew larger, more prominent. He felt himself throb, desperately, and succumbed to the desire to touch.

It wasn’t a full indulgence. The camera, the blue jeans, all of it was more than his soul should rightfully bear. He wouldn’t—he couldn’t—stand to add another black mark to his name.

Angel only laid his hand over himself, pressed down with just enough pressure to send bolts of desire licking up his spine like the flames of hellfire, taking it away again before his hips could betray him as they snapped forward with animal want. His next inhale was gasping, reedy, a whine building up in his throat.

Still, he leaked as steadily as a sieve.

The blue jeans, still crisp with their newness, were becoming saturated. Practically a banner of his misdeeds. It was with shocking clarity that the camera was picking up on the definition that lay beneath, so tightly sealed to his skin as the pants now were, and Angel could only let his mouth hang loose at the realization.

The words on the screen—the only thing he could make out of the messages accompanied by the jingle of coins being gifted—were more obscene than Angel could handle. The burn of mortification spread from his chest, his face, creeping a pink to nearly all of his flesh. Not that the camera could pick up on it with so much of him covered by a long sleeved sleep shirt. He could feel it, though. He knew it was there.

“Oh- oh God.”

Any tenuous control Angel had left fled him. Liquid bubbled up, as a spring, showing up fast and incredibly visible, spilling so quickly as to finally drench his thighs all the way down to his knees. There it pooled, shining in the light of the singular lamp, on the hardwood floors which so many men before him had knelt in prayer.

Blasphemy, slipping out between his teeth, must truly be his final damnation in an evening of such overindulgent sacrilege.

Angel shook where he knelt—body still pulsing with an all-consuming want, so near it would take little to tip over into true relief—even as he emptied himself. He couldn’t tell if he trembled from his physical exertions or the vitriolic reproach he felt towards himself.

Tears gathered in his eyes, hot and fat. He had no ability to stop them from falling—carving their way down his cheeks, gathering at the corners of his mouth and the edges of his jaw, tracing their way across the lines of his so-rarely-exposed throat—he didn’t even have the wherewithal to think that he must.

“Forgive me,” he whispered, but no sound escaped. The silent words tasted of salt.

Then he was truly, finally empty. The pants cooled against his skin and dulled, even in their thorough saturation, as the air immediately began to dry them. He felt stripped bare, completely and utterly naked, exposed for all the judging eyes to see. He imagined his parishioners—his actual parishioners—to be amongst the audience. Would they recognize him? What would they do, if they did?

Despite it all, it took every ounce of his scraped together, remaining willpower to keep his hands away from himself. Only one touch might be enough, might end his bodily suffering in the moment—but no. He refused to degrade himself any more. This act was more than enough, more than he should have ever lowered himself to.

“Go in peace and love,” Angel managed to warble out, voice weak and fading. He turned off the camera, logged off of the site which he broadcasted himself on.

He was alone in an empty room, in an empty house, covered in the evidence of his vice. He hated himself. He wished he never had to put himself through it again.

He would, though. As much as he despised it he just couldn’t stop himself. Come next Friday he would turn on the camera again, expose his soul to a sea of strangers for the judgment he was unable to lay at the feet of his betters.

At least there was some altruism in the large, anonymous donation that was made every month. Even if it could never be enough to fully absolve him.

#omorashi #omovember #masc omo #day 4 #priest kink

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cinewhore · 11 months

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while we’re on the subject on people not coming back right a la Miguel O’Hara..

I am thinking about Marcus Pike (as I always do I’m sorry I see him and instantly want to put him in the worst situations known to man). In this instance, as I listen to an audiobook about people going missing in the wilderness:

Marcus is in college, green behind the ears and in love. Mallory wasn’t like any of his previous relationships. This is real and he wants to do it. He wants to take the big step.

He proposes to her without thought and to his disbelief (and excitement), she says yes! The engagement holds through their last year of university and they make plans to get hitched during the summer, before things pick up for the both of them. Mallory wants to do grad school and Marcus has his sight set on Quantico.

It never happens.

Mallory goes back home to Oregon and Marcus is set to join her a few days later, flying in from Texas.

He gets a concerning call stating that Mallory went out to run errands and never returned. He says he hasn’t heard from her either and takes the next flight out.

After the designated 48 hours, Mallory is declared missing.

Nothing made sense. The facts didn’t add up, the police were less than thrilled to investigate and a recent rainstorm cleansed the grounds she was last seen around. Mallory had vanished without a trace.

Marcus spends the next three years of his life searching high and low for his beloved, coming up empty handed and angry. Why is that when one really good thing happens to him, the universe was so quick to take away?

He becomes someone he doesn’t know and his mother pleads for him to let Mallory go. Reluctantly, he agrees.

Fast forward nearly two decades later and Marcus is doing well. Cookie cutter Boy Scout has become head of the art crime division in the FBI, secured a white picket fence home and a wife, you.

It took a lot of emotional work to get to where he is but he never takes it for granted. You know about Mallory, of course, doing your best to tread that line carefully. He sees a therapist faithfully and you work with one as well to help support him.

It happens on Wednesday night. You two finished dinner and lounged in the living room, catching up on the week in between grays anatomy episodes.

His phone rings, number unknown. he doesn’t answer, figured its spam. The number calls three more times before he finally answers.

“Hello? Marcus? It’s Mallory.”

You notice his rigid composure right away and questions him, trying to figure out what's going on. He puts the phone on mute, abruptly goes to the bathroom and vomits.

Apparently she had been kidnapped by a man and held hostage, finally gaining freedom when the man dies of a heart attack. She tracked down the police, later her family and now, Marcus.

He doesn’t know what to make of it. Here she was, standing in front of him. In the flesh. Face older, a few grey hairs popping out among her natural hair color but still looked the same. His Mal-Mal.

You didn’t dare say it out loud but you weren’t sure you were too happy about this. You were happy that she was alive, yes, but just showing back up randomly expecting to pick things up? It didn’t sit right with you.

So when Marcus mentions that she was working out personal details and needed a place to stay since her family was away and she was nervous to be alone, you agree through gritted teeth.

You watched her every move critically, from her wide smiles and boisterous laughter that didn’t quite fit a normal cadence.

This is the story of how your husband’s ex-fianceé went missing, returned alive twenty years later and was now setting your table for dinner.

#I know there's a book or movie already made with this premise #but in my defense I have heard of no such thing #marcus pike x you #marcus pike x female reader #marcus pike x reader

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definitelynotshouting · 1 year

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alright WELL expect me to send more than one ask bc I’m awful <33 but THESE AU’S OKAYYY ALRIGHTH I AM LOOKINGGG +_+!!!!

I’ll be nice. I’ll be nice and ask for elaboration on one thing first while I let them simmer in my brain but I would love to hear the brainrot behind the kemetic symbolism 😳😳

- gonna make this easier by not signing off with a name but. an emoji here 🪐 wow. emoji so amaze but it’s eirian HI TOO FRIEND!!

Thank you for waiting patiently for me to answer this, friend, bc this is one of those concepts that i need a lot of time and space to properly brainrot abt bc it just means so much to me

To preface, i am a kemetic pagan, aka, i worship the ancient egyptian gods!! Ive been practicing for a solid decade now-- every so often i'll post something relevant to that on this blog since this is also where i post my art :] this au is essentially me saying "i see all ur religious imagery aus but what if. what if MY religious imagery au" and proceeding to go buckwild with it

Spoiler alert: i will be talking extensively abt kemeticism and kemetic imagery ahead; I will also be using terms the average layman might not be familiar with, so apologies in advance and feel free to ask clarifying questions if you're curious! Also obligatory cw for the canon typical suicide at the end of 3rd life, as well as some body horror/gore but i wont get too detailed with it.

The general premise is that post 3rd life, after Grian jumps from the cliff and falls to his death, he doesn't actually die; instead, broken and bleeding, he climbs to his feet and trails off without a true destination into the desert. His journey is intended to explicitly mirror the journey one would take through the Duat (the "Underworld") and to the Hall of Two Truths, where your heart is weighed to see if you may pass into the Field of Reeds (the afterlife¹).

The other part of the premise is that this fic is also an extended character study; Grian's journey involves one of guilt, grief, self-acceptance, and cleansing. There are a lot of things i want to incorporate into this-- like some of the 42 negative confessions, which is a spell in the Book of Coming Forth by Day (or more commonly known as the Book of the Dead) that consists of affirmations stating that one has not done certain things while in life. These confessions are generally understood less as literal truths and more as a purifying ritual, which is what i plan to use for Grian; there's something deeply heartbreaking about the concept of Grian telling himself, over and over, that he "has not caused pain," "has not caused weeping," and "has not killed" -- and something equally meaningful to me about him finally shedding that weight to actually embody what he's saying.

I also want to incorporate the concept of cleansing with natron, as well as water, and also other rituals used in both antiquity and modernity by my fellow kemetics. Cleansing is a very important concept in this fic: the idea that you are washing away isfet² and inviting ma'at³ in its place is central to the theme of healing and moving on that sits at the heart of this narrative.

Another common theme in the fic is Grian taking the place of many gods in their roles. One very important aspect of this is the continual Weighing of the Heart Ceremony that is conducted in dreams each night during Grian's journey. Grian proceeds to take on the roles of Anpu (Anubis), Wesir (Osiris), Djehuty (Thoth), the 42 Judges, Ma'at, and even the netjeri⁴ Ammit during this ceremony-- by ripping out his own heart, weighing it against one of his primary feathers, and eating it when it proves too heavy. These dreams continue over and over again throughout the fic, with the heart becoming progressively lighter as he begins to cleanse himself of the tragedy he took part in and moves toward the "afterlife," which in this case is Hermitcraft.

Scar, in this case, doesn't have a concrete role so much as his presence is quite literally haunting the narrative. I have yet to get my hands on a copy of Faulkner's⁵ Book of the Dead translation, but once i do i'll have a better picture of what i want to do with him, and how i want to incorporate him into the various pitfalls that come with one's journey through the Duat.

All in all, the fic is wildly self indulgent for me as a kemetic, and a fun way to connect my religion to my current hyperfixation :] thank you for asking about it because i have a LOT of feelings over the entire concept<3 if anyone is curious about the things i've said here, i'm super happy to answer questions about them-- regardless of whether they're about the fic or my religion.

Notes:

¹ in kemeticism, our afterlife isn't a paradise like you might associate with the concept of heaven, or the hellenic elysian fields, but is basically the idealized life of what you would have lived while on earth. I could go into a lot more detail with this (there are a lot of nuances that im simplifying here) but for now this is a good enough explanation.

² isfet is a bit of a hard term to translate, but the easiest way i can put it is the concept of non-constructive chaos. there are many beneficial kinds of chaos (such as those involved in the cycle of creation and balance), but isfet is something that unmakes and destroys. a very big part of kemeticism is casting out isfet and inviting ma'at in its place.

³ ma'at is both a goddess and a concept. it can be roughly translated to "truth/balance/justice" and is the act of creation itself. to invite ma'at is to invite order and balance into your life, and deny anything the footholds needed to unmake you or others.

⁴ netjeri is a relatively new term coined by Rev. Dr. Tamara L. Siuda (Hekatawy Alexandros), the Nisut (or leader) of Kemetic Orthodoxy, in order to shed the culturally christian baggage attached to the translation "demons" (which is the scholarly term). it can be essentially translated as "god-like." the best way i can describe them is as a class of creatures and spirits with a multitude of dispositions and roles, that are not actual gods. some of them however are considered minor deities, such as the sons of Heru-wer (Horus the Elder).

⁵ Faulkner's translation is the best and most accurate translation we have so far. if you see a translation by Budge, fucking run, that man was so innaccurate its actually physically painful

Final disclaimer: i am coming at these explanations of kemeticism from the lens of a modern kemetic pagan who is trying to keep them layman-friendly. while i do my best to make sure the information i give is accurate, i am not an egyptologist, and there are some things i haven't gotten very far with in regards to my personal studies. just keep in mind that there are some things i might have generalized for the sake of convenience, feel free to ask me more if you have questions, and do good independent research if you find yourself curious!! and a massive thanks to anyone who has gotten this far in reading something very special to me<3

#grian #3rd life #scarian #goodtimeswithscar #traffic series #3rd life au #mcyt #shouting speaks #THANK YOU FOR BEING PATIENT I AM SO SORRY THIS TOOK SO LONG #very funny to realize i have my ankh earrings on as i answered this #i guess i just needed the full Vibes <- has been trying to answer this for AGES #asks #my aus #txt

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sortyourlifeoutmate · 4 months

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I'd entirely forgotten about the Krieg book.

I remembered because I stumbled across my half-finished, half-coherent thoughts on it.

So, below the cut, my unflattering thoughts.

I did not enjoy this book.

I did not enjoy it to such an extent I am going to talk about it at length.

There’s quite a lot to cover here, but we should be very clear and open by of course saying that my gripes are wholly and entirely subjective, and what I think is agonising and unacceptable someone else might think is fine or even good.

This is kind of an obvious thing to say, I just felt it would be best to make it explicit and plain right out the gate. I’m talking bollocks, basically. I am hardly a qualified authority on what constitutes ‘good’ writing beyond what I find tolerable to read, and I am (unfortunately) not the canon police for all of 40K.

(Though if GW would like to make me the canon police for all of 40K I am sure I could oblige. There’s been some very strange stuff going on with the Necrons over the last decade or more, and the sooner we get that sorted out the better. Hah. Fake laugh hiding real pain.)

So, making it abundantly clear that this is all just me whining, we need to start with some background.

The Death Korp of Krieg

To the best of my knowledge the Death Korp were first concocted and introduced back during the Third War for Armageddon campaign way back when, for flavour as one of ‘The many regiments involved in the war’ (see also Elysian drop troops, Savlar Chem Dogs, etcetera) and were originally portrayed using Steel Legion painted black, basically. In the beginning they were notable for their martyr complex owing to their planetary rebellion, their artwork depicting them as very “WW1-era Imperial German Army” and the background making the ‘atomic cleansing’ of their planet explicit.

They went on to become very popular, because they’re rad as fuck. Forge World in particular seemed to have got very smitten, as the Death Korp turned out to be a pretty good excuse to make big chunky tanks and neat artillery pieces and whatever. Fluff-wise I think - and I could be wrong - the only real wrinkle added to their background was the addition of the Vitae Womb as their secret, bordering-on-tech-heresy means of keeping their numbers up on a nuked deathball of a planet.

Which makes sense, honestly. But we’ll get to that.

But yes. To sum up. Krieg. Planet. At some point its ‘ruling autocrats’ rebelled against the Imperium and the ensuing civil war resulted in ‘five hundred years of atomic’ cleansing (infamously instigated by a guy called Colonel Jurten) and eventual loyalist victory, thence the Death Korp - the only valuable thing left for the planet to export. That was basically all you had, every detail left ambiguous.

One of the books’ issues is that it seeks to make some of those details less ambiguous, and does so poorly. We’ll get onto that, too.

The book

So. The book is called ‘Krieg’ and has two broad narrative strands: one concerning some Cadians and some Krieg doing their best to retake a hive after Orks crashed a spaceship into it and overran it, and another concerning Krieg’s civil war in the past.

I will be spoiling the plot in here probably, just so you know.

We have a couple of characters to follow, principally a Cadian Colonel and Sergeant in the present, an Ordo Hereticus Inquisitor and his interrogator also in the present, and in the past Colonel Jurten, the (nameless) rebel Chairman and also General Krause, right-hand man of the Chairman kind of. Oh, and Magos Greel, I guess, who helps out Jurten.

In broad strokes it goes something like this:

Present, after the Great Rift. Orks crash a spaceship into a hive. Inexplicably this is said to have happened without warning, but let’s not think about how that’s possible. Both the ship and the hive survive this, and enough Orks survive the crash to overrun the hive itself. An Ordo Hereticus Inquisitor and his retinue fight their way clear of the ensuing anarchy and escape the hive, meeting up with an incoming Krieg troop and the remnants of a Cadian detachment that was in the hive but had to pull out after putting up stiff resistance. Now outside the hive, they need to retake it because. The Inquisitor has secret motives that obliquely relate to the Krieg civil war. Kind of. Not really.

In the past, Krieg rebels against the Imperium. Or rather, the ruling autocrats and their Chairman rebel, and it’s up to Colonel Jurten and one regiment of Krieg Imperial Guard to retake the planet from the single hive they managed to hold onto. Stuff happens.

That’s basically it.

Style

Obviously critique of style is subjective, and doubly obviously if you don’t like something you’ll just keep noticing and picking at the things about it you don’t like. With that in mind, the style of this book is kind of like having a sore tooth - it was impossible to ignore, and it was always there.

Orks are forever howling. It feels like every other line some Ork is howling. Likewise people intone a lot. These are personal preferences but things like this either stick out and catch you and annoy you or they don’t, and they did for me. Gah.

Other than that just kind of dull, really. I was unmoved. And no jokes. 40k should have jokes! And then things should get awful! You can’t appreciate how awful things are if you weren’t feeling okay before! You can’t have your hope dashed if you weren’t hopeful to start with!

Boring people doing boring things boringly is boring! And that’s coming from me!

Characterisation

There aren’t many fun characters in this.

In the present you have the Cadians, who are boring, the Inquisitor and co, who are boring and annoying, and the Death Korp, who are kind of arrogant pricks. In the past you have Jurten, who is annoying, and the rebels, who are all flabby and moustache-twirling villains, which is annoying.

That’s a style judgement I’ll admit, and I’m sure some would disagree. Mainly I’m unhappy about the modern-day Krieg, as they don’t come across as flat-affect stoics, but as aloof and superior bastards. Much is made of their body language, but what they say and how they say it makes them come across as

Status quo

This applies to the segments set during the Krieg civil war, and it refers to the odd haste with which everything we know about the Death Korp in the modern setting of 40k is applied to Krieg was it was in the past.

Quick! Make the lasguns like how we know them! Quick! Greatcoats and skull-faced gas masks! Quick! Call them the Death Korp! Quick! Death riders! Quick! Invent the Ragnarok tank! Quick! Get the Vitae Wombs warmed up!

The war lasted five hundred years, guys! Five hundred years! You don’t need to immediately have the Death Korp battling exactly as we know them now. Ease into it! Or - even better - don’t ease into it at all! Have the Death Korp be entirely unrecognisable as they what they turn into!

If you really wanted to spice it up you could have someone who knew Krieg before - hell! Have a Krieg regiment or something off-world! Some survivor! - who, thanks to the vagaries of Warp travel - comes back in time to see the planet totally changed, and have them horrified!

(I can’t remember if they mentioned the other Krieg Imperial Guard regiments from before the civil war. They did exist - Colonel Jurten’s regiment wasn’t the only one - so did they all die off-world? It was five hundred years, I guess they did.)

A lot of this isn’t helped by the very loose way in which the passage of time is conveyed. The civil war segments are meant to be taking place over the course of years, but it really, really doesn’t feel like it. We’re just told about it. Oh yes this war has been going on for years it has, oh my. Rubbish, isn’t it? Ho hum, when will it end. Oh look, another five years have passed. Tempus fugit!

Civil war

The beauty of leaving things ambiguous is that you can fill in the blanks yourself, and this is what I did. Having someone come in afterwards - with GW’s blessing, it would appear - and pour their own blanks over my blanks is deeply uncomfortable, particularly when I find the new answers thoroughly uninvigorating.

Five hundred years is a long time! And I always pictured that it was five hundred years of pretty constant, grinding warfare - the loyalists driven by pious fury, the rebels with their backs against the wall on the nuclear hellball the loyalists turned their planet into. Rather, the book kind of has it that after the nukes fly and the dust settles it’s the Death Korp just kind of picking off the survivors one hive at a time.

This probably isn’t helped by the book having it that the loyalists only had the one hive to start with, with the whole rest of the planet seemingly set against them. I imagined that the split was a lot closer to even, but still tipped in the rebels’ favour, hence nukes. I imagined that the loyalists ran the numbers and saw they’d lose the attrition eventually and no help was coming and Jurten - who wasn’t a main guy, just some guy - seized the initiative and launched all these nukes before anyone could stop him, levelling the playing field by making everything that much more hostile. This followed by hundreds of years of grinding trench warfare across a frozen, radioactive hellscape.

The frozen radioactive hellscape part remained, but now Jurten is the main dude, and the loyalists are just one city, and there isn’t much of a war after the nukes it’s mostly mopping up. Eh.

Ork attack!

On paper, the Orks are the primary threat in the modern narrative strand. In practise they’re just kind of…there. We have no idea what leadership they have or how many there are or if they’re actually planning on doing anything, they’re just…

…there.

Which is a bad thing, sure, because Orks. But the Orks are explicitly just whatever Orks managed to survive the crash, which is apparently enough to overwhelm not only whatever defences the hive had but also the Cadians stationed there. Sure, they got hit by a spaceship, but the Orks were in the spaceship!

Eh, you could argue a good ten or more thousand survived. There’s a lot in those ships. And with all the explosions and collapsing hive there’d big a lot of chaos. You can argue that it kind of shakes out.

They’d still need a leader though, wouldn’t they? The Orks?

Ah whatever. Orks. And after that the Orks serve mainly to be a threat when they try to retake the hive (and fail miserably), and then attack them outside the hive where the guard entrenched because you couldn’t possibly have Krieg and not have them dig some trenches.

The exact distance between the trenches they dug and the hive itself doesn’t help here, because while I think it’s mentioned once prior to the guard making their pitiful attack into the hive (across open ground), other than that it doesn’t seem to be an issue. The hive is meant to be perhaps two kilometres from the trenches, across open ground. So all attacks that do come at them come across two thousand metres of open ground.

Across open ground. Bear that in mind.

Every so often a piecemeal Ork attack will come lurching out towards the guard for a little setpiece. At one point a dozen or so deathkoptas come out and attack them and that’s a legitimate firefight. You know? Deathkoptas? The warbike-sized little flying machines? Yeah, a handful come at them - across a vast expanse of open ground, at a few thousand entrenched guardsmen - and that’s a thing that happens.

Squigs also appear a few times, and are just sort of there, hiding out. The Cadian sergeant later gets her foot eaten by one, which might as well be a thing that happens.

Also at some point a stompa attacks. Just one stompa, busting its way out of the hive to come plodding at the trenches - again, across a vast expanse of open ground - and it somehow manages to avoid being shot to bits and actually gets there and causes some problems before it’s destroyed off-page.

Stompas are tough, sure, but they’re not exactly ‘advance slowly and entirely unsupported as the single available target for thousands of guardsmen and their support weapons’ tough. Also, you can’t target their legs. Felt I should point that out, given that they explicitly do target the legs to take it out. Again, you cannot do that to a stompa.

This is such a weird issue as the obvious, obvious solution is just to have more Orks. One Stompa is threatening, sure, but not in a shooting gallery. Three stompas, say, accompanied by other Ork armour, all at once? Now that’s an issue! Likewise, just some dethkoptas coming in all on their own is, like, not ideal but not exactly the worst thing?

Also the narration seems unclear on how big and heavy dethkoptas are, which is confusing to me. They ain’t that big.

Hives

There is no uniformity in Imperial hive cities. You have kind of the stereotypical hive city where it’s like a big ol’ nightmare anthill a mile or more tall and which also goes underground and houses billions - Necromunda, basically. That’s generally what you imagine, but you also have ones that cling to the underside of tectonic plates and hang into vast acidic seas, or ones that spread tumour-like across vast, inhospitable marshes.

There’s no real rule on them having to look like something, it’s just more a sense that hive cities are: A) Big B) Enormous C) Packed full of millions if not billions of people D) Are built on words that are not exactly suitable for human life, either prior to the building of the hive cities or as a direct result of the planet ending up a hive planet

The hive in the book is nowhere described, really, but it gives the impression of a classic hive city - big and tall. And that’s fine. Crash a spaceship into one of those, it might survive. Fine.

The issues - for I have nothing but issues - come with the basic idea that you could retake a hive with the amount of troops they have, and later someone goes to a spaceport inside a hive.

…ah, actually that’s not so bad. You could have a port somewhere up a hive, I guess, and given this happens at a point in the story where there’s been a huge explosion you could make a point to say that the bigger, higher-capacity out-of-hive spaceport has been taken out or something. They don’t though. Hmm.

Personal preference.

(As an aside I’ve always felt that describing Krieg historically as a hive city even prior to the civil war as a bit odd, as part of Krieg’s deal is that the planet was ruined in the atomic cleansing and you can’t go topside. Most hive world’s aren’t ‘Step outside and die instantly’ lethal but equally your odds of surviving unprotected on just about any of them are pretty slim. Ash Wastes, anybody?

So “Oh, Krieg was made a death world by nukes” is kind of weird when, by rights, it was probably a bit of a death world already. But that’s me. We’ll get back to that.)

Demolishers

This isn’t a huge issue but the book has a strange fixation on having Demolishers bombard things, which isn’t really what Demolishers are for or something they can do. They are, in case we forgot, big, slow, armoured tanks with short-range weapons designed to go into places where range isn’t a factor and support infantry. Urban warfare, mainly, or things like that. That’s kind of the point. That’s always been kind of the point.

If you want to fire a big gun at a wall, use a Medusa. Or a Bombard or whatever. You know, an artillery piece. You can use a Demolisher for this, sure, but why would you? You’d need to park the thing next to the fucking wall, when what it’s meant to be doing is be inside the wall, supporting an attack. It’s weird.

Vitae Wombs

In the background it is never made especially clear what Vitae Wombs actually are or what they do. It’s heavily implied they’re cloning people, and that’s kind of the line the book takes, but ‘Vitae Wombs’ on their own doesn’t really imply anything beyond having a way of artificially growing people.

I’m in two minds on this. Giving Krieg a way of keeping its population up makes perfect sense given their attrition rate and way of making way - spending men like bullets is hard if you only get those men from a radioactive death world, and in a toss up between kind of insinuating there’s a lot of (even for 40k) ‘conventional’ squicky stuff happening in those bunkers or else they fell back on forbidden techniques and forgotten technologies in their desperation to win the civil war and just kept going, well, I know which I’d go with.

What catches me is the clone part. The book surprises absolutely no-one by revealing - what a twist! - that Colonel Jurten got cloned, but isn’t especially clear on whether they’re still cloning him now, or whether they’re all Jurten or whatever.

Either way I don’t like any of that. Just leave Jurten alone, stop making him the main guy. He launched the nukes, and let that just be an act that, over time, became something they celebrated. Stop making him be everything and everywhere. He’s just a guy. Leave him alone.

NUKES

This is a big one for me.

A big part of the story concerns the Inquisitor needing to get back into the hive because there’s something there the Orks shouldn’t get their hands on. Something terrible. Something ancient and powerful and-

Surprise - it’s nukes.

Another part of the story concerns the Krieg loyalists in the civil war uncovering a hidden vault of terrible, forbidden weapons that can possibly alter the course of the war in their favour. Surprise - it’s nukes.

Now I don’t want to sound dismissive of nuclear weapons, because they’re awful. But in 40k it is a little odd to see people talking about nuclear weapons in tones of horrified awe, like they’re something from the Dark Age of Technology and not, you know, something that would surely rank alongside the heavy stubber in terms of “It’s old - but not like archeotech. Just old old.” Nukes aren’t an unknown, forgotten item of dark awe, they’re just not used all that much.

The Rogue Trader RPG (the Fantasy Flight one) - which is probably about as canonical as anything, really - explicitly states that the Imperium just has better ways of destroying things than by using nukes, which it does.

That Krieg had its five hundred years of atomic cleansing kind of made it obvious to me that they know about nukes and what they are and they had them. I always imagined they were simply one of the simply one of the weapons they had lying around - anti-ship weapons of some kind, maybe - and they used them because they had them. Not that they dug them out of a secret vault and spoke of them in hushed whispers and had no idea of the powers they’d unleashed.

Just figured nukes was what Jurten got his hands on, and as the war ground on the nukes were just what they had a lot of, and they kept using them. Not a big deal.

With that in mind, the Inquisitor’s subplot of needing to get into the hive because the former governor (who the Inquisitor had previously tortured to death) had a secret stash of half a dozen nukes in the hive and it is imperative that the Orks don’t get their hands on them is a bit ropey to me.

Oh no! Nukes! A handful of nukes! With those you could…

…mildly inconvenience a void-shielded hive. Oh no!

If the governor had, I don’t know, managed to acquire a batch of cyclonic torpedoes or something then you might have had a point. But since his secret stash is, as said, half a dozen nukes, this urgent, secret mission is really kind of stupid.

Remember that bit earlier in the story where the Orks crashed a spaceship into your planet? A spaceship that, oh, has a Warp engine in it?! And you’re worried about them getting a handful of nukes? It’d be bad Orks getting their hands on nukes, yeah, but the book starts talking about how they’re going to exterminatus the planet rather than let it happen. Jesus Christ, guys!

(As an exterminatus-related aside, cyclonic torpedoes are one of those wonderful 40K things where they’re as vague as possible about what they actually are, because all you need to know is that they’re powerful enough to kill a planet. How and by how much don’t matter, and in fact varies depending on who’s writing them at the time. They just can destroy a planet, and that’s all you need to know.)

This subplot comes to a head when a Krieg grenadier, left behind to guard the vault o’ nukes, sets off some krak grenades he’d set up to destroy them when the Orks finally break into the vault. The grenades blow up, the nukes blow up, the hive blows up. Boom.

I’m not an expert, but nuclear weapons - unless they’re armed, and even then - aren’t usually known for their sympathetic detonation. Which is to say if you explode a nuke, it doesn’t usually then explode itself. They’re quite complex devices and if you disrupt them by, say, exploding them, they tend not to work properly. You’ll have the issue of radioactive material spilling out, yeah, but that might be it.

Again, not an expert.

Also, wouldn’t them detonating in a tiny vault under however many metres of solid rock also under however many millions or billions of tons of rockcrete and steel that is the hive kind of take the wind out of the explosion a bit? Nukes are, as said, scary and nasty, but a fair whack of their destructive potential comes from them exploding in the open air where the shockwave and fireball can happen. Deep underground, under a hive city, uh, not so much?

Again again, not an expert.

Presumably the handwave to all of this is “Grimdark future nukes” and fine, sure, but if that was the case why not have some other grimdark future weapon that isn’t a weapon we have now and understand?

Then there’s also all the horror about the radioactive contamination (you blew them up underground! Just stay out of the hive! Everyone else is fine!) and a lot of stuff about black rain melting through armour and burning everyone. Yes, black rain is a thing, so maybe that happened. Just seems a bit ham-fisted to me.

Conclusion

So there you go.

A tide of nibbling little quibbles and issues all adding up to create something I simply could not enjoy.

Which is weird, as Steve Lyons wrote a book years back called Dead Men Walking which is basically Death Korp versus Necrons and that was a lot of fun - it had a bit which sticks with me even now, where Korpsmen are basically being killed one by one and are just systematically picking up the single meltagun they have as it is the only weapon capable of effectively killing the Necrons and anytime the man holding it dies the next one immediately steps in to keep going. It’s metal as fuck.

This book is not metal as fuck. It’s just deeply disappointing. There weren’t even any good setpieces. The battles are all dull and weird because of how bizarre the setup is and nothing especially interesting happens. None of the problems are worth your time, and none of the solutions the characters come up with to solve them are good or tense or anything you might actually want.

The book just happens.

How would I have done it? Well, I wouldn’t have, because I’m terminally incapable of following a plotline all the way through, but I have some suggestions:

Don’t have the guard in trenches outside the hive. Hives are big and if you have a couple thousand guardsmen just decide to dig some trenches across a tiny, tiny, tiny little stretch of the perimeter and then sit there a bit and fire some artillery at the hive, you make them look like chumps. Having such a paltry amount of guardsmen ordered to retake a hive was dumb in the first place, and this just makes them look worse.

Especially given that they fail miserably.

Give the Orks a named leader and have this attack be part of a broader war. They don’t have to meet the leader, but having this be one ship of Orks just feels bizarre. And make it be more Orks. And make it so they’re not at a risk of grabbing some nukes but specifically going after else nasty that they know is in the Hive. Maybe cyclonic torpedoes, like I said! Maybe the governor blagged a couple somehow, and that’s why the Inquisitor killed them! It’s not hard!

But yeah, broaden the scope, have more guardsmen and just zoom in close to follow some Cadians (it’s always fucking Cadians now) and their interactions with the Krieg they’ve been lumbered with as they have to breach this hive alongside everyone else.

And no fucking trenches!

As for the bits that happen in the past?

Don’t have Krieg as a hive city. Have it as a developed world that is on the way to turning into a hive city as Imperial demands for manufacture start to increase. The threat of having their world destroyed gradually would be a fair motivator for the rebels, and would also make the eventual fate of the world more impactful than “Shithole planet is now radioactive shithole planet.”

Have it the loyalists were promised aid, but circumstances change and the aid no longer forthcoming. That lends further depth to their decision to use the nukes. Maybe some of them were considering surrendering when they heard and Jurten went ahead with the nukes in a fit of pique, dooming the planet. It works better!

Don’t have Jurten be The Guy. He’s just A Guy. Not a main character! Have someone else be the main character! Someone with actual character! Someone conflicted! Paint the rebels as sympathetic! Have the main loyalist see their point of view but remain loyal anyway! Then everything goes to shit when the nukes fly and they’re locked into a war none of them want! That’s a bazillion times better than “Jurten was always a dick and he’s in charge and also the rebels are all super-duper ugly and evil” which is what we got! Argh!

Leave Vitae Wombs as some expressly ambiguous compromise between cloning or just growing people in batches, or something. Leave it vague, but clearly unnatural. And don’t talk about it. For God’s sake don’t talk about it. Some things work much, much better if you don’t talk about them.

I’m done. I’m out. That’s it.

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athenawasamerf · 7 months

Note

with respect, while i think it's inappropriate and racist to assume palestinian men are the same as any other muslim man, i WOULD say the behavior of the arab and/or muslim diaspora in the west (not strictly male either) has not exactly dispelled the idea that there is widespread for terrorist action among that population. just because we don't like it doesn't make it not true.

this doesn't change my pro-palestine position on the israel/palestine conflict but i do have a strongly negative opinion of most of the (overwhelmingly, non-palestinian) diaspora and their behavior in this context. they are just as much out of touch westerners living a cushy life and begging to see blood.

My problem with the post that (I believe) inspired this ask is the racist coalition of all Middle Eastern cultures into one monolith. Equating all Islamic terrorist organisations with each other due to a lack of understanding of the differences between cultures and countries is a big enough problem when it comes to fighting extremist ideology and terror groupes, nevermind when it comes to conversations about an ongoing ethnic cleansing and genocide. Bringing up a 2-decade old Al-Qaeda, an Afghan-Pakistani terror organisation, attack on the U.S. in a conversation about the atrocities committed against Palestinian women as some kind of gotcha is incredibly racist, and I don’t think I need to mention how tone deaf the timing is. Al-Qaeda does not exist, and has never existed, in Palestine.

If we were to have a conversation about the Arab and Muslim diaspora in the west and the effect of their actions on the widespread image of the Middle East among western populations, that is not the place to start it. And, more importantly, this is not the time to have such a conversation. I understand that western cultures have become increasingly individualistic, but that is not the case in the global east. We are in a state of collective mourning. We’ve cancelled all national celebrations, events, and demonstrations. My med school is cancelling all graduation activities apart from the official ceremony to hand us our degrees and have us swear the Hippocratic oath, which will be held with no music or press coverage, and without an after party. Marriage ceremonies are being held in silence with no wedding parties. Birthday celebrations are being held off. The black ribbon of mourning has been placed on all tv channels and will not be removed until 3 days after a ceasefire is enacted. Our neighbours are going through a catastrophe, there are manners to be observed. We don’t even put the tv on too loud if a neighbour is sick, nevermind dead or dying. When our neighbours, our family, our people are being massacred in front of our eyes with the sanctions of the entire world, we mourn with them and we mind our manners while we do it. That is all to say, when the entire region is in a state of mourning is absolutely the least appropriate timing for this kind of conversation, despite its importance.

When brown people aren’t being massacred by the thousands, and displaced by the hundreds of thousands, we can talk about the behaviour of the brown diaspora in the west. Until then, we mourn.

I apologise if I’m not entirely coherent, I’m very sick at the moment, quite literally in the middle of finals for my last year of med school, and completely overwhelmed with the insanity going on in the world at the moment, especially after Egypt was targeted twice. Our government had to double the rolling blackout duration to two hours a day after Israel decided to cut off all fuel exports to Egypt to put pressure on the government to agree to Israel’s plan of displacing over 2 million Palestinians into Sinai. So, things haven’t been great here either and people are preparing for the non-zero chance that our hand could be forced into war.

#ask

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fleet-admiral-hiba · 1 year

Text

DARKNESS ARISE

A/n: the beginning of the end

Hubris did come before a fall.

And his would be spectacular.

While he was sat on his ivory tower, nearing steadily Mariejois, he hadn't thought about one thing: he had enemies,lots of them.

But most of all, he underestimated the need for revenge he instilled in those he wronged.

He was sure he could waltz in the Holy Land and do as he pleased.

But darling, karma was indeed a bitch. And it came in the form of a scholar.

The Charlotte in the end reached an agreement with them, thanks to Brennan. Now,they just had to wait.

The same went for the other emperors. They knew that something far more dangerous was moving in the world, and they had a privileged seat to watch it unfold.

It was time.

The marines all held their breath.

The WG trembled.

Peace was going to be restored.

The ship was near. They could see them, and one by one they started to pick them apart.

Mentally and physically.

Oh what joy it brought, to put in his place such an asshole.

The sniper was the first: he could warp around and his skills could be fastidious. It took nothing to destroy that asset.

Eyes blank, mind filled with nothing and everything. The sharpshooter was just a shadow of himself, nothing but a broken statue .

Next was Lafitte and Shiryu. Both were dangerous in their own accord: one could manipulate people and the other could be everywhere while invisible.

Well then, let the chase begin.

Shadows morphed and time stretched. They didn't notice anything. Blood was slowly pouring out. A death so gruesome it would take them years to notice, but just a second to execute.

Trapped into a limbo of eternal pain, while their bodies were decaying. Such decadent image.

The others were just as easy to dispatch. A touch was only needed. Their bodies turned to dust, gradually disintegrating.

"Ashes to ashes, dust to dust" they said.

Oh to be a scholar, it brought them so much joy and manic glee.

The last one was trickier, but nonetheless quick. For them, it all took five minutes. For them, it will be eons before they'll die.

"Marshall D. Teach" they said, while gliding along the grass of the Holy Land, "you have committed a great crime. And thus I shall punish you" continued, while passing a hand on their frozen shoulder, enjoying a tad too much such wanton bloodlust. "I reckon you never thought it possible. You have two of some of the strongest fruits in the world, yet you have been bested by a mere scholar" whimpers, all his mouth could utter was whimpers.

"Hush now, don't interrupt me. You see, had you not injured civilians, among other people, you would have never met me. You see, a God doesn't interfere in the affairs of mortals. But you have sinned" . A scythe, black like the void was unsheathed, gliding along the plane of his abdomen, drawing blood and leaving cuts that would never be closed.

"Thus my job is to come here and right some of the wrongs committed. The Void, O'Hara, Marineford, the destruction of those islands. Some where my doing, some those of my brethren. But you...you will be my cleansing" and slowly, slash after slash, the fallen emperor weeped.

It hurt, but he couldn't move. He was becoming s grotesque figure that warned mortals of their wrongdoings.

"Dust you were and dust you shall return" murmured the scholar, while the scythe began to glow a cold blue.

Infernal flames were always the best method to dispose of bodies. "The suffering you inflicted shall return upon you tenfold. So I declared and so it will be. Your soul and those of your comrades are all condemned to the same fate" .

The earth rumbled and the skies split.

Nothing was left of the Blackbeard's fleet. Not an ounce of dust. The fruits returned to the sea, and justice for the moment was restored.

Kuzan smiled from his bike, glad to have you on his side.

But it wasn't the end... The WG had its share of the blame.

No one knew what had happened on this fateful day to the inhabitants,but many told the story of a great reform.

Who knew...karma could be so vicious yet so fair?

#one piece #one piece fanfiction #one piece headcanons #one piece imagine #one piece scenario #one piece blackbeard

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kvothbloodless · 2 years

Text

The Dark is Waiting

The paladin raised their sword and light spilled from them, a wave of brightness rolling in every direction, illuminating every beautiful detail of the temple, cleansing the dark influence that had corrupted it.

"That is why you cannot win, why you will never win, Dark One. Darkness always flees the light." They stood there, panting with the effort, as the foul shadows that had survived began to crawl away. They ignored them, staring down the cloaked figure as it began to laugh in response. Not the mad cackle they had been taught to expect, but the genuine, perhaps exaggerated laughter of someone who has heard a mediocre joke.

They had become familiar with that laugh over the past decade, and barely suppressed a shiver at the sound. No. I've won. This was what he'd been building towards since our very first encounter. Without this, he's finished.

They knew they were right, but that didn't stop the feeling of dread in their gut. They pointed the sword at the abomination and prepared to question it, but it spoke first, holding up a gloved hand.

"Sorry, sorry. It's just. Heroes always say something like that. 'Light is stronger than the dark', 'dark can never survive the touch of light', etc. etc. I'm sure you've heard them all, likely while practicing in front of the mirror."

They flushed at the assessment, glad that they wore a helm. "Really? After all this time? Quips?"

The monstrosity lowered its hood to raise an eyebrow. "After all these years, this still surprises you?"

The Paladin grunted in annoyance, the light rolling off them brightening, and they knew it took him effort to avoid flinching back.

"Quip all you want. You've lost. Already the corruption you've spread is being purged. Soon-" they were cut off by another laugh.

"You still don’t get it, do you boy. All those sayings, they’re true enough I suppose. Dark cannot be where there is light. But you lack perspective.”

They shrugged. “Enlighten me.”

The creature groaned. “Ten years of trying to kill each other, and the most you’ve learned are puns. Spare me.” Between one heartbeat and the next, his demeanor shifts; the playful gentleman is gone and only a monster remains.

“How did you become fated, boy? A wandering old knight found your farm when you were 16, filled your head with song and stories?” The Paladin doesn’t react. Both of them already know this.

“Sixteen. You spent 16 years as a farmhand. Your predecessors would spit at the idea. Those who came before you trained from the age of eight to wield your power.”

Their eyes widened, and they were again thankful for the helm. Their old master hadn’t taught them much history, too focused on their mastery of the power they had been given. She’d lasted just long enough to pass on what they needed to survive, before the Dark One had ripped her soul out and eaten it in front of them.

“You can’t see it of course, but the kingdom is crumbling, as all things do. The King can no longer afford to house and train hundreds of children for 8 years. He can barely retain the loyalty of his knights. The alabaster walls you so generously repaired hadn’t been touched in a century.”

They kept any fear from their voice as they spoke “I appreciate the advice. I suppose my next goal will be to fix those mistakes. After killing you, of course.”

And again that damned laugh that made their spine go cold.

“To what end?”

Baffled, they replied, “What do you mean-”

“To. What. End. You will live at most another 60 years. By another 60 after that, all those fixed mistakes will be erased.

That is what you have failed to see. You see that where there is light, there is no darkness, and believe it is a victory. That the dark has fled.

The dark cannot flee. You cannot beat what does not fight. You cannot kill that which does not live.

Ah, I see you begin to understand.”

And they were. Gods and Goddesses, they were.

“Light is temporary. Light is a brief and fleeting refuge from the dark. Light must have its fuel. And all the while the light is burning, the dark is at its edges, waiting. The moment you falter, the moment you run out of fuel, you find the dark has never left.”

They stand there, the divine light pouring from every crack in their armor faltering for a moment, then continuing undiminished.

“You say that. But even without the training, without any help or guidance beyond what I could claw from before your grasp, you failed. You claim I cannot beat you. But apparently you cannot beat me. You say you cannot die, but I say that already this temple’s consecration is burning you from the inside. I begin to doubt your words.”

As the shadows began to pour off him in earnest, the damage becoming visible gave truth to their words.

And then that laugh, a final time. Choked with pain, but clear and confident.

“It is as I said. The dark is always waiting. I am just one of a hundred faces it has worn, and each has walked this world far more years than you will live. I do not believe we will meet again. But in a 120 years, when those alabaster walls are once again crumbling and your successor’s successor stands before me, fresh from the farm, speaking of light, I will remember you fondly.

Until then.”

#my writing #flash fiction #writing #sometimes divine inspiration strikes #entropy is cosmic horror

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